Lisa Hendrix

As in Home Again, Home Again.

I went off on a journey with my son and his girlfriend this weekend.  No, no markets involved — rather, it was colleges. They’re applying at (mostly) the same ones, so we went off to take a peek at campuses. All three are approximately 450 miles from home, so that  meant 8+ hours of driving each way, with three teens in the car (I took my daughter, too, rather than leave her home to harass her father), a crowded hotel suite, and miles of hiking hilly campuses. The girlfriend also had an audition at a fourth school that specializes in performing and fine arts, so that added to the general stress level (though she was way calmer than I would have been).

Anyway, after four days of non-stop kids, plus a quick stop to drop off a box of books for the baskets which will be raffled off at the Rose City Romance Writers READERS LUNCHEON (April 18, featuring special guest speaker Lucy Monroe — you really should check it out back clicking on that link), I’m back home again, looking forward to a good night’s sleep and a fresh start on the book.

How did you spend your weekend?

According to the Oxford American Dictionary which is built into my Mac, to noodle is to “improvise or play casually on a musical instrument.”  

For me, noodling is playing casually on paper or on the computer or even in my head, trying on images, ideas, plot lines, characters.  It’s the What If process plus the kind of research that wanders through the stacks and follows interesting links for the joy of it (as opposed to the kind that hunts down a specific datum) plus bits of writing that may or may not lead someplace useful.  It’s pages of nonsense and folders full of documents (real or electronic) and pictures and maps and half-formed ideas.

Mostly it’s the search for Read the rest of this entry »

That’s right. Not $121 million.  Not even $165 million.  $1.2 BILLION, in bonuses and retention payments, a big chunk of it to the very idiots in their Financial Products unit who drove the company into its $175+ billion hole.

According to the Wall Street Journal (via more accessible post at BoingBoing) it breaks down like this:

$121.5 million in incentive bonuses for 2008 (6400 employees)

$450 million bonuses to Financial Product units employees (? employess, but said to be “executives”)

$600 million in retention bonuses (4,000 employees)

TOTAL: $1.2 billion

And of course, the CEO neglected to notify anyone until Saturday that this was going to happen Sunday.

Bonuses. Retention. 

How about PINK SLIPS, you jackasses?  And I not at all respectfully suggest the first one should go to CEO Edward Liddy.

Email to the Board goes to boardofdirectors@aig.com 

Phone calls to 1-877-244-2210.

Let them know just how much you love what they’ve done with your money. Then let your President, both your Senators, and your Representative know how you feel as well.

And spread around that contact info. It’s not about politics. It’s about survival. Ours.

No, not these guys, though I wouldn’t mind meeting Vin Diesel. Or Paul Walker, for that matter…

Remember back in early February (that long ago?) when I said I was starting a Fast Draft* of Immortal Champion, the next book in my paranormal historical romance series.  Well, I didn’t.  I wrote one great day, then flaked out under pressure from things like preparing a conference workshop or three, getting promo set up for IMMORTAL OUTLAW, and judging Rita books.  Meanwhile, my buddy Scott (R. Scott Shanks, Jr.) totally embarrassed me by actually leaping into that hole I had proposed and adding a significant number of words to his draft during his 14 days, even though he works full time.  Good on him. Bad on me.

So here I sit red-faced, still with nothing significant done.  But those conferences are over, the Rita scores are posted, promo is at least temporarily under control, and I have a clear two weeks ahead, so here I go. For the next 14 days, I intend to do 5000 words a day. Possible, I know, because I’ve done it several times, just not back to back. Whether I have anything useful or vaguely resembling a novel at the end of the time remains to be seen.  I’ve never approached a book this way before.  But something has GOT to change in how I get my writing done, and this holds a certain fascination for me, so it’s what I’m trying.

As for this blog — don’t expect a lot (not that I’m one of the most prolific bloggers anway…).  What I’m going to do is leave this post on top and simply update it every day with my daily writing and cumulative total.   That way, all your comments, kind and encouraging or snide and snarky, will be in the same place.  Please remember to pop back in ever now and then even though your RSS feed won’t show any new posts.  And tell all your friends to come watch me–I know me, and an audience will keep me honest and on task.  Tell them they can come watch some crazy woman beating her brains and carpal tunnels out on a MacBook.  I’ll either soar with the eagles and Vin, or crash and burn like one of those guys in the old “early days of human flight” compilations. Either way, it should prove amusing for everyone — except possibly my family.  In fact, to encourage voyeurism, anyone who posts a Comment on this post will be entered to win an Advance Read Copy of IMMORTAL OUTLAW. The drawing will take place on March 25, after I have a brain again.

And when am I starting?

Why, now, of course. 

UPDATES 

3/9, 11pm:   6366 (Makes a net loss for the day, because I broke a rule and edited out 1158 words.  Had to, as I was off to a horrible false start, part of the reason I had trouble getting my brain into this  But now I’m set up and ready to go.)  

3/15, 8:30pm:  Fail.  But not really.  I was doing a quick fact check of something for the next day’s writing and stumbled into one of those serendipitous things.  I’ve been tying in as much myth as possible into the Brotherhood stories, but hadn’t hit the right one for Champion until the other day. I found it, or rather IT, the critical myth. So I’m replotting.  For now, I’ll go back to my regularly unscheduled blogging, but I’ll be back to Fast Draft when I get the new Board done.  Board, you ask?  Yes, board.

———–

* Fast Draft is the name of a workshop by Candace Havens and may or may not be trademarked to her (couldn’t find out on her site).  Either way, I give her full credit for the name, if not the concept of writing really, really fast. Authors have been doing that since some editor  invented the deadline.

Last October, I posted about a terrific explanation of the mortgage crisis that had been done on This American Life.

Well, they’ve done it again: Alex Blumberg and NPR’s Adam Davidson explain how a bank works in terms any of us can understand, and then explain toxic assets and all those other terms bandied about on CNN and MSNBC.

That show, Bad Bank,  is available for listening on the TAL website, but is also downloadable on iTunes (free at this writing, but perhaps costing a buck or so later — search podcasts for This American Life, then pick the show Bad Bank).  

Go grab it, then listen. Carefully. Do not imagine you understand  what the hell is going on until you do.  We cannot be good consumers or informed citizens until we get this stuff.

Never say never, but really…