Happy Halloween!

All Souls Show

Listen to The Beyond All Souls Show

Join the Fangs, Fur, and Fey team– Melissa Marr, Jeaniene Frost, and Mark Del Franco-as well as other NYT bestselling authors Jocelyn Drake, Vicki Pettersson, and Holly Black to talk about faeries, vampires, and all things paranormal with Eos Executive Editor, Diana Gill.

Replay

I feel like I’m reliving my younger years lately. Friends from the past are resurfacing. People I spent high school and college years with. It’s an odd feeling, mixing the person I was back then with the one I am today. On the one hand, I feel like the same young kid who’s gotten a lot older. And on the other hand, that person from long ago doesn’t exist today.

Reminds me of the novel Replay, by Ken Grimwood. It’s a fascinating story, based on a fantasy many of us would love to experience. What if you could live your life over, with all your memories intact?

I’ll just have to settle for sharing stories of the old days over lunch, and catching up to discover who my friends from long ago have become today.

Chess

My WIP is on temporary hold until I finish a huge project at work, with a deadline of November 11th.

Which just happens to be my late father’s birthday. (Love you, Dad.)

Who just happened to have taught me how to play chess.

Which is what I’m going to be doing in November from the 21st through the 23rd, in the Georgia Class Championships.

Which reminds me of the first tournament I ever played in, the Southern Open, in Nashville Tennessee, long, long ago.

Where my very first tournament game was against a young girl. Nervous doesn’t begin to describe how I felt. A girl? Why do I have to play against a girl? Hey, I was a kid. Give me some slack.

Hopeless Romantic

Photo by Clara Natoli

All you need is love
– John Lennon

I can’t help it. I’m hopelessly drawn to good love stories. From Nickie and Terry to Sam and Joon to Clarence and Alabama to Harold and Maude, the magic takes me away every time.

Here’s a great free article by Michael Hauge on how to write romantic comedies. I don’t know if I’ll ever write a romantic comedy, and I can pretty much tell you I’ll never write a romance novel, but nearly every story I’ve written has a love story interwoven with the main plot.

And even if it isn’t always romantic love, it’s going to be some form of love. True love strips away the veil, connects us in a way that touches the core of our being. It’s not enough to peel away the layers and find some literary universal suffering. Deeper still, and the prior, underlying wholeness awakens us to something greater than isolation.

When two lovers kiss, the “other” dissolves, and we come home. I can’t think of a better way to describe the creative impulse. It’s a longing. The longing. To transcend all the crap and share something real and wonderful.

Hey Little Sparta

Engineer’s Guide to Cats

Two days of cat blogging this week. So we’ll start with an educational video.

Returning to a Favorite

Not much to report on the writing front. On the reading front, I’m returning to one of my favorite authors, Kim Harrison. The Good, The Bad, and The Undead is the second book in The Hollows series. I really enjoyed Dead Witch Walking, so I’m looking forward to the rest of the series.

Under the Weather

I don’t exactly have the flu, but I’ve been under the weather lately. No doubt because of all the work I’ve been doing, and oh yes, my mom has a cold. Nothing a little rest and some writing shouldn’t cure.

Daydreaming

I’m so busy lately, all I have time for is daydreaming as I drift off to sleep.