This is probably the one day of the year that anyone could ever accuse me of being a morning person. I went to bed early last night (11pm), and 6.5 hours later, I woke up at 4:30! Amazed. Of course, I cheated and went back to bed a couple of hours later and snoozed for awhile longer.
I'm a napper. I sleep about 5-6 hours at night, then I like to sleep for a couple of hours in the afternoon. An 8-hour gig at night and no sleep during the day makes me groggy in the morning and cranky in the afternoon. So you can imagine how thrilled my coworkers are with me about 2pm everyday.
Maybe I'll adjust. But in twenty-plus years of working in an office, I haven't yet. This afternoon is a writing and editing session, so maybe I'll do okay. I always feel better when I feel as if I've achieved something. Doesn't everyone?
Now if I just didn't have this urge for a nap....
Today I received another rejection. Most of the time, I'm pretty cool with those. I'm a writer; these come with the territory. I've gotten quite a few over the years, with enough acceptances to keep me encouraged and generally happy with the way my career is going.
Just not happy enough.
The truth is, my writing career is rather lackluster these days. I need to work harder - this part I know all too well. I have some open doors I can pursue, and I need to do a lot more study on my craft.
But this was the second rejection within the past week or so, and it dragged me lower than I expected. The first rejection was of the type I've received most of my writing life: "loved your work but can't use this one." The author of said rejection was VERY complementary, and I'm sure she intended to be supportive. Make no mistake, however.
A "no" is still a "no," even when it's pretty.
It's also akin to being told, "Wow, you have such a great personality, but . . ." Which I've also heard a lot in my life.
The second rejection hit even harder, for some unexpected reasons, some of which are wrapped in my own inflated ego. It hurt, and I immediately went through a self-flagellation that would make a masochist proud, right down to wondering if I shouldn't just give up writing and go work at MacDonald's. But I got over it. After all, hard-hitting rejections have shoved me through the same pattern almost since I was 18.
After I get over the initial pain and disappointment of the rejection (and that happens no matter how lovely the rejection is packaged), I try to get past the self-pity attack that happens and move into a touch of anger. Because that's what spurs me forward, determined to prove "them" wrong. Sometimes I do my best work following a rejection.
My high school band director used to say that a kick in the pants can often send you forward faster than a pat on the back. Rejection can, in fact, jumpstart you when you feel things have flattened out.
Of course, I also get spurred on by acceptance, too. There is value in both.
As usual, the trip to Alabama provided serious grist for the mill, especially for the Daisy Doe book. An abandoned business district that's beginning to turn East Village-ish, a flea market that was more like prowling through an old barnyard than someone's suburban garage (including the need to watch where you stepped), and grizzled old men selling some slightly illegal items under the table. Exhausting, but the non-stop activity sparked the creativity in me that had started to flounder. I didn't get to work on Rae much, but that, too, is back on track.
Travel is an amazing renewal process for me, even the short jaunts. Highly recommended to anyone stuck in a writing rut.
More later...lots to catch up on, workwise.
Sick. Hacking, nasty, curl-up-and-moan sick. And I hate it.
I've always loathed being ill, mostly because I can't do the things I want to do. Someone once told me this was my latent control freak rearing her ugly little red head, but I don't care. While, yes, it can be a relief to roll over in the bed, tissue clutched in hand, and seek blessed comfort in a drugged out state, the whole thing usually makes me angry.
My mother told me that my reluctance to pamper myself prolonged my healing after my surgery in 1998, and she may be right. But I have things to do!! :)
Life is too short, too beautiful, and with far too many things to do and see and achieve to spend days in bed, staring at the wall.
Although . . . I do tend to create when I'm staring at that wall, painting new characters across it, and on occasion, my drugged out state has given me strange and wonderful plot ideas, like the one in this extended entry. Sounds kinda like it's out of a drugged haze. lol!
No matter. Today, I need caffeine and painkiller, then it's family time. See y'all Monday.
Reclaiming Daisy Doe
Details: Mystery with Inspirational Elements (possible series)
100,000 words
Pitch:
Following her mother’s death, former LAPD detective Star Cavanaugh decides it’s time to solve the ultimate cold case: the murder of her grandmother in 1954. She returns to the small Alabama town where the killing occurred, knowing she’ll have to be careful. After all, when her father tried to solve the crime in 1979, he, too, wound up dead in a cornfield.
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Excerpt
Prologue
When the brunette with the daisy in her hair sauntered into the Pineville Drugstore that hazy Sunday morning in May 1954, every man in the room turned and looked. Her lavender dress fit loosely, but it did little to disguise the ripe fullness of her body, and more than one of the old farmers sitting at the cluster of tables near the soda fountain licked the corner of his mouth.
Her matching pumps thwacked on the yellow tile floor as she headed for the counter, as if they, like her dress, were a size too big. She ordered a root beer float, and while Doc Taylor made it up, being that his fountain girl Ruthie had the day off, the dark-haired stranger thwacked over to the magazine rack and picked up one with the latest movie gossip and a comic book. She paid for all three, then sipped the float, the pursing of her lips around the straw making the men in the store squirm and look away. Doc tried to talk to her, but she met his questions with soft shakes of the head, and after a bit, he gave up and went back to the high counter at the back, where he made up prescriptions. The girl sipped and left, the magazine and comic book tucked under one arm.
The next morning, Roscoe Brown found her at the edge of his daddy’s newly planted cornfield, the bright daisy crushed beneath her. Roscoe’s daddy had gotten a late start planting because of the rains, then had to wait for the signs to come right for corn to go into the ground. Roscoe had gone out to check on the new plants, and there she was, posed as if she’d fallen asleep there in the dirt, although no light shone in her eyes. The bruises around her neck explained why, but never gave an indication of who.
The local KKK tried to take charge for a bit, almost lynching fifteen-year-old Roscoe, until Reverend Billy Mitchell down at the Baptist church swore on a stack that Roscoe and his whole family had been down to the Slasham camp meeting that evening, and no one stood up to Rev. Billy during those years, not even the KKK.
No one knew her, had ever seen her. So Sheriff JoeLee Wilkes called her Daisy Doe. They later found an eight-year-old boy in a motel down on US 11, reading the comic she had bought. They thought he might be her son, but the boy never said a word, not even when he saw her body. The state took him over and sent him to a boys’ home down near Birmingham, where they called him Bobby Doe. He remained silent until he was almost twelve, but he still would not talk about the girl with the daisy in her hair nor answer to anything other than Bobby Doe. The people of Pineville, Alabama, didn’t hear another word about either of them.
Until twenty-five years later. In 1979, Robert Caleb Shaw, using the name he had reclaimed at eighteen, slid into Pineville in a rented convertible, causing as many stares as his mother had in 1954. Now thirty-three and a lawyer with a solid, successful practice in Los Angeles, Bobby had returned to solve his mother’s murder, finally putting Esther Shaw’s name on the tombstone that still read, “Daisy Doe, 1954.” He had in tow the private investigator he used in LA.
They stopped first at the office where JoeLee, now a sixty-ish caricature of a Southern sheriff, continued to run the county. Bobby and his PI then went to Pineville Drugs, where the old farmers of the county still clustered every day for breakfast at the soda fountain.
The next morning they were found at the edge of Roscoe’s cornfield, in the exact same spot where Bobby’s mother had been dumped a quarter-century earlier. Their hands were tied, their throats cut. No one accused Roscoe, and JoeLee didn’t even bother to investigate much. Obviously, they’d been killed for poking their noses where they didn’t belong.
My mama didn’t care for this explanation much, but she died not being able to do anything about it. I, on the other hand, decided I could do something about it.
I had been named for that beautiful girl with the daisy in her hair, sort of. I was Star instead of Esther. Mama used to say I looked just like her, although almost seven years with the LAPD had hardened those soft looks, and I was now a blonde. Mama always hated that I was a cop; none of my friends were surprised when I quit after her funeral, joining Daddy’s old firm as an investigator. It was a good job, and I was making a lot of money, much more than when I was on the force. But family history has a way of nagging at you. So after my divorce was final and I had a nest egg that would have made Mama proud, I called her mother in Birmingham and asked if I could drop in.
Unlike my Daddy, I had spent a lot of time in Alabama, cuddling in with Gran for weeks at a time after his death, while Mama went back to school and started a career. Now I truly had faith that I could accomplish what he could not. I could find out who had killed them both, without getting my own throat cut in the process.
But faith, as Gran would often say, quoting her favorite Book, is nothing without action.
Family will take precedent over work this weekend, as it should. My brother is around, and since I get to see him only once or twice a year, he'll have my full attention from Friday night until Sunday evening. No blogging. I am going to have the AlphaSmart attached to my hip, so any time not spent catching up (he's an early-to-bed kinda guy; I'm still the proverbial night owl...) will see Rae at the center of my attention. I really am in a drive to finish this one.
It's kinda interesting to see where and how the blocks get smashed. (I even do a workshop on this for conferences). In this case, I was sitting in the kitchen of the hair salon, my hair looking like a recently terrified Cindy Who, full of color and standing straight up. I had thirty minutes before my stylist could get back to me, so instead of reading last spring's People mags, I started scribbling notes, brainstorming Rae.
And it broke. It all came together. I'll need to rewrite the last three or four pages so far, just to re-direct some things. If you're interested, I've put the opening of the book in the extended part of this entry.
If I don't get a chance to blog tomorrow, I'll be here Monday.
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Excerpt from A Picture Perfect Murder
Chapter One
“Nothing like having a body dumped in your lap to ruin a perfectly good Saturday morning.” In her ten years with the LAPD, Rae West had often been the first to arrive on a crime scene, but this was the only time she could remember arriving before the victim did.
Rae stared at the oversized SUV sitting at the foot of her father’s driveway, crossed her arms, and sighed. Her involuntary leave from the force started Monday, and she’d hoped to get away for a while, away from anything involving the police. “Only two more days, and I would have been outta here.”
Behind her, her father cleared his throat. “I’ll call it in,” and Rae heard Mitchell West’s slippered feet scraping back up the steep drive as she took a closer look at the body slumped in the passenger seat, head braced against the smeared window. No need to check for signs of life; a hypodermic needle plunged deep into the right eye socket had taken care of that.
Rae stuck her hands in the pockets of her jeans so she wouldn’t touch anything. A crime scene gave her the itch to poke and prod, but she had no gloves and knew the crime scene techs would have her head. She also knew whoever had parked it here wanted the body to be found, although probably not this soon. The SUV hadn’t been around when she’d arrived for breakfast almost two hours ago, but now it blocked the driveway. While her dad wasn’t the type to be out and about at eight on a Saturday morning, he didn’t stay at home much either. The killer probably expected him to find it later that day.
She leaned closer to the window, her gaze tracking over the body. “Hey, good looking,” she whispered. “What did you do to make someone think you deserved this?” His sleeveless, tattered sweatshirt had the faded logo of a gym on it, and his hair and nails were expertly cut. The glove compartment was open, and in the shadowed recess, Rae could see a PDA and a 9mm Glock. “Not a cop, or it would have been on you. So why didn’t you defend yourself, baby? Did you try? Is that why it’s open?”
His feet were in expensive but well-worn sneakers, and the hard, defined lines of his body showed that he’d been to that gym quite often. Rae glanced again at his right eye. Only the last few graduated lines on the thin hypodermic could still be seen, but little fluid and blood remained on his face. She took a deep breath. “Well, you either died quickly or he cleaned you up before he moved you.” A slight spritz of blood on the ceiling near the driver’s door confirmed Rae’s idea that the victim was the original driver.
A plastic-wrapped tuxedo hung in the back of the SUV, and a pair of newly polished patent leather shoes sat primly on the back seat next to a stack of neatly folded white material, possibly a martial arts gi. In the floorboard behind the passenger’s seat was a copy of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance and two programs from film industry award ceremonies. Recent ones. He was in the industry, most likely, but the twin scars running down the right side of his face told her probably “Not an actor. Maybe security. Did you tick off some stalker fan?”
Behind her scrapes signaled her father’s return. “They’ll be here shortly.”
His daughter knew he wasn’t thrilled with this either, and not just because it had messed up his morning. Mitchell had been one of the most notorious entertainment lawyers in the city until his retirement six months ago, and the press still loved to track him down for on-camera opinions about high-profile cases. And, until a few moments ago, he’d planned to leave later that morning for an extended trip to Spain. “Something tells me,” he muttered, “that I need to change my reservations.”
“It gets better, Dad.”
“What?”
She turned to him. “Are any of your ex A-listers diabetic?”
He scowled. “Three. Why?”
“Then you’d better make some calls.”
Crazy days. On Friday, the kidling became ill, so my time shifted to the home front, and not much about work. She's not serious, just a cold, but it consumes a lot of my other thoughts, and I didn't feel much like blogging. I did work some, mostly on the next novel...working title A Picture Perfect Murder. I mentioned my heroine, Rae, below. She's still waking up, but I did write the scenes that connected this one to the rest of the book.
I'm in one of those spots in the book, a little rough, a little uncertain. I know what's going to happen two scenes from now, and on toward the end, but I'm a little stuck figuring out how to get there from here. This is one of those time when you have to "write it through," which for a writer is similar to that block that happens on any kind of project, or for an athlete. (So I'm told. Athletic, I'm not.) You just push it through and worry about quality later. Second draft.
I'm a fan of second drafts.
Maybe that's why I make a pretty good editor. So I'm told. ;)
I like my new job, but it comes with a few drawbacks, like far less time to write. After two months, the creative drive in me is starting to writhe in the back of my head like a quivering beast. I have to unleash it or it makes me a tad nuts.
Okay, more than a tad.
I've talked to other writers about this, and most agree. When they are denied the chance to write, they get cranky, annoying, and depressed. Fidgety, almost like a fish half-in and half-out of water. I get distracted, and as my characters turn into nagging voices in my head demanding to be heard, I sometimes even start to slur words...a product of trying to form a reasonably informed sentence about book production and scheduling when my intrepid heroine is about to engage in a death-defying battle with Snidely Whiplash.
Currently, Rae West is just coming back to consciousness after being attacked. Rae is the heroine of my latest romantic suspense, and she was just about to explain to her detective partner what happened to her when I had to focus on a book that was behind schedule here at work.
Her patience is wearing thin. And she doesn't quite believe it when I tell her I'll be right back. Promise.
Excerpts to come.
One of the frustrations of any writer with a full-time job is balance. How do you keep the money-job from taking over your creativity until your writing begins to pay the bills. When I was freelancing, that was easy; I never accepted enough editorial work that the writing took a back seat. Now I feel like I'm on the edge of success with the writing and I had to take the current job in order to stay afloat.
So far, I'm not writing as much as I want. Evening hours, when I'd plan to write, are suddenly consumed with dinner and friends who want to stay in touch - and given how I feel about loyalty and staying close to the people I love and enjoy being with - I have to honor the special place they have in my life.
So I am stuck with the balancing act. There's no easy answer. But I'm determined. And praying.
Who was it that said the only constant in the universe is change?
For anyone who hasn't heard, I'm no longer strictly a freelancer. I've gone corporate again, taking a position as senior editor for World Publishing. It's an intriguing process, the transition from working at home to going in almost every day. The man who hired me made me an excellent offer--a good salary and a lot of freedom to work at home when I needed to be with Rachel. I hired an additional sitter for a couple of days.
So far, so good. Stress of a different kind, but also a touch of assurance, with insurance, etc.
I'll have to go more into this sometime about how I came to this point, and where I see God working in the details. For now, I hope to blog here more, and move forward with both the writing and editing.
In light of that, I plan to post some excerpts from both my current novel (When Angels Fall) and the one I have coming out from Steeple Hill soon. The working title has always been Jackson's Retreat, but we're currently in the process of retitling. More on that as it comes around.