Back Again

After numerous problems with Blogger including trying (and failing) to sign in, plus being up to my butt in papers and typing at work, I'm finally writing another entry.

Yeah, I know. Excuses, excuses. But what the hell; it's easier to blame somebody or something else than to blame myself, heh heh.

The work on what was formerly known as Cats of Manhattan and is currently called Crossed Paths continues. Since deciding to include one of the other characters (Diego) as a viewpoint character, I feel the story's even better, as it's giving readers more of an idea of what's going on away from Jackie (which I feel is necessary). Diego is a former police officer (has been off the force for about six years) who has been pushed into starting up a "shadow" police force. This is a force that investigates/handles incidents that are out of the ordinary (read: magical/fantastical). Something about an agreement among the leading citizen of Union, NJ (where I grew up), the mayor, and the Chief of Police is making this possible...as long as Diego and his lieutenants don't mess up anything...and don't let the average, every day citizens of get wind of it.

Mwahahaha!

Anyway, I went back to the original opening for this, with her going over to the senior center to trap a feral cat. One thing I hadn't realized until I started this revision was the link between Jackie having a trap in her hands/trapping cats is that she feels trapped, too: Trapped in a boring job, trapped into dressing certain ways for certain people, trapped in an apartment she doesn't particularly like...that sort of thing. I'm hoping I'm a good enough writer that people will get that.

I also have a short story that I particularly like, currently called Good Luck Charm. I've stopped in the middle of it because I can take it in a couple of different directions and haven't decided which way I want it to go. (This is the one where the MC is a woman who arrives in 1934 or so New York, determined to become a Broadway singer/actress, to show her pack back home that werewolves can actually do things out in the wide world--with certain precautions, of course.) I've gotten to the point where her agent, despite wanting to put her on one of the vaudeville circuits (a great training ground for entertainers at that time), knows about a small musical having tryouts two or three streets over from Broadway. What will happen? Stay tuned...

Hopefully, I'll blog a bit more, time willing. And if Blogger behaves itself. ;-)

One last thing, for you writers out there who want to become published but refuse to do any dig-down-deep research: Writer Beware deconstructs a letter sent by PublishAmerica ::shudder:: to someone (a lady from south Jersey; you'd think PA would know better than to mess with a Jersey girl ;-)) to "cease and desist." In fact, a writer could do worse than do a search through the Writer Beware blog to find out more about PA and other scam outfits. (If PA came clean and said, "We are a vanity publisher," I'd have some respect for them. It's their deceit at calling themselves a "traditional publisher" that gets me; I have nothing but sympathy for the writers who are in their clutches, with their book(s) tied up for 7(!) years.)

Always do research before you send out your magnum opus; it can save you money and emotional pain.

Don't give up--keep writing!