The Writing Life (for now)

To read this blog, you might think I spend most of my time swooning like a teenager, over a cowboy. And cooking. And hanging out with my son. And in truth, I do spent quite a lot of time doing those things. But the rest of my time, lately, has been occupied with writing, for I am on a deadline and must finish a couple of books in the next two months.

Tap, tap, tap. Sit, sit, sit. Guzzlecoffe guzzlecoffe guzzlecoffee.

Etc.

I love writing. This is an illness. I’m sure of it. Most people don’t seem to enjoy it. They put it off and complain of being blocked. They attend conferences hoping to be inspired to do it, and look at it with the same dread most people reserve for dieting.

I, meanwhile, must find inspiration to STOP writing. I am compulsive about it. People ask me why I write, and I say “because I’m here,” and it’s really that simple. I don’t know what else to do.

I’m at the ranch, putting the final touches on the second book in my Kindred series for HarperCollins. Book one, TEMPTATION, will hit shelves April 24. This kind of writing — supernatural teen ghost romance suspense story — is fun. And scary. I know I’m the writer, and I have the outline right here on the desk, showing me the ending, but I still get scared along the way. That’s because my imaginary friends have always been more real to me in lots of ways than actual people. I realize this is pathetic. I don’t care. It builds character. Literally.

Not sure I’ve mentioned this or not yet, but I’m sort of a dork.

Yesterday, I started in earnest on another exciting writing project. I had a long (nearly two hour) phone conversation with a famous screenwriter/producer in Hollywood, about my first novel. This man is probably one of the top such people who have ever lived, and to my great surprise and joy he has signed on to adapt my book with me, for the big screen. He is by far the most competent and brilliant person to have approached this project (the novel has been in development three other times) and his insights yesterday simply floored me. You can’t go to film school for this kind of intense one-on-one scriptwriting and moviemaking coaching. A lot of it hurt, as any truthful analysis of one’s writing by a superior writer tends to do. But what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger and this man is making me a better writer. What a blessing!

So, there it is. What I’m up to. The most thrilling thing I’ve learned in the past day? Well, there are three things.

One: I still love writing, 33 years after I wrote my first short story. Nothing brings me as much satisfaction. Well, almost nothing. A good cobbler comes close.

And

Two: God is great, for bringing this fantastic screenwriter and producer into my life.

And

Three: The main difference between writing a novel and writing a movie is as the screenwriter/producer taught me yesterday. A novel is an interior experience of the character interacting with herself. A movie is an exterior experience of the character interacting with the world. The challenge, for now, is learning how to take the same stories from the novel, and put them on screen…harder than you might think…but I love a challenge.

Why else would I have fallen for a cowboy…?