I took some notes for Midnight Never Come . . . but not so many as you might think. I knew a fair bit about the period already, which makes it easier to hold onto new details, and those things were mostly in the background anyway. I did not need to know what Robert Beale was doing on February 12th, 1590, in order to make that book work.

Writing didn't happen last night because, while I had done some of the necessary reading for this next bit, I hadn't yet taken notes on it. And therefore I couldn't be sure when to set the scene, and what should have happened/be happening/be about to happen in it.

So after a virtuous afternoon of note-taking, I sit down with my rapidly-filling notebook and prepare to put down the 1200 words I need to stay on schedule. It feels a bit like I'm laying track ten feet in front of the locomotive, but last night is the first time the train has had to slow or stop due to lack of track, so I guess that's moderately okay.

It would be nice to get ahead in this game, though.

Thanks everyone, for posting all your hometown pictures. I've really enjoyed them! I want to go on a USA tour, and personally visit every one of you. :)

I figured I'd write about this here, although really, it probably needs to go on my website. Hopefully I can get it up there the next time I update the site--which is eventually (fingers crossed) undergoing a remodel soon.

Anyway, I'm starting to get a lot of questions sent to me either in comments to these LJ posts, in LJ mail, or in MySpace comments/mail. I do try to keep track of these, but they tend to get lost in the shuffle, so the best way to get in touch with me is to email me. I do actually answer every email I'm sent, but I'm usually running behind. Right now, I'm a month behind in reader email, though it's better than it was a couple weeks ago when I knocked off 100 responses and got myself down from being two months behind!

I hate the lag, and I apologize to any who have been waiting for responses. I really appreciate people writing to me! Like I said, I do read every email. I also read every LJ comment (thanks for those - they're great!), though people who have been following this blog for a while have undoubtedly noticed my responses have dropped off. Every once in a while, I'll toss one out, but please don't take offense if I don't answer your question here! And please don't stop the comments. I really do love them. If I get really busy with a deadline, I tag my email and toss it into a folder that I can then go through later. LJ comments and MySpace comments are harder to tag and separate out, which is why they get missed. So, again, email me with questions! They'll get answered...eventually.

The only letters I won't answer now are if people send me stories/excerpts to read and critique. I'm sorry. Please don't send them! Make your friends read them. :) That's what I did early on, and they turned out to be my biggest source of inspiration. Also, if you do send me LJ mail, make sure you've got the thing turned on where you can receive LJ mail back! Twice now, when I actually have answered some LJ mail, I got the letters bounced back to me.

And finally, a huge percentage of the mail I get usually contains one of these questions, so here are the answers, and again, I really need to put them on my website so people aren't waiting a month!

1. Who's on the cover of Frostbite (and the other books)?
The girl on Frostbite is Rose (as is the girl on #1), but she doesn't look the way Rose is described in the book. As for the guy on Frostbite...well, actually I have no clue who he's supposed to be. He doesn't look like any of the characters! Authors often don't have much control over the covers. They're done by the book company's art department. I'm not sure who they had in mind for that guy...maybe no one. Sometimes the goal is just to have a pretty cover! Personally, I think he'd look exactly like Christian if he didn't have red eyes. The Shadow Kiss people are Dimitri and Lissa, but don't worry. He doesn't cut his hair or anything.

2. Will you make a movie of Vampire Academy?
Sadly, this isn't something I can just do. A movie type person/company has to decide to buy the film rights to the books, and then they're the ones who will make the movie. There are a couple of ways that can happen. They could stumble onto the book and decide they like it, or my agent may pitch it to them, and then they decide they like it. Really, it's a waiting game. If it happens, I'll definitely let you know.

3. How many books are going be in the VA series, and when is the next one coming out?
Right now, there will be at least five books total in the series, and I can't say for sure after that. The next book, Shadow Kiss, comes out November 13. You can follow my updates on my Calendar Page or the Vampire Academy Page. I also tend to ping my mailing list with updates.

Wow, that was a lot of stuff! I hope it helps and doesn't sound too preachy. I also hope it explains why you don't always get answers from me. It's really important to me to give everyone a response, so just hang in there with me. I'll be getting some downtime in a couple weeks or so, so hopefully I can get back on track then.

A few people have asked to see the little dodads I painted on babyniece's walls so here they are... (one or two I got from pics on the internet but we don't have a printer so I freehanded them and added some stuff of my own)

Cranky Mr. Turtle...I think we named him Henry



These guys are part of a trail leading from the door to the heater vent (which you can kind of see)  They have a ladder up the heater vent and dandilion guy's puff has a bunch of fluffy seeds floating off behind him...



The snails look kinda wonky in this picture... there's another one of them off to the side up on an outlet, but I didn't get a pic of her yet.  I'll add it if I do :)




Sorry they're a little blurry!  Sister's boyfriend took them for me on his camera phone since yours truly forgot her camera AGAIN. 

Not as much writing this week as I'd have liked, but there's been a LOT of things distracting me.  I got through the first couple scenes, although I can already see one that's probably going to get cut.  I'm still struggling with one little aspect of the story.  It's first person, from two points of view.  Jesse's and Claire's.  The problem is in telling the background stuff from that third element, the one that's in the background for most of the story.

Not sure how I'm going to work around it.  I thought about including it as little interludes at the beginning/ends of certain chapters, but I'm not sure if that's going to work or not.  When I get to that point, I'm going to try and write them out, and see how they work out.

Ugh.  Is this week over yet?  I've got a bunch of stuff to do yet, and I can't seem to get a handle on some of it.  Plus, I should be at almost 8,000 words by the end of the day, to meet my goal, and I'm not even close to it.  Like I said, NOT a lot of writing got done this week.  It didn't help that I cut out a whole chapter, so I guess I got a LITTLE more writing done than I expected to.  Or something.

SOULED:

Yeah, you're all out having a fabulous time with fascinating people, aren't you.

Well, for those stuck at home working, here's a quiz I made to give myself a break:

Which 80s Musical Icon Are You?

For Day 6 of the Where I Live photo challenge, I took some photos of fireworks that came out quite well. I think the fireworks are fantastic. If you want to see more photos, or larger sizes, click on a photo and it will take you to my Flickr gallery. Check 'em out!

Me, in comfy chair, working on revisions.

J: I see you've got a book under your laptop.

Me: Yup.

J: I suppose that's to protect yourself from the heat of your laptop?

Me: Yup.

J: I guess a book would work really well for that. Because of its low thermal conductivity.

Me (with raised eyebrows): Low thermal conductivity? You are a geek.

J: No, I'm a physicist. (long pause) Same thing, I guess.

end

##

I'm late to this game, but have loved seeing all your beautiful homes. So many of you live in gorgeous parts of the country, makes me yearn for the mountains!

I'm stealing images, but this is where we live, love, and play.

This is Stanford campus, which we live very close to. Super E often jumps in fountains there.

See those coastal mountains? On the other side is this:

the pristine beaches where we go on the weekends (when we are lucky)
Another place we like to go is:

Santa Cruz, a short drive away.
Santa Cruz was the inspiration for Sienna's home town San Miguel in SEA.
While everyone digs the 'bucks, this is my favorite coffee shop. I wrote a bunch of SEA here:


Happy Fourth, all.
(And stay tuned for a BIG ANNOUNCEMENT coming soon...)

Well, it's down to the final day. Thank you, cynthialord for such a wonderful idea -- and to every one who has participated. I've so enjoyed 'visiting' your homes :)

For the last day, here are some classic CO pix, beginning with a place that I think most people associate with CO right off the top -- the Maroon Bells (although I have taken many pictures of the Maroon Bells, all of the daylight shots were with my 35mm -- so I stole this one from the internet).


Aspens galore...(near Telluride)


The top of the world...(near Steamboat Springs)


Hiking the peaks...(Arapahoe Pass, west of Boulder)


Paths through the sun...(Kenosha Pass)


This is where I live...and it's my favorite place in the world!

Tagged by brian_ohio

Just fill in the blanks.

1. I hate the color....
2. I hate the TV show...
3. I hate the taste of....
4. I hate the smell of....
5. I hate the word....
6. I hate the sound of...
7. I hate the song...


1. um.. I'm not sure there is a color I hate...
2. The Bachelorette
3. whiskey
4. deer shit. We live in a wooded area and my dog thinks is perfume to roll in.
5. peuce
6. nails on a chalkboard
7. beautiful in my eyes by joshua kadison

During the week, my husband drives his car and I drive mine (not so much anymore, I try to walk most places). On weekends, we usually take his car because he likes to drive more than I do.

Yesterday, I opened the passenger side door. It was like a Discovery Channel special. An entire colony of ants - the World Wide Interweb informs me they might be pavement ants or small black ants - had taken up residence inside the car door, just on the far side of the rubber gasket that seals off the passenger compartment. There was a cluster of white larvae or eggs or whatever and hundreds of ants scurrying up and down the entire length of the door frame.

We vacuumed them up and then I sprayed the inside of the frame with Simple Green, just trying to disrupt their scent trails. Later, we went to the fireworks. It took a long to walk to the waterfront, and we got their far earlier than we needed to. Twenty minutes of fireworks, and then we ended up getting lose in an industrial area underneath the freeway when we attempted to return to our car. There was rubble and barriers and no light - and no people for that matter.

Teen said excitedly that it looked just like something out of Teen's Tony Hawk video game.

I slept way way way late today. Up late last night doing the fireworks, which were fun and the weather wasn't cold for once (we are often nestled under blankets with winter coats). 

But I want to talk about favorite books. I have lots of favorite books, as no doubt most of you have. Yesterday I was looking for something to read, and instead of hitting the TBR stack, instead I went with a book that I hadn't read for quite awhile, but remembered that it was a favorite. I wanted a for certain good read. So I picked up Wen Spencer's Tinker. Sigh. I love reading her stuff. I would have picked up the Ukiah Oregon books, but I would probably have read all of them all at once and I can't afford the time right now. Page proofs, you know. And I'm resisting blowing through Tinker and into Wolf Who Rules too quickly. But I don't know how good my resistance will be. Page Proofs.  I just realized I never picked up her latest, Endless Blue, so I added that to the to be snagged asap list. Sigh. Probably just as well.

Anyhow, if you've not read Wen's books, do. Because they are totally made out of awesome. Good writing, extremely interesting world building, and the characters are just damned tasty. Plus there's fast-paced action. The complete entertainment package.

But now let me ask you. If you were going back to your shelves today for a for-certain-enjoyable-read, who would you be grabbing and why?

No, I'm not talking about the sound of 4th of July fireworks still going off even in London, but about the sort of noise that stops us from really thinking.

I realised today that this is part of the problem I'm having with finding the right angle on my revisions for DOL. I am constantly taking in information/input - whether it's from conversation, the internet, television, reading... I can't remember the last time I just sat quietly and thought about my work. I tend to come up with a lot of my material while I'm actually in the process of writing, which is fine - but what about revisions and planning and coming up with new ideas? What about the fact that I really need to change some things in this manuscript before I'm even willing to let my CPs get their hands on it? What about the fact that I need to spend some serious time thinking about the story and characters and those changes that I know I have to make? It's important to make time for that, but normally I freak out if I don't have something to read on a train or bus - I rarely just give myself time to take things in. I even read in the bath...

Today, I didn't pick up the book in my bag while travelling back from the city. Instead, I stared out of the window and thought about DOL and the work that needs to be done. And I'm pleased to report that I actually came up with a whole new twist on things that might... just might work.

I need to do more of this 'sitting quietly' stuff. ;-)

DAMN YOU brian_ohio !!! I was ALMOST about to unprocrastinate...but I have been tagged and I must complete the challenge...I guess I'll have to stop procrastinating...yanno...some other time...

Did a little too much yesterday.  Our bodies need recovery time for a reason it seems.  I ended up crashing early only to be roused by people trying to blow up the neighborhood.  Yeah, the annual culdesac firework war was a go.  I skipped this year, watched Mary Reilly, and listened to the sounds of battle from a safe distance.  The rest of my family joined in outside.  I just don’t get the firework thing–I don’t. 

So, this is the first post in a series where I'm going to chat about different movies and TV shows that I've either written or re-written. Future entries will include MY BOYFRIEND'S BACK, MAJOR PAYNE, HAPPY GILMORE, GEORGE OF THE JUNGLE, NOTHING TO LOSE, MY WIFE AND KIDS, ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT and more.

But, we begin at the beginning with FRIDAY THE 13TH PART 9: JASON GOES TO HELL, otherwise known as JGTH. I've written very few "R" rated movies (two, actually) and this is one of them. It absolutely deserves its "R" rating and, because some people have ventured to this blog from my young adult series NIGHTMARE ACADEMY, I will try to keep this post PG rated, even though the movie is definitely for adults.



During the years of 1985-1989, I studied filmmaking at NYU and, during that time, wrote a screenplay called JOHNNY ZOMBIE. It was a comedy about a high school kid who so desperately wanted to go to the prom with his dream girl that, even after being shot and killed in a convenience store robbery, he comes back from the dead to finish the date. Among the complications he faced were body rot and a terrible desire to eat people, even though he was a nice guy who was morally disgusted by the thought.

I’ll tell you more about the making of that movie (which was later re-titled MY BOYFRIEND’S BACK) in the next blog. What you need to know at this point is that a college friend of mine named Adam Marcus really liked that script and brought it to a producer he knew. The producer’s name was Sean Cunningham and, if you’ve heard of him, you know him because he directed FRIDAY THE 13TH (among other horror movies).

Sean read JOHNNY ZOMBIE, liked it and optioned it, offering me a multi-year deal to come to California and write movies for him as a sort of “staff writer”. This was the big break I’d been looking for. I packed up my stuff and drove from Hoboken, NJ to Los Angeles in a rented U-haul with Adam and his girlfriend at the time, who is now a very successful screenwriter and director. Also involved in the trip was Anton Salaks, another friend of mine from school. We dropped him off in New Orleans, where he got the first of his tattoos.

It turned out that Disney studios was interested in making JOHNNY ZOMBIE and, once in LA, I set to work doing the endless revisions that they asked for. During all of this, Adam had been hoping to get the opportunity to direct JOHNNY ZOMBIE but, ultimately, was not given the job. The consolation prize was the chance to direct FRIDAY THE 13TH PART 9: JASON GOES TO HELL (from here out referred to as JGTH).

While I toiled on my movie, he worked on his. He laid out a plot that involved Jason getting destroyed in the opening scenes and body-hopping throughout the second act, trying to get “reborn” into his original body. I had some concerns about this plot because I figured that people would want to see Jason the entire movie, not the bodies he hopped into. But, in truth, I didn't worry about that too much, because I was so pre-occupied with writing my movie for Disney.

A writer was hired for JGTH and the first draft finally arrived. It was not received warmly and panic set in. Here’s why – Sean had already started spending money on pre-production. Locations were scouted, sets were underway -- the money train was, in other words, rolling down the tracks. The problem was that New Line had not yet given the project a greenlight, so it was Sean’s (the producer's) personal cash on the line. The first draft arrived on a Thursday and New Line expected to see the script the following Monday. If they didn’t greenlight it, there were going to be serious financial repercussions.

So, that Thursday, Sean came into my office and told me that I needed to rewrite JGTH so that they could have a new script to give to New Line by Monday – which was only four days away. He wanted to know if I was up to the challenge. "Of course!" I said, eager to step up to the keyboard, prove my genius and save the day. This foolish, youthful arrogance was exactly what Sean was counting on.

So I started writing.

Certain things were set in stone: the body jumping, many of the locations, several major characters and a variety of action sequences. One of them was “The Diner Sequence,” which was going to be a huge fight in a diner with a tremendous amount of killing. Another was “The Police Station Sequence” which involved, you guessed it, more killing in a police station.

I worked on this draft with great zeal, even though I still didn’t really agree with the body-hopping premise. We delivered a script on Monday, which Michael DeLuca (the New Line exec in charge) thought was pretty bad, but they greenlit it anyway, maybe because they figured they couldn’t really lose money on it. In any event, another writer (Les Bohem) was brought in after me to do a rewrite and I went back to JOHNNY ZOMBIE.

Les did a good job, clarified some things that needed clarifying and the movie went into production. Like I said, I never liked the body hopping premise, but I DID like what I had done with some of the characters.

I had invented the character of Creighton Duke (originally called Anderson Duke, but we weren't allowed to use that name for some reason). He was a veteran Jason Vorhees bounty hunter who conveniently made his first appearance in the eighth sequel of the series. I liked him because he was quirky and had a strange and dark sense of humor.



I also gave our female lead an infant, which ultimately was the vessel that Jason required to reclaim his body. I thought that a mother fighting to protect her baby would really up the stakes and elevate the movie. This was a stupid idea and, to Adam’s (the director's) credit, he always resisted it. The truth is, no one going to see a FRIDAY THE 13TH movie has any interest in the plight of a mother and her newborn. Adam felt it made her less sexy and, therefore, less appealing to the core audience. He was right and, frankly, a mother protecting her child was just a cheap gimmick that had no business being in that movie, but I thought I was a genius at the time.

Finally, the script was done and casting was completed.

Some of the choices I understood. Some baffled me.

Billy Greenbush had been hired to play the sheriff who was also the love interest of Erin Grey. I liked him as an actor but he appeared old enough to have played Erin’s father, if not grandfather. There was, to put it mildly, a remarkable lack of chemistry between them. I was thrilled with the casting of Erin Grey, however, who I'd had a crush on since I was a kid, watching her on TV every week in BUCK ROGERS. 



Finally, shooting started.

I could probably fill a novel with anecdotes from the set, but Adam and I did a commentary for the DVD a while ago and covered a bunch of them -- many of them "R" rated -- so I’ll try not to repeat them here. One quick note about that DVD commentary -- Adam and I recorded it at a sound studio in Los Angeles called "Margarita Mix", named for the beverage they kept bringing you during the session, which is why the end of the commentary is slightly more "relaxed" than the beginning...

Anyway, one of the anecdotes that got edited from the DVD involved shooting the opening sequence. An attractive woman (who turns out to be an FBI agent) drives to a remote house in the woods. Here she is, with Jason:



As you can see, she was awfully pretty and I was a geeky 23 year old kid who was eager to impress. They needed a car for her to drive and the production asked if they could use mine. It was a black Toyota Celica convertible -- the first car I had ever bought myself. I really thought it made me look cool.

We did a couple takes of the actress driving down a winding, wooded road. When we were done, she got out of the car, walked up to me and said -- loudly -- “Your car sucks. It has no pick-up.”

This was crushing.

Public humiliation from the incredibly hot stunt-woman was not what I was hoping for. But she was right -- the car had terrible pick up.

The production was rocky.

John D. LeMay was cast as the male lead. Adam was upset that he wasn’t more aggressive and manly in the movie. This led to a shouting match between Adam and I. Adam wanted to know why I hadn’t written John more tough guy lines, like Bruce Willis had in DIE HARD. I shouted back that I would be happy to write lines like that, but that John -- who was a nice guy and a good actor -- was no more Bruce Willis in DIE HARD than Richard Dreyfuss was Arnold Schwarzenegger in THE TERMINATOR. Ultimately, Sean, the producer, intervened and this got resolved. Movies are pressure-cookers and it’s easy to lose sight of reality.

I had always enjoyed acting and, for my sins, I got the opportunity to play the small role of the Assistant Coroner who gets killed by Jason.



Shooting that scene was terrifying and gave me new respect for the difficulties of being an actor. First of all, I was so nervous that I couldn’t remember my lines, so I made up new ones. This was tolerated because, after all, I had written the lines to begin with.

At one point, the Coroner (Jason) lifts me in the air and slams my head through a surgical grate. It was a weird, somewhat technical setup with me on a camera dolly. As he slammed me down, I never put out my hands to try and prevent myself from hitting the grate and, to this day, it bugs me to see it in the movie -- putting out your hands to stop a fall is one of the most basic human reactions on the planet and I still kick myself for not doing it.

But that small role led to one of the biggest discoveries of my young life.

While watching the dailies of my performance, I realized I was going bald. One setup involved a high angle shot of me walking down a hallway. As I saw myself onscreen, I could clearly see that I had no hair on the top of my head. This was an unbelievable shock because, in the mirror, I could never see the very top of my head and so I never realized that there was no hair there. I remember turning to my friend, Noel, and saying, "did you know I was going bald?" And he replied "didn't you?"

Luckily, this impending baldness did not prevent me from meeting my future wife. Her name was Elizabeth Hill and she worked in the art department on the movie. I thought she was really hot and I was blown away to discover that she knew the entire FRIDAY THE 13th series intimately – she’d seen them all and was a big fan... but not of me. In fact, she spent much of the movie really mad at me.

Here's why:

I would often get a call to come to the set to rewrite something or other. Usually, I would go over during lunch, so at least I could get some free food. The problem was that parking was limited and I didn’t have my own parking spot, which made me crazy. So, I would often just take the first free spot I saw, which was usually reserved for the art department runner.

In other words, Elizabeth’s spot.

The runners are given spots close to the stage because they constantly have to run out, pick up props and then get back to the set ASAP (in fact, she was the one that picked up the surgical grate that my head was smashed through as the Assistant Coroner). Apparently, it made Elizabeth insane that I kept taking her spot, although I didn't know that at the time.

Eventually, during the wrap party, I asked her out and we had a terrible first date. The top of my convertible was broken and I couldn't raise it. Even though this was LA, it was still winter and pretty chilly out, which meant we were freezing as we drove around. Also, at the time I wore prescription glasses, but I'd lost my regular pair and only had prescription sunglasses, which I had to put on so I could drive -- which made me look absolutely ridiculous.

Finally, I took her to see the director's cut of BLADE RUNNER -- which was not her favorite movie -- and I put my arm around her in the theater. Unfortunately, my arm fell asleep and I couldn't move it, which was a real problem after the movie as I tried to snake it into my jacket sleeve without looking like a moron.

Even though the date was rocky, we already had tickets to see the play CATS in a couple days. We both went to it somewhat grudgingly and ended up having a great time because we were utterly mystified by the plot. So, everyone’s a cat… and there’s a spaceship… and the cats are singing and… what’s happening here? We bonded over our bafflement and ultimately got married.

Still are.

But back to the movie. After a period of editing, we tested a cut of JGTH and it tested pretty badly. I don’t remember the actual grade it got but I know you could not have graduated from any school in the country with a score that low. The most common complaint – where are the naked campers?

So we wrote a naked camper scene and shot that, as well as some additional footage of Creighton Duke in a jail cell trying to explain the truly insane rules of the movie, which had something to do with Jason trying to be "reborn" through the blood of a Vorhees while not being killed with the “magic dagger” -- which also conveniently made its first appearance in the eighth sequel of the series.

So... the movie finally came out and made a couple bucks, although it was by no means a smash. The critics were not kind, and they had no right to be. I look back on it now with some amusement – it’s the work of such a young guy.

The female lead with the baby -- what was I thinking?

The set of rules so complex you needed a decoder ring to understand them – what was I thinking?

Long, dull passages of exposition; a Jason movie without Jason; the “magic dagger” – what, on God’s great, green earth, was I thinking?!

And yet, to this day, I still like Creighton Duke being interviewed at his "secret" compound (which was actually just the back of the stage) and that he often thinks of “a little girl in a pink dress, sticking a hot dog through a donut.”

I still don’t know what that bit of nonsense means, but it makes me laugh.

And I like that I met my wife, the mother of my two kids, on this screwy production. JGTH may not be good movie, but some good did come out of it. Some FRIDAY fans really hate it, but some really like it and I've learned that, once you finish a movie, it sort of takes on a life of its own, regardless of what you think about it -- which is almost always colored by the experience of making it.

The experience of making JGTH was a good one.

The next blog entry will be about the making of the movie MY BOYFRIEND'S BACK.

*********


MONSTER MADNESS, the next book in the NIGHTMARE ACADEMY series is now available for pre-order from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.



The reissue of book one, now subtitled MONSTER HUNTERS, is also available for pre-order from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

                               
It's been a lovely week, and I've enjoyed seeing everyone's pictures (be sure to check out cynthialord's friends page for more pics)!

                               

For my final picture(s) --okay I have a hard time just putting up one--I give you our famous "Rattlesnake Bridge."


All of my pics this week were borrowed, since Son still has our camera on vacation. Thanks to everyone who let me use their pictures!

So reneesweet is looking to procrastinate :)  Being as writing and procrastination are two of my few talents, I offer up a few distractions!  Caution though...they may have the added bonus of triggering stories. 

Every once in a while, I stumble across something on the internet that sticks with me. 

This is my current...



Something about that remnant of a shell of freedom and the hope still in the words below gets to me.  The tone of voice I hear them said in is like at the end of a movie, when the hero/heroine/love interest is dying in the MC's arms and they say in a quaking voice "You're gonna be fine. Do you hear me?  You were so brave..." followed by the single tear sliding down the cheek.  I think this is one of the saddest little pieces of art I've ever seen...

But the whole site is amazing.  Here's another...


For me, it's a perfect description of how I write.

Check out the whole site and the archives here  Secret Vespers

I'd be remiss if I didn't lead you to A Softer World
(I couldn't get the picture to work, so here's the link to one of my favorites)