After some fits and starts, I started to figure things out. I transferred all my files into the program, but there was one tab that was woefully blank. You see, I have this other h/h in this world and I know their names and their roles, but I have no pictures of them. You know what that meant, right?

Time to find character pictures!

I looked through my files first, but of course, no one panned out. Off to the internet I went. It took a while, but I found my heroine. And she looked about how I expected her to look. No surprises here.

I had this image of her hero in my head. I pictured him very dark and at least somewhat grizzled. That isn't what I got.

The funny thing is that I found him by accident. Since I was already on the heroine's modeling agency website (or rather the model that looks like my heroine), I decided to check out the men there. And boom, there was the hero. It was that easy.

He also isn't as dark as I expected–his hair is brown instead of black. And grizzled? Not so much. He looks young. Not baby-face young, but younger than I thought he would. Of course, he is a vampire, so looks are deceiving, but wow.

I sat on that web page for some time trying to come to terms with his appearance. Just like I have no control over their names (seriously, the character won't work with me if I try to buck their demands) I also have no control over what they look like. Usually, my frustration comes when I have to spend hour after hour, even day after day, seeking out the right picture. This time it was relatively painless, but I still have to look at the model and wrap my mind around it.

So much for looking dangerous–even if he is. But it does make sense in a way. In Shadow's Caress, my next Nocturne Bites set in this world, Malachi (the hero) has this thought about how he wouldn't ask this particular friend to watch out over Cass (Malachi's heroine) because he has a way with human women. And this guy I found? Yeah, he'd definitely be doing well with women.

Surprises are good, right? And once I wrap my mind around this guy being the hero, he'll take over the part. It's just getting used to him.

A while later, I went out to get the mail. And saw 7 fire trucks and assorted police vehicles blocking the street!

Yes, that siren I heard was from a fire truck. I'm assuming the other emergency vehicles didn't run their sirens because I would have gotten up and checked what was going on if I heard multiple sirens wailing. Even I couldn't get that involved with something. I think.

A neighbor across the street and a few houses down had a fire in their house. It's unclear if someone called the fire department or if some alarm system sent the alert, but from what I heard, the woman put something on the stove and took the dog for a walk. Yeah. No offense meant, not even to the woman who did this, but are you kidding me? I hate cooking and quickly get bored. I'm notorious for putting something on the stove and wandering into another room. I've burned more than one attempt at edible food, but I've never been more than a room away when something was cooking. This just seems like common sense.

The family was lucky–no one was in the house when the fire started so nobody was injured. Since it took 7 fire trucks, I'm assuming the interior damage was severe, but I didn't see anything on the outside of the house. Of course, I didn't walk down to get a closer look, so who knows?

The police had the street blocked off so that no one could get through. One neighbor had to park his car on the street and walk to his house. This guy's wife is a flight attendant and a coworker was picking her up. A police officer ended up carrying her luggage for her and they walked to where the driver was waiting. When I went for the mail, I saw more neighbors out in their front yards than I've seen all summer. Everyone was checking out what was going on.

One troubling piece of information from the fire is that the fire hydrant (which happened to be one house away from the house on fire) didn't work. They had to truck water in to fight the fire. Awesome. Hopefully, this will get that hydrant fixed and maybe get a few others checked.

This is more excitement than we've had on the block since a neighbor had his car stolen out of his driveway a few years ago.

If I remember to write it in my notebook.

I have a habit of sending think-out-loud emails to my writing friends. This is fine, too. If I remember to transfer the information to my notebook. Usually, though, it goes something like this–send emails with information on ideas. Get home, have deadline (either self-imposed or contracted) so I don't take time to transfer notes. Decide I can do it later. Later comes, vaguely remember there was something, start searching email. And considering how disorganized my email is, this doesn't always yield success.

It happened again yesterday. The character from one of my series ideas started coming in strongly and I wanted to reread my notes and work on that arc. Of course, the information wasn't in my notebook.

I did a search of Gmail. The first attempt turned up too little. The second search term turned up too many.

I got lucky yesterday. I actually had the notes in my Outlook email. Filed even in folders that were labeled for easy finding. This is seldom the case. Usually, I don't find them and get more frustrated.

The other thing that was awesome? Not only did I find my notes, but one of them had information on a character/setup that I'd completely forgotten. As soon as I reread it, I got a whoosh and I knew who her hero was and his personality snapped into focus. All in all, it was an awesome outcome.

And my email notes? Cut and pasted them into OneNote so that I won't have to search email again. I still don't have them in my notebook.

If Hobbes is dancing, you know what that means–another story is finished and turned in! I just emailed Shadow's Caress, my next short story for Nocturne Bites into my editor and agent. Woot!

The simple solution would be to talk about my books as they come out. That way it would be fresh for the reader and timely. The problem with this is that by the time a book is released, those characters are long gone and my head is full of new people. If I'm writing proposals, I might have written multiple heroes and heroines by this point, and the fine details on the previous characters fades.

And the other big thing is that even if I could bring those old characters forward again, they'd interfere with my writing the new characters. Since I usually have a deadline, either for a sold project or a self-imposed one, I don't like to do this. Anything that puts space between me and the people I'm supposed to be writing is something I try to avoid.

Then there are the spoilers to consider. I'm kind of bad about revealing too much and this is another reason I tend not to talk about what I'm currently working on. Oh, sure, I can do quick little blurbs without giving too much away, but that's about my limit.

There was a quote I read once that stuck with me. Not who said it or the exact wording, but the gist of it was that you shouldn't watch how laws or sausages are made. I'd paraphrase that to you shouldn't watch how books are written or sausages are made. The writing process can be messy and ugly and torturous at times and I don't want how hard it is to write a book affecting a reader's perception of that story. Because difficulty in writing doesn't necessarily translate into the reading experience.

I've heard other authors talk about books they wrote that they hate because of how hard it was for them to write them, but that those are the books readers seem to always comment on how quickly and smoothly the story read, etc. But would those readers feel that way if they knew the author struggled mightily?

I'd hate to test that out, although I do sometimes post on Twitter about trashing a chapter again and rewriting. That just seems less serious than a blog post where I talked at length about why a scene isn't working. A tweet is transitory, there and gone in the timeline, but blogging about it seems more ponderous and permanent.

If you've read the four Light Warrior books, (In the Midnight Hour, In Twilight's Shadow, Edge of Dawn, and In the Darkest Night) then you know there's something just a little different about each of the heroines.

It isn't mentioned in Ryne's book (In the Midnight Hour) because she's unaware that's she's different, but in the second book, Creed reveals it–Ryne is the most powerful troubleshooter ever tested.

So Ryne is the strongest, the warrior, the leader.

Maia, the heroine in Twilight's Shadow, has demon powers, just a kernel of them. They all believe she can only use them against Seth, but that's not true.

Shona (Edge of Dawn) is the dragon mage.

Farran (Darkest Night) has the powers of both the darksiders and the shadow walkers.

Tris (who was introduced in EOD and had a big secondary role in Darkest Night) can do things with raw energy that is rare and special.

If the series was continuing, there would have been more heroines with unique talents. All of this is part of the Twilight Times prophecy that Creed mentions in his book. In fact, one of the post book scenes I've gotten is Creed calling together the people he knows are part of the prophecy (all of them haven't been discovered yet when he does this). There's naturally some skepticism, but he starts explaining, laying things out, and it makes sense. Still, no one wants to think the end times are really upon them.

UF Chat

One way isn't more right than the other. Writers have to do whatever works for them. If you need an 80 page synopsis and no surprises before they start, do it. If the idea of 3×5 cards paralyzes you, don't do them. Just sit down and write.

Somewhere along the way, pantsers have been told too many times that plotting is the only right way to write. It's not.

When I was 14, I decided I wanted to be a writer and tell stories. I went to the library and checked out all the writing books they had. Every single one was written by a plotter. The methods sounded torturous to me, but I wanted to be a "real" writer, and since all the books agreed that plotting was the way to go, I tried to force myself into that box. I even took my allowance and bought the vital 3×5 index cards.

Instead of being fun and a joy, writing became a misery to me. I hated doing those stupid index cards. I had no clue what was going to happen next, how could I write it down? I started doing everything I could to avoid writing and I finally had a realization. I'd never write again if I tried to do it the way the books said.

I threw the index cards in a drawer and said to myself, "Maybe I'll never be a real writer, but at least I'll have fun again."

Because of this, I'm hypersensitive to anyone saying their way is the "right" way to write. It's right for you. Do whatever works for you. If you need to write on lilac paper with an orange gel pen, go for it. If you need to fast draft and then go back and revise, go for it. If you need to totally soar into the mist and figure out the nitty gritty plot details on revision, go for it.

There is no right way!

And you know what else? Your process will change. Go with the flow and don't fight to do things the way you've always done them. What works on one book might not work on the next.

I used to be fairly far over on the pantser side of the spectrum, now I've moved toward the center. I'm still not a plotter. If my characters didn't surprise me, there'd be no point for me to write. That's what I love: the discovery and the surprises. Others don't feel that way. I'm okay with that. My way isn't the right way for anyone except me. Your way isn't the right way for anyone except you. Writing is hard enough without fighting your own process. Trust yourself and how you need to work.

Yes, all my programs, all my files, everything is being wiped out. When the erasing is finished, I'll reload my operating system and keep my fingers crossed that everything works when I'm done. This is my last hurrah, my final stand before I'll be forced to bring it in to someone to fix for me. I've tried every other suggestion I could find for the problem the computer developed, but when none of them fixed the issue, I had to resort to drastic measures.

The irony is that I bought my iMac desktop because I wanted a computer that just worked. I was tired of the hassle I had with my desktop PC, and when I was shopping, Vista was the operating system available. I didn't want that.

Right now, Vista is looking better.

Wiping the hard drive is a pain, but it's not as horrible as it could be because I have an automatic backup service and plan to reinstall all my files from there. There are only a couple of programs that I downloaded online that I want to keep, so that shouldn't be too much of a hassle either. If this desperate measure works…

Okay, erasing the drive and reinstalling worked! And it is a PITA to reload my programs, especially since I don't remember the names of a couple of the utilities I really liked. I'll worry about that later. Right now, Carbonite is restoring all my files. I'm feeling especially grateful that I paid for off-site backup.

It was dark when I left my house to go to work. I have to take a few side streets to reach the highway and one of them is major enough that it will have traffic even really early in the morning. I pull at a stop to pull out on this semi-major side street, I don't see any other vehicles coming–not a single one–and I turn on.

It's not too far to the highway, and while I glanced in my rearview mirror a couple of times, the road behind me remained deserted. And then I slowed for the yield onto the highway.

In the reflection of my taillights, I saw another vehicle. He was maybe a car length in back of me.

He was driving without any headlights, and it wasn't even borderline–it was dark. No way should anyone be driving without their lights on.

This totally freaked me out!

My first thought was that he was a police officer trying to catch speeders, but the way people drive in the Twin Cities, he didn't need his headlights off to give out tickets. Once I ruled that idea out, my imagination kicked into gear. Why was this guy driving without lights?

I'll never know the real answer to this question. My current favorite scenario involves nefarious activity. There have been a rash of garage thefts in the area–maybe this is our culprit? Of course, driving like that is guaranteed to attract attention–look at how much time I've spent thinking about this–where if he'd just turned his lights on, no one (including me) would have thought twice about him.

Some people wonder where writers get their ideas. Look no farther. As I spin scenarios in my head, I'm already thinking I wonder if there's a book/story here?