Stephanie Plum

It’s a WRAP. Cut….

…fade into black (a starry night)….

Happy New Year!

2009. –Time really does go faster when you are having fun! And yet, some things seem a lifetime ago!

Over all, the year was a good one for me. I hope it was for you, too!

I actually accomplished some of my—well, I wouldn’t call them exactly resolutions—but some of the goals I had set for myself.

I have started to become a bit more serious about the photography; got my website up and running. (www.rteest42.smugmug.com)

I actually started, finished and entered a quilt into a challenge! (didn’t make it, but I entered!!)

I finished writing my fan fiction story, started in 2007; 178,000-ish words later, The Big Chill got its Happily Ever After.

We traveled, and I met new cousins and caught up with old friends…

(You will note the eat less chocolate/exercise more types of ‘resolutions’ are not featured here, nor will they be in the future, lol!!)

This new year, I would like to get back to writing, I would like to FINISH some of the over 35 quilt projects I have started, I would like to concentrate more on genealogy, and cataloging/scanning family photos. As well as take more photos, sell more photos, and organize the house, the studio specifically, and probably do some more cooking, and spend more time with friends and family and and and and….

None are really resolutions, because they only seem to put undue pressure on you, and untold, unnecessary guilt, when you are unable to hold to it…

And that seems a pretty negative way to start a new decade!

Balance. My word of the year…..

I hope that 2010 brings you only the best of everything!!!

(and I am headed to bed…work awaits at 7:30 am….)

The Fat Lady Has Sung

The Fat Lady has sung!

Just over two years have been given over to my latest project—a fictional piece I wrote….

If you’ve been a faithful reader of my blog (you HAVEN’T?? for SHAME!!!) then you know I enjoy writing something called Fan Fiction. A few years back I started writing a story because I was frustrated at having to wait almost a year to find out what Janet Evanovich was going to do with her characters in the Stephanie Plum series. Turns out it was a wise move on my part; I’m not at all fond of the direction she’s gone.

In any event, I enjoyed the experience. The working out a plot, developing characters over and above the ones she provided, and even giving more history to her characters themselves.

It also has provided me the opportunity to write fiction, with the small crutch of a map, if you will. Starting from scratch, staring at the blank page (screen) is scary enough even when you know the names and histories of some of the characters. I found that having that road map gave me the ability to meander, wander if you will, look for alternate paths. I discovered new characters waiting to join the story; I discovered that the characters I thought I knew had far more layers than we had been permitted to see.

After the first story, Geometry Lessons, I was crowned Queen of Angst by the readers of the various sites I post on. I don’t write like Janet Evanovich. I got deep into the nitty-gritty, and my characters had flaws. They had real-life adult experiences; and they had potty mouths.

I hadn’t planned on continuing. But, another story developed in my head, with nary the smallest permission from me. It was a CD I listened to, The Big Chill soundtrack. I kept hearing in the lyrics the three main characters of the Plum books.

I decided to go with it. I would write a short story for each song that worked. Ignore the songs that didn’t work. It would be a lark. They didn’t have to become one story- it would be more of an anthology. That idea lasted for a short time. The songs wove themselves together, and the story The Big Chill is long, complex, and FINISHED now. (It was interrupted midway through by a throwaway line I heard one of the characters mutter. It didn’t fit in the story I was writing, but it pestered me till I gave it its own story, Why So Twitchy, Babe?)

I would love it if you read some of my work. If you do, remember two things….One, I don’t mince words, thoughts or actions. Two, REVIEW!!! Let me know what you think!

The next step I suppose, is to start out fresh, with only my imagination as a guide, and create an entirely new world.

Yikes. Maybe Janet Evanovich will provide more fodder for me in June!

What I am Reading Right Now..

Reading has always been an important part of my life. I can recall fondly sitting in bed late at night as a little girl, with a book about Jesus as a boy. It had him learning to walk, and a pillow tied to his bottom to keep him hurting himself when falling. It was liberally illustrated and someday I will look for the title, if only to prove I am not making it up!! (If YOU know the book, do tell!!)

 

My favorite story book was Pickles the Fire Cat, and the Magic Fish. I loved Harold and the Purple Crayon, and Little House on the Prairie, and Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew and ….

 

My tastes have changed some since then, but reading is still an integral part of my life. I go the gamut, from flossy historical romance yarns about frivolous heroines to far more literary options such as Gabriel Garcia Marquez.  One of my favorites of all time would be Douglas Adams Hitchhiker series, all 5 parts of the trilogy.

 

 

I got hooked on Stephanie Plum a few summers ago, totally not the thing I would lean toward, as the books were THIN. I am not much for thin books. I love a hefty 1000 pager any day. But, hooked I was, and after devouring the 12 that were existent, I found that I was unsatisfied with the lack of ending and thus began my journey into Fan Fiction (you can read more about THAT here)

 

 

But I decided last month, to revisit the Outlander series, by Diana Gabaldon. I read them once about three years ago. And I am so very deeply immersed in them (up to book five, The Fiery Cross, at the moment) that I dream Jamie and Claire. Really. Here we have SIX books, over 1000 pages a piece!!! Heaven!!! And a writer who has made everything so incredibly real that my mind can not turn off!

 

 

I have tried to explain to my husband, who thinks it very humorous indeed, that when get caught up in a book, I lose track of time. And I lose the ability to put the book down, for fear of missing something. You can ask Arlie about that. How many dinners were late because my nose was in a novel??

 

 

This is so humorous to Timmy that he tells it to people, embellishing to the point of me sounding slightly weird. He sees it almost as I believe that the book is a TV show, and I don’t have my VCR on. But that isn’t at all what I mean.

 

 

Surely one of you out there understands?? Surely someone can appreciate being so deeply involved in Ann Rice’s The Witching Hour that you would need to pull over on the road to finish the chapter that you had to put down before you were ready??

 

Support me here folks!!!

Sorry, no pictures to go along with this post…. And please, do respond!! I would love to know that people actually READ here!!!