Fawn

Reading Nora Roberts The Calhoun Women and I think I must remember to name a character Fawn someday. "'I know your type,' she muttered. 'Born rich and above the common man. Your only goal in life is to make more money, regardless of who is affected or trampled over. You have big parties and summer houses and mistresses named Fawn." Has anyone ever written about poor little Fawn? (Really, have they? Let me know if they have! I want to read it!)

On my actual writing.... That's not going so well. I'm not going to win nano this year either unless I manage a stroke of inspiration so deep I write several days straight without stopping. Unlikely. I think one of my issues is that I've been reading to many books on writing and now I can't get past the first few pages without knowing where I'm going and that part has been hard to figure out. My past usual way of writing is making a character and following her for a while. I have the characters, but I can't follow them because I keep stopping to try to figure out all the where's she going part.

I'm not so good at the leading, it seems. Or I keep doing the second-guessing. And the really-what-do-i-want-to-write-ing. Urban Fantasy covers a lot of ground -- requiring only a modern or futuristic setting and paranormal/fantasy beings. I like computers and the internet and the possibilities modern tech provides. I also like magic and mystery and myth. But do I want to focus on romance like Keri Arthur? Do I want to focus on mystery like LKH or Jim Butcher? Traditional fantasy leans more toward finding their way or quests like Kim Harrison (though she does throw in a mystery or two and a romance or two). I really like the mixing of magic with the modern of Urban Fantasy, but the very openness of the genre added to all the hints and clues and ways of the books I've read (especially the structure books) has me choking.

Also, something in my house smells like incense and is giving me a headache. I think it's probably a garage sale book. I just have to figure out which one. Or which several since I think I'm smelling it in several rooms.  I'd say it was the Nora Roberts one I've been reading and I was smelling it on my hands, but I smelled the book directly and it's not. Worst case scenario (and what would be true were I in a novel rather than real) would be brain tumors and phantom scents. See, that part works.

But if I'm going down the mystery trail, I need to add a hint or a murder. If I'm going in the romance direction, a man has to show up pretty soon. And I'm stuck. Hopefully the rest of you are doing better (even those of you not writing).