I'm shy about posting this, but I've probably bored all of you with it somewhere so, wth?
The Other Side of Unrequited Love is easy to get stuck in, even as the fantasies fade, and a long shot becomes a non-shot.

1. It’s still always a thrill to hear from the Beloved, who has quickly become an oasis of sane and smart in a very crazy and stupid world. A word from him is like giving my heart an espresso and in the Bush years, that can be very hard to find.

2. I like the me I see through his eyes better than the one that’s in mine.(Although to be fair to myself, I do nothing but burnish my A-game during the times we speak and struggle hard not to say anything stupid. I work harder writing for him than I ever did on my resume.) I think he may think I’m a genius...his platonic woman friend genius,...but I’m harshing my own buzz.

3. Sublimating instincts makes me write really hard, and like I finally have stuff to say. So much passion and empty hands makes my keyboard like a liquored up prom date.

4. My complexion cannot tell the love chemicals are based on bullshit. Seriously, when I’m not thinking I’m The Ugliest Woman Alive, who will certainly Die Alone, I’ve detected a bit of a glow, lately.

It’s almost worth the pain. Almost.

So much passion and empty hands makes my keyboard like a liquored up prom date.

I really, really love this, erika. I'm here with my rum and coke and my date, too. I'm starting to think I should get one of those computers that talks to you.

It's beginning to bother me how often I speak of writing in sexual terms. No wonder almost everyone I've ever been hot for writes.

Proposals blow. I don't know any dramatic anecdotes.

Done and done!

Formal proposal including marketing ideas that make me sound like a one-woman professional firm are all off to agent.

Gah.

And thanks for the beta, deb. Good catches.

Hell, I suck at marketing. I just beg my rowdy friends and well-connected daughter for help.

Although, once the Kinkaid Chronicles go to press, I'm going to have to swallow very hard and ping a few people I've been hiding from for thirty years.

Gah.

Allyson, they were pretty minor - mostly structure tweaks.

Having been a dutiful woman and worked on the "the cheque's in the post and you have a deadline, bitch!" book all afternoon, I've been writing the long-form synopsis for the second Kinkaid book all evening. That's While My Guitar Gently Weeps. I forget how spoiled I've been by having an editor who knows what I can do, so she doesn't want or need the standard stuff. The Kinkaid books are not going to be allowed near Minotaur, and that means I have to do the standard longer form synopses.

Luckily, I actually like doing the damned things. But I'm cross and cranky because I'm not used to being expected to do them.

Ah, crap. The discussion drifted away from the issues related to drafting dialog that might match up with reader's expectations, right when I was hoping for a solution.

I'd try to rely on things like "go get me a couple cans of tuna from down cellar" or "don't touch them boxes neither" to get across the local flavor

blinks

Wow. Looks just like generic Northern UK English.

Bloody loved that, Erika. Gorgeous.

Looks just like generic Northern UK English.

It's funny how things like that line up. I've seen examples of Northern Irish dialect that look like Pittsburghese to me. There are probably similar parallels elsewhere as well.

Weird synchronicity: so I'm still working on this original novel (albeit with much less speed than most of your good selves) and one of my main characters is about to go into a bar. The bar doesn't exist, but I've located it on Frith Street, in Soho, a few shops along from Jimmy's Greek Taverna; it's one of those places, inasmuchas people won't notice it unless they know it's there. (My book being all magical, and stuff, and this bar having, over the course of the past 24 hours, gradually become a sort of Callahan's Crazy Crosstime Salloon/Willy's Bar/Caritas kind of place, in my head.)

On a whim, and remembering that there was a site that did this, I went to check out what's really there.

As you'll discover, Bar Humbug, ladies and gentlemen, is located between the Offices of the Chinese chambers of commerce, and Little Italy.

Unfortunately it doesn't show up in photographs, and if you go to Soho you'll probably walk right past it without noticing it consciously, because of the nature of the glamour that's been cast on it. But it's there.

nods.

(...I think I may have to work in a visit to Garlic and Shots too. It being a vampire novel.)