Warm weather, early daffodils, and fresh ideas

The South has been blessed recently with spectacular warmth, for which I'm very grateful. I remember one January when it hit 90 degrees F, which, thank goodness, hasn't happened this year. That was just too odd. We're heading into the 40s and seasonable cold next week, but I've enjoyed this respite, even if my daffodils are confused and won't be happy come March when they should be perky. Ideas are p0king through the surface for new stories, and I plan to nurture them through the coming months so they too can bloom when they should. I love this percolating stage, when I think about what's going to happen to these people and how they'll react. Meanwhile, I'm working on Lola, shaping it, cutting it, rewriting...is a book ever finished? Mine aren't. I want to rewrite them even after they're published.

Now that they're testing at Daytona, I feel as if the dark days of No-Nascar are over. Three more weeks, and Daytona, here I come! It's not the Florida sunshine I crave, but the scream of 800 horses on turn 4! Oh yeah, time to dust off the tailgating equipment, dig out the race flags to fly on the truck, find the sunscreen. What is it with the Dodges in the testing? The Toyotas are outrunning them! Go Dale Jarrett! I hope the Camrys give everyone a run for their money. It'll keep the season from getting stale, that's for sure. In our house, I drive a Toyota Sienna, and my husband's in a Dodge Ram full-sized, four door, honkin' big truck. You know it gets interesting when we discuss brand names and Nascar, LOL.

Branding - another interesting topic for writers. Do you feel cheated if a writer switches genres and goes in another direction? What if an inspirational Christian author begins to write sexy, hot erotica? Is that fair to the readers? Is it fair to keep a writer pigeon-holed? Hmm. I need to think about this.

January and Possibilities

Well, there I was. All ready to write for hours. House quiet. Cat curled up on the sofa. Dog asleep. The Muse kicking at the door. Boot up computer. Watch computer freeze. Watch computer fall into the abyss, taking printer with it. My one new resolution for this year is to forget yesterday. Ten hours of trying everything on earth I've ever learned about computers, and today I'm on my husband's.

So I started thinking about how Scarlett was right, there's always tomorrow. Just keep on keeping on. Get someone else to excise the computer's gremlins. Becoming a Luddite isn't possible, as much as I might want to. So instead of seeing yesterday as wasted effort, I'm thinking of it as a test - how much do I need to write? If the computer's buggy efforts can't derail me, nothing can. There's always a pencil and a legal pad, and to be honest, it felt wonderful to scribble away by hand for a while. Awkward, but wonderful. The words don't fail just because the hardware goes MIA.

Thank goodness.