So, I was doing the Sci-Fi/ Futuristic Workshop last weekend. (Totally awesome, by the way. Those ladies were amazing!) While that’s going on, I’m trying to finish up proposals for a couple of ideas I have for that second book Kensington bought from me. I sent in a contemporary shape-shifter on Saturday. But, Sunday…Sunday, Susan Grant *I’m not worthy, I’m not worthy* mentions a blue skinned guy from an Anne McCaffrey novel and BAM! ideas strike. A juggernaut of old ideas plus new ideas plus random stuff I’d been looking at made a who new futuristic idea for me.

The blue skin reminds me of this pre-made cover Sable Grey did for Cobblestone Press. All rights belong to Sable Grey and Cobblestone Press, of course, but I wanted to demonstrate where the inspiration came from. She’s so cool, right?

Then, I was checking my MySpace page and someone sent me this as a comment from a site called Photocasket (again, all rights are theirs, not mine). And she smushed together with this old sci-fi idea I had jotted down a few paragraphs on over a year ago…whoosh another proposal came flying out and sent off to Agent Extraordinaire. I wonder which one she’ll like best? The shifter or the sci-fi? Should be fun!

I hate when this happens.

I’m working on a project, a perfectly good, inspiring, fun project and some random idea comes to insinuate itself into my brain. I know it has to go on the backburner. I have at least managed to train myself not to take on 60 projects at once, but still it nags at me, always there trying to tempt me away from the project I’m working on. I’m plowing through Every Witch Way and this alternate universe idea hits me. And the hero is hot. Not that I ever write a hero that isn’t, but this one is the big quiet type. Mmmm-hmmm.

Enough of that. I have discovered (thanks to a pic on Gena Showalter’s site) a new cache of awesome pictures. Today I’ll showcase a spoof on Precious Moments, those cutesy kiddie cartoons. These are called Semi-Precious Moments. Had to show you, couldn’t resist.

So, a few days ago, I mentioned that I was going to name a character Cynthiana after the town in Kentucky. I had planned to make this a secondary character, but the main chica in my plus sized chick lit vamp story (I’m calling it Big Girls Don’t Die) wants this name. Her little sister is going to be named Victoriana (sense a theme?). And instead of being in Portland, Oregon like I had originally planned, these two nutty chicks hijacked my story and set it in Knoxville, Tennessee. Oh, well. If MaryJanice Davidson can do her vamp stories in Minnesota, I can do mine in Tennessee.

I’m still in the brainstorming phase for this story, but I think it will be fun. And the main guy in this is totally hot. I’d do him. That’s my rule for all my heroes…if I wouldn’t sleep with them, neither would my heroines. I don’t write dumb chicks.

That’s the new title I’ve given myself: The Idea Machine.

I have another idea. This one is for another young adult book. Paranormal, but not. I love this idea! I think it may be moving up the current list to land fourth behind Supersize Girl. I love it that much. This puts my idea/wip line-up at 13. Freaking thirteen!

Gaahhh! I have too many ideas and not enough time to devote to them! I just don’t write as quickly as I want to. Sigh. As much as I love the library, it’s times like this when I wish I wrote full-time.

Actually, I lied. This idea will have to go fifth behind the one or two novellas I want to aim at Ellora’s Cave. They’re looking for entries in the Cavemen series and they have a new tarot themed series for 2007. I might write one for that. We’ll see. Major sigh. So many ideas, so little time.

Yes, it’s that time again. I have A New Story Idea. This one’s contemporary paranormal–kinda like Every Witch Way, except it’s about a plus-size woman who gets turned either into a ghoul or a vampire (details are still fuzzy) and it’s call Big Girls Don’t Die. I think the title is clever so I’m giving myself a little pat on the back. I’m not sure what else I’ll do with it, but for the moment it has to marinate on the back burner because I just don’t have time. I’ll haul it out in a few months and dust the cobwebs off…the details will probably have worked themselves out by then without me really having to think hard on it. And I’m all about avoiding extra work if I can.

In bizarre news, guess who Mad Madam M met at work yesterday? The Governator. Seriously! She got to talk to Arnold Schwarzenegger and shake his hand and everything. She said he was pretty nice, too. Weird, huh?

So, my best friend and I talked over the phone yesterday evening (something we do almost daily) and we discussed my new story idea. The one about the mermaids — she already knows about Supersize Girl and is as supportive as she can be for someone 2,000 miles away and totally uninterested in my kind of stories. (i.e. contemporary paranormal romance)

Anyway, I mentioned that I had no idea how my merpeople would have sex, because, well, it is a romance and characters usually have sex at least once during the story. She suggested I find a way to make the merpeople human for a night and then they have sex the two-legged way. I vetoed that I idea immediately — what’s the fun of having merpeople if they don’t have mer-sex? I mean, really! This is such an opportunity; I can’t waste it! She got seriously freaked out by the thought of bizarre fish sex, which totally grossed me out after only a few seconds of deep thought. Ick!

So, now what? How do merpeople do the nasty, bump uglies, bone down, boink, (insert favored metaphor)? I have sort of an inkling, but don’t know how well it will transfer from my head to the paper. Wish me luck!

So, I had another story epiphany. In the shower, of course. This one was about a mermaid romance. The details aren’t 100% yet, but I’m going to research mermaid/man/people mythology, sea mythology, Atlantean mythology, etc. I’ll also check out who else has written in this area and try not to overlap too much. Originality is kind of important, right? Right.

It looks like I’ll be working on this and Supergirl at the same time; so, we’ll see how double-booking my brain goes. Could go well — could cause a psychotic break. ((shrugs)) Good luck to me.

I got the outline for Supergirl done yesterday and I thought I should probably talk about my writing style. Specifically, if I’m a plotter or a pantzer.

As in most instances, I simply cannot pick a side. I like to plot out my story at first; I want to know generally where I’m going and how I intend to get there. After that, I’m a total pantzer (write by the seat of my pants, fly with no radar, scribble what scenes come to me). If I’m ever feeling lost or uninspired, I can always go back to my outline for ideas, like “ah-ha! that’s where I meant to go!” So, I find an outline is a useful tool, but I’m not married to it. Characters get added/deleted/edited, motivations change, plot twists emerge–I go with the epiphanies as they come to me.

This may change as I mature as a writer, of course. We’ll see.

I’m currently transferring my romance into the computer from my trusty yellow legal pads. This is a long, dull process and I’m not exactly the world’s fastest typer. Damnit.

It’s going well though, I just hit the 12,000 word mark, which leaves me , what? Like 90,000 more to type in? Crap. That hurts my feelings just to say out loud.

So, another new idea came to me in the shower. Strangely, all my epiphanies happen in the shower, and I mean this in the least perverted way. (Gutter minds!)

Fat Girl Saves the World

16-year-old Mindy lives in the lowest class of high school social order — she’s a fat girl who isn’t super-smart, super-outgoing, super-artistic, or really super-anything. Until one morning she wakes up hovering over her bed and finds out she’s a superhero. Her usually emotionally unavailable dad sits her down for a heart-to-heart about her long-dead mother — a superhero who died defending whatever superheroes defend.

Mindy’s new superskills force her to take an after school class from hell, where she finds the least-likely kids from her classes are superheroes, too. If this group is the world’s greatest hope against evil, we should all start writing our wills now. Worse, the supervillian who killed her supermom has come back to make sure Mindy doesn’t live long enough to use her powers. Can Fat Girl Mindy really save the world?

I have a new idea for my next story! Yeay! I think this is the best part of writing. Right now, this idea is just percolating and it’s fun and exciting. Right now, the story is still perfect and I haven’t yet messed it up with my verbal incontinence and poor grammar.

Anyway, on to my main attraction.

It’s kinda action adventure lad-lit/chick-lit, but I don’t know where it will go after that. It might even be a Young Adult novel. Who knows? I’m thinking it’ll be first person narrative for both of the main characters and I’ll switch back and forth between them maybe every other chapter or so. Its working title is “Sidekicked.”

Las Vegas, NV– 2047 CE. In the 100 years since aliens crashed in Roswell, only one line of defense against the alien hordes has been discovered — immunes. Through a genetic anomoly, immunes cannot serve as an alien host; they are highly sought after by counter-alien organizations and the aliens themselves. Immunes become both the hunter and the hunted.

Two immunes belong to an elite agency called five-one: a super-hotty alien huntress and her sidekick, a computer-genius. He loves her (who wouldn’t?) and she loves him (smart guys are so sexy), but can they get their act together long enough to admit how they feel and maybe stop a major alien invasion along the way?

Other details are TBA.

So, forgot to mention what kind of romance I’m writing. It’s a paranormal romance, which (for those of you not in the know) usually means it has something otherworldly in it, like ghosts, aliens, or vampires. Oh, my!

My story is about a twenty-something witch in New York City whose cheating undead ex-boyfriend, a vampire, winds up very dead and gets her into trouble with some serious people, such as: the NYPD Magical Task Force, the FBI, the Vampire Coven, and a terrorist cell of werewolves. Yep, she’s got her own personal freak parade following her around as she tries go about her average magical life.

So, yeah. It’s something like that.