Winter Wonderland

I had a great weekend of food, fun, and family. But I'm glad to be back home. Plus, I made it just in time to enjoy the flurries. Tomorrow it's back to business, but tonight I'm watching snowflakes and spending time with my cats.

Here's hoping all of your holiday wishes came true!

Somewhere out there

I'm working on two projects right now. One is a YA paranormal fantasy, and the second is a contemporary detective novel. One is about girls with superpowers battling an evil supervillain (fun!), the other about a normal girl accused of killing her best friend.

Things are going great. I've been writing one, editing the other, and being moderately productive. Couldn't ask for more. Then yesterday I typed a sentence that made me pause. I'd share the sentence with you, except that I don't have it in front of me, and I can't exactly remember it. What I can tell you is that it involves the phrase "chloroform shampoo."

For those of you out there who don't know, chloroform shampoo does not exist. Nor would it be a viable means of dispersing chloroform to an unsuspecting victim. (There would be no way to ensure an adequate dose. That's just asking for trouble.) Now, I've taken a lot of liberties with the fantasy novel- the girls have superpowers after all! But, this line does not appear in my fantasy novel. It's in the detective one.
The exciting conclusion? I love it, it works for the story, and I'm keeping it. With writing, unlike other aspects of my overly scheduled, Type-A life, I'm a bit of a rebel. Just kidding.

Maybe this isn't the best example, but the whole thing got me thinking. How far out on a limb do you take your stories? What if you have to invent something completely crazy to progress your plot? Do you consider the genre you're writing or do you do what needs to get done?

I got the opinion of my live-in critic (not the cat- the less hairy, more human one) who thought it was hilarious. However, a day later, while watching an episode of Bones, he couldn't help but fixate on their digital imaging software. "They can't do that!" he insisted. "It's not possible. That kind of technology doesn't exist." We notice when something is made-up. At what point does that part interfere with enjoying the story?

I guess I could always fuse the two into a superhero detective story. (What? That's already been done? Nerd note: While hunting for a decent link, I discovered that they're making this into a TV show!)

What do you think?

Also, I apologize if this doesn't make a whole lot of sense. I need to work on my time management. No more 12:30am posts!

Gridlock'd

Success! I am rejoining the electronic world. After three weeks of agonizing hours-long phone calls with AT&T, they finally fixed my internet. The best part? No, it's not being back on blogger (although, that is pretty sweet). It's the fact that AT&T was wrong. They insisted the entire time that it was my problem- either faulty wiring in the house or a broken modem. Turns out, the signal was never even making it to the house. Knowing that I was right doesn't completely make up for the three weeks of "net-less" life I had to endure (oh the woes), but it does give me a right bit of satisfaction. I wish I could tell you that I had an amazingly productive few weeks, and that I finished one of my projects, but I can't. I didn't come to a screeching halt, but this is definitely a hard time of year to concentrate on anything. All that to say, I'm glad to be back and really excited to get caught up on what's happened while I was "away."

Two interesting stories before I had to bed. I attended my first NHL game today and watched the Atlanta Thrashers cream the NJ Devils, 7-1.
Hockey seems like an interesting sport. From what I could tell, there are three basic rules:
1) if you beat the puck over the blue line, you get in trouble,
2) if you hit the puck really hard across the ice and no one gets it before it hits the wall, you start over, and

3) if you beat someone really hard, you get in trouble, and they guy you beat up gets in trouble too.

I should note that my first word ever was not "Mama" or "ball," but "puck." I think that gave me an advantage.

Also, this is probably true everywhere right now, but what is going on with traffic lately?! I sat for over an hour on Peachtree (ah, the infamous Atlanta Peachtree roads) and only made it about a 1 mile. Sure, maybe I shouldn't have gone near the part of Atlanta where two shopping malls sit catty-corner from each other during the Christmas shopping season, but still. An hour?! One mile?! I did get some plotting done for my still unfinished NaNo. I guess sometimes being gridlocked in real life can help get things moving in other places. Wait, that sounds strange. But you know what I mean.

Oh, third interesting thing: I'm Santa. That's the reason I've been away from my computer. I've had to get all these presents ready. It's not easy, people!



Long story. It was for charity...
I signed up to take the photos and this is what happened.