Tend to your vital heart, and all you worry about will be solved. —Rumi
It’s supposed to warm up this morning, and I’m going to miss the snow. Now that it has melted off the roads, that is. Because let’s face it, nothing says F-U-N like slipping and sliding down a steep hill covered in ice. With another car coming right at you.
Neil Gaiman has some New Year greetings, which are short and sweet and elegant, as usual. Via Kristopher Reiz, some links to a discussion about Urban Fantasy and what it is (or isn’t). And while I’m on the subject of Kris, I do owe him an apology for not yet posting a review of his lovely and quirky novel, Tripping to Somewhere, which I keep meaning to write, but haven’t yet had a chance to. So let me just say now that the book is wonderful, and is placed on the good part of my bookshelf that I look at often, for the simple reason that too many YA novels are safe and dull and steady, but that this one—Tripping to Somewhere—is the utter opposite of all those things, and it has bones and a heart and a voice that linger long, long, long after that last page is turned.
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Back to work. I have a new idea for my short story, and I think I’ve done enough reading/research for my other book. Something’s gotta give this afternoon, and it’ll be one or the other. First words laid down. Like building the foundation of a house. It has to be good strong work, or else nothing else will stand—not for long, anyway. It’s a personal thing—everyone has a different sense of how their story should kick off, but for me, if my beginning isn’t right, I just can’t keep writing. I have to go back, again and again, until I hammer it, just so. Not that the rest of the book will in any way reflect those first few paragraphs. Things never turn out the way I think they will.