The Flagrant

*with penitent pout firmly in place, drops a bright yellow flag at my own feet*

A flagrant foul of the daily blogger’s code was committed yesterday, and I was the fouler. Not only did I not post, I did not post for any good reason, i.e….

1.) Tornadoes were not corkscrewing down from the late spring skies. (True story. April 2011, to be exact.)

2.) Electricity was not lost due to the poorly planned antics of mating squirrels. (Ridiculous but true. North Alabama, 2015.)

3.) Rollercoasters were not ridden in reckless abandon. (Guilty pleas in Septembers of both 2013 and 2014.)

No, there’s not a single sound excuse I can give for my failure to blog yesterday.

I am sorry.

*picks flag up and stuffs it back into a pocket, as it will no doubt be used again*

Tomorrow, June 1^st, the final push to the end of The Hushing Days begins.

Thirty days.

25K words.

I’ll see you there.

Until tomorrow…

Chloe, the Flagrant

Uncomfortable Corners

Ok, let’s cough up some honesty here.

About 16 months ago I joined the Romance Writers Association (RWA) because it was prudent career strategy. Not only are connections made between writers, agents and publishers (a very good thing), membership provides you with some hip-pocket heft if you get into a rumble with an iffy publishing house.

I did not, however, join it for their magazine, which arrives in my mailbox every month and until yesterday had remained untouched in a growing pile on my desk. (Mind gremlins in their finest fiddle.)

Yesterday, I wrestled the panic minions temporarily to the ground to finally have a look.

*soaks in the spattering of applause and smiles*

My opinion on the publication is two-fold and utterly meaningless. But here it goes nonetheless.

First, it is a well-done magazine with loads of information for the newbie romance writer and self-publisher. Bravo.

Second, I’m a square peg in a world of round holes. Not that this is news, but it did become blaringly clear reading through the author bios and opinions and even the advertisements.

Bottom line: I’m glad I peeked and will peek again, but my square edges are showing and feeling kind of itchy.

Until tomorrow…

Chloe

The Allure of Loose Ends

If you remember, over the months of writing The Hushing Days there have been several moments when thinning the cast seemed like a good idea. (Six siblings and their others do take up a lot of time and space in a single novel, no matter how you might finagle the goods in the pot.)

Leo, the youngest brother, spent a good part of January and February on the chopping block… before he and his mate grew on me like wild thyme on an old garden wall (that’s good, by the way).

Then Thackary, the lone unattached of the boys, took his turn splayed under the meat cleaver… Yeah, gruesome in thought and deed, so that idea was quickly tossed. (He’s the me, in the book. Can’t give up on the boy that easy.)

After a while, I finally settled in with the idea of everybody sharing a story and felt pretty good about the results. (I still do, by the way, no matter what the next sentences might convey.)

But now as the final weeks of work on The Hushing Days are upon us, I have had this crazy idea to stir the pot. Maybe, just maybe, switch some dance partners around.

Leave a few loose ends about, loose ends that when followed would lead to questions of “Wait a minute, even though “The End” is written right here, maybe she really belongs with Brother A instead of Brother B?”

Would this be foolhardy?

Or would this be bloody brilliant?

I have no idea.

Until tomorrow…

Chloe

Soap Me Up

As the final push to get The Hushing Days over the finish line is beginning, I must constantly stop myself from going all surgical.

Yes, all surgical.

Let me explain.

Now that I’m all prepped with the last dredges of research under my arm and a brand new, big, red chair under my bottom, the desire for an otherwise sterile environment is keen (i.e. creepy as all get out).

Thankfully, I’m talking metaphorically here. The hygienic-kink many of us OCD’ers face, I have luckily avoided… So far... Best not to think about it, or the germs, or the… Never mind. Moving on.

I just find myself being very careful what I expose my mind to these days. It’s like I’m a doctor all scrubbed up for surgery who knows group hugging the visiting second graders would be a poor idea. Sterile common sense, you understand.

For example, all historical movies based in America prior to the Civil War are banned from my television. Particularly off limits are two of my favorite movies, “The Gangs of New York” and “The Crucible.” It’s a sad, sad day when I must turn away Daniel Day-Lewis in any guise.

*sighs, contemplates the entirety of this post and shakes head*

Really, people, does it get much more weirder than me?

Apologies for this hiccup of insanity.

Until tomorrow…

Chloe

Mouthful

A recurrence of scope issues today.

Just a little nervous twitch here and there.

Nothing to concern yourself with.

Really.

Just move right along…

While I gnaw my bottom lip into a bloody mass of uncertainty!

*plops head down on desk and grunts*

I really, really should be passed this. The Hushing Days is ¾ done. Its storyline has been laid out in LEGO-like scenes for ages now. The characters are rich, full and thriving in my head. This last week of research dealt handily with my last historical concerns.

I should be good.

I should be great.

But what if it’s too big? What if the storyline is too large to fit into one novel, albeit a novel twice the size of my standard book? What if I’ve thrown everything in there but the kitchen sink in hopes of making that first big splash into mainstream fiction? What if the story does nothing more than sink and take me down with it?

*deep breath, deep breath*

Ok, I feel better now.

It’s all out of my system.

Everything is good.

Carry on with your day.

Until tomorrow…

Chloe

Ducking the Issue

*slowly taps the end of the proverbial writer’s pencil on lips*

*sighs as the quandary continues to nag and flitter about at the edges of my literary soul*

*ducks a bright yellow, stuffed duck that the dog/irritated muse has tossed at my head; the admonition to “Get the duck on with it!” implied but not actually voiced*

So, my problem is this… How much historical credit should a historical romance writer give her readers?

My next novel The Hushing Days, as you may well remember, is set during the American Revolution. While the war is familiar to well over 90% of my hoped-for audience, just how cozy should I assume they are with the subject?

Personally, before I drowned myself in research the last year, I could tell you little more than Rebels vs. Redcoats rumbling around 1776. (My days of grade school American history have long since faded, I’m afraid.)

So, now that I know LOTS and LOTS and LOTS about the Revolutionary War, how much of that should I throw at my readers? How much should I assume they already know? How much do I keep to myself?

If you’re looking for an answer, don’t look here. I’m as ignorant as that bright yellow, stuffed duck now plopped down on my lap.

Hence the pencil-tapping.

Hence the rather luckluster and altogether untidy ending to this blog.

Hence another sigh.

Until tomorrow…

Chloe

Playing with Fire

Toasting marshmallows on thin ice.

Yep, that would be me and mine hunched over the little bonfire on wintry Lake Woebegone.

Stupid, stubborn and always hungry for more.

This last week of research for the homestretch of my mammoth Revolutionary War drama The Hushing Days, I’ve certainly been tempting fate. Being the historical nut I am, every fresh sentence of fact I stumble across begs me to restructure the whole novel around the newly discovered mouthful.

Stupid.

I should really stop.

I should put down the stick, the marshmallow and douse the darn fire before the ground really starts to crackle and pop.

Will I, though?

No.

Because I’m stupid, stubborn and still hungry for truth in fiction.

Geez, I’m such a ridiculous sort.

Until tomorrow…

Chloe

Be All, End All

My big red chair is here! (See yesterday’s blog for all the juicy details.)

This is the be all and end all of my world today, so please pardon the bliss… and the lack of a real post today.

Sunday, me, my muse and my big red chair will return.

Savor the anticipation, people.

Until tomorrow…

Chloe

 

Birthing a Study

This Memorial Day Weekend, my muse and I are trading out our office for a study.

*patiently waits a beat as heads are scratched, brows are furrowed and eyes are rolled*

Yes, there is a difference.

No, it’s not just a Chloe-thing.

An office, in my mind, is for working. A study is for reading.

Admittedly, when one is a writer, reading and working are often the same things. However the settings are as different as desert and forest, moon and sun, cheeky and grim.

While an office often grates with math, deadlines and cold expectations, a study must hum with comfort, coziness, and timeless security. (Ok, this last might be a Chloe-thing. Feel free to ignore.)

So, today, my beautiful glass desk will be placed under my window where utility and beauty will mix quite nicely.

And, tomorrow, a stunning deep red chair-and-a-half with matching ottoman will be delivered and take up center stage in my loft… and a study will be born!

I am unreasonably excited about this.

*grins like a loon*

Until tomorrow…

Chloe

Fill in the Blank

Occasionally there are little blips in the historical record. Not so much nowadays when everything is tweeted about before deeds are half-done or words are half-said, but before there were deliciously maddening blind spots in time. (Delicious for the fiction writer; maddening for the historian.)

To my utter glee, I stumbled across just such an undocumented space in my research for The Hushing Days yesterday. And, as luck would have it, the blip spans the exact time and precise subject matter I’m working with.

This is tremendous news.

Why, you may ask?

The answer is quite simple.

I can fib.

Fib it up big time.

Being such a stickler for historical accuracy, I hate (loathe, detest, despise) changing facts to suit my fiction. Now, thanks to this magnificent blip, I don’t have to.

I can lie without restraint.

What devilish fun this will be!

Until tomorrow…

Chloe

Geek with Tools

Remember in yesterday’s blog when I compared starting back up on The Hushing Days to a kid standing at the entrance of the world’s best amusement park trying to decide which ride to hop on first?

(If not, don’t worry about it. That about sums the whole thing up without all the extraneous metaphors. *sighs* I do tend to clog things up sometimes. Kind of like now. Sorry. Moving on now.) 

Anyhow, instead of heading to the rollercoasters, water rides or even the lazy choo-choo train, the nerd still taking up residence in my soul sent me straight to the technician’s room.

With toolbox full of old, new and possibly useless research in hand, I settled in for some quality time with the one part of the novel requiring the most graphic, historical accuracy.

Geek.

But a happy geek.

So, bottom line is this. I got no actual writing done yesterday but I did manage a truckload of the all-important framework.

Geek making progress.

Who knows what today will bring in Hushing Days Fun Land!

Until tomorrow…

Chloe

The Thrill

With the wildlife population in my backyard reduced by 4.3 million this morning (yes, the ants are dead), I can finally turn my attention back to my long abandoned The Hushing Days!

I’m nearly breathless with excitement. (Yes, I really am that pitiful)

My heart is trilling like I was standing inside the entrance gates of a huge, magnificent amusement park with all the rides just waiting for me to climb on.

Should I head straight for the rollercoasters? The ups and downs of a classically tortured romance would be a thrilling way to jump right back into the story.

Or, perhaps, a gentle train ride around the park would be the better way to start things out? A trip around the sloping hills and dales of sceneries and settings could be the perfect way to ease back in to the festivities.

Of course, I have always been a sucker for the water rides. Give me a boat plunging off a thirty-foot waterfall any amusement park day. Getting all wet in the novel’s tragically churning waters is awfully tempting.

*sighs*

Perhaps, I’ll just stop and stare for a moment? Enjoy the moment. Taste the thrill in the air.

Yeah, I think I’ll do just that for one minute more.

Until tomorrow…

Chloe

Ant-icipation

“Welcome home, Chloe!”… chortle the 4.3 million ants who have moved into my wee-tiny garden during my far-from-planned sabbatical.

I believe this predicament well explains the lateness of this post and its wee-tiny brevity.

With approximately 2.7 million wee-tiny deaths on my hands as of the 2 o’clock hour, I have about 6 ½ hours of sunlight remaining to slaughter the rest of ant-kind.

Wish me a steady hand.

Until tomorrow…

Chloe     

An Airing Out

As I prepare (i.e. look forward to giddily) for the end of my unplanned sabbatical from writing, I am attempting to view this break from my literary career in the most favorable light possible.

*takes a deep, preparatory breath… that crumbles quite pitifully into a frail hiccup-y cough*

Well, that’s the plan anyway. Let’s have a go at this positive crap, shall we?

Late last night in the middle of another sleepless night (no writing = bad Chloe brain), I decided to look at my sabbatical (unplanned, have I mentioned that?) like an airing out of an old house.

Windows and doors open with nobody about, all the accumulated dust and needless clutter of The Hushing Days manuscript has been gently removed by the warm spring wind. With no work being done amid its hallways, no mad carpenters, pesky third-person omniscients or Lisabels or Rosabels running amuck in its rooms, the novel-to-be has had a chance to just breathe and be.

Ah, how refreshing!

Invigorating!

Healing!

How freaking merry.

Well, that’s all over tomorrow. The dog and my bags are packed and we’re moving back in. Ready or not, here Chloe and the muse come!

Until Monday (travel day on Sunday)…

Chloe

Panache

After a downer of a blog yesterday, I am determined to recover today with panache.

*four-legged, furry muse snickers into her afghan*

Well, at least panache will be tried.

Short of that admittedly lofty goal at least there will be an abundance of plumage and sequins. Who doesn’t love feathers and sparklies, right?

*four-legged, furry muse harrumphs a “You’re trying way too hard, hon” into her afghan*

Alright, I do feel that I owe you something more than I’ve been giving you as of late. However, when a writer is taking a rather forced sabbatical from her craft, it is spectacularly difficult to keep up the “author talk” when there’s no authoring going on.

*”Tell them the good news before they leave, babe,” the wise, canine one mumbles from my side*

Sunday, I return to my world. I’m going back home and will once again take up the pen with gusto. The Hushing Days will once again be foremost in my mind and should get done within a month to six weeks time.

Hence, these blogs will improve.

Hence, there will be no more scrambling for panache.

Hence, peacocks and ostriches world-wide can rest easier.

I think my job here is done.

Until tomorrow…

Chloe

Stand-In Required

I’d like to humbly request a stand-in. A stunt-double, if you will.

The requirements are simple if not completely common…

5’8”-ish.

120-130lbs, depending on the availability of good chocolate.

Slender, fit, lightly tanned.

Long dark hair, green eyes, a blink and you’d miss it Southern accent (important to the latent curve and pout of the mouth).

But here comes the tricky part…

Must have a fully functioning brain with no hiccups of panic or bouts of “annoying-the-crap” out of everyone.

Must have a mind that not only embraces normalcy but defines it.

No chemical anomalies of gray matter between the ears.

The ability to interact gracefully with other human beings is key. In fact, it is a deal-breaker.

This will be a part-time position until family co-mingling time is over and said-blogger is back in her tiny garden in her tiny backyard in her coral-colored house in Florida.

Compensation will include time with a very nice and loving family who deserve soooooo much better than what they’ve currently got with me.

Thank you and good day.

Until tomorrow…

Chloe

Post-note: I’m ready to go back home where just being me is occasionally enough.

Post-note addendum: Sorry. Self-pity smacked me a good one this morning. Hopefully I’ve got it out of my system now. Once again, apologies.

A Confessional Cherry

Begrudgingly, I will admit another shortcoming to you today.

*pauses to allow the audience to recover from appropriate shock*

All kidding aside, I am a tremendously flawed writer with new and amazing shortfalls being discovered every day. For those of you hankering for a metaphor (and you know you want one), here it is…  Imagine my literary oeuvre as a bowl full of bright red cherries. Beautiful, right up to the point you take a bite and break a tooth on a pit.

My pits are many, my friends. And they are often large and hairy pits, leaving no room for the succulent fruity flesh for which all readers are hungering.  

So, what is my confessed pit of the day?

Simple. I often admit to no pits.

In my epic battle with my specter of imminent failure (you remember Frank, of course), I turn a blind eye to problems I really should be addressing. If I admit honestly to one flaw, I fear the rest of my shaky self-esteem will tumble down upon my head.

So, I guess you could say today’s new pit is really an old pit of mine.

Pit, thy name is cowardice.

*sighs at not even being able to pull off a freshly insightful blog*

Here ends this pitiful confession.

Until tomorrow…

Chloe

Blob of Blog -or- Blame the Amoeba

Admittedly today’s blog is late. Approximately 4 to 6 hours depending on the time zone. However, that is the very least of its problems.

I have no idea what to do with it today.

Like a handful of play-dough plopped down in front of an amoeba, I’m clueless as to what to do with this blob of blog.

I’ve been scurrying around town with my mother (church, nursery, other nursery, grocery store) this morning and have apparently lost my bone of creativity somewhere along the way.

Sorry about that.

Will be retracing my steps this afternoon, keeping a sharp eye out for the darn thing.

Let’s all keep our fingers crossed that I find it before tomorrow’s post.

Until tomorrow…

Chloe

A Stranger in a Narrative Land

Despite my Minor in Literature, a couple dozen publications under my belt and a general OCD-initiative toward anything literary, issues of narrative remain as foreign to me as Mongolian.

Discussions of first person, second person, third person, or alternating person point of views leave me nauseous.

Conversations of stream of consciousness, character, epistolary, third person subjective, third person objective, third person omniscient narrative voices threaten my already flimsy hold on rationality.

My advice to young writers out there who are not in an esteemed Creative Writing Program or who are not already well-familiar with the schizophrenic nature of narrators is to ignore them altogether. Concentrate on storyline, character development, dialogue, pace. Adjusting the narrator to whatever the publishing house prefers is a relatively easy fix once you’ve got the rest of your story dazzling with “Buy Me!” potential.

As always, this is only my opinion. Take it as you will.

Until tomorrow…

Chloe

A Rosabel by Any Other Name

The following is a tale of caution.

Yesterday, I sat down to work on The Hushing Days for the first time in over a week, gathered all my scribblings of notes and mountains of research around me and with great relief and a huge goofy grin upon my face took up the life story of Rosabel Starling again until…

*cue the beat of ominous silence*

Fifteen minutes in, I realized there is no Rosabel Starling in The Hushing Days.

Thankfully, there is a Lisabel Starling so I hadn’t suffered some kind of delusional break while traipsing with the buzzards up in the mountains (see yesterday’s post for those messy details). I hadn’t hallucinated a full-blown character out of nowhere. I had simply misremembered a name…

*strike up that dirge-like silent beat again*

The heroine’s name…

The heroine’s name of a novel I’ve been slaving over for the past five months….

The heroine’s name of a novel which has taken over a complete lobe of my brain and at least one chamber of my heart.

*cue the deep breaths*

I have since recovered from this shame. However, I present it to you as ugly proof of the dark side of vacations.

Holiday wisely, my friends.

Until tomorrow…

Chloe

Buzzardly Echoes

Pardon the flakes of rust all about. I have neither picked up a pen, sat down at a keyboard nor contemplated a single Revolutionary War storyline for a whole week.

My vacation I took quite literally and vacated all work-related areas of mind and body. As a result, my trip to the mountains left me feeling rather hollow with an odd echo in my ill-formed brain. So excuse the flightiness of this my return blog. Rusty echoes are a terrible inconvenience to a train of thought.

To save us both wasted brain cells, the rest of this post will be written in numbered bullet points. Feel free to skip #3 and #6 entirely, they really are useless.

1.) Got two royalty checks while I was gone. The five dollar windfall will go great strides toward buying that McDonald’s value meal I’ve been eyeing.

2.) Read two Archeology magazines from cover to cover up in the cabin. Came up with eleven storylines for novels-to-be. Does this count as work?

3.) Saw a black bear in the woods. The wild, untamed affect was tarnished however by the gaggle of tourists with cameras chasing after the poor thing.

4.) My psyche needs a schedule to retain somewhat normal shape. I had none this week; hence the prickly blobbness of your blogger today.

5.) Despite many opportunities, I did not have to up my Prozac during the back-to-nature outing. I count this as both a triumph and an embarrassment.

6.) A grouping of buzzards is called a “wake.” How and why I learned this on my vacation I’ll leave to your imagination.

Until tomorrow…

Chloe

Cue the Career Dirge

Despite my inclination to hide my part in this upcoming literary fiasco, I will shoulder the responsibility.

To a point.

When one is about to nosedive a burgeoning writing career over a sheer mountain cliff, I argue some blame should be held in reserve for the wind. Or the lack thereof.

For instance, if the wind had been a gale rushing from the valley floor straight up to the sky, then said-nosedive would be for nought, right? The career would only be bantied about a bit, no harm done. So when the crash and burn does occur five hundred feet below, a little bit of blame must go to Mother Nature. Don’t you agree?

Yeah. Neither do I.

At this point, I’m just babbling, trying to delay the inevitable leap.

Tomorrow, my four-legged furry muse and I are accompanying half my family on a week-long vacation to the mountains. Therefore, this daily blog is going on hiatus until Saturday, May 9.

Cue the career dirge.

While I realize I am overestimating the importance of these daily posts in the overall health of my literary career (no eye-rolls, please; 17 published novels make a career if not an income-taxable income), I still worry that I’ll lose some footing by taking a break.

Rubbish, I know. But still…

If my career never rebounds from this week off, I reserve the right to blame the wind, the mountains and old Ma Nature.

Have a great week everyone!

Until next Saturday…

Chloe

Focus Needed

While in the middle of a big, family visit, my writing has been a bit of a smash and grab affair.

A hundred words here, a handful of sentences there and that’s about it for the last two weeks.

Pitiful, right?

What’s even more pitiful is the quality of the work I’ve been sputtering out. Bad habits of fluffing dialogue needlessly, of excessive scene-setting and meandering inner-dialogue are raising their beady-eyed little heads and causing trouble again.

Deep breaths are needed.

Deep breaths are in short supply.

I’ll keep you updated.

Until tomorrow…

Chloe