Home Again

Home from D.C.

I spent this week going over final edits before I submit my manuscript to agents and editors. It's difficult to know when to quit, and just let the story speak for itself. It helps to have a good critique partner, which I do! She keeps me positive and forward moving and honest. At least my characters honest. ;o

I've been reading a lot lately, mostly murder mysteries. I'm on my sixth Qiu Xiaolong book - titled The Mao Case. The antagonist is a police inspector for the Shanghai force. The Chinese culture is fascinating. I enjoy reading books set in foreign places. Maybe that's why I like to write books that take place half way around the globe! Another book I picked up recently is written by a Japanese author who won the Japan Mystery Writers Association award. From the looks of the cover and title, it's a 'hard-boiled' mystery - Shinjuku Shark.

I plan on traveling to Japan next year, so I want to read as much about the culture as I can. What better way than through fiction.

Home Again

http://vgaia.blogspot.com/2009/04/home-again.html

Washington D.C.

I've been here since Tuesday, at first, battling rainstorms, but ending with beautiful expansive blue sky days. Yesterday I must have walked six or seven miles, enjoying the weather and spring blossoms. Tulips are everywhere - bright scarlet - neon yellow - pure unadulterated orange...breathtaking. We missed the cherry blossoms by a week. That would have been a sight to see along the river. A bit of history from the official National Cherry Blossom Festival website:

"The National Cherry Blossom Festival® annually commemorates the 1912 gift of 3,000 cherry trees from Mayor Yukio Ozaki of Tokyo to the city of Washington, honoring the lasting friendship between the United States and Japan and celebrating the continued close relationship between our two cultures.

In a simple ceremony on March 27, 1912, First Lady Helen Herron Taft and Viscountess Chinda, wife of the Japanese ambassador, planted the first two trees from Japan on the north bank of the Tidal Basin in West Potomac Park. In 1915, the United States Government reciprocated with a gift of flowering dogwood trees to the people of Japan. A group of American school children reenacted the initial planting in 1927 and the first "festival” was held in 1935, sponsored by civic groups in the Nation’s Capital.

First Lady Lady Bird Johnson accepted 3,800 more trees in 1965. In 1981, the cycle of giving came full circle. Japanese horticulturists were given cuttings from our trees to replace some cherry trees in Japan which had been destroyed in a flood. 3,000 cherry trees were given to the U.S. from the Japanese."

We're staying at our usual neighborhood - Dupont Circle. Being doing this for the past five visits. A hop on the metro, and we're anywhere we need to be.

It's strange how I can walk for miles when traveling, but once home, it becomes the dreaded word - exercise! Then I lose all interest. It has to be my Aries nature sticking its tongue out at wasting time in front of a "Walk Away the Pounds" DVD or taking thirty minutes to walk the neighborhood. Once I get up in the morning, I fire up my computer, and I'm ready to write or blog or check my email, then I get lost in the process and forget all about the mundane stuff.

Washington D.C.

http://vgaia.blogspot.com/2009/04/washington-dc.html

Mondays and working list

iPod alert: Listening to Falling Slowly by Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova.

I love Mondays. Maybe it's crazy on my part, but it's the beginning of the week, anything can happen, and I can start fresh. Without guilt or anything keeping me from obtaining my goals for the week. Usually I list my weekly tasks. This keeps me on track, AND, it's so much fun to cross them off ;) I write two very different genres, therefore keep two of everything - website, blog, etc...this makes it doubly hard for organization, but it's necessary.

iPod alert: All You Need Is Love by the Beatles

Okay, this week:

1 - write on my synopsis for Book One of "In the Shadow of the Goddess"
2 - finish two chapters on my WIP
3 - finish edits on ISG
4 - meet critique partner on Thursday
5 - figure out Twitter!

"Love is all you need." Beatles
Peace!

Mondays and working list

http://vgaia.blogspot.com/2009/04/mondays-and-working-list.html

Synopsis Blues Continues

I'm patting my back right now because I began writing my synopsis yesterday. Yes, it's true! Three paragraphs (over 1/2 page)!

The truth, I was shamed into it. Partly, because my wonderful friend and writer encouraged by example. Partly, my critique partner nudged me to get on with it. Partly, I was sinking into despair every day I made an excuse to do something else. Anything else.

It's amazing when once you begin a task, especially one you've been procrastinating on for so long, how good feels. Let's see if my momentum carries me to write the fourth paragraph today.

Synopsis Blues Continues

http://vgaia.blogspot.com/2009/04/synopsis-blues-continues.html

Dreaded Synopsis

I've been procrastinating writing the dreaded synopsis for my completed manuscript since the new year. Yeah, I know, it's already three months into the year so what am I waiting for?!

For the twinkling-toed synopsis fairy to light on my desktop and type it out for me.

I wish!

I'm not sure what I'm afraid of - maybe discovering loopholes in my plot; boring, irritating characters that lack wit and charm; too many convoluted subplots mucking up the main story line...Really, I could go on and on about the lack of confidence when having to face my story, chapter by chapter.

Why I don't write the synopsis first is beyond me. I really should, and every time I start a new novel, I say to myself - this time I'll plot it all out beforehand.

I never do.

*sigh*

So, now I'm faced with having the task of summarizing a 85+ word novel.

And writing this post is another way of procrastinating the inevitable.

So, back to the blank page...

Dreaded Synopsis

http://vgaia.blogspot.com/2009/04/dreaded-synopsis.html

Manhattan 1945

World War II had come to an end, Europe was in shambles, and New York City had become the New World View. Eating out, listening to music, drinking and dancing, theater, movie houses--whatever your pleasure, you could find it in Manhattan.

Good ol' American food could be found at many of the restaurants. The Plaza offered boiled salt mackerel, fried hominy grits, pecan waffles, clam juice, little pig sausage and fried cornmeal mush. You had the modest delis serving Jewish bagels and lox with cream cheese and hot pastrami. If you liked to stroll in Central Park on Sundays, you could dine at the Essex House on summer prune juice, cherrystone clams, Scotch woodcock, sweetbreads, creamed finnan haddie on toast.

Drinking became an obsession after the repeal of Prohibition on December 5, 1933, which was only twelve years before. Every neighborhood had its local saloons, and many trades had their favorite hang outs. Mad men, those advertising gurus, hung out at the East Side piano bars, newspapermen at Bleeck's, next door to the Herald-Tribune. Cedar Tavern on University Place catered to artists, and you could find writers drinking at their favorite bar of the Algonquin Hotel or Costello's on Third Avenue. And for the sailors and seamen, their home away from home was The Horse.

When I think of the forties, I think of cocktails. This weekend I had a bittersweet orange Manhattan at PF Chang's. Served in a wide fluted glass, I sipped the elixir and thought of my mother's generation. The Manhattan was invented at the Manhattan Club, or so it's said. One part vermouth, two parts whiskey, a dash of bitters, stirred with ice and garnished with a cherry. But the cocktail of the forties was the dry martini. Barely touched with vermouth, it was mostly pure gin.

Cafe Society thrived. A mix of theater people, old families, musicians, sportsmen, actors, sprinkling of military men, and a few writers, and of course, the gossip columnists who reported on their comings and goings. The society could be seen listening to jazz at the Cotton Club in Harlem; sipping afternoon tea at the Plaza; dancing at the Starlight Roof on a perfect summer night; dining at Sardi's; or drinking at the El Morocco.

After the war, New York City heralded the new way of life in America. For a few years it held its "... particular mixture of innocence and sophistication, romance and formality, generosity and self-amazement...", quoted from Manhattan '45' by Jan Morris.

Picture of Sardi's taken by Walter Sanders was published in Life Magazine.

Manhattan 1945

http://vgaia.blogspot.com/2009/03/manhattan-1945.html

Cleaning up and Simplifying

I've just finished cleaning up my website. Now I have four pages instead of seven, part of simplifying my writing life - grin.

Actually, I spent hours on the phone with my hosting service technical support to figure out how to have two domains and two separate websites! What a process, but my problems were finally resolved! It's four in the morning, and I couldn't sleep, and what better use of my time than to call Asia to straighten out my issues!

I use 1 and 1 hosting, and they've always been reliable. They didn't disappoint, and were able to walk me through the process with relative ease. It's not that I'm computer illiterate, but sheesh, web technical jargon can be daunting even for a techie nut like me!

I bought a HP Netbook the other day for traveling. This is such a cute and compact machine that I can stuff it in my purse :) Now I don't have to lug my laptop clear across the universe, but instead check my email, blog, and write using the HP Mini. And, I don't have all my precious files on it, so if it get stolen, it's not the end of the world. Just another part of my simplification process as a writer.

Now that I am venturing into more than one genre, and now that I have two pen names, it kind of freaks me out. Since the genres are so different, I had to break down and create another name. Ugh. So, I have to keep my websites simple and easy to update. I have a hard enough time blogging on this site, as you all know. But, I hope to get better at it starting NOW.

Happy Reading,

Vicki

Cleaning up and Simplifying

http://vgaia.blogspot.com/2009/03/cleaning-up-and-simplifying.html