COFFEE KLATCH MONDAY

Holy cow! It's Monday again! I don't even have coffee on, cookies have to be put in the oven--oh, wait... my husband does all that (and I hear him in the kitchen, the oven warming up...what a guy!)

Today I need a tall cup.

Oh, and I'm in my PJ's right now. Although I did  brush my hair out, I've only just got out of bed.

Yesterday three things happened. Or three things were done/learned. So, the first one is my next book Vampire's Trill should be out in eBook form by Thanksgiving (TADAH!);
The second was the Campaigner Challenges 2011 anthology came out (woohoo!); and last but not least, I sent my short story--a steampunk--to Penumbra for consideration (so that is out of my hands for now)

And I've been going through editing or re-writing sections of my 3rd book. Now, EJ brought up a very good question at his blog and asked what do you do when you're writing along and the perfect word that would fit in a sentence doesn't come? Do you bang your head against the desk? Go call Mom? Fret and worry? Sit there and drool?

All of the above?

My answer was, I leave it blank. I've been there. Believe me. Worrying about one word when a whole bunch of words are to come after is non-productive. You have to trust your brain power to skip over this problem and move on. When you come back to it, later, it will come to you. (Sometimes it comes to me in the least likely places like the tub, or when I've gone to bed--arrrrrg!) After writing for so many years, I know that that illusive word will come to you (like the word illusive--I nearly couldn't think of it, but wonders of wonders, I did!) I've found that because my mind has not been pondering the problem, which merely blocks the thinking process even more, the word will magically appear in the gray matter. Poof! And when it does, you'll be so excited and you'll think yourself as so brilliant you should have been a brain surgeon. Well, not really, but you know what I mean.

I have another question for you. And especially if you are doing NaNo. What do you do when you can't finish a scene? I've got a number of these in my manuscript right now. Actually only two now, and have to go back to write them. Yep. I had a sword fight, which I really needed to have the words in order to write it and just didn't want to interrupt the flow, so I left it blank. It won't be a big scene, but I need to do at least a paragraph. And I have something earlier that I may have to expand more on. Sometimes I don't have my characters developed enough and want to wait until I get that done before I approach a whole scene.

So, peeps. What have you in your cups today and what choice of goodies have you got to fill the empty belly?
And if you want to tell us what you do when the words don't come, be my guest. And then after you do, go check out other peep's blogs who have stopped by and say hi to them.

Ta for now!