I’ll wait for you to pick yourselves up off the floor.

We good now? Okay.

So, I’ve had this thing that I’ve done, ever since I sold my first book (going on *gasp* seven years ago, now) and that’s find a charitable cause to which to contribute. It’s not something I tend to make a big deal of because like religion, politics, & birth control, I find it a sort of private matter (sorry Rush, you lard-assed windbag, no videos for you).

Some years, it’s been a big thing—remember my RITA gown from 2007? The Maggie Gyllenhaal Oscar gown?

As some of you know, I won that in a Clothes Off Our Backs (now sadly defunct) charity auction, with the thought that I might one day, if I was really, really lucky, be able to wear it to a RITA ceremony, you know, if I ever finaled. Little did I know it would be that year and it wound up being my lucky gown, since I, you know, won. *pauses to preen just wee bit*

Most years, though, it’s been little things—small donations to multiple organizations, usually to theatre groups like Red Dog Squadron a not-for-profit theatre company or my own local Seattle Theatre Group or, of course, supporting museums, like Seattle Art Museum or the Experience Music Project Museum (look, I live in Seattle- how can I not?).

Thing is, while donating to these causes are, indeed, charitable, they’re generally also to my benefit—having a beautiful gown to wear, having theatre and museums to attend with the rugrats—let’s face it, I definitely get a pretty good deal out of it.

But now, things is a little different, children…

(And this is where we come to the Power of Social Media portion of our program.)

I’ve mentioned lately that I’ve been hanging more on Twitter than blogging, mostly because I’ve been so buried in the writing that my attention span away from it tends to be better suited for short bursts of, oh, 140 characters or so. Actually, it’s been beneficial from other standpoints as well. With Twitter, I’ve been able to expand the scope of the creative folks I come in contact with, from artists (@loveandcapes) to musicians (@janicewhaley) to actors (@chris_gorham) to writers of many, many stripes, across varying genres and media (Mediums? Media. Whatever). It stimulates my own creative juices (which sounds vaguely naughty) and stokes the excitement I feel for my own work in addition to helping the plot bunnies procreate. Hey, I never said I was completely altruistic—I’m completely open about what I get out of this.

I’m rambling, I know. Okay, I’ll get on with it. One of the actors I follow, Timothy Omundson (@Omundson) from Psych happened to mention he was guesting on the Pop My Culture podcast (@pmcpodcast).

(Hilarious podcast, highly recommended, but if you have kiddies, I suggest listening to it after dark or with headphones, lest the little darlings overhear. Five minutes of PMC and they’ll wind up sounding like extras from Deadwood. You’ve been warned.)

Anyhow, Tim also happened to mention that oh, by the way, Vanessa Ragland (@vanessaragland), one of the hosts, has got a charity thing going on. Goes to show how buried I’ve been, lately, since I follow both the podcast and Vanessa on Twitter and this had somehow slipped past. *shamefaced*

End result is, I checked it out and this is where I get serious, folks—it’s a big deal. Vanessa is in the running for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society’s Woman of the Year

And this is why:

Guys, you know me—inveterate smartass, can make a joke about anything, but you know, cancer is no joking matter to me. It’s an insidious motherfucker that has messed with my own family and has hurt way, way too many people who I love, taking their loved ones from them, far too soon. It even permeated my professional life in that I wrote Breathe, the manuscript nearest and dearest to my heart, in part to express those feelings of helplessness and loss that cancer can generate. It remains my biggest professional regret that it never found a publishing home; too many publishers scared off by the cancer-centric storyline. Too dark, too real, too… scary.

Too bad. Cancer is scary. It’s dark and it’s real and it can strike anyone, including little girls and their daddies. So yeah, I donated, immediately, to Vanessa’s cause. And now I’m asking you, my awesome friends, to help out. If not by donating, because God knows, I know times are hard across the board, then by at least spreading the word, via your blogs, Twitter, Facebook, Google+, Tumblr, Pinterest, whatever floats your boat. You wanna rent a plane and fly a banner over South Beach, go for it (although I think the money would be better spent on a direct donation).

Vanessa has until April 25th to raise lots and lots of money and even if she doesn’t win, which, of course, we want her to, she’ll win, because she’ll have raised lots and lots of money. You see where I’m going with this, y’all?

She also has another secondary, equally important, reason to raise lots of money: her dad. It’s a tragedy, really—Vanessa’s dad, Larry Ragland, for reasons unknown, decided to grow his hair. It’s apparently quite scary. Don’t believe me? Watch:

So there you have it. If Vanessa can raise $5K by the end of the campaign, then Dear Old Dad will have to part with his ponytail. If you don’t do it for the children, then do it for Larry.

Donate. Or pass the word.

Please.

Love you all.

LATE BREAKING ANNOUNCEMENT!

I will say, though, that I have been writing. New stuff. Different stuff.

I should be working on revising Between Here & Gone, since as Lovely Agent put it, “You wrote two different books.” She’s not wrong. But after three years of work on that sucker, I just can’t stand to look at it right now. Even though I know how I want to change things up. But it would be some massive changing and right now… I just can’t. I’d so wanted it to be the book, the one that finally breaks me into adult writing, and instead, it was just a massive pile of bat guano. At least the second half of it was.

And as long as that’s how I feel about it, probably best I not work on it, you feel me?

But what I have been working on is fun. And exciting. And I did mention different, right? Right.

One is a YA, one is an adult, both have paranormal elements and no, that wasn’t a conscious choice or that I’m trying to write to market or anything. It’s just what the lizard brain prodded me to work on. I think it probably figured I was sick to death of contemporary realistic, since it hasn’t exactly been doing me any favors lately and frankly, it felt tired, like I was sort of sleepwalking through the process, so it decided I needed something completely out of my usual comfort zone.

Boy howdy, is this out of my comfort zone. Both of them. Aside from the paranormal elements, there’s the fact that I’m writing both in third person POV. Don’t ask me why– it’s just what the story demanded. Mostly because there are multiple POVs that need to be explored and again, multiple first hasn’t exactly worked for me in the past. And I think rather than beat my head against the wall, trying to get the industry to bend to my will (again, because that’s worked so well in the past), I decided to just go with it. And I’m trying really hard not to feel as if I’m conceding the battle, which is stupid, but tell it to my competitive psyche.

See, what I’m telling my competitive psyche is: “Look, doofus, you began writing in first person because it suited your skill set at the time. Now you’re a better writer, you can take all that you’ve learned in first and translate it to third person POV and rock the hell out of it.”

It’s actually working. My third, if I do say so myself, is actually pretty strong. It still doesn’t come quite as naturally as first, but hello– I’ve been writing in first person POV for nearly ten years.

At any rate, I’m hoping that these really are working as well as I think they are because I’d love nothing more than to be able to share them. The adult in particular is wicked fun to write (and I’m creeping myself out monumentally with it).

Come on, those of you who know me, you’re not really having to think hard, are you?

But it’s still a good post. You should go read. Comment even.

Adiós, Accent, and Stars are all summer books. Not only does their action primarily take place over the course of a summer, I wrote them all during summer months. I also lived in Florida when I wrote all three, which is the Land of Perpetual Summer, but that’s besides the point.

Now I’ve got a couple new stories I’m toying with, a YA and an adult, and they’re both what I’d call “winter” books in terms of the time period during which their action is taking place. Admittedly, I started working on the YA during the late summer, but I’ve done the most work on it in the last month or so.

I never really gave it much thought, but when I set my books has a real effect on its overall tone. The “summer” books, even though they can have some serious underpinnings tend to have an overall lightness and definitely happy-ish endings. The winter books are darker, more somber, the pace and tone of the language a little slower—to use musical terms, adagio (slow and stately) versus allegretto (moderately fast). Maybe most telling, the endings, while they’ll still be hopeful, aren’t going to be of the obviously happy variety. There are too many variables involved for there to be a simple solution but it will be a satisfying one.

And that’s how I like it. Not only as a reader, but as a writer. My endings don’t have to be tied up in happy, sparkly bows. I’m not the reader who’s going to fling a book against the wall if the characters aren’t riding off into the sunset together. One of my favorite book endings ever is from Anne Rivers Siddons’ HEARTBREAK HOTEL.

There’s a line on the last page– it’s not the final line, but it’s the most telling line of the ending: “Lucidity that trembled on the edge of something radiant that could not be looked at, yet.”

There. Right there, the reader has all the answer they need. You know she’s broken through the boundaries that have been holding her hostage throughout the majority of the book and that while she’s not quite ready to face the future breaking free promises, you know there’s something ahead. Something better than what she’d ever allowed herself to imagine. That she even knew she was permitted to imagine. Of course, the reader knows this because of how masterfully Siddons crafted the story leading up to that last scene.

And that’s enough for me as a reader. Yes, I have questions and oh, my heavens, what I wouldn’t give to poke Siddons’ mind to find out what future she envisioned for Maggie, the lead character, but the story she told in that book was complete to my way of thinking.

But, I digress. This is what happens when I haven’t blogged regularly in yonks. Sorry about that. Guess I just haven’t had much to say, even when being attacked by book pirates as an “odious woman.” (Yes, that really happened, no, I’m not going to link because what’s the point?)

Anyhow, I’m finding it kind of surprising that I’ve not written a true “winter” book before now. I guess it’s because outside of the occasional surprisingly cold temperatures, I hadn’t lived anywhere with winter for over seven years. There’s no denying, though that fall and winter are definitely my time—when I perk up and start moving faster as the temperatures drop and the days grow shorter. Unlike so many others, I’m comforted by that early blanket of darkness and I find it gives me a greater appreciation for spring and summer when they roll around.

Regardless, I’m enjoying the evolution of my “winter” books and looking forward to seeing where they take me. Already, I’m exploring styles I’ve not ever considered before, so that’s another new experience.