This is my 1000^th post!  When I began this blog, I never thought I’d keep posting daily for a long as I have.  I’ve only missed posting on days I was too sick to get out of bed or when I was away at my writer’s conference.

     I never thought I’d have return readers or, much less, a small following, but I do.  To you my dear readers I say thank you for without you I wouldn’t have made it to this milestone.

     You encourage me to keep writing even when I feel crappy.  Writing on this blog has become a way to keep my hand in while my brain is out of gear on my mysteries. 

     I hope when we sell the house and things are back to a semblance of normal around here I will have no more problems with my books and can finish them in short order.

     I promise you, if you hang in here with me during this rocky time, I will get them done.

     According to the Encarta dictionary—Internalization: to deal with an emotion or conflict by thinking about it rather than expressing it openly.  

     My critiquing partners have often complained that I need to have my characters internalize more.  I have trouble writing internalized emotions.  This is something I’m trying to improve.  It isn’t easy.  I find that I often fall into the land of the clichéd expressions. 

     One doesn’t want to fall into this land.  They kick and bite you.  While writing an emotional scene, it sometimes takes using a clichéd expression so your writing flow doesn’t freeze.  That way you can continue writing without wracking your brain for some sort of analogy. 

     I have Word set to catch clichés.  When my computer screams at me for using a clichéd expression, I turn the phrase to a different color, which makes it easy to spot later, and I continue to write.  Then when I get to the rewrites, I have to change them.

     Externalization: to express ideas or feelings in some visible or perceptible way in order to communicate them to somebody else. 

    This is much easier to do and I use it more often than internalization.  I need to reach a happy medium.

     The writer in me is restless but can’t seem to find the words to put down on the pages.  Instead, I find I’m scribbling ideas on note cards and stacking them on my desk to do something with them later.  Although avoiding my garden’s siren call is difficult, maybe this lovely change in the weather will help to inspire me to sit down and organize my scribbles into a coherent package.  I need to get more words on the page and fewer half-baked ideas on note cards.

     My note card stack has reached toppling level.  Walk past my desk, the stack wobbles and threatens to fall.  Even the dogs have learned to tip-toe past.

     I have blank note cards with pens in every room of the house, my car, and my purse.  No idea has gone off into the ozone over the last month, which is quite an improvement over recent months.

     I realized today that I need to update my ‘what I’m reading’ list.  I hadn’t thought about it for quite a while.  At this point in time all those books on my list are finished and I’ve read many more since I posted it.  I’ll get around to changing it.

     I have new books that I won in the basket Nancy Martin donated to the auction.  I can’t wait to sit down, relax, take breath and dive into them.  I also have new books on my Kindle that I haven’t read.

     Yes, the old ‘so many books so little time’ whine.  I know if I want to do some reading I’d better do some writing first or Dave, Chuck, and a few other friends are gonna kick my a$$. 

     Nancy, that Donald Maas ‘Writing the Breakout Novel’ workbook might be just the trick to motivate me.  Thanks for putting that in the basket!