IT'S ALRIGHT, I'M A WRITER

I took Memorial Day weekend off.

This was momentous because I work every night and every weekend - on top of my full-time job - and have for so many months now that I can't remember the last time I took three days off. Or two. Or one.

I had a great time. Walked in the sun. Ate some fabulous food as well as a suspect serving of potted duck (not recommended, even if you love potted meat and especially if you love duck). Caught up with old friends. Drank quite a lot of absinthe (just the legal kind, don't get too excited).

It was an exhausting weekend, partially because I flew twice and slept little, but mostly because of how often I interacted. With real, live humans. I forget sometimes, when I'm buried up to my neck in my laptop, that writing is about conveying realistic experiences. Even if you're writing fantasy, sci fi or any other kind of speculative fiction.

If the interactions don't ring true, the reader won't follow. And if the interactions aren't unique, just recycled scenes from the myriad books you've read, they likely won't sell.

So, with three full days of people-watching sloshing through my brain, I'm back at it with new material.

How do you recharge? Where do you find your inspiration?

SO WAT'CHA, WAT'CHA, WAT'CHA WANT?

Twenty-twelve is right around the corner and, as ever when we reach the cusp of a new year, that means it's time to talk about successes and failures, resolutions and goals. I say we don't dwell so much on the failures, or the resolutions - what are those, after all, but snippets of dreams committed to paper?

My five goals, in no particular order, for twenty-twelve:*

• Master the art of eating hot foods without losing control of my mucous membranes
• Finally watch all of Jacob's Ladder without covering my eyes during the seizure-gimp scenes
• Write that 120,000-word buddy comedy novel mash-up of Twilight and Throw Momma from the Train
• Grow another inch

• Finish two novels

What are your goals, dear readers? What one or three or five things do you hope to accomplish in twenty-twelve? (Yes, I do like seeing it written out, why do you ask?)

*Subject to change without notice, available only in states and territories where permitted, in Spanish where available, may cause narcolepsy, robotism or bleeding of the eyes.

THE LIBRARY IN HEAVEN

It must be massive, Heaven's library. I thought at first that maybe everybody got their own, full of the crispest, most beautiful editions of all their favorite books. But now I think it must just be the one library, so that the denizens can roam the endless rows during their endless stay, tracing their greaseless fingertips (even if they just ate chocolate and barbeque, because there must always be chocolate and barbeque in Heaven, but nobody will ever be smudged).

They can discover any book or all the books or just peruse.

Imagine days spent stringing together first lines together into a story unto itself.

Weeks learning about the river deltas of the world below.

And of course, all books would be instantly translated and understandable, 'cause Heaven's a little bit Star Trek, too.

Some of My Favorite Things

I'm a little light on easily imparted intelligence these days, so I thought I'd share a few of my favorite lines. Some of these I've read recently, so they're sparkling on the old brain. Others are classics, permanently ingrained. I hope you enjoy.

~~~

We look before and after,

And pine for what is not:

Our sincerest laughter

With some pain is fraught;

Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought. - Percy Bysshe Shelley, To a Skylark

He had a face like a collapsed lung. ~ Raymond Chandler, The Long Good-Bye

Clean of living things. ~ Robin McKinley, Sunshine

One part of me wanted to puke quietly, but thoroughly, in a far corner of the room. ~ Richard Kadrey, Sandman Slim

~~~

Out of the context of their killer stories (or poem, in the one case), these might not mean much to you. To me, they were unexpected, clever, or simply and perfectly suited to the moment. The impudent hatchlings that climbed into my ear, subtle as a song, and then just never left.

But I've saved the best for last. Here, dear readers is my favorite knuckle-cracking, one-sided grin of a line:

And now I'm going to tell you something really cool. ~ Attributed to Stephen Brust (A storyteller's creed)

So tell me, dahlings, what are your favorites?

These Are A Few of My Favorite Things

These are a few of my favorite things:

- Ethan Laughing 35 seconds in and I'm lighting up like a Christmas tree.

- Phalaenopsis Orchids I have two, one with two boughs, and I am enchanted every time I look their way. The only plant on Earth that I will nurse for years at a time until I can coax a bloom out of it.

- The Audi A3 (US Model) I don't know what it is about them, but I love it. I nearly crashed my own fuel-efficient, utterly-reliable car the first time I saw one. It was black, shiny, with some light tinting to the windows, and I was sure it had fallen from Heaven.

- Sam Roberts Band's Lions of the Kalahari A simple song that eats me up, probably because I listened to it during a raw moment while away from my young son for a week.

- SlushPile Hell It's funny 'cause it's true!