Well, the run is over–at least my writing run, but my blogging run continues! I didn’t get around to my WIP yesterday. Well, I didn’t get around to actually writing. I did start thinking that maybe I should start working on a tagline or backcover blurb or summary paragraph. Last year I attended a workshop given by Stephanie Bond, and she’d said that she writes those first. I guess it sort of gives her a feel for the story and then, while she’s writing, she can make sure that all her plot lines trend in the direction of the book’s themes. Suddenly that seems to make perfect sense to me. When she said it, I thought to myself, ‘I could never do that–I don’t know where the book is going yet.’ At least completely, 100% sure. But so what. I can tweak the tagline a little if I have to, rewrite the blurb. As long as I can keep track of what I’m writing.

That’s the problem I’m having now. I really love the overall idea of the book I’m working on right now. I love the characters, the premise. But a few little details are up in the air. Should I give the book a greater, overriding theme, should I hint of said theme all the way through? That brings up an entirely different problem. I’ve only entered my work in a few contests, but those I have entered have resulted in conflicting feedback: either I’m explaining too much or not explaining enough. Makes me wonder what I should say and what I should leave unsaid. How can you ever know?

Maybe that’s where a good critique partner would fill the gap…
I’ll blog on that tomorrow.

I’d been meaning to go back and check out Allison Winn Scotch’s blog after I read about it on Diana P’s blog and just kept getting side-tracked. But last night, the computer was free, the boys were in bed, and my husband was making a buying trip to Walmart, so I had a little time to roam online.

Well I went back to Allison’s blog and read…and read…and read. There was no shortage of useful, insightful, thoughtful information on everything from agents, query letters, promotion, and on and on. And her writing style is so genuine and friendly, reading it feels like you’re chatting with a friend….a friend in the know in the publishing business. I’m adding her blog to my short list: the list of blogs I let myself visit everyday. Gotta squeeze the writing in sometime….

Not only that, but after I surfed away from her blog, I visited Allison’s author website and was very impressed. I’m very much looking forward to reading her debut release The Department of Lost and Found in May 2007.

I encourage you to go check her out!

It’s recently struck me how much of a phenomenon that Rachel Ray has become. I started watching her Food Network television show, 30 Minute Meals when my oldest son was about a year old. It was sort of a segue from nap to dinner or playtime, and I like to think we both enjoyed it. Plus, I liked her idea of shortcuts. So many chefs out there are interested in adding special, hard-to-find, expensive ingredidents, and using all manner of gadgets I do not have in my kitchen in creating these fancy concoctions that just aren’t fit for me and my family. But I digress…

Anyway, I think at the time she had a couple of cookbooks out there based on her TV show (or else the show was based on the cookbooks…) But now, she’s absolutely everywhere! She has oodles of cookbooks, she still hosts 30 Minute Meals but does $40 A Day too, she does a radio show, has a magazine: Rachel Ray’s Everyday, a cookbook for kids, and I think she’d being syndicated for a Houston morning show. Wow! All this has happened only in the last few years. She’s turned into a superstar, seemingly overnight.

I don’t know how she finds the time to come up with enough recipes to power all of these formats. I suppose now she has a test kitchen like Martha Stewart with all sorts of people cooking up easy meals. The more the merrier! Maybe this will start a cooking revolution! No more garnishes…no more napkins folded into swans! No more setting the table! We’ll all serve ourselves from the stove and only pull out utensils we’ll actually use. Sounds fantastic, doesn’t it?