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I've been keeping journals as Joe and I travel from place to place. This is what it was like here, last Saturday night, at our house in Big Sur:

"Writing by candle light. It's a bit of a windy night and we've lost power off and on all day. Made writing my NaNoWriMo novel that much more challenging, as if I needed another one. Joe and I had been watching "Gladiator" when the lights finally decided to go out for the night. Joe has gone to bed.

It's amazing how much focus a person gets when the lights go out. Truly. Nearly every distraction, except the slow hum of a far off generator, silenced. Candlelight so dim I have to get the candles positioned just right to see the page. When I place my pen down it is lost to the darkness, even on this moonlit night. I write by flashlight now.

The wind chimes make their music..ding, da, dum, ding. Chimes we bought on our honeymoon on Maui. There is a huge bell hanging from the corner of the house. When it rings I know the winds are fierce. It sits quiet this night.

As we have hit the road this year, it occurs to me that the chimes have been the thing we've taken from place to place to make us feel at home. [That, a crystal bear, a pirate and a chunk of blue-green glass but those are other stories]. That little piece of Maui, those memories that started it all are what see us through, keep us company, everywhere we go. My parents backyard chimes come to mind. The one gifted to us rings in the wind. More memories keep me company.

The moon is three-quarters full and casts a bluish-white tint on the world, inside and out. A gigantic moonlit rectangle lights up our floor, streaming in through a skylight above. The skylight the size of the one we put in our first house on Vestal, in Echo Park in Los Angeles. This kind of moonlight will always remind me of the night before Candy was born. I think that's the night I ever really admired the beauty of moonlight. How it can make the mundane magical. How it can comfort. The moon and I have had an understanding ever since."

Behind my advent calendar window today: a man playing the violin, I think of my dad.

My dear Mx...I've got my "cheer up" post up a little late tonight. In Italy it is 4 AM. I've been SO happy to Skype with you. Glad you didn't go to class today. Hope you are feeling MUCH better today, er, tomorrow? Hope these little things might cheer you up! [Gammy and Grandpa, Uncle Mark, Nanny, Aunt Suz, Uncle Mark the galy gals [Ra, Em, and Katie] ALL send their LOVE!]:

While I was washing dishes tonight the sun set and I took this picture just for you. Even the "Sunset Snob" would have loved this one! Don't you agree?



Oh, yeah, and Mischief says "Woof!" He saw the pic of your scar and thinks you are a TOTAL bad a$$:



Here's a little trip down memory lane for you...



Remember New Orleans? Our Road Trip was freaking amazing. Turns out we stayed at a Haunted Hotel. Just CLICK HERE and scroll down until you read about The Omni Royal New Orleans and scream your freakin' head off when you remember what we saw in the mirror!!!!!!!! I'll never forget our first night in New Orleans at that Blues place. SO freaky. That bartender had supernatural powers! Totally! And...speaking of supernatural powers...

You know how I get at Halloween! Well, it's only natural that I'm checking out all the Haunted Hawaiian spots starting tomorrow. Hopefully I'll have a few great stories to tell:) Heck, YOUR stories have been blowing me out of the water! hahahaha!

Click on THIS if you dare....mmmmmwwwwaaaaaHHHHHHHH!

More on Haunted Hawaii HERE

On deck in Maui? Something about a black sand beach and a Bamboo Forest.

We are SO PROUD OF YOU. xoxoxoxoxoxooxoxoxoxoxoxoxooxoxoxoxoxoxooxoxoxoxooxoxoxoxoxoxooxoxoxoxoxooxoxox

It's what no mom wants to hear: "Mom, I'm in the emergency room." [in Milan] And I didn't even get to hear it because with our recent move and lack of cell phone reception, my daughter couldn't remember our new number as she was in shock so, called the hubby. He talked her through the accident/emergency room on Thursday night. I found out bits and pieces of what happened when he got home. Didn't want to tell me over the phone.

I wish more than anything that I could be with Mx and lay an afghan over her and make her some chicken soup and tell her everything is going to be all right. This is the place where I'm posting things to cheer Mx up. We are very proud of her ability to handle such a taumatic event so far away from home. Mx, this is for you.......

Here's The Restaurant, now it's open to the public, and it's where we'll all celebrate your Italian adventures when you come home. Nice to see it full of life again:) How do you think it turned out?







Here's Dad's new office. Oso loves the courtyard and there's an open field where he likes to play, but he likes to escape to the shopping center close by to make new friends:







Here's a few photos from the weekend. Five condors flew directly over our heads on our hike to see the waterfall at Julia Pfeiffer Burns, Nanny got to see where you and Bridgette spent your Bday:







We love you and are very proud of you, Sweetie. Take care of that "shark bite."

Writers could learn a lot from restauranteurs. For those who don't know, my hubby has been renovating The Ventana Inn & Spa in Big Sur, CA for the past year and a half. While the renovation to the Inn completed last summer, the restaurant, formerly called Cielo, burned in a fire and was about 2/3 destroyed. Last night there was a soft opening of the repaired restaurant, now called The Restaurant at Ventana. I've never been invited to a soft opening before. The evening reminded me of what writer's go through during the writing process.

We came a little early. The staff still mobilizing. The room had a part-opening-night-jitters-part-battle-plan feel. The energy writers sometimes bring to their first drafts.

Joe and I sat on the terrace outside, watching the sun set into the marine layer flowing over the Pacific. We remembered all the other times we'd sat there since arriving in Big Sur. Enjoying a family Easter celebration. In the smoke and ash of the wildfires. Watching flames descend on Ventana as the renovations had nearly completed. With bagged lunches, munching to the sound of buzz saws. Reminded me of the hard work of revision and the work writers don't anticipate when we have to dig deeper to get to the heart of a story.


When we strolled back into the restaurant, I marveled at the dining room full of patrons. The restaurant filled with the ghosts of the fire fighters that sought food and refuge as they fought the wildfires last year and endured my horrible fruit salad.






For dinner, we sat at a table, where in the middle of a dark June night a year ago, Joe assessed the fire damage fresh from our weekly drive back from Los Angeles. The stars put on a show through the nearly restaurant-wide hole the fire inflicted in the roof.



The scent of porterhouses and mushrooms, sea bass and heirloom tomatoes, instead of varnish and sawdust flavored the air. That together with the animated cook line, diners' conversations and a foraged mushroom strudel [to die for] was like reading a finished novel as opposed to earlier drafts.

Our server, Diane, welcomed us and handed out a few menus. Tucked inside were forms to fill out. Questions about our dinning experience. What worked, what didn't and what impressions we had, suggestions, from the service to the entrees. We marked our favorite dishes and our least favorite. A critique.

By the end of the night we'd sampled lots of food and had formed strong opinions. Today the staff will take the feedback and make the experience better for the guests tonight and then for the general public on Friday. We will be there again on Friday. Wouldn't miss it. It's kind of like a release party.

I am jealous, though, of our culinary cousins. They get face-to-face daily feedback and make their adjustments accordingly. Authors, well, not so much. They get the feedback from their critique partners, editors, agents but by the time they get the feedback from their readers, well, the text has long since been cooked, so to speak. But, whether the feedback is good or bad and whether those changes can be implemented on a daily basis or not, the most important part of both processes is the customer. The patron. The reader. And as I shared a apple-cheddar tart with my husband, I dreamed of Friday night, the big night, and wondered what writers could learn from soft openings.

Writers can be hard on themselves, like our culinary cousins. I think the idea of a soft opening is one that writers could use to take the edge off. It's soft. Cuddly. It's there to make things better. You dine among friends. Critiques are the same way. No matter how unexpected the feedback, or the process for that matter, people who give feedback on our stories have the same goal in mind: giving our patrons, our readers, the best experience possible. So take a deep breath the next time you get a critique that didn't go so well, or might put you through the process of major repairs. It's a soft opening that will inspire us to dig deeper and result in a story that's not half-baked.

If you are in the area, stop on by The Restaurant at Ventana on Friday. Joe and I would love to see you.

My dog crashed a wedding last Saturday. And a few days ago, he took a little walk down Hwy One.

Bad. Dog. But, not really.

See he's sad and he needs a lot of attention and he's not afraid to show it. His buddy and big brother hasn't been able to play with him.

Why?

Because a few weeks back when fog gave way to sweltering nights on the California Coast and when we discovered we had another pet, a bat we named Vlad [but I won't go into that], Oso and Joe [my husband] were doing what they always do. Wrestling on the floor, playing and hanging out. Oso, although he's a 75-pound dog, thinks he's a lap dog, so he would at some point crawl into Joe's lap which made Joe decidedly uncomfortable in the heat, but, well, it's Oso's thing.

When the heat subsided, poison oak flared. Wow. Joe had it bad, bad last year and he's got an amazing case of it again. And so, Joe can't pet toxic dog who we nicknamed Gozer in our horror at what a cute, toxic-laced-furry form The Destructor chose. And so it's been weeks of very little petting and wrestling and been a general lap-dog-free zone. Poor guys. Since then Oso is glued to me. He doesn't want to go outside and sleeps all day inside. And, when I have let him outside he's run away. Whenever the phone rings my heart skips a beat thinking it will begin, "Hi. I've got your dog here..." So, my poor hubby is hopped up on steroids, barely able to sleep at night, and I've got a depressed dog. You might wonder what the upside is. Is there one?

Well, yes. And, no.

Oso has brought a whole bunch of new people into my life. People I wouldn't have otherwise met had he not gone galavanting around. He's gotten to be the talk of Burns Creek if not the South Coast. I met a great gal from Santa Fe, NM today when I took Oso out for a walk. I didn't need to explain why Oso was on such a short leash. She'd heard about him running away. She shared the wonders of Yapala, Mexico with me and I shared the wonders of Pie Town, NM with her. We got out the map to see our future destinations. On her ride back to New Mexico she thought she'd stop for a piece of pie in Pie Town, a place she had never heard of. Which is why she brought up Yepala, a place I'd never heard of, in the first place. Ladies hawk pieces of pie on the beach in Yepala. My kind of place:) This led to a discussion of what pie I was making this weekend and how different siblings can be which segued into our birth order and the karmic nature of things. Then there was the guy Mack Murphy who called and helped Oso find his way back home, and the young girl Chrissy who called to say Oso was their newest wedding guest.

Thanks Oso. That was cool.

I guess he thinks I should get out more, meet more people.

There really isn't anything cool about poison oak. Especially coming down with it when Joe did as he winds one job down and starts another. It is kind of tripy seeing Joe up at 3AM and not me. But not fun. Especially when he works all night.

Here's hoping these two can get back together again soon. That the poison oak goes away fast and that Oso and Joe can play and wrestle again and one day very soon I'll find Oso asleep on Joe's lap.

Every time I hear Erin Gafill speak it's exactly that. Went to a charming independent book store in Capitola called the Capitola Book Cafe where Erin was having a reading from her book DRINKING FROM A COLD SPRING and she had a mini-memoir workshop after. Erin is so interesting. Her great-great grandmother, Jane Powers started the artist's enclave in Carmel-by-the-Sea at the turn of the 20th Century. Together with her great-great-grandfather they cultivated an artist community and even made sure that houses were close together so that people would have to get to know their neighbors. Erin has lived her whole life at Nepenthe ["no sorrow"], in Big Sur and is a well-known fine artist too. Her book is a compilation of essays that she wrote over the past year about her life. Very inspirational.

The mini-memoir workshop was a gem. Here's the advice she gave. "Natalie Goldberg, a famous writing teacher, has good advice for writers....write fast...and so she gave us a prompt "I remember" and had us write for five minutes, as fast as possible, and if we got stuck she suggested we just repeat the words "I remember" to keep us writing. You should try it.

Another beautiful thing that Erin said last night was that paintings aren't about answers they are about questions. And I think that applies to writing too. We are constantly challenged to hope our readers asks the right questions as they read our stories and find their own answers off the page...

We had our first rain storm in the new house last night. Haven't had rain since we lived in the wine barrel and the last storm was prolly in February. It wasn't really a storm, but a slow steady rain that lasted most of the night. There are little puddles on the deck this morning reflecting the deep blue Pacific. When the rain started falling last night Oso perked up his ears and bobbed his head up and down trying to detect the source of the strange sound. Joe's like, "Is that rain?" I turned down the Bears/Packers game. Yes.

Rain in this house sounds so much different than the rain in our old home. In LA, our steel gutters made raindrops sound kind of harsh and steely. Here, they fall on wood and the sound is softer. Turns out the house is water tight after all. With all the skylights we open to keep this place cool, we wondered. So, after battening down the hatches, all was well. Not one leak. Of course it was a soft rain. We'll see how we do if El Niño actually shows up this year. Rain in September? A sure sign he's knocking on our door.

Another thing that made me smile was Candy's call yesterday. Every week the kids call. I made a request before they both flew the coop this year: every week I want one good story. They are wonderful. And, I try to reciprocate. A sort of quid pro quo. This week, her story was so much better than mine, usually is. It made me smile.

Today is the day. Today is the day that this place feels like home. I don't know why it's taken so long to get the feeling back. But, it did. We've lived here for almost two years now [albeit most of the time we traveled to LA every weekend, and lived in different rooms every week at Ventana and a wine barrel some of the time] but, after selling our house and moving to a house in Big Sur–for awhile :)– I've always been a little bit like, um, not quite used to the whole thing. I mean it's beautiful. But the living part was an adjustment. Going to town. Navigating Monterey, Carmel, Pacific Grove, Sand City, Marina to get, you know, things done.

But today was different.

Maybe I felt at home when Margaux and I Skyped and I saw her smiling face. In laughing and talking about school and the upcoming Italian rail strike and how Italian deparment stores are different than American ones and that there aren't these huge warehouse stores so she shops at Mom & Pop shops and loves it, I took a sip of coffee and didn't feel very far away from her at all.

Maybe I felt at home because I visited a new dentist today and he was a great guy. Or it had something to do with the fact that I sat in the dentist chair and looked out the floor-to-ceiling windows at the Eucalyptus/Redwood forest and, there, in the thick of the trees sculptures of wooden bears were getting their teeth cleaned too. One bear even had a dentist next to him, holding a nitrous oxide tank. Hilarious. Maybe I'm just on a high [no I didn't have any nitrous] because I didn't have any cavities.

Maybe I felt at home because I didn't need to google all day trying to find places to run my errands. It had something to do with knowing my way to the wharf in Monterey and buying some clams at our favorite seafood place there. It was the feeling I got walking into the Paris Bakery Cafe which made the best skinny hazelnut latte I've had in quite some time. Maybe I felt at home when the guy behind the counter joked with me saying the smiley face cookies I bought there were just too cute to eat. Or, it must have been the summer fruits and veggies I picked up at Cornucopia Market, which our neighbor, who is a fabulous cook, told us about the other day.

Whatever it was, today was the day. And it makes my happy.

I apologize most sincerely for not posting more on the road trip. But, it's like a Monty Python apology: I apologize for the interruption of this road trip by another road trip which was interrupted by company which then led to LOTS OF WRITING. Which, I guess is a good thing, but, oh man, I love the pics that are coming up and what to do? WHAT TO DO? Well, I will post day three Raleigh to Nashville tomorrow and since I lack the ability to follow through I might *face palm* combine days? NO!

Today I saw a barge in tow on the not so calm Pacific and it inspired me so much. Isn't it amazing how little things can help big things out? I mean that tow boat looked like a spec of dust in the ocean. I grabbed my binoculars and was totally glued to the whole thing. Fascinating to see. Most barges stay way, way, out on the horizon. I wonder what that was like sailing the high seas unable to get the ship to shore. Wow.

So here's the deal. SCBWI is going on in LA [my former hometown] and I don't know if it's a combination of homesickness, stalker or just the fact that a girl needs a good old fashioned break from plotting her novel. Anyhoo, ya'all must check out The Offical SCBWI Conference Blog Fantastic Posts from the lucky attendees. AND if you tweet you must check out #scbwi09 for real-time fun from the workshops/break-out sessions and conference fun.

TGIF! What a beautiful evening it is here in Big Sur.


My brothers and I knew every word of this sketch by Monty Python. We used to stay up late and play with the antenna on the TV in the basement to try and get reception so we could watch Monty Python's Flying Circus. Great memories, that.

It's been a good day. I've done all kinds of things. I was sort of in a bad mood this morning. You see, I miss my dishwasher. It was a really nice dishwasher. A Physer-Pykel and it was my super spoily gift to myself when we chose our appliances for our old house. Here, we wash dishes old school. Washing everything by hand. But, I didn't have a beautiful view of the Pacific in my old house. So, hmmmm I'll take the view:)

I rambled a bit today [much like this post]. Cleaned and organized the kitchen. Baked some banana bread. Unpacked some boxes and did laundry, changed the sheets on the bed. I thought myself clever for two reasons. One, when I discovered we didn't have any baking soda, I substituted baking powder instead, and the banana bread turned out fine [images of a mass of banana mush haunted me during the cooking process until I saw the bread rise about a half and hour in], and two, I found oodles of places to put all our extra kitchen spices/supplies in the nooks and crannies of our kitchen. So...we have much fewer boxes now than we did this morning. Yeah! I'm not what you'd call organized, but it is feeling a lot better to not have so much cardboard everywhere.

I find that I have spurts of unpacking fever. It comes and goes. It's been mostly gone since moving in here for good last week. Time is so bizarre. It seems like no time since we moved in here but forever ago since we left our home in SoCal and we did both on the same day.

Want to share something hanging by a couple magnets on my refrigerator. It's a comic strip I cut out of the LA Times a while back, "Pearls Before Swine," by Stephan Pastis. Two pigs are walking along a road and one pig says to the other:

"Where's Rat today?"

"He got a job as a book editor. He picks which submissions get published and which don't. And they're letting him work from home." The other pig responds.

"That's great, but isn't that a lot of reading for him? Or does he shortcut it by just reading the first few chapters of each submission?" The first pig asks.

"Yeah, I think he shortcuts it." The second pig responds.

The last frame is Rat at his computer:

"Dear Sir,
Your opening word, "the," was less than compelling. Better luck next time."

Too. Funny.

Began this fine morning by taking a hike just above our house. I don't know why I don't do this more often. True, it's quite the butt-busting hill. But, I do require the busting. I guess it's just so cozy in the mornings with the fog sweeping over the house. I don't quite want to leave. But today, the reward was sweet. Hiking just above the marine layer was such a sight. Nothing but fog hugging the rugged coast for miles in each direction. The land a kind of ribbon, twisting its way through the mist. The sun warm on my back. And it was a wonderful way to begin this day. Seeing something I'd never seen before. And I reflected that as Candy turns 23 today, I was 23 when I had her.

Can't wait for Candy's birthday dinner tonight at Sahdowbrook. Her plans for the year ahead include a road trip across the United States. You can check out her adventure at Alex, Candice, 2 Hamsters, 40 states, and 6 months.

So. Many. Memories. Fun to reflect on all the good times.

Sooner or later we all do. One way or another. When my youngest told me she celebrated her 20th by literally jumping off a cliff into the Pacific Ocean I couldn't help but realize that Joe and I were doing the same thing in our own way. And isn't that what life is all about? I told Mx how cool it was and how brave she is [after I thanked her for not dying]. And I reflected on how many new experiences our whole family is having this year. The list is so long, won't go into it here. Bottom line though? Change is so good. And life, even though you might not recognize the one you are living from time to time, has a funny way of all working out. Now...back to my edits!

So, we stopped by Nepenthe for lunch. They are having their 60th celebration today. Erin Gaffel, a wonderful writer and artist, invited us to a reading of her cousin's soon-to-be-published story "My Nepenthe," chronicling her life growing up at Nepenthe in Big Sur. What a wonderful reading. I pre-ordered my copy. "My Nepenthe" will be coming out in the fall. Tango music spilled in from the patio at the restaurant below. As I type at Ventana now, we can here the bongos. All day party including belly and fire dancers. Should be a fun night. Happy Birthday Nepenthe!

Back in the barrel late last night, make that early this morning. Giving it a much needed cleaning today. Barrelkeeping cracks me up. I seem to be in perm Spring Cleaning mode.

A little "foggy" from the drive from LA to Big Sur last night. Got a late start from a slightly fogged in Malibu, where I stopped for coffee. While Oso and I waited for Joe, Oso turned the cute on and charmed a fair number of fellow caffiene addicts. Met a couple gals from Nashville who told me about worm races. Interesting. Not exactly sure how that works but, OK. I'm in. So,I googled "worm races Tennessee" and found The Wooly Worm Festival To quote from the site:

"Finally, there is no other experience in life that can produce the absurd euphoria that comes from cheering for a caterpillar to climb a string. It is so indisputably ridiculous that it is completely liberating!"

And the $1000 first price is pretty sweet too:) So, if you don't have anything going on the third weekend in October [October 17-18, 2009] and find yourself around "The Balcony of the Blue Ridge Mountains" in Banner Elk, NC I'd participate in the absurd euphoria. I mean, how many shots does a person get at absurd euphoria?

This is not the first I've heard [while on my travels] of various animals' weather predicting powers. One lady I met is convinced that the squirrels in Monterey predict the rainy seasons. She knew, for instance, that this year would be a dry one. The tell "tail" sign? Scrawny tails. Check.

Any of you predict the weather with wildlife? Lemmeknow.

Took in a gorgeous, huge, magenta sun setting over the Santa Ynez Valley on the drive. Sorry about all those adjectives, got a fog hangover-I got nothing. Right after the sunset Oso escaped his leash while we went to grab some sandwiches in Los Olivos. He decided to hop into a pickup with a complete stranger. The lady was sweet. She said that dogs want nothing but to get free but once they are, they worry a little. And so Oso just looked for a good place to hang for a while. About two more hours into our drive, Joe was exhausted so I took the wheel at Ragged Point for the drive up the Big Sur coast in the most amazing fog I've ever seen. I love fog lights. Sasha Fierce and the soundtrack to The Soloist kept me company on the drive, and, in a clearing as I wound around the coast, I spotted two ships at sea lit up like offshore oil derricks. Looked like something from a dream.

OK, back to washing the floor. And, oh yeah, those edits...

Mx flies home tongiht:) Lots going on here so I'll be posting pretty randomly for the next week or so...Happy Spring all!

I did want to post some pics from our travels:





Our Laundromat




The bulletin board at the laundromat




Construction begins on Cielo

Saw these beautiful wildflowers on the drive home from Big Sur today.










I'm. Home. Ahhhhh.....

Loving the fast Internet connection here in civilization. The connection I have at The Barrel is SOOOOOO dicey lately and when it works it's oh. SO. SLOW. Have many photos to upload...one day soon.

Last night Joe and I went out to celebrate meeting my first deadline with my editor. We went to Nepenthe and had a wonderful dinner. And as we were dining a good friend came up to us and asked me if Joe told me the story about the wild woman. I'm like, "Ah, no." So Eric and Joe proceeded to tell me the crazy story about one of the "woods people," a barefoot older woman with wild eyes and crazy hair, dressed in a see through top and capris, who popped out of the redwoods [Yano, like they do] while Joe and Eric had pulled over at a turnout to chat. She asked for a ride to a store very close by.

And I'm listening to the story and it just keeps getting better and better and all the while I'm thinking, "Hmmmm. If a man popped out of the woods with see-through pants on I think I prolly would have mentioned it to my hubby."

Is this the difference between men and women? Women do talk more, I'm sure. Are we natural storytellers?

But, maybe that's a biased storyteller/writer's POV. Hubby just doesn't go on and on about anything. Not the chit-chat, small talk type. He's got stories to tell, for sure, he just doesn't feel the need to spew all of his like I do. But srsly? Wild woman jumping out of redwoods? I think I mighta brought that one up. You?

Today I'm typing in my bra and a very sheer skirt. The barrel is heating up fast this morning. I am grateful that we have water again. We've been flittering lately. Not quite hampstering, as is my usual M.O. More like flittering. A question we ask every weekend, a la Clash, is "Should we stay or should we go?" Looks like we are staying again this weekend. I may or may not be driving to Bitterwater this afternoon to take care of some property in the hills of California whose fame faded fast after the gold rush and all that's left to give anyone any idea that people had populated that part of the world is an abandoned cemetery with a few marble gravestones still standing and a wooden gate with the word "Cemetary" painted in white. It's beautiful there. Quiet and Oso likes to rile up the cows. It all depends on meetings and conference calls. Meanwhile I read over my first 50 pages for the last pass on some edits I've made before I send them in to my editor. I'm looking forward to working with her.

As I get my manuscript submission ready, I am reminded of a conversation I had with my editor at The LA Times. He was interested when he learned I was writing fiction and the first question out of his mouth was, "Who is your editor?" I was like, "Um, well, we really don't have any. We go to critique groups and we revise that way. To which he replied, "Every one needs and editor." So true. But so hard to find.

I have to post this because I just can't stop laughing every time I see it!

Took a trip to Monterey over the weekend. First we headed for a Laundry and then we headed for the pier.







We went to the fish market to pick up a tasty bass for dinner,




Then, on our way back to the car,




Got a view of the Bay




Talked with some kids on their way to Louisiana.

Great way to spend a Saturday!

Shamrocks by the Sea
A gift to you from me.
For today only, I'll email my notes from the Big Sur Writer's Workshop to anyone who PMs me with their email address.

I love St. Patrick's Day. Three fun things that's happened to me on St. Patty's Days gone by:

1. Ditching High School to go to the St. Patrick's Day parade in Chicago with my buddies.
2. Trapping Leprechauns
3. Accepting an offer on the sale of our first house.

Celebrating today by making corned beef and going to hear a local band play at a restaurant in town.

To get your Irish on go here and here.

This just in: Had our water turned off at the barrel this AM. Tank low, should be full this morning. We've got plenty of beer though. Maybe I should take a bath in it!

Five Interesting Questions I'm Pondering:

1. What is my goal for this book?

2. What is my goal as a writer?

3. What kind of dessert am I? [Yeah, you've seen the email. I'm Chocolate Frosting on Chocolate Cake]

4. When is enough enough? Some answers here.

5. Why do I tweet?

And I have to say that there is nothing like riding a motorcycle through a glade of Eucalyptus Trees.

Posting this here because yesterday one of my tweeple linked to this Elizabeth Gilbert video on creativity and it made me feel fabulous:



I think writers, even aspiring ones like me, get asked this question all the time. And I have to say that the answer is pretty simple. Everywhere. Like here and here. I love that humans have a fascination about getting lost.

I've been thinking a lot about my muse lately. Since I wasn't certain if she was a guy or a gal in my last post, I got curious. So I sat and thought about it a while. How do I see a story typically and what "voice" do I hear. For the most part I'd have to say that my muse is a 16 yr. old dreamer. A girl, sometimes a girl who sees herself as more like a woman. I like thinking about where my voice comes from as a writer. If you get a glimpse of your muse today you might want to take a good look at him or her.

Three very scary words that make writing anything less scary: Open. Heart. Surgery. Hoping our good friend is on the road to recovery very, very soon.

First of all I WON the coveted dollar Oscar bet this year. Every year the family [achem, well this year it was just me and Joe] fills out their Oscar ballot and the one who chooses the most winners wins the buck. I got 17 right this year. Feeling. Groovy. Only got one out of two of my online predictions right, but nailing the Best Adapted Screenplay category felt good and Sean Penn is awesome [though, I wish he would have sent a shout out to Buttercup, his wife!]

Ah, well. Good times. No real Mardi Gras plans tonight, yet. Got my beads ready though.

I love my muse. Not sure if she's a boy or a girl but when I'm visited it feels fantastic. Like, last night, when I was re-reading Writing the Breakout Novel by Donald Maass [because I learn something new every time I read it and he'll be at The Big Sur Writing Workshop that I'm attending in a couple weeks. Do download the free book called "The Career Novelist" off the agency website. Fantastic. ] a story just came to me. Seriously. And, in typical writer-nerd fashion, I rolled over and reached for my bedside notebook and started scribbling. YES. I absolutely LOVE that kind of channeling of a character. One who shows up and doesn't care what your doing and just starts telling you things. And here's the thing, it may or may not take the next 5 years of my life to sort out exactly who's telling this story, but I don't care. I love it.

What am I working on today? Writing the end of a novel I began four years ago. It's so funny how somethings come easy and others, well, don't. I'd say about 90 pages came easy so I can't complain. But those 90 pages had to cook for a while. So, as I type here at the barrel, I'm giving my muse a shout out for following me up to Big Sur and whispering in my ear. Thank you!