Rolling rolling rolling

Catherine's Wheel is rolling along nicely, and it's clicking into place with The Belly of the Beast, which is the next installment. I can see how they're going to just flow together, and it might also reach into the next book, The Methods of Madness. There's certainly a solid narrative flow to the story. I'm very happy with how things are going, and Tobyn is being nicely talkative.

Outside of the Clans universe, I woke up this morning from an elaborate murder-mystery story that was playing out in my dreams. I lost most of the details, but I can remember enough to put together a skeleton of the plot. Some of my best work has come out of dreams. I really should keep a notebook at my bedside so that I can record these things.

Bio page

In other news, the website now has a bio page on it and a photo that will suffice for an author's photo. I'm pleased to say that it is not a picture of me, so nobody will have a heart attack from the fright. ;)

Every step is a step forward. I keep telling myself that.

Problem solved

At long last, I have deciphered my Frau Schulmann problem, and Catherine's Wheel is back on track. Thank goodness... I was starting to worry!

Cyrus

Last night I delivered a copy of Nightchild to Cyrus, my favorite server at my local Big Boy restaurant here in my home town. He was so excited to receive it, it really made me happy. I hope he's still excited after he reads it. ;)

Cyrus is an extraordinarily personable young man, with charisma to spare, and he's said that his ambition is to be the next Ryan Seacrest. I believe that he can do it. Wind to his wings.

Buried Treasure

I was cleaning today and found a secret cache of about eight unfinished short stories, along with two completed (and very bad) ones. This spate of random personal archaeology has mixed results. On the positive side, I cleared out some much-needed storage space, eliminated clutter, and found two partial pieces of writing that I'd been looking for. On the negative side, though, is the emotional aftermath of reading some of these things. Based on the dates and contents of the rest of the box, I'd say these papers haven't seen the light of day since 1995. The writing has, to say the least, poor. Thank God I've improved in the last 14 years.

new old characters

I think I've finally figured out where this new character works into the Wheel, and it dovetails with a short story I wrote and lost ages ago about Tristan of Carmaugh called Toujours et Toujours. I was going through a phase of using foreign language titles for a while. Should be interesting.

I'm boring myself

The trouble with writing ghost stories is that it's so difficult to set up the slow build-up of the paranormal event without boring myself to death.

Catherine's Wheel has taken a bit of a hiatus while I deal with some health issues and try to figure out this new character who just appeared in a Berlin doorway in Chapter Two. Otherwise, I have a few short stories in the works; hence the comment, above.

I keep hoping that I'll develop more patience over time, but it hasn't happened yet. Patience with the writing, patience with myself... these are things that I desperately need, and can't seem to master. It's actually become something of a private joke. Every tarot reading I've ever gotten on the subject of my writing has coaxed me to be patient. I'm trying.