Slow no matter what

Writing is a slow process, beginning to end. It's been several days since I blogged about needing to know about reptile diseases for the story I'm working on, and while I've finally decided to change the disease to an injury (it makes better sense with the plot), I'm only just now actually writing about it. It's amazing that a book that will take me months and months to write will only take a few hours to read when it's completed.

Of course, I didn't write at all today. Instead, I repotted a billion pepper seedlings and planted a few of the biggest plants outside. I also accidentally bought eight tomato plants and planted them. I didn't intend to grow any tomatoes this year, but the nursery that I stopped by today in hopes of finding tabasco pepper plants didn't have them but did have some really cool heirloom tomato varieties. I got 'black prince' tomatoes that are purply-black when they're ripe and the Cherokee purple variety that turns sort of a purply-magenta color. I also bought some black pansies, because I didn't even know pansies came in black!

I'm considering setting an hour aside every evening to use solely for writing. I'm not sure if it would work on Tuesdays when I don't get home from work until nearly 8:30 pm, but every other day I should be able to manage an hour. Hmm. Maybe I should hold myself to a schedule of "write one hour every day" without designating a particular hour. If I write over my lunch break, I can have the evening free; if not, I have to write an hour in the evening. And I get Tuesdays off. That should speed the writing up.

My brain has failed me

I'm going to have to do some research for Adventures in Zoology. I guess when you make your main character a wilderness survival expert with a Ph.D. in zoology (particularly dragons), eventually you're going to have to show her using some of her skills. I need to know what she could use as a cooking pot over an open fire if she does not actually have a cooking pot, tin can, canteen, or any other receptacle, nor are there leaves large enough to do the leaf bowl trick I learned about by reading My Side of the Mountain ten million times when I was a kid. I also need to research diseases of reptiles so when she's called upon to cure an infectious disease among the local dragons, she doesn't just stand there and scratch her butt.

I don't actually do a lot of research for my writing--and I'm not proud of that, but I write fantasy so I can usually just draw on my store of knowledge to come up with something I can modify to fit a magical world. Unfortunately, except for My Side of the Mountain, I haven't read much on wilderness survival (or if I have, not much of it stuck in my head) and I have no knowledge at all of reptile diseases to draw on. I guess it's time to hit the books--or Wikipedia, at least.

Meanwhile, spring is continuing apace. I have radishes up in the garden and I've transplanted some of the biggest pepper plants outside (against my better judgment, actually; it's warm now, but we could still get a late freeze). All the trees are outrageously green, flowers are blooming everywhere, my black car looks yellow-green with pollen, and I seem to have picked up my first bout of poison ivy of the year. Maybe I should take my laptop outside on Thursday, so I can research in the sunshine.

No love for the vampires

Would editors please stop hating on the vampires? There's plenty of life (so to speak) in a good vampire story. If people didn't want to read about vampires, there wouldn't be 10 million UF/paranormal romance books out there with sexy emo vampires in them. So why do I keep seeing the equivalent of "no vampires allowed" in magazine guidelines lately?

Obviously, it's hard to write a good vampire story, but then it's hard to write a good anything story. I don't see editors tagging their guidelines with "No aliens!" or "No precocious children!" It's just the vampires that get the special treatment. No wonder they're so emo.

Why yes, I do have a vampire story I can't place. Why do you ask?

(Note: I used the word 'vampire' nine times in this post. Ten if you count the title.)

Plot bunnies! They're everywhere!

Oh, bother, it's Friday and I haven't blogged since Wednesday. I was going to try to get into the swing of things again, but obviously that's not happening the way I wanted. Partly that's due to my weird work schedule, which of late has gotten even weirder.

Anyway, so, um, okay. Here I am! I got some writing done today. I need to type up what I wrote longhand, but I suspect I cleared a thousand words. I've turned the corner on Adventures in Zoology and it's taking on a depth that I really didn't expect. I had a sort-of plot worked out, but I decided last week that I needed to just let it go where it wanted--it's a swashbuckling adventure, after all--and sure enough, as soon as I decided that, Our Heroine Terry Green had to disguise herself as a rival bandit to get away from the main bandits safely, and she learned a lot about the local elf culture and her friend Cledesculen at the same time. Lots of plot bunnies are hopping about, to the point that I can barely write fast enough at times.

I still haven't heard back from any agents. They can't all have gone to the no-response-means-no policy, can they? I got a rejection on a short story today, though, and I'm not sure where to send it next. Duotrope to the rescue, I guess.

The Waiting Game

It's been ten days since I sent off a whole bunch of Bell-Men queries to agents. In all, I had 20 queries out at once. I received four form rejects in the first three days, and then...nothing. Even allowing for the Easter weekend, that's just weird. I figured responses would be trickling in steadily for several weeks, not a whole week of nothing.

At least the four rejections were for queries that did not have sample pages as part of the query package. I can handle my query being weak, as long as my actual sample pages start generating some interest.

*Hits Refresh Inbox 10,000 times*

Blisters

I got radishes planted yesterday, which you wouldn't think would be so darn hard. My hands are one big blister! Okay, two big blisters, one per hand. Well, okay, three blisters and they're small, but, you know. Blisters! Ouch!

I actually got a little bit of writing done over the long weekend. I brought my laptop to work today so I could actually type over lunch instead of write longhand; typing is faster, and I've settled on a project. It's Adventures in Zoology, not much to my surprise. It's a romp, perfect for spring. I hope I'll be able to finish it by May or mid-June or thereabouts. It would be nice to finish something earlier than fall this year.

Oh, and the pepper project continues apace. I've scaled back on my enthusiasm just a bit, mostly because I need the booklet done and in hand (via Lulu) by the beginning of May. I'm almost done with it. The title is 25 Chile Peppers You Should Read About in This Book Before You Die. Catchy, huh?

How does my garden grow, part 1

I thought it would be fun to post pictures of my pepper garden on the first of every month this spring and summer. One of the things I did today was buy some pepper sets. They're very small still, too small to go outside even if it was time (I'm not putting the peppers in the garden until May 1 at the very earliest), but I did transplant them into bigger peat pots. Then I used the starter pots they were in for some more pepper seeds. Since it was warmer outside than in today, I brought my other pepper seedlings out for the afternoon. Here are pictures of them.



<--Pepper seedlings on the back porch. I know, the picture is crooked. Sorry, just tilt your head.

I also did some work in the garden and mowed the back yard today. Now I'm showered and in my nightgown for the evening (yes, it's only 5pm, but I'm TIRED), and the laundry room and kitchen is full of pepper plants.