Notes to self:

1. Worrying about pacing when you are writing your first draft is a very dumb thing to do. If that's a harsh statement, fine, dial it back: it's not helpful to worry about pacing when you are writing your first draft. But it's caustic, too. It slows you down and screws you up. Yes, fine, it means more work later. Deal with it, Cullinan. Sure you got a pass on Special Delivery on that one, just like you asked for. On this one you didn't. Cope. You don't get a pony every Christmas. And anyway, you might find you like this way better. You usually end up happy with the road you took once you're back at the inn again. Also, if you DON'T ignore the bad pacing and bad sequencing and get to the end, you won't ever get to fix it at all.
2. Yes, maybe the boys are too angsty or sopping at times. You can edit that too.
3. This whole list is going to boil down to "finish and then you can edit." Really, you need to keep going? Okay. Oh, you want to address THAT one. Fine. New number.
4. Yes, the story will end. Yes, it will end before 200k. You're being dramatic. Stop. Yes, it's feeling like the rewrite of STB you had to abandon because it would not end. Yes, it's because you used more than one POV this time. Yes, it's harder this way. But yes, it will end, and sooner than you think. You have that little outline there--and it works, you know it does. Of course you won't stick to the outline. You never do! But it will help you get to the real ending. Just keep going. You want to be done by November 30, and you're closer to that goal than you think you are. Or, rather, you are as close as you think you are and not as far away as you're afraid you are.
5. Just keep having fun. It's okay to have fun. It's okay to write stuff you cut. It's okay to have to rewrite whole sections. It's fine. Just stop typing this entry and go write. Don't try to be first in the class and hardly have to edit. Don't do anything but write the story that shows up when you sit down. You'll edit later. You'll rewrite later. You'll go batshit crazy analytical. Right now you are writing the most fun, most engaging characters you've written since Charles. Just go party in Vegas for another twenty thousand words or whatever it takes and pay the credit card later. You have more credit on this one than you give yourself credit for.

(This post, of course, revealing that while I am so glad that other one meant so much to other people, it was aimed squarely at my own head as well.)

That number is my word count for the day.

No, I have no idea what sparked that, outside of a desire to get this story to THE END. My total word count is over 100k. This is a still of my progress graph. Can you tell when I got copy edits, had an 8 year-old's birthday with two parties, and then got galleys? I bet you can.


I can feel the Big Climax coming up around the corner, but it's still coming up slow. I bet this goes to 120-130k as a first draft, and YES it needs some editing. Anyway. It's coming along. It's also a shitload of fun.

Oh what the hell, let's end with a teaser, and then I need to go do dishes and fold clothes. Let's see, what to post? Karaoke to Lady Gaga? The demon statue and his strained fig leaf? You are not, alas, getting the best stuff I wrote today, which featured four naked men. Oh, okay. You get shopping and Sheep Launcher, and Randy who always feels the need to "help" when men go to try on clothes.

( Randy, Sam, and Ethan go shopping at Fashion Show. )
And now I really should probably go to sleep. Right after the dishes . . . .

I would like to take this moment to put out a public service message, a gentle reminder to all authors, be they participating in NaNoWriMo or not, be they in the opening stages of their novels, slogging through the middle or juggling the chaos of the third act. Yes, even you poor slobs who are afraid you have not just no acts (or don't know what they are and are worried now that there's something ELSE to fail at, thanks a lot) but no plot, no antagonist, not even any real character, just a hot mess and a sore shoulder and enough angst to even turn off David Boreanaz playing Angel. Yes--that bad. The message is this: I'm sorry, even given all this, you still don't suck. Or, perhaps more accurately, you don't suck any worse than anybody else writing a novel. You don't even suck worse than a best-selling uber-author writing her eighteenth-zillion novel. Because this doubt, this fear, this everything is normal. It's part of the gig. Because it's not your novel that is sucking. It isn't even you. It's the process of creating, and it always happens. Always. To everybody.

Look, here's the thing: you started with An Idea. Maybe it was A Fucking Great Idea. Maybe it was just a quiet little one, humble or worse, simple. You were going to write a story, anyway. You either knew what it was or knew the shape of it. You had an idea about it, anyway. And so you started, and it went well at first, or you faked it and at least had a good time. And then it went a little off the rails. That's okay, you said. It's fine. These things happen. You rolled with it. "It's just a draft," you said to yourself. Then you said it again. Then you taped it do your monitor. Then you started posting blog posts about it, or giving impassioned speeches to the checkout clerk at the grocery store, explaining to them that drafts are messy and this is the way it goes. Maybe they even forgot to scan your milk and you got it for free because they were so freaked out amazed by your unstable appearance brilliance. Or you just told the dog, who always understands and empathizes. Whatever, you got through. Or you just put the thing away and watched Glee again because it makes you feel good. The bottom line is, you got by.

But now here you are. Now you are sitting down with this un-story, this mess, and you are seriously afraid. You're afraid that you don't have what it takes. You're afraid that your idea, be it great or humble, just isn't going to fly, or that it is actually a good idea but you don't have the chops. You can see this, and worse, you can see that it is there, glaring at you, and you know it has always been there. And you are absolutely terrified that you are the last one to have been able to see this, that there are meetings probably in every country of the globe where they whisper and cringe at what a spectacle you are making of yourself, because how awful is it that it's so painfully obvious to the entire human population and even three other star systems that clearly YOU are never going to be able to do this, but just don't know. And no one can bear to tell you, so you just go on, tragic and pathetic. You think, now that you see it, that you should just quietly shut down your computer and close your notebook and pretend this never happened.

Well, that's an option. But personally, I advise against it.

Do you want to know the dirty truth about story? Do you want to know the real gritty truth that no one will tell you? The shocker so awful it will curl your hair and turn it white? Sure, you're still reading, so I'll tell you. The truth is that the people who finish novels are the people who face that gate I just described above and then keep going. The people who finish novels are not the smartest people or the most creative or even the most aware. In fact, this might be a case were a little ignorance helps a lot. The people who finish novels are the people who go all the way to the end. They aren't the people who have the best plots or the most amazing characters. They are not the people whose very existence is so compelling that muses descend from clouds and teach them how to overcome their obstacles. They are the people who simply go on. They see that pit above, the pit that exists in every single story of every length and every shape and every level of "worth" and "skill" and "value," and after they see it, they find a way over it or around it and they go on until the end.

That's it.

A finished novel is a finished novel. It is not the novel that mirrors the vision you had for it. It isn't the one that your mother or your mentor or your partner approves of. It's almost never the one that you approve of. It's flawed. It's got a shitload of errors. It is lopsided and probably has more holes than swiss cheese. It's a big fucking mess. But it has a beginning, an end, and stuff in between. That's it. That's all it has.

You want a great novel? Edit. Rewrite. You want an even better novel? Write another one. You want to be a master? Keep writing. Every damn day, whenever you can, however it works. You want to find the way over that shitty trap I described above, the gaping pit of awareness that tries to steal your soul and eat your novel? Then walk up to that pit and stare it down. Find out what you're made of and what your novel is, and swallow the horrible, gut-wrenching truth that no novel is perfect, no, not even yours, not even your favorites that you love so much, the ones you know you can never be as good as. Every one of them has that pit in it, the place where you are tempted to turn away and have to decide if you have the determination to go on. Some people get good at jumping over it. Some people never find the courage to face it. Some people spend their writing career or a good portion of it trying to stare that demon down.

But whatever you do, no more of this shit where you say your novel is bad, or you aren't smart enough or whatever. That isn't what this is about. This is about writing your story. This is about getting through. This is about practice, about strength, and above all, about will. You'd be amazed at how little plot and character have to do with it when you're talking about getting it done. Because you never know--they might be there. You might be surprised. And you might not. You might find that this one was practice. But that doesn't mean you can't finish it.

You finish a novel by getting to the end. The people who finish novels are not the people who do not suck or even the people writing the stories that do not suck. They are simply the people who don't quit. So don't quit. And you'll be fine.

Seriously. Quit staring into the pit, and I swear to God, it will truly be that easy.

See you on the other side.

This is clearly going to be One Of Those Books. It must be something about more than one POV, because I was fine when I did Hero and Special Delivery with one POV, but man, I have two in Double Blind and now I'm at 80k and still not turning the corner. Well, I've turned a corner but it feels like into act two, which let me tell you, act two is not meant to happen at 80k in a 100k book. Which has me thinking this book is going to be 120. I also am pretty sure I'm going to have to redo the structure a bit after, and collapse and combine. Or something. But long. We are looking at long.

The good news is that Dreamspinner, whom I am contractually obligated to offer this to first since it has recurring characters from Special Delivery (and whom I would offer it to anyway because they are Home), I found out today does not have a word limit. The story has to legitimately require that many words, but pretty much when I asked how long can it be, the answer was, "As long as it needs to be." It just made me feel really good, because I keep hearing rumors about even big name houses saying, "You have to keep it under 100k because of money" and then here I am with people saying, "Whatever the story needs." Like I said. Home.

So I haven't been posting because I've been busy, but also because (again, on cue!) this book is freaking me out. Too long. Too deep. And it's Randy who is vulnerable more than Ethan, which I shouldn't take so personally, but I am. So lots of raw. And my break over the weekend taught me that breaks are somewhat deadly. I really had to climb back on top of it today, and I barely made it. Of course, I'm going to get galleys soon (had copy edits on Friday. ARG. I have a comma problem.), so I will have to slow again. But yeah. Just keep swimming. Just keep swimming.

Lots of nice moments. I'd tease, but I don't know what to post yet. Maybe just a snippet, though, something out of context and fun? Oh, I've got it. Randy and the kitten. Her name is Salomé.

*
Randy washed his face, brushed his teeth, did all the usual things before bed that he hadn’t done since Ethan had showed up, but he avoided his own reflection while he did it all, and when it was done, he shut off the light and went into his room, peeled off his clothes, put on a pair of knit pants, and climbed into his bed, where he drew the covers to his waist and stared up at the ceiling. He didn’t know what everyone else was doing or what they’d think of his absence, and he didn’t care.

Much.

He didn’t know how much time had passed; all he knew was that the door, which he hadn’t fully shut, was gently nudged open a little wider, and he turned, bracing to face whoever it was. But no one stuck their head in, and the door didn’t open any wider. Randy was frowning and trying to decide what the hell that had been about when there was a soft rip, rip beside his bed, and he turned towards the sound just in time to see Salomé appear beside his head.

She mewed in inquiry, then came forward, purring.

Randy gave her a wry smile and turned on his side as he reached over to stroke her head. “Hey, baby,” he said. “What are you doing in here?”
She mewed again, then purred louder as she nuzzled his hand. When he stopped petting, she reached out and nudged his nose with her paw, then, in afterthought, came forward and licked it, too. She decided she liked it and proceeded to give him a thorough tongue bath. Unable to help himself, Randy laughed, and held still, enjoying it in a weird little way.

They held a quiet communion for awhile, Randy petting, Salomé purring and licking, and then after a while she began to nest against his pillow, then curled up right next to Randy’s face, tucked her nose into his neck and her legs against his chest, and went to sleep.

Randy petted her for a few minutes, and followed suit.

He woke briefly, the room fully dark, no light from the hall, the house silent as the bed behind him dipped, and he felt Ethan’s long, warm body slide in against his. He tried to give him some room, but he murmured, too, “Don’t wake the kitten,” and Ethan just stroked his shoulder and whispered, “Go back to sleep, Ace,” and Randy did, a part of him he didn’t even know was tense easing as Ethan wrapped first his arm and then his leg around Randy, and then he fell, easily and deeply, into the sleep of kings.

I posted the photo last night on LJ-Friends feed only because I was waiting for the official word to share, but I not only have the official word to share, I have a date, I have an ISBN, I have a link to the "coming soon" page on Dreamspinner. So I'll post all that, and then I'll fill in some other information that I know, and speculate on some others.  First, the pretty:


Here I am at Dreamspinner. This is the coming soon page, and right now it says only e-book. It's print too, but that isn't listed yet. (I think this literally went up last night.) Another place you can watch is on my author page there. There's something about a wish list on that first page, but when I click it, it just tells me my shopping cart is empty, so that might not be the way to go.

As best I understand, this will also be available through Amazon, and possibly B&N. Right now if you search for me on Amazon all you get are the books for other people that I've done critiques for and they thanked me in the intro (which somehow comes up in the search). Basically, though, once I know more I will share it. If you're on here or any of my social networks, trust me, when it's Dec 4, you'll know.

I think that's it for now. Unless someone has a question, or wants to squee with me.

 My beautiful baby turned eight years old today.







Her father did a beautiful tribute which you can find here. Her mother is too exhausted to move and will now lie about and stare at the ceiling.

Love you baby girl.  Love you very, very, very much.

 I've altered the DOUBLE BLIND icon for LJ, which no one will notice but me, except that maybe this time I had a harder time fighting the lighting/spotlight feature in Adobe. All I really wanted to do was change the Ace of Spades to an Ace of Hearts because DUH it should have been that all along. I also, because I could, altered the Curio page. The main Curio page is still this


But I also played with the "cover" that I've posted on the NaNoWriMo site (along with the blurb which I already suspect is inaccurate), and here it is, for your viewing pleasure.


What I love about that mock-up are all the little inside bits. That's the Bellagio fountain, which is a scene, and the dice are important, as are the chips vs. the dice, and the Ace and the Joker are deliberate. Le sigh.

Current word count is 70k something. I want to finish the scene I'm in, then I want to get into the last act, which I feel like I should have been in about 15k ago, but this is what edits are for. The story has not at all behaved as I thought it would. I thought it was going to be Ethan whom this brought to his knees, not Randy, but looking back now it's amazing I thought it could be any other way.

I also got edits last night for Hero, which means I am now officially two projects at once. Add in Anna's birthday this weekend with parties on both Saturday and Sunday, and we're looking at a whole lot of not writing between now and Monday. Which isn't my favorite thing in the world, but we'll cope.

That's the state of the me. Now going to admire my cover a bit longer, then get back to work.

My fabulous in-laws, Tom and Nina, go regularly to Las Vegas and have been telling us for years we should go and use their time-share they have there. We have yet to do so, though after writing this novel that may change, because now I'm really chomping to go see all this stuff I wrote about. But Tom and Nina often come back from their travels to Vegas with presents, usually coffee cups for Dan because he collects them. But one time they came home with one for me.



At the time I didn't know that I really needed a Las Vegas mug with my name on it, since at that time I was only lukewarm about the city on my best days. This is very funny as now I have used that mug every single day since November 1, and a little bit before as a warm-up. If it's dirty in the dishwasher, I pull it out and use it. I won't use one of the other LV mugs, either--it must be that mug or bust. I can't even tell you why, really, but I think it's because it was a present from two people I love very much, and because it has my name on it. It sends some subconscious signal that Vegas is mine, so of course I can write it! What does it matter I've barely been there? Damn it, I have the mug with my name on it!

So thanks again, Tom and Nina. You knew what I needed before I did.

I've been loving the song for some time, enjoying a bad rip from some something somewhere, but the video is beautiful. I assume there is some album out soon? I've snagged the single now that it's officially out, but this video?

Yes. I love this bitch.

Am I the last person to hear about the Shake Weight? Have you all been alternating between laughing uproariously and imagining the slick, buff men using the Shake Weight together before they . . . um . . . .

I mean, seriously. Shake Weight, or gay porn?

I knew in the scene I'm working on that Crabtree would ask Ethan to name a kitten. The question is what, and I was wondering about that when I was making the coffee in the kitchen. And then I saw them at the craps table, the kitten in Crabtree's hand, and Ethan looked at it and said, "Salomé." I didn't even know how to spell that, and I had no idea what it meant. So I looked it up, and got an education. Obviously I heard this somewhere, probably both in English Lit in college and in Bible school, but if you'd asked me to name Oscar Wilde's plays or who the chick was who wanted John the Baptist's head, I could not have told you even if you threatened my daughter to get me to spill.

So either Ethan really did whisper that in my ear from some other plane, or the fairies did, or something, or the brain is a truly amazingly godlike thing. I actually have no preference as to which it is,or if it's a combination or whatever. I'm just glad it happened.

Back to work. Will hit 50k and get green bar any second now. Here, you can chart it if you like:


Now I have to go play craps. Crabtree is going to take Ethan to play, and I still don't even get the concept. I was hoping to get away with not learning, but the time is apparently now. On to Hoyle Casino . . . .

I usually have two points of crisis during the composition of a story: during a Groundhog Day-esque rehashing of the intro as I try to find my way into a story, and at about the mid-point of the story where I feel like things should be more coherent than they are and where I panic because I can't see how the damn thing will ever end. I have also hit that point at 100k on stories that end up being very, very long, and that's another ball of wax entirely, but the feeling is the same: panic. Despair. Heaps and heaps of doubt. On this particular NaNoWriMo story, I'm blissfully not feeling quite the angst I normally do, though I am feeling a little bit of the "hurry up, you're plot is wandering!" panic that for me is really omnipresent, ambient noise. But the other nag I'm getting right now, the one that always manages to trip me is this one: "You're just making all of this up."

As an at-its-face statement coming from the peanut gallery of a novelist's internal editor, it's actually pretty funny, because that seems to be the whole point, but it's only funny if you're not inside my head. Typed into a blog entry it's cute; coming at me as I prepare to turn the corner on 50k (I'm gunning for 100k, and this is now a day job, so them's the stakes) and I get that nag, it's not so laughable. The long version of the accusation that I am making all of this up is that I don't know my research, that my characters aren't real, that the plot is implausible, or, in short, that I have made a mistake. That despite my best efforts otherwise, something in this story is untrue, and if the whole world sees it, they will know it and call me on it, screaming MISTAKE!!!!! and I will probably die. Or something. It'll be bad, I know that. And it's almost inevitable that something's wrong, of course, because I'm human, and I make so many mistakes anyway, and why did I think I could write a novel? Who cares that somebody bought two of them and your first one is coming out in about a month? Isn't that worse? You want to put MORE mistakes out there for public consumption? Why are you bothering? Why don't you give this up and go put a load of laundry in. Do something safe. Do something, anything but this.

Anybody else got that going on in their head? Are you getting the remix where it's not so harsh, just telling you this is dumb, that you have better things to do, that really, what does this matter, what the HELL does a NOVEL matter? Is it telling you you're bored, that you could be outside in the nice weather, or watching a movie, or something, anything but this?

If so, get your stake or your sword or whatever weapon you prefer, because these bastards are going down.

Yeah. We're making this up. So what? That IS the point. Yeah, our stories have "mistakes." They're called our visions and our creativity. They're our voices. Yes, if we want to try to sell these novels later, we may have to do some fact checking. Yes, some things may be so integral we have to pause to double-check as we write. But even with that, yes, we may write a whole scene based on no-limit poker that isn't right and we'll have to rework it later.  We can check that. Later. Right now is the magic time, the writing time, the spinning story out of absolutely nothing, of not just thin air but nothing at all, less matter than black holes. Maybe nobody would want to read this. Maybe our facts are actually heinously off. Whatever. This is ours. This is OUR story, right now.

Regarding the boredom--that's just the light version of "this is a mistake." You said you were going to write a novel because you had a story to share, right? Because you had a vision, a voice? Yeah, it's hard. Yeah, writing takes a lot of practice. Yeah, you might write 50,000 words that later you don't use any of. But you're practicing. You're here.  You're showing up. This is hard, and you're doing it. You're cooler than the people who don't do it. The people who always say they want to write a novel but don't. The people who have dreams but don't act on them. Just by showing up, just by writing even the crappiest novel ever written, even that alone puts you several cuts above. But your story isn't crap. Nobody's is crap. No voice is a bad voice, no story is a bad story. It's yours, and when you write it, you create it. Out of nothing. That's a miracle. That is a fucking miracle.

Yeah. You're making all of this up. Every word, every idea, every character. Even if you're writing fanfic, you're writing something that hasn't been there before, unless you're just transcribing something else word for word. You're writing. You're creating.

So the next time your internal editor sneers, "You're making all this up," turn to her (or him) and say, "Damn straight." Then stake the bitch and get back to work.

I have a meta-NaNoWriMo post brewing, but I wanted to do an update post first, because this novel is going very, very well, coming out almost on a sigh and more formed in the first draft than anything I've written yet, and I have to say, I'm sorry if I'm disgusting, but it's been a long, hellish road to this point, and I don't care. Well, I care, because I know the pain of watching someone else soar while you're drowning in the muck, but I have put in my dues. I have done the angsty struggling. I have run my head into walls over plots. I also know other books will not come out this easy, and I know this one could still turn on me. What I've got is some Happy Right Now, and I'm holding onto it.  Which is actually a very Randy thing to do.

The winner of the weekend is Crabtree, though he may have actually shown up on Friday. Or Thursday. He's a gangster who loves kittens, and I think he's the antagonist or at least the push I have been looking for. He just came over for dinner and beat poor Ethan up at cards. But Randy came to the rescue.

I think the best part of this book is how fun it is. There are a few points that are a little close to the bone, but mostly it's the most fun I've ever had in a story. There are card games, dinner parties, shopping sprees, and midnight rides on motorcycles. I know some of the things still to come, and I can't wait. If readers have even half the good time reading this as I am having writing it, this ought to be a fantastic party, this book. And yes, there's sex. Less than Special Delivery, which isn't hard to do. But Randy and Ethan have as much if not more fun doing the push-pull of emotions. And they're both due some Cinderella moments. I'm going to give them as many as I can shove in here.

The funniest thing to me is that I think the underlying theme about this story is partly "what it means to be a man." Which cracks me up, because, um. I'm not sure on that yet, but I'll know once Mandy comes back in on the scene.

The other funny thing about this book is how intensely Las Vegas it is. Which is funny because I have been to Las Vegas twice: I rode down the strip when I was ten, and this June I spent 12 hours there, most of those sleeping. I've been nowhere in Vegas, not really. But I've watched a lot of movies and internet.

Shower, church, then a write-in. And we will also buy Anna new fish. These are going to live, goddamn it.

It's day six and I have 30,000 words. This is not half as much because I am awesome (though that helps) but because this story flat-out dances onto the page. The last thing that came close was the Irish guitarist short. I've never written 30k this sustained that flowed like this, that almost has the plot here in the first draft. I'm still low on antagonist, but that's normal.

It helps that it's Randy. When I wrote him into SPECIAL DELIVERY, I was fascinated by him, by how much he could be an asshole and a tender-heart all in the same breath. I loved how much he attached to Sam, and how selfless he became in getting him together with Mitch, which I knew for him was not a normal course of events. I also knew that watching Sam and Mitch together was going to make the one who swore he was never going to love anyone like that begin to wish he could.

I've been ramping to write this story for a month, and as a part of it I listened to the soundtrack whenever I wanted to steep myself in it as a preparation. It's a really eclectic mix, deviating a great deal from the one I posted out awhile back. The spine of it is the Ocean's Thirteen soundtrack and a little bit of Michael Clayton. The Beyocé and Rihanna and Heather Small that began the saga has almost completely evaporated. Madonna has showed up with a strength she never has before (from the office downstairs, dancpharmd cheers), Will Young and Banarama are back from SD, and "Make You Feel My Love" by Adele gave me the Bellagio fountain scene. Lady Gaga does a dance with Collective Soul, India.Aire has a nice moment, as does Duffy and even Amanda Palmer. But the heart of this story is found in Ingrid Michaelson and Greg Laswell.

Laswell features heavily on the soundtrack, and while I can pretty much always get some mileage out of "And Then You," the real essence of Double Blind is distilled from "The One I Love." Listen to it here. The lyrics that do it for me:


Michaelson is also a heavy-hitter: "Starting Now" is the sister song to "The One I Love," but "All Love" is probably the secret heart of the book, the thing that will take the crazy poker and betting and denial and Billy Herod's cruelty and turn it all into a big old rainbow at the end. This one I can only find in a Youtube vid, so hit play and either watch or surf, but however you slice it, this is Randy and Ethan, whether they like it or not.

Thank you for all the commiserations on the itchy and scratchy. I've tried a lot of them already, but some are new, and I'm going to try them, too. It's begun again this afternoon, even earlier than it began yesterday, so you might hear the screaming again if you're in town.  I'm doing a Zyrtec this afternoon, and Dan is investigating whether or not I can take a double dose. Right now my hands are beginning it, so I'm slathing on the aquaphilic. So far either it's working or it was just taking a break. Am going to buy big thing of oatmeal bath, because if I have another night like last night I may have to sleep there.

In the meantime, I told someone I would show photos of Anna as Coraline (Halloween), and this is the quick and dirtiest way to do it.  So you get to see, too. (First is Dan as chestburster victim, me as Scrabble tile, and Anna. You also get to meet Glinda the Good Godfather.)

        

Now it's off for food shopping, more laundry, and then, maybe, finally, I can get some writing in today. Please, I hope so. I really want that next scene. 

Cullinans are forbidden from dirtying any more clothing and eating any food until December 1.

Something is wrong with my body, and it is going to drive me fucking crazy.

I itch. I itch everywhere. I itch especially at this second on my left foot, with an itch so intense that I've nearly clawed through the skin to the blood beneath, and I"m still scratching. I've taken Benadryl. I've put on hydrocortizone cream. Aquaphillic. I've wet it down. I've wrapped it up. I've scratched and scratched and scratched.  I've not scratched until my brain screams and my hands fly there of their own free will, possessed by a madness to MAKE IT FUCKING STOP.

It's still itching.  It's hurting now, too, and itching beneath. And I have no idea why.

It moves. It morphs from my foot to my calf, then to my thigh.  It leaps to my hands, up my arm. It goes to my face, to the back of my neck, to my hair. It itches like a bug bite, like a rash, but there is absolutely nothing there, not anywhere--not until I get to scratching, that is, and then it is red from the irritation of my fingernails.

It's been doing this for days. It comes and it goes, but it's worst at night just before I go to bed, and in the evenings starting around five or six.

It has to be in my head.

But nothing I do makes it either stop or get out of my head.

I have no idea what to do with this. No clue. All I can tell you is that if you live in Ames and you hear a blood curdling scream of rage and frustration and then wild weeping in the middle of the night, it's me, because it's finally won and I have lost my mind.

Off to scratch and see if I'll draw blood. 

 Not bad for day four.

I'm right on schedule, too, because I'm worried that the pacing doesn't work, that it's taking too long, that there's too much description of how to play poker. But I'm just going to keep writing because that's the only way to find out whether or not I'm right. 

The word count is pretty high, impressing even me. But for one, I blame both Randy and the fact that the past few scenes have been poker stuff, which were top-heavy with the need for Randy to explain, both to Ethan and to the reader, what the fuck the game meant. But Randy in general is just so fun, you can't help but run away with him.

I got to write the first kiss, which I wasn't sure how or when it would happen, but I like how it came out. I also like the reversal that came with it, which I hadn't seen coming.

If you can believe it, even after writing over six thousand words today alone, I'm still going to write more because I"m going to the write-in at Borders. I'm not going to race through anything, though. I'm not actually racing now. This story is just happy to come out in a timely, orderly fashion, bless it.  

At this point I'm not worried about having to juggle an edit and galley session for Hero (which is indeed coming any day now), nor am I at all concerned with the fact that we're hosting what sounds like it will be a mega Thanksgiving event.  Bring it! And bring your cards, too, because I am actually not bad at poker now.

And that's how Heidi "C"s it.

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My options at this point are to either spew bile endlessly in a rant that melts the paint off the walls or to say almost nothing. Because if I uncork the rage I have for people who feel so fucking morally superior that they can vote on other people's marriages, I won't be able to stop. So Burger and Fries (the cat in the avatar) is going to have to say it for me.

But KEEP YOUR FUCKING SHIT OUT OF IOWA YOU HYPOCRITICAL, MORALLY CORRUPT ASSHOLES. You leave my state the FUCKING HELL ALONE. This is MY state, and I am the amazon. STAY. THE. FUCK. OFF. MY. FUCKING. LAWN. Because if you bring that shit here, I'm going to make the howling in the video below sound like a GODDAMNED PURR.