Blowing though the Jasmine of my Mind

This has nothing to do with anything, but I'm listening to a reggae remix of the song "Summer Breeze" and thinking what a perfect summer song it is and trying to come up with other perfect summer songs.

Here's my list of summer songs...at least the first 20 I can think of. Some are obvious, some maybe more personal. Most are pretty old school. And of course there are summer-themed songs not on this list because I simply don't like them (I despise "Summertime Blues").

What songs would you add to this list?

"Summer Breeze" by Seals and Croft

"Here Comes the Sun" by The Beatles (but this is also an autumnal song to me, for some reason)

"I Can See Clearly Now" by Johnny Nash

"Dancing in the Moonlight" by King Harvest

"Summer in the City" by Lovin' Spoonful

"The Summer" by Yo La Tengo

"Summer Teeth" by Wilco

"Crimson and Clover" by Tommy James and those Shondells

"Hot Fun in the Summertime" by Sly and the Family Stone

"Stir it Up" by Bob Marley

"Raspberry Beret" by Prince

"Good Vibrations" by The Beach Boys

"A Summer Wasting" by Belle & Sebastian

"July! July!" by The Decemberists

"In the Summertime" by Mungo Jerry

Pretty much anything Motown

"BBQ USA" by Mojo Nixon

"Sweet City Woman" by...that guy and his banjo

And the song that represents the summer of 2008 for me? "Mercy" by Duffy

Love and the Mississippi

Dave and I have safely returned from my birthday camping extravaganza! Here are the Top 10 things we learned:

* We're too old to be camping in tents

* I'm awfully fond of being clean and dry

* Dave has great taste in jewelry

* Turkey Spam isn't that bad

* Marmite flavored chips, on the other hand, are ish

* I probably wouldn't have resorted to cannibalism if I'd been in the Donner Party

* Solid shampoo is a wonderful invention

* It's good to have an extra sleeping bag in the trunk of your car

* Use fresh (not year-old) marshmallows for s'mores

* A cement mime can come in handy

So, yeah. We were at Itasca State Park, and we did our Minnesotan duty by walking across the Mississippi River at its "creek" stage. It sure is cute when it's little! There were baby ducks and little fish and pretty rocks. We also saw Indian burial mounds, which was spooky...and just as we were saying "wow, this is spooky!" a tree actually fell down near us. It's like the Indian ghosts were saying "run, white land-stealers!" We bought lots of gift-store trinkets, especially since it was my birthday. Dave gave me a lovely necklace for my birthday too. We had a lot of nice quiet time, which I spent reading a book on the Donner Party...kind of weird to read about people freezing and starving to death while I lounge under the sun eating yogurt-covered peanuts. And probably not best to be eating turkey Spam while reading the gritty parts. Finally, most of our weather was lovely and we had a lot of fun.

On the negative side, we ate pretty poorly, I would say. I don't what the deal was, but we never really managed to get a roaring fire going. My friend April sent me an awesome box of goodies from her home in England, and I brought along a couple selections: Trendy Seaweed Snack (delicious!) and Marmite Chips (horrid!).

Also, it rained...rained hard!...our first night and got everything in our tent pretty wet, resulting in the Tent Relocation Project. Finally, I threw out my back. See! Too old for this.

As for Phillipe, our cement mime...perhaps the less said the better. He did, however, seem to scare off most of the animals and a few irritating children on bikes.

Did no writing. Didn't even think about it.

I win!

Ok, I don't win anything...except a Dairy Queen (courtesy of my husband)! That's right, I finished the first third of HP this weekend. Cut out a bunch of adjectives, tightened things up, toned down a few scenes that were maybe a bit...um...over-the-top, and am all ready to start the "Dreaded Middle Bit". I can't think of that too much right now, though. I'll think about that tomorrow.

Tomorrow we're going to Itasca State Park for some good old-fashioned tent camping. I'm bringing along my chapter cards for the "Dreaded Middle Bit" so I can really start confronting the ghost. My main purpose for this final revision is to increase the tension. When I first started HP I wanted it to be very literary and serious. Now I just want a page-turner, and I realize that's not so easy to come by. I'm thinking back to all the books I could not put down and borrowing their tricks.

In the meantime...if a ghost were haunting you at work, what would most freak you out? What would really scare you? The ghost meddles some with the computer and email, plus does the usual moving things around and making things "spooky." Any other ideas?

Thanks go out to JoJo for her feedback on the revised "Part 1" of HP. JoJo could be a book editor, but she also happens to be a very talented writer. I'm very lucky to have her help!

Finally, I watched two movies this weekend. Bathing Beauty, an Esther Williams movie that had almost nothing to do with swimming until the end, when for no reason whatsoever Esther Williams puts on a big water show while Xavier Cugat and his band of ethnic stereotypes play bongos in the background. Plus, there's fire IN the water! Pretty awesome! I also saw Gothic, an insane movie directed by Ken Russell. I rented this because I'm teaching Frankenstein in the fall, and the movie is loosely based on the genesis of that book. If you want to feel like a slightly Goth freshman English major in the '80s, who has just drank both tequila and absinthe at a friend's cabin while reading Cliff's Notes on Frankenstein, then this is the movie for you!

I'll post again after camping!

Procrastinations and Pie

Lovely Readers,

I spent an hour and a half working on one paragraph last night. That was one messed up paragraph! Granted, I was also distracted by Entertainment Tonight (yes, I have the TV on while I write...don't judge). But still, regardless of the paragraph's faults and Madonna's supposed divorce, I think and hour and a half pushes this beyond "polishing" and more in the realm of "procrastination." I also procrastinated a few other ways last night: insisted on making a Jell-O Dream Pie that neither Dave nor I ended up eating, reorganized my mixing bowls, and spent some frustrated time searching for my pie iron cookbook. Despite all these unnecessary distractions, after the paragraph hump I did manage to polish three chapters. Go me!



A little about my self-imposed timeline. HP is divided into thirds. I have been revising, polishing, and repolishing the first third for about 5 months now. Why? It's hard. Some big-time revising needed to take place, including reordering chapters, rewriting the entire first chapter, adding scenes, deleting other scenes, and changing some significant details (all based on the feedback I received on the first draft -- thank you readers!). The first third of the book simply bears the brunt of these major revisions. That's my official line. But the real reason is the middle section of the novel...well, it scares me. There's a ghost. I thought I knew how to write about ghosts. But I kind of don't. So now that the first third is almost finished (only one more chapter and I'm done!), that means I have to confront this ghost, who points her finger at me and laughs: "you have no idea how to write about me, do you?" I look away and nod, sheepishly. Certainly delaying this confrontation makes some sense now. And if anyone wants some Jell-O Dream Pie....you know where to find me.

Introduction

Hi sweet readers,



I'm starting this blog on the eve of my birthday, as sort of a gift to myself. Kind of a cheap gift, but a very nice one. You will see by the blog's description that it's meant to detail the trials and victories encountered during the completion of my first novel. But hopefully it will be more than that as well.



But let's start with the novel, shall we? It does not have a title, poor thing. Perhaps I'll end up having you vote for one. Its working title for now is Haunted People, but other options are rumbling around in my head. I won't know the real title until it's complete. At that point I'm hoping I'll look at it and, like a newborn, immediately know which name fits...if it's a Henry or a Ralph. But for now, I'm calling it HP.



Right now it's 308 pages and doesn't quite have an ending yet. I know the basics of the ending, but (without trying to sound spooky or cheesy) the characters kind of need to lead me to it. The first lesson I learned in writing this novel is: by page 100 characters become people and, like real people, they surprise you. So far in this book, intended villains have become sympathetic characters, a "good" character revealed a malicious core, and my heroine turned out to be someone I'm not sure I totally trust. I've learned to be flexible and let the characters do what their personality and the situation most calls for...which means the ending is still a cloud in the sky.



Rather than going into plot, I'll tell you my intentions for the novel. I wanted to write a good old-fashioned gothic novel, but place it in a contemporary setting. Without knowing more than that, a wonderful thing happened. I work in a 150-year old building. It used to house priests, and is the kind of place nobody wants to be after dark or alone. One day I needed to fetch something from my office during the weekend. Even though I avoided it as much as possible, circumstances have in the past forced me to sometimes be in the building during the "scary times", and my usual plan was to walk to my office as calmly but quickly as possible, then once in my office lock the door immediately. I did the same thing on this particualr day. Everything seemed fine, but as soon as I locked the door, someone (something!) was turning the knob and pulling it back and forth, as if either trying to get in or get my attention. For argument's sake, let's say it was a person; they would've had to be right behind me to start pulling the knob that soon after I locked the door. And yet nobody was anywhere near me. Furthermore, the door has a window so I'd naturally be able to see anyone standing on the other side. It was either The Invisible Man or... the ghost of the priest that supposedly DIED IN THE OFFICE NEXT TO MINE!! AGH! Sounds like the makings of a great book, right? Ah ha! I thought so too. So after recovering from the incident, I decided that the perfect setting for a contemporary gothic tale was in an office. What if a woman takes a new job and finds her cubicle haunted by her dead predecessor? The answer to that is the premise of my novel.



Ok, enough for now. Thanks for reading!