I'm still slogging through revisions. If anyone has been tracking my progress (cause it's such an exciting way to spend your time), I've been slogging through the same revisions for close to two years now. It's inspiring, I know.

One of my writing buddies posts on facebook what she's working on each night, which I actually find inspiring. She writes epic fantasy, so her status updates are always awesome. Like "Tonight's revisions: Kiri slaughters the town of Magdelon with a magic sword."

I've been debating doing that, in the mornings. I've done it mentally for a few days now, and here's how it's gone:

Sunday.   This morning's revisions: Kersey and Naomi walk through Belfast
Monday.  This morning's revisions: Kersey and Naomi walk through Belfast
Tuesday:  This morning's revisions: Kersey and Naomi walk through Belfast

As you can see, I've got a major problem here. I'm going in circles.  It isn't pretty.

And then yesterday, I ended up in the most random of conversations and got amazing advice. It was myself, an Education professor, and a guest-speaker on campus we were hosting, along with his wife. It was the first time I'd met all of them, and we'd somehow ended up in a car together as part of a convoy to lunch.

The Education professor was describing her morning teaching rhythm to a 7th grade guitar class, and she said, "I tell them to pay attention to the mother beat."

The guest-speaker asked what a mother beat was (for which I was grateful).

She said, "The mother beat is the rhythm that's underneath every song. And I tell them that when they get lost, they should stop and listen for the mother beat and they'll find their place again.

 I found this fascinating, the idea that every song has a pulse, a consistent rhythm underlying that can allow you to find your place again if you get lost.

And I got to thinking, do stories have mother beat's too? Is there a pulse, a rhythm you can always listen for to find your way back when you get lost? Maybe it's something different for every book, like theme, or maybe it's something different for every writer, like voice.

And the real question, can the mother beat of my story pull me back when I'm so far lost?

I think it can. It's all a little bit fuzzy and abstract in my head, but it feels like this can be the inspiration I've been looking for.

What do you think? Can your story have a mother beat? Can it help you find your way when you get lost? Can you tap into it with music? Do you ever get inspired by something too abstract to explain, but that makes a practical difference for you? Anybody else want to join a drum circle now?

P.S. - I wasn't sure if the phrase 'mother beat' is a real thing, or just this woman's own phrase for the concept. Don't google it to find out though -- if you type 'mother beat' into google, you'll be horrified by the number of news stories of mothers beating their babies. Christ almighty it's a sick world.

This Winter season has been awesome for the reading stockpile, just saying. I'm a little tired of Old Man Winter--and so I'm going to blog about the last of the books from my Winter stockpile in a bid to give a helpful hint to Old Man Winter that as a guest, he's beginning to smell like old fish.

The last book from my Winter stockpile is Elizabeth Hoyt's LORD OF DARKNESS. It is the fifth of the Maiden Lane series--but don't let that run you off--you can read it without being left in the dark about the other five books. However, I think reading all the books, starting with WICKED INTENTIONS, sets the setting for 1740s London during the gin craze. It's dark and gritty and there are lots of orphans...and some sword-wielding Robin Hood like characters called the Ghost of St. Giles. Incidentally there are three.

It's witty, it's sweet, and as I said, dark and gritty and everyone is an inch from death. (This is about as close as I'd come to reading Dickens, but I think the premise is much like him.) Unlike Dickens (and probably more likely why I don't read him), the sex is hot and wonderful and you're dogearring pages to show your honey later. (Okay, that might only be me. I know everyone else SKIPS the love scenes. Seriously, what's wrong with people? It kills me when people say that. "Oh, I never read the sex.") Yeah, well, in this one, you'll read the sex twice. It's awesome. And she doesn't rush into it...there's plenty of tension and development between the characters (incidentally in this case, a husband and wife who have a marriage of convenience.)

Hoyt writes all kinds of heroes, but I think she leans more toward alpha males. This one though is much like the character Winter from THIEF OF SHADOWS in that he leans more "beta", a bit more sensitive and a little less rough-shod over every situation.

In this one, the hero Godric is in his mid-thirties (the heroine thinks he's quite on the cusp of dotage at several points that makes you laugh) and his wife, Megs, is a young miss about twenty or so. There is an interesting parallel between them: they've both loved others before they were married and basically swear never to love again. Their love for their previous lovers causes a lot of barriers between them, and it's interesting to watch them resolve it--and also how Hoyt resolves the quandary of having more than one love over your life.

So the question of the day is not about series. The question is what thing have you learned about in a story that you found so interesting you went to read more about it after you were done with the book? (You have a lot to pick from: glassblowing in Nora Roberts, natural magic a la Lisa Kleypas, the Scottish wars Julie Garwood are a few of mine.)

I'm so excited about this book that I haven't even finished reading it before starting to recommend it to you. However, from a glimpse of the reviews on Amazon, I see this might be one of those divisive books. Lisa Kleypas is no stranger to writing those. After all, it is legend on this ship, I still haven't gotten over the fact she switched heroes for a certain Wallflower book and I refused to finish reading that particular series. (Other people *loved* that book though.) Yes, Lisa is a fearless barnstormer where writing boundary-pushing books are concerned.

CRYSTAL COVE is another in the Friday Harbor series, and it features Justine Hoffman and Jason Black. (Incidentally I didn't realize the hero and heroine both had names that start with the same letter until 2/3 through the book. What a no-no! I'm so glad I didn't get those two mixed up during any of the scenes I was reading with them. *snerk*)

In the Friday Harbor series, the common thread that weaves within all the stories is magic. In Rainshadow Road, the heroine was magic with glass--she'd touch glass and magical things would happen; in Dream Lake, the heroine is magical with food; and in this book, the heroine is just simply magical, as in a Practical Magic sort of way. (Don't think I didn't notice Justine's last name is Hoffman, and it was Alice Hoffman who wrote Pratical Magic.Okay, that might be a reach--but I don't think so!) In fact, if you watched Practical Magic, you'll remember the heroine of that story cast a spell so she'd never fall in love. In CRYSTAL COVE, there is a spell on the heroine so she'll never fall in love--but it wasn't cast by her. There are also these two older women--much like the aunts in Practical Magic--and there is that touchy curse where any man who falls in love with a witch will die young--and break the heart of the witch who loved him. (Please be assured Lisa Kleypas has her own twists and turns and different plot choices in this story--I only reference Practical Magic to say, "If you enjoyed the movie and could handle the 'darker magic' of that story, this one would be up your alley as well.")

As with all of Lisa's book, she introduces me to some art technique or lore or culture (or all the above) that I didn't know about but suddenly feel very informed about and want to investigate more after I close the book because Lisa has shared it in such an enchanting way. In this one, she introduces some Japanese culture, because the hero happens to be 1/4 Japanese. And I think Lisa also wanted to take 50 Shades of Grey and say, "Ha, you think that's sexy? Watch this" and showed us what sexy was. Holy Cow. She always pushes the boundaries of sexy scenes, but she always adds a little something more. I know that raspberry scene is still being talked about. Yeah. I think the red rope scene is the new raspberry scene for a new generation of Kleypas readers.

As for me, I'm loving this book and can't wait to recommend it, but I can see the jury is divided.

How about you? Have you had a chance to read CRYSTAL COVE? Love it or not-love it? Do you like discussion of witchcraft in romances--or does it give you the heebie-jeebies? What are you reading this week?

I stumbled upon BLUEPRINT YOUR BESTSELLER on Amazon and was quite grateful for my public library for having a copy. (One of those rent it before you buy it things--oh, how I wish I had done that with several of the DVDs on my shelves, but no matter.) It's a book about a different way of looking at the revision process. He doesn't care if you plot or pants--it matters you have a substantial amount of your book written before you try his process because essentially his process is looking at the book as a whole and tightening the strings until you have it in tune. After all, the real writing comes in revision.

What I liked about this book was how it didn't seem to concentrate on character or plot or the individual mechanics of a story, but seemed instead to focus on the innocuous. And he seemed to have some interesting math. Like every story has 99 scenes...and about 10-15 series...and 1 (only one) theme.

Now I know we all know what scenes are; and we know how important scenes are. You know when you're keeping a scene in your novel, it must be a scene that advances the story in some way, either through plot or character or well, hopefully, both. We've been writing about theme since Second Grade when we had to write about our summer vacations. No anxiety there, but the series was a bit confusing at first, at least for me. Fortunately though, the more I read about it, the more I realized I (and other writers) already seem to do this, even if we don't necessarily call it this. Or we might mislabel it because I would be tempted to call it theme. (However, he was very adamant there is only one theme in a novel.)

A series is a iteration, something that is repeated (or re-emphasized) at various points of the book, usually creating a pattern of some kind that advances the character arc in one way or another. These iterations are generally "one-word" descriptors, like ACCEPTANCE or IDENTITY or DEATH or whathaveyou, that somehow tie back to your theme but are not the entire theme. The theme instead is a one-line summary of what your message in your novel is about. If I was talking about my current WIP, I'd say it's "What are our roles in marriage and the Happily Ever After?"--and the series, I believe, are things like HAPPINESS and LOVE and MARRIAGE and RESPONSIBILITY. My characters have different values when it comes to happiness and love and marriage; and they have different values of who is responsible for these things.

It was just a very interesting way to look at your story, identify these key elements so you could strengthen the story as a whole and tighten everything, as if you had done all this on purpose. (Maybe you did, but for me, a lot of writing is letting my Muse know everything and she just tells me what I need to know. Frequently it isn't until the revision I realize just what a damned genius I really was--only it wasn't me, it was clearly my Muse. You'd understand if you saw the TED talk.)

Anyway, if you were on a mission for another writing craft book...or you wanted to think about revision in a different way, this was also an approachable way to look at your writing. I think I may include it on my writing craft bookshelf for future reference.

Have you ever thought about revision in this way? Do you know what the theme of your story is and some of the series/iterations that occur in your book? And have you seen this TED talk? Isn't that a funny way to think of a Muse and a good reason to believe in one?

Lately I've been trying to work more on setting descriptions in scenes. It's a weakness of mine that I know needs help so I thought today I would challenge us to a writing prompt using our current characters.

Below I'm including a few photos for inspiration. Pick a photo and use it to inspire a scene with your characters - you can set them in the photo or use it to inspire a different setting or memory. Whatever you choose, let's see if we can work on how we layer and add setting descriptions into the scene to enhance it and not just as filler (as I have a tendency to do).