I'm feeling MUCH better now

There's nothing like the end of a deadline. First, you feel as if you must be mistaken. You know that can't be enough words, that the plot is wrong, the characters insipid, the theme obscure. Then you go back over the last chapter or two one or more time more just to make sure, and you sit there. You have nothing more to do. You're free.

I keep thinking of that line about if you open a cage on a bird who's been inside a long time, it won't know it's free. Same feeling. No, I must continue to feel obsessed, pressured, frantic, pumped up and high. No. There's no need. It's like coming off the biggest high in the world. The good news is that before you realize you don't need the adrenaline anymore, you've cleaned your office, caught up on correspondence, done your grocery shopping and wallpapered the bathroom(not really. Certainly not in my house). Then, I thought, I'm going to treat myself to a morning in bed. A lunch at a restaurant with a book. A slow meander through the garden center of my choice so I can actually plant something in my garden.

Instead I spent the day in the dentist's office getting an emergency root canal. "Have you been under inordinate stress that caused you to grind your teeth to splinters and provoke mind-searing pain?" he asked. "Why, no. Why should you think that?"

But I'm feeling MUCH better now. I'm off deadline. For at least a week.

I think I'd better put a bite guard in my office.

eileen\kathleen, the evil twins

back at 1

Deadline. Writing. Words. Many, many words. I go now........

words are my life

I got to use the word concupiscent today. Okay, you might say. So what? So I've been wanting to use that word since I first read it in Wallace Steven's poem "The Emperor of Ice Cream" in high school. The actual line is

Call the roller of big cigars,
The muscular one, and bid him whip
In kitchen cups concupiscent curds.


The poem goes on to reflect a wake. But I found myself stopped dead at that word, at the way it clattered off my tongue. At the lovely round vowels and sharp consonents. I had to find out what this wonderful word meant. And yes, it means kind of what it sounds like. Great sexual passion. Works for me.

But the sound of it! I don't just love writing words. I love saying them. I love poetry and romance because there are few things more fun than alliteration. I mean, come on. Kitchen cups concupiscent curds. Say that fast three times. Even better, dig out Poe's poem "The Bells." By the end you're shouting the words so fast you sprain your tongue. At least once a year I read it out loud to my empty house (okay, and my cat. But she's not so much a Poe fan) just to hear it.

But I got to use concupiscent in a book. Specifically in The Unfortunate Miss Fortunes. Even more specifically, about Aunt Rellie, who enslaves men and feeds off them until they're dust and blow away. Which is just about what her niece Dee wishes would happen to her. We'll find out if it does. But in the meantime, I got to say concupiscent. What a cool job this is.

eileen\kathleen, the evil twins

Busy, busy, busy

I'm back on the road again. I spent the last four days in New York with Jenny Cruise and Anne Stuart wrestling "The Unfortunate Miss Fortunes" into shape. God bless Jen, she has the other side of my brain I'm missing. I'm so right brain wind whistles through the left side(that's the linear, logic side of the brain....you see my chronic problem). Jen actually posesses a left brain. So I have great ideas and Jen has great ideas and then organizes them. She did so by putting sticky notes all over the kitchen cabinets in the apartment where we stay(yeah. It really is living the good life, ya know? Having to go to New York because you have to write a book with two of your best friends). So by the time I left, my brains were smoking. And then I had to come to Topeka and give an all day seminar today. No brains left at all. I'm mute. Which is a fairly cataclysmic event for me. But I have tonight off before I head out tomorrow to the family cottage on Lake Michigan with my siblings, so I"m going to have a nice margarita, some protein, and a look at Miss Fortunes to clean it up before I go on. I just have to remember what we agreed was going to happen.
I just did the line edit on "Dangerous Temptation", the first of the Daughters of the Myth trilogy. And I have to admit, I really still love this book. There's danger, there's magic, there are enough horny fairies to populate a strip bar. I mean, who knew? The best part is, the sexiest parts take place in everybody's head. Shows you that it's true that 90% of sex is in the brain. Poor Zeke. His brain was quite overloaded. I can't wait to see what you think, especially since, except for a story I did for the old Shadows line anthology, this is the first paranormal I've done. I hope I didn't break any of the fairy rules...although my friends assure me that they're like the time travel rules. Pretty much what I decide they are.
I hope you don't mind. I'm off to the bar now. I need to plug my ears so the rest of my brains don't simply drain away.

eileen\kathleen, the evil twins