Monday, May 28, 2012

In good shape for Camp to begin

Still working on my char profiles and thinking up minor conflicts to come up during my story.  I've finally decided on the major conflict, which should be interesting to write.  I'm missing my cozies, but I'm so excited for Camp to start on Friday, and I'm trying to fill the time I'm not working on it by messing around on Facebook (can't let my crops go to waste!), checking the various genealogy boards, and reading Damn You Autocorrect.  Oh, the odd conversations I'm missing by not having an iPhone!  Ah yes, and watching reruns of NCIS and Golden Girls (can't miss my girls!)

As for NCIS, I have a crush on all of them.  I'd love to be BFFs with Abby and have wild and crazy sleepovers where we braid each other's hair, eat clowny cakes, scare up a ghost or two, and watch old black and white horror pics.  I'd want Tony for a brother, believe it or not.  He's too pretty boy for me, but you can count on him when the going gets rough.  Timothy McGee would be my boyfriend (I'm crazy about him!), and Ziva would be my lover (hot!).  Gibbs, he would have to be my father, although I'm sure he would drive me crazy with his rules.  Ducky would be the eccentric uncle who still lives in that gorgeous Victorian mansion (where else?), and Jimmy...I guess he'd be my slightly awkward, but lovable, cousin.

Saturday, May 26, 2012

Less than one week to June's Camp NaNo2012

I was starting to panic the last couple of weeks, because I still don't have an outline for my novel, and I procrastinated BECAUSE I was panicking by reading several really good books on writing.  I guess that means that I procrastinated in a good way *g*.  I did learn a lot, and the tips are helping me to better organize my thoughts.  I decided to break the planning/plotting stage down into smaller sections so it doesn't seem like such a big task, and now I know what steps I need to take each day to be ready to start on June 1st.


Today, I'm working on character sheets.  I've never liked "god-like" characters, so I"m making sure that my chars have their own weaknesses or faults, which is actually easier than I thought it would be.  Because the groups of characters have animalistic qualities, I'm having fun working with their appearances, personalities and mannerisms.  I still don't have a definite villain or group of villains, but I'm confident that will come soon.  


I've made several maps of the world, but I'm still not completely satisfied with it yet.  I see it slowly appearing piece by piece in my mind, and I want to make sure that I can fully immerse myself in each environment to help make the book come alive.


Books on writing that I've read/am reading to prepare for Camp:


Ready, Set, Novel! by Chris Baty
No Plot? No Problem! by Chris Baty
The Art of War for Writers by James Scott Bell
NaNoWriMo for the New and the Insane by Lazette Gifford



Saturday, May 19, 2012

Gearing up for Camp NaNo2012

Twelve more days until the June session of Camp NaNo2012 begins.  I'm really looking forward to it.  It's my second NaNo event, the first was NaNoWriMo in November 2011, which I won.  This time, I'm going in a completely different direction and writing a fantasy.  The only fantasy I've written so far was in online written RPGs, but the worlds had already been created, and I just had to make my way through them.  I'll have to develop my own world for this novel, which could be disastrous or turn out really well.  


My main character starts out as a young child and slowly ages through the book.  I'm going to have a lot of fun with her, getting in touch with my inner child, although she'll have to face more grown up situations than I did at that age.  Looking forward to it.


I've read Chris Baty's Ready, Set, Novel! and No plot? No problem!  Both good books filled with handy tips.  I'm not panicking so much now because I don't have the novel fully planned out.  Actually, I have very little planned out so far, but I'll just relax and let it come as I write.  Don't want to over plan.

Tuesday, May 1, 2012

Books Read in April 2012


Beaton, M.C.
- The Quiche of Death 
Fiction. First in the Agatha Raisin series.  Agatha, a tough no-nonsense, and at times quite bitchy, owner of a PR firm in London celebrates the end of her career and and early retirement by moving to a small picturesque village in the Cotswolds.  Wanting to ingratiate herself into village life, she enters a store-bought quiche into a cooking contest but fails to win a prize.  The next day, she is shocked to find that the contest judge has died...poisoned by her very own quiche!

Bretton, Barbara
- Laced with Magic 
Fiction.  Chloe and Luke are still in love and living in Sugar Maple.  A woman appears in town looking for Luke who turns out to be his ex-wife, who has been plagued by messages from their dead daughter.  Can Chloe and the other inhabitants of the village help her reach out to her daughter, or will an old enemy bring everything to a halt?

Brink, Barbara Ellen
- Entangled 
Fiction.  Wilhelmina Fredrickson, divorce attorney, suddenly finds herself the owner of a winery, left to her by an uncle she barely remembers.  She flies form Minnesota to California’s Napa Valley to check on her new property and find out what needs to be done before she sells it, only to find old nightmares returning to plague her nights.  Somehow, they’re related to the winery, and she needs to find out the horrible secret she’s blocked out of her memory.

- Crushed 
Fiction.  Margaret Parker is a single parent raising an eight-year-old boy.  They lives with her attorney brother on a small winery in the Napa Valley, adjacent to the Fredrickson’s vineyards (from the first book).  Demons from the past populate this second book in the Fredrickson Winery series.   

Claire, Edie
- Never Buried 
Fiction.  Leigh Koslow finds herself living with her pregnant cousin Cara while Cara’s husband is out of the country on assignment.  Cara’s house is has an interesting history, including two suspicious deaths fifty years ago.  Suddenly, Leigh finds herself dealing with a long-dead corpse linked to that old mystery.

Copperman, E.J.
- An Uninvited Ghost 
Fiction.  Alison welcomes a group of seniors to her guesthouse, prepared to share with them the face that two ghosts live in her house during daily seances.  A third ghost, by the name of Scott, asks her to investigate the murder of an elderly lady.  He fears that he was the murderer.  To everyone’s surprise, Alison finds the woman safe and sound, and when the woman discovers that Alison holds seances, she requests to be present at one hoping to contact her dead husband.  Alison agrees, and everything at the seance goes as planned right up to the point when the old woman falls to the floor, dead.  Murdered in Alison’s guesthouse!

Cornwell, Patricia
- Body of Evidence 
Fiction.  2nd in the Kay Scarpetta medical examiner series.  A well-known author is savagely murdered and ends up on Kay’s table in the morgue, starting her on the trail of the murdered.  Along with an ex-love who may or may not be who he says he is, and a police lieutenant she works closely with,  Kay finds out more than she bargained for about the author and just who might be the murderer.

Dees, Marie 
- Tea and Witchery 
Fiction.  Lynn travels to Cassadaga, the spiriualist enclave in Florida, on a vacation trip to visit her aunt.  As she arrives, a building is already on fire.  Is it a sign of something coming?  Suddenly, Lynn is mixed up in the murder of one of the resident psychics, but who amongst the small group could be guilty...or next?

Doyle, Sir Arthur Conan
- A Study in Scarlet
Fiction. Dr. Watson finds himself sharing an apartment with the oddball Sherlock Holmes.  Almost at once, Sherlock Holmes is called in by Scotland Yard to assist in solving a murder.  Dr. Watson accompanies him, hoping to learn more about his mysterious flatmate.

Fenech, Karen
- Unholy Angels 
Fiction.  Liz Janssen is shocked to hear that her soon-to-be ex-husband, Peter, has committed suicide.  Her son, blaming Liz for the divorce, also blames her for his father’s death.  Enter the local sheriff, with secrets of his own, who begins to investigate the death of a woman who was killed in a car accident three years previous.  Liz’s best friend.  Tangled mysteries combine with satanic worship in this intricate tale.  

Galant, Alexander
- Depth of Deception 
Fiction.  Fascinating time-travel tale of a woman who survived the sinking of the Titanic.  Or did she?

Groundwater, Beth
- Deadly Currents 
Fiction.  First in the RM Outdoor Adventure series.  Mandy Tanner works as a new river ranger on the Arkansas River in Colorado running rescues during whitewater rafting trips.  The story opens when she has to rescue two people who have fallen into the river.  One survives, one doesn’t, and Mandy blames herself for the death.   

Halliday - Gemma
- Spying in High Heels 
Fiction.  Baby shoe designer, Maddie Springer, finds that her lawyer boyfriend has gone missing...along with 20 million dollars of his client’s money.  She soon realizes that she knows very little about her boyfriend, but decides to track him down before the hot cop can arrest him, and get some answers to her question. 

Hughes, Mary Ellen
- Resort to Murder 
Fiction.  Maggie Olenski takes a much needed vacation from her job teaching at the high school and heads up into the mountains to spend a week at a lovely hotel.  Almost at once, her vacation is interupted by the body of a young woman who worked at the hotel,  someone who was also a student of Maggie’s.  Will Maggie be able to discover the murderer before she herself is taken?

Jaffarian, Sue Ann
- Ghost a la Mode 
Fiction.  Emma Whitecastle, a soon-to-be divorcee, suddenly finds herself seeing and hearing the ghost of her ancestor.  Can she find out if Granny Apples really did kill her husband, and who, in turn, killed her?

- Ghost in the Polka Dot Bikini 
Fiction.  Second in the Granny Apples series.  Emma has a new paranormal investigation show that airs at the same time as her ex-husband Grant’s Jerry Springer-type show, and she’s catching up to him in the ratings.  When she and Phil take a short vacation on Catalina, Granny hitches a ride.  Will the polka-dotted bikini-clad ghost that Emma runs into spell disaster for certain famous people in Emma’s life?  And can Emma solve the 40-year old mystery before she becomes a ghost herself?

- Too Big To Miss 
Fiction.  Odelia Grey, plus-sized paralegal extraordinaire, is shaken to her core when her good friend Sophie is found dead, and the cause is listed as suicide, something Odelia absolute will not accept.  Also hard to stomach is that her friend’s suicide took place in front of a webcam on a porn site!  The hits just keep coming as Odelia learns more and more about her friend’s secret lives, and she sets her mind to figure out exactly what happened. 

McClendon, Lise
- Painted Truth 
Fiction.  2nd in the Alix Thorsson series set in Jackson Hole, Wyoming.  She is the co-owner of an art gallery, partnered with her ex-lover Paolo.  She and her good friend Eden, who owns the gallery across the street, come home from a kayaking trip to find Eden’s gallery up in flames...and a body is found inside.  Can Alix discover who the deceased is and what caused the fire?

McCourtney, Lorena
- Invisible 
Fiction.  Senior citizen, Ivy Malone, is upset by the vandalism taking place in the neighborhood cemetery.  As she decides to do something about it, a young friend  with a mysterious past goes missing, and Ivy adds that mystery to her list of things to do.

Robertson, Michael
- The Baker Street Letters 
Fiction.  Reggie Heath, solicitor, hires his brother to answer letters in his firm at 200 Baker Street.  This isn’t just regular correspondence.  These letters are addressed to Sherlock Holmes.  One letter written 20 years ago by an 8-year-old girl in California sparks Nigel’s interest...and the adventure begins.  The law clerk is found dead in Nigel’s office, and Nigel has disappeared.  Reggie tries to track him down and finds himself embroiled in a deadly hunt as the bodies pile up.

Ruiz, Don Miguel
- Prayers: A Communion with Our Creator 
Non-fiction.  Teaches one how to live in love, with ourselves and divinity.

Smith, Alexander McCall
- The Ladies’ No. 1 Detective Agency 
Fiction.  First in the series.  Mma Precious Ramoitswe has inherited a bit of money from her father and decides to open the first detective agency.  But not just any detective agency, it’s the Ladies No. 1 Detective Agency in Botswana.  Whether it be something as easy as finding out if a husband is straying, or dealing with outlaw witchcraft, she uses her own special talents and the knowledge she gained from reading Agatha Christie novels to solve a variety of cases in her small village.