Why did you keep reading?

Let's try a different tack to elicit some interesting responses to dump into my percolator.

What is the book that you come back to all the time . . . the one you re-read . . . the one you say is among your favorites? Is there one? Are there two? If they're children's books, when did you first read the book? If it's a newish release, how did you come across it?

Okay . . . those were the easy questions. Why do you re-read the book? You already know the plot. Is it the style? The characters? I re-read because I love the writing and the quotable lines and the situations, I think. But not always. Just wondering.

Because if I'm going to spend all this time writing a book or books, I'd like it to have a chance at being one of the books that people come back to and re-read at least once. What's the use of the "disposable" book that gets thrown away or tossed at the Used Book Store sack as soon as you finish it?

Of course, you can't keep them all. I will have to do some weeding of my library soon, because we just don't have the room to keep it all. I was keeping a number of high fantasy titles because hubby wanted me to write one like them, but that's not going to happen (at least not soon), so I'm going to pass them along. However, there are a few that I'll keep in that genre. Similarly, I'm going to pass along a number of mysteries to my aunt and her neighbor because I've already studied them and think I've gotten the idea (they were partly for fun, partly for research). But, again, I'll keep the Anne George and the Carole Berry titles.

Which books do you hang on to and re-read?

Status report--skippable

Here's a status report of sorts. I have a few manuscripts that are still with contests/editors.

Did I ever mention that I mailed _Camille's Travels_ to the Delacorte Young Adult Novel Contest? Well, I sent it off. I was feeling kind of optimistic, too, as they've published edgy fiction in the past. And it goes without saying that this contest win has launched a number of careers. Then I went and messed with those ol' Devil cards . . . I got a free reading offer from Tarot.com and went over there to ask whether my book would win the contest.

Advice: Don't mess with the Devil cards.

Actually, the online readings can't possibly have that much validity . . . surely not? **sigh** That reading was full of the swords-through-the-heart card and mentions of "tragic loss" and "picking up pieces." I can only hope that it's WRONG, just like all those readings last year from the other Tarot sites were when they claimed to be looking all optimistic at my getting an agent and so forth. *ptui*

Anyway.

I also sent off _Miranda's Rights_ to yet another /v/i/c/t/i/m/ editor at Tor. A new fellow who hadn't gotten a copy already to lose under the huge stacks of slush. He hasn't sent me a lovenote yet, so there may be hope. One never knows.

(Several agents cleaned off their desks and rejected me by e-mail right there at year's end. I'm talking about Dec. 23rd and Dec. 29th! They were cuttin' it close for a clean sweep.)

Of course my mystery is at the St. Martin's/Malice Domestic First Traditional Mystery contest. Don't know if it'll be a finalist or not this year. I despair of that one, though, because editor Ruth Cavin must've seen my book last year and picked someone else's instead. So maybe she just didn't like my style. You don't ALL have to like my style. However, the contest win has kicked off many a career, yadda yadda. It'd be nice.

There's another mystery contest being invented, though, and I might send off a book to that one if it solidifies. For that contest, your setting must be the Southwest. Okay, but my setting isn't that kind of character. They're thinking of something like Judith Van Gieson's series that's set in New Mexico. Now, THOSE books gave me a sense of pueblos and pottery. And they had talking parrots, a Mexican mechanic, bikers, and a woman sleuth name of Neil. How perfect they are. Still, I might rework _Ariadne_ to be more Southwestern-set. Her story is a lot more sedate and serious than the Sleuth Sisters series books. That might be a way to improve that novel. Put that one in the percolator.

And let's see . . . is there anything else . . . you already know about the Steeple Hill Inspirational editor who's looking at the first three chapters of the Paige novel and who could ask for the balance of it anytime if I win that category in the contest. That book wasn't such a bad book after all, once I restored the setting to Dallas and tried to take out the stuff I put in when I "revised" it so many years ago for that particular editor. But it's still only in a contest and therefore a crapshoot.

I'm still trying to figure out whether there's an essay contest out there for personal essays/experiences. I must have seen that one in a newsletter.

Can't think of anything else I still have out there. I suppose that's it.

I joined novel_in_90, where we commit to doing a wimpy three pages a day *wink*. Hell, if I did three PERFECT pages a day, that would mean sumpin', but because I have to go back over 'em most o' the time, I don't know how much that means. However, here's how *I* work: I sit down and do an entire scene, or copy down the filmstrip that's been running while I was doing other stuff, or freewrite, or outline, or note down random scraps, or go finish what I was last writing on. That usually makes about five to ten pages of scrip. By that time, somebody's yelling for me to come into the other room, or the phone is for me (and Mama has answered and told them I'll be right there, because OF COURSE I am ONLY Playing On That Damn Computer, not doing something important), or there's a loud crash nearby. That's my Visitor from Porlock. I do eventually get back to writing, but sometimes not on the same day.

I should get up two hours earlier than anyone else. Wait, I already DO that, but it makes me sleepy in the middle of the afternoon. And I typically start by checking e-mail and taking a gander at LiveJournal and other sites I read, which means I fritter away that time instead of using it to write. I think from now on I'm going to just use it to write.

That might be good. I don't know what good it'll do to finish this Talking Head Show novel, but it's there, and it's coming out. So we'll give it a chance.

In other news, I watched Spencer Tracy in "Inherit the Wind" again today, and all I can say is that Spencer Tracy defined "a nuanced performance." I can't think of many actors today who DO that, except maybe DeNiro. The final fifteen minutes or so of that film contains a truly nuanced performance on Spence's part. I mean . . . he lets you know that both sides are right, and that nobody knows anything, and that a good debater can argue either side of a question, and that a good man can be misguided, and that whole "who am I to judge" thing. *blown away*

Then after we got back from a WallyWorld run, I watched "Wayne's World" and got over all seriousness. (I still love that "Laverne and Shirley" bit. When we saw that movie in the theater, it was with a British friend, and he just absolutely did NOT get why I was quoting "Schlemiel, schlimazel, hassenpfeff, inc.!" and falling into the aisle. How can someone not have watched "Laverne and Shirley" re-runs every day after school? Well, that's my mindset for you. *wink*)

Let's do the Scooby-Doo ending. "I would've gotten away with it, too, if it weren't for you meddling kids!"

"Rowf!!"