The Zen of Writing, Painting, and other Pursuits

I was born, I think, with a crayon in hand. I drew on walls when there was no paper to put crayon to.

I must have driven my poor mother mad. I drew, of all things, dinosaurs. Give me anything to draw with, and I was hell on walls! My sister must have forgiven me, at some later date, when I used her lipstick to make designs on our bedroom walls (my sister is 10 years my senior). She still loves me. Sends me a Halloween/Christmas card every year.

In high school, and college, I majored in art. Just to get that point straight. 

However, I did take creative writing classes, in both high school and junior college. It was then that I found that not only did I love to flash color on a canvas, but I found that writing filled another void all together different, and yet very zen related to my right brain activities.

My biggest complaint about my art teachers in college told me that my art looked like, well, someone took a picture of the subject.

Is that so bad?

Even when it does look like something, it's still the artists' own style and their version of what they see down on the paper or canvas.

(These are all watercolors, btw)

Here I was, having had people all my life calling me "artist" and that I was very good at it. That I should make money at it.

Oh, did that fill me with hope.

I get to college and all they wanted me to do was make silly designs, using rulers, tape, and whatnot. Nothing freehand. And in art history I found that modern art was just someone trying to outdo another person with what I loving refer to as crap. Throwing paint on canvas can be freeing, but I don't know. A rose by any other name...

Oh, sure, got my degree. Tried to continue the whole thing in a larger college, but faltered. Probably because I'd fallen in love with my husband. I think he saved me from becoming a librarian.

Anyway, as you can see, at this later stage of my life, my watercolors have given me pride and it was fun taking last summer off to explore my art. I had never tried watercolors ever, and once I got into it, I couldn't stop.

I've told someone that wanted to buy my paintings that if I could draw it, I could paint it.

Two of the paintings here have been sold to someone.

My day job (Laughingly I refer to), is driving a city bus. Gag me. I've been doing it for 19 years and I want to quit soooooo badly. But bills must be paid. Yes. Here you see a starving artist. Whether I've sold paintings or my books. It's a bit disheartening, if my whole point is to make money.

But It's not. A writer HAS to write. It's in them and they can't help themselves. I've tried to "quit" writing, but then comes along an idea, a character whose voice won't shut up and...

Well, I have to write. I've been writing since 1972--in the 80's I tried very hard to get an agent. Well, that didn't go very well. No one wanted more vampire stories. One agent said vampires were so over. NOT. Buffy the Vampire Slayer was still on TV, and we were just years away from the shinny vampires to make their big splash.

I self published my first novel, "Spell of the Black Unicorn". It's gone through a few different covers and hopefully this one sticks, as I love it.

As with anything I do, whether it's gardening, crocheting, art, or writing, I'll put myself into it 100%.

What one does with their talent is up to them. I'd like to make money at my pursuits, but so many others are doing the same thing as I am. They work so hard at getting noticed on the Facebook groups where we all vie for attention with our books. I've found mixed results, and eventually I give up trying. I just need to do my thing and, well, is that so bad?

All of my books can be found here:

Lorelei Bell's Books

Spring is SPRING-Y

I know we are not the only ones who are sick of winter. It's been colder than cold. Even when it warms up for a while, it dips back down. This hasn't been easy on me, since I drive a bus for a living, and the building where we have always been able to park has been closed down for the whole effing year, doing major upgrading. Not that it will make any difference to anyone. 
So, where I and eighteen other people who drive buses park, it's a looooong frigging walk just to pee.
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I've been waiting to see snow melt. And I don't mean a few inches. I mean FEET! Snow drifts, and snow piles all around our yard has taken up until this week to actually diminish. We stayed in 50's last night and finally, any snow that snuggled up to the house is gone, save for a few bravely clinging ice patches on the sidewalks.



Our resident deer have come to the backyard to rest and chew their cud. They stay out there because it's away from the park, and we're not in the yard. But, one visitor came along. A hungry 'possum. I watched as it roamed the yard, heading straight for a large female. The deer, who didn't git up, but bent it's head as if to say, "Hey! Jerk, stay out of my personal space!"
The 'possum suddenly saw what was in front of her, and she made a quick detour, only to nearly head into two more deer laying on the ground under the white pines. I had to laugh. Animal drama is funny, some times.


Well, this has been "spring break" for NIU, that's why I'm home. Thank you!!!
I'm working on writing, which is normal for me, and why I'm avoiding a lot of other stuff. Although, I'll stop and watch "House" on Tuesdays, and "Monk" on Thursdays, which is today, so, we'll see what Monk is up to. While "House" is intriguing, one who doesn't know when to look away from the screen at the right moments, would do well not to watch that show while eating. EVER!

WRITING CAVE

My job at Huskie is a little weird in that when NIU is down for a holiday, like Christmas or Easter, very few buses are running. And because I really, really hate the runs they have available, this is the first Christmas break I've had totally off. This means no pay, but my meager SS payments and some savings to get us through.

And so, I've been writing. The third book was finished in less than 40 days, back in November. Of course, it was less than 200 pages, but still I wrote and plotted it along the way. This one was a bit special for my Lainey Quilholt murder mystery series.

So, I went through it a second time to fluff it out, and do a few other things to it, and after that I went to #4 book (which I wrote first, back in the summer), and am working on that presently, and I've almost got that one fixed. This one was difficult to figure out who murdered the victim, and who did what and why and when. It's a who-done-it, whereas the 3rd one is a different LQ in which the murderer is a serial killer, and he is stalking Lainey. It had me watching and reading a lot about serial killers, sociopaths and psychopaths. Oh, and painball guns and home security cameras. Fun stuff.

I'm going to bring you a post which I had done years ago about the first known serial killer in the US. We all know about Jack The Ripper of London. We have our own version and I'll be posting it in a day or so.

Thanks for stopping in.

Lainey Quilholt 

Series

Shoving the Old Out The Door!

I've had it with winter, and we're only a few weeks into it. Never mind that a new year is coming in. We'll still have the same crap (including the same president), so, I doubt the new year could be better than this one was.

As I write this, my husband is plowing the park (right next to our house), and although we were around 10 degrees this morning, it's dropping and wind picked up.

Yesterday I put plastic on my north window. I haven't done the same to my west windows, as it's more work. The top of windows are 8 feet, and I have to stand on a step ladder. I could enlist my husband if I wanted, but I'm going to hope the thick blinds and insulated boards will help hold out the cold. I really don't like putting the plastic up. Our furnace works fine, I also have a heater that blows heat if it gets that bad. I've so far been doing okay in sub-zero temps.

I'm supposed to be working on a synopsis for a book that's ready to go, but I just haven't felt like working on it. I don't know why. Just the idea of condensing everything that happens in a large book overwhelms me.

Besides, I'm sort of waiting until after the new year to put this together. It's the sequel to Spell of the Black Unicorn, and it's called Spell of Dark Castle. A longer work, but it was a joy to write. I wrote it too many years ago to remember.

Well, I'll see if I can't muster up some enthusiasm in the coming days. I do feel like Grumpy above. I just don't know how to get out of this mood I'm in.

When In Doubt...

Hoookay. I've been working on my murder mystery for over a year, now. I'll admit it's really hard to write a genre you've only just admired and enjoyed reading, but haven' a clue (pun intended), as to how to go about it. I think I've been floundering every few steps, and have had to go back and rewrite about every other day. It is that old adage, writing is like driving in the dark with one headlight. Maybe a fog has descended here and there, and you can't even see the road--in my case.

But, I'm making progress. And just to share this with you, when you're reading through a manuscript and come upon something you've written--like dialogue, or a scene you just aren't exactly sure about, you question: "Would he say/do this?", then maybe you should reconsider that scene and pause and look around at other books with such a scene--or go to many places you might have on "How To Write" (I've kept old articles/magazines from Writer's Digest, etc to help me in times like these). I do this, but when I got to a specific thing in my murder mystery, I was stalled because no How-to-write article/blog is going to hit anything specific. Usually they tell you how TO write it. Not what you're doing WRONG. If you don't see that deer in your headlights, how do you know you've gotta stop???

Then, yesterday, I was poking around at a site called Poison Pencil--publisher based out of Scottsdale, AZ. I was actually trying to find out if they were accepting submissions. They weren't, but I happened along a blog by Ellen Larson, editor of Poison Pencil (which has mysteries, and specifically YA mysteries, which is what mine is) and I read portions of this blog. I found out what she finds in manuscripts that cause her to return them to the author, rejected.

Yeah. My history of rejection is, shall we say, not quite as huge as many authors, including JK Rowling, S. King, etc., but it was enough to make me quit submitting to any agent, or publisher long ago. (I have had 2 publishers, and the present has been working out just fine.) Here she tells the reader exactly what she doesn't want to see. And a few things she brought up had me going "Oh, shit. I did that." So, I'm working on rewrites. AGAIN!!!

But there was something else I found at this sight that had me thinking, "This isn't very impressive at all for a publisher's site." You will see if you go to their Young Adult Mystery Books, and click on any book. When you do [I'll wait], you'll find that you can't BUY any of these books from this site. And I thought hummmm... That's really sort of discouraging for anyone who might be interested in one of their books.

Compare Poison Pencil's site, to my publisher Creativia . Their site is so much better, with more places to discover/meet all authors and if you go to the "Meet" section, you can hit on any author, see their books and (as an example, mine), find their books and BUY them! How convenient is that?

So, if there is a lesson to learn here, it might be "the grass isn't any greener elsewhere".

So... I'm working on the rewrites, and especially the Prologue I'd written. Seems I need to push the timing of the Prologue back a bit in where to start it. But this is good. I'm catching stuff that needs to be fixed. There might be another saying applied here: "When in doubt, take it out".

Lorelei Bell@Creativia 

March Is Mad, Mad, Mad

Finally have time to breath a little bit.

I've sent my publisher the fifth book in Sabrina Strong series, and I've gotten the proofs back, and I'll get to read it some day. Plan on it tomorrow as it will be raining, and I've got all of next week off from work (NIU has Spring Break). So, m'dears, the fifth book is on its way. Just hang in there!

I noticed I've got over one hundred thousand views on this blog. YAY!

And my husband is getting ready to return to his park job come April 1st. He has officially quit the bus driving job. It just made him crazy. I don't blame him. I want to quit too, but need the money.

I enjoy getting messages from fans, and even future fans--or their mothers--on facebook, etc. I got such a message today, and the woman said her daughter was named Lorelei Bell ! How crazy is that??? I've never had someone with both names contact me before. I've heard my first name, a few times, but never this. What's the chance?

Anyway, the lady asked what age would I recommend for my vampire novels. Her daughter is nine. Yeah. I said that my novels shouldn't be read by anyone under 16, at least. There's too much sex and violence. I would think that that age (in this day and age), that they've seen and heard it all by then. So, any way, that was a nice surprise. But I also added by the time she hits 16, I should have all 8 books out by then. Her response was it would make a great "sweet sixteen" gift for her. I LIKE that woman's thinking!

And work continues on my mystery novel--although I've been a little busy lately to work on it. But the verve is still there. I've gotta do this other thing for publisher first. Get that next book out. I can't wait to see the cover. He said he had the same artist for 8 books, so, we'll see how this turns out. Great, I'm sure!

And today, since it was perfect out, and out yard was a MESS from winter with a lot of big, medium and small limbs, branches etc. down, we had to get out there and get this spruced up some. We didn't want to over work ourselves. We've got a large yard, and a lot of trees, so, we got the front first and worked toward the back, and we called it quits at one.

Tonight is turn your clocks ahead an hour, by the way. Our trick is, we don't do anything differently. However, we don't turn our bedroom clock ahead or back until morning. That way, if we wake up at our normal time (which for us might be 4:30, it will be 5:30, so we won't feel bad about sleeping in, or whatever. It won't be a shock to the system.

Lastly, I've put the first chapter up on Murder on the Mississippi, for reading, if you'd like to check it out and like it if you do.

Hope everyone has a great weekend!

Holy Writing Cave, Batman!

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  The last several days I've gotten beyond page 100 in my WIP, writing, sometimes as much as 2,000 words, or more in a single sitting. Have more ideas swimming around in my head. And they sometimes wake me up in the middle of the night. Sheesh!