Rubbing Elbows

Boy, did I have a great weekend!

I love saying that. It either means I did something with my immediate family or my extended family (i.e. a bunch of writers as crazy as I am), or I got something accomplished as far as writing.

This weekend, I was able to do all three. Woo-hoo!

Basketball. Always fun for me, even when we lose, but Friday night was especially exciting. Our girls' team came out shooting for bear in the first half, led at halftime by 5, and had the other team's star player completely gassed by the end of the game. Yeah, we lost - nothing seemed to fall quite right for us in the second half - but the girls still played their little hearts out. The Tall One led her team in scoring with 10, but the whole team was better together than we've seen in several weeks. It was our last regular season game, and tournaments are this weekend - more ball to be played, as they say.

The longest - but greatest - day. So, we get home from the ball game Friday night, finally crash around 10:30-11:00, and I lie in bed staring at the ceiling for several hours before I finally fall asleep, somewhere around 1 or 2 in the morning, I think. I must have been really keyed up, from the game and from the anticipation of what I would be doing Saturday. The alarm went off at 4:30 (yes, a.m.) and by 5:20 I was out the door, picked my friend up at 6:05 and at 9:15 we pulled into the Homewood Public Library parking lot - Homewood, Alabama, that is (a suburb of Birmingham) - for the terrific Murder in the Magic City conference.

What a day! Caught up with old pals Patti Sprinkle, Julia Spencer-Fleming, and Mary Anna Evans, had the honor of meeting the delightful Robert Fate and a satisfactorily long list of fantastic writers who graciously (and enthusiastically) agreed to come visit us in the Lunch Room for one of my long-overdue interviews. I think I'll be making up some lost ground with this bunch! I'm so excited about having them join us. Stay tuned for those in the coming weeks.

Recharging the batteries. We arrived back in Nashville around 9:00 p.m., I dropped my friend off and pulled back into the garage approximately 16 hours after I left it - exhausted but elated. Told the kids we'd be doing Sunday school if I woke up in time. After waking up about three times during the night for various and sundry reasons, 8:30 came and went and my body decided it had been deprived of enough sleep to last me a couple days. I finally dragged myself out of bed around 10:00, had a cup of coffee and meandered up to the study, where I proceeded to knock out most of a synopsis for the new Work in Progress.

Deciding on a direction. It seriously pays to have a critique partner who knows what the heck she's doing, someone who will spend an hour on the phone with you, giving you the pep talk to beat all pep talks. She made the most profound observation the other day, saying, "You can write whatever you want to write, because right now you're not tied to anything specific. Take those handcuffs off and write with that passion I know you're capable of writing with!" (That wasn't quite verbatim, but I think I've reiterated the gist of it.)

So, I've made a fairly life-changing decision. (Okay, maybe that's a little dramatic. We should say ... career-stimulating?) I'm putting my past behind me and starting fresh. I have finally stopped trying to pigeon-hole myself into carrying on with characters who've worn out their welcome and have put myself firmly into a genre that I know I can write, and write well, and that is (drum roll, please) ... romantic suspense standalones. Each book will have new characters, a new story, and (I hope) new life and heart. I've already "redone" the book I started working on during NaNoWriMo 2005, at least by churning out a synopsis that will steer the book in the direction it needs to go. I love this story idea, the plot is solid, and by taking out these old characters and concentrating on who's left, it will be a stronger, more intimate, better written piece of work.

Yay, me.

I've finally decided what I want to do when I grow up. Again.

I met Laura Lippman this weekend. She is an amazing woman. She tells everyone she considers herself so very lucky to be doing what she loves to do, and she is one of the most genuinely nice people I've had the pleasure of meeting. All the authors at MMC this weekend were like that.

I am so blessed to have the opportunity to be a part of this community.

There are some who would say that "romantic suspense" is, by technical definition, a sub-category of romance rather than mystery, and that I should be hanging out with the romance crowd. Now, I'm sure they're lovely people. I simply adore the gals over at The Writing Playground. But I don't consider myself to be a romance writer, and because of my personality I feel more comfortable with (and seem to fit better into) the mystery crowd, which encompasses suspense, thrillers and a whole heck of a lot of other really great types of work we call "crime fiction". It's an awesome place to be, and I don't plan to go anywhere else.

Visiting a sick friend. The WMVR was supposed to have gone with me this weekend. Unfortunately, she had to have back surgery last Wednesday and was unable to make the trip. I'm going down to see her later this morning and taking a couple of nice surprises with me - can't say what they are because she'll be reading this and I don't want to give it away ;). Suffice to say that my point above about this bunch of folks I hang out with being kind, gracious and genuine will carry over.

Do something you love to do today, and don't take it for granted that you have the power and freedom to do it.

It's good for you.

=) JB