Ahhh... Those Enchanting Summer Mornings... Almost...

There's something about waking up on a summer morning to the sound of the birds singing outside my window and I hear the faintest swoosh of wind that promises a green, lush day and I feel a smile spreading across my face before I open my eyes in a state of sleepy utopia.

This morning I was startled awake to the bong of a bird that flew into my window because it thought the reflection of the sky it saw in the glass was real.

Well, you know me; I can't let an interesting analogy like that go untouched. I was reflecting on it this morning and started to wonder if this will be a singing bird day or a bird bonging day. Unfortunately, I foresee a potential train wreck in my near future regardless of my efforts to avert it and despite this keep humming and singing songs in my head - am I trying to induce some sort of delusional attitude here or am I simply being optimistic? 

And what's wrong with being optimistic anyway? If I'm hopeful about my life one of two things will happen. 1. My expectations will be fulfilled and my hope was for good cause. OR 2. My expectations will not be filled, but I felt positive and hopeful before they went downhill and I prevented a lot of needless worrying and grief - up until the last minute anyway. Either way I see it hope is a win-win situation.

Besides, I've noticed from personal observation there are more birds singing in the mornings than there are birds determined to maim themselves on my windows. 

The Secret Life of Slugs

So I've been sitting around since I have pneumonia an I'm supposed to be doing a good impression of a slug so I won't do too much and sabotage a recovery. The problem is, I don't think slugs live very interesting lives. Now maybe I'm jumping to conclusions. Maybe slugs have a whole wild private side I don't know about. If they do I apologize. I don't want any offended slugs making comments here, but from what I see they just kind of creep along in an ooze of slime and eat things I wish they didn't. I'm not privy to the secret life of slugs and I'm no expert. All I'm saying here is that impersonating a slug is boring. That's my disclaimer so if there are any irate slugs out there please keep your opinions to yourself.

In an effort to entertain myself I've been on facebook, pinterest, goodreads, and all kinds of other websites and basically boring myself more than I already was. I tried TV yesterday, but let's face it, I'm not a big movie/TV fan. So in total desperation I've turned to posting on my blog. Yes, you've wondered what it takes for that to happen. Now you know.

I'm going to backtrack to after goodreads and before my boredom induced urge to blog. I gave up on the internet and turned to the books I've written. I thought maybe there would be some revising I could do or something. I opened up the first one I wrote and I realized there really does come a point at which I've done everything I can possibly do. My skills only reach so far and in this first effort the only way to write the book better would be to write a different book. I guess that's why I wrote the second book and am working on the third. There are things that improve with each effort but there are times when I feel the limitations of my writing ability. To be more specific, I don't know how my books are supposed to entertain anyone when they are boring me.

Perhaps, just perhaps writing isn't something I should do when I'm bored.

Can Romance Lend Itself to an Epiphany?

I had an epiphany today. I was editing my second novel, which is a romance that is taking on more and more chick lit overtones the more I revise it, and I wondered once again, why everything I write turns into a romance novel? I don't even like romance novels! And this particular novel, like the first one I wrote started as a mystery!

But as I'm revising I'm doing my best to keep everything light and fun. My goal is to create a temporary escape for the reader not to write the next great American novel. So what genre lends itself best to that? Romance! It all makes sense now. If I want it light and I avoid heavy stuff what's left? Romance! A revelation!

Why do I not like romance novels? They tend to be cheesey, the writing itself isn't usually very good and there's too much - well- romance. So I try to lighten up on all that, focus a bit more on the heroine's character, her day to day life and the significant relationships she has, and what I end up with is romance with heavy chick lit overtones or chick lit with romantic overtones - I'm not sure which - but it sure is what I write. In the industry it would be called Chick Lit/Romance.

I guess I don't mind so much now that I understand it. I may not like romance, but I do tend to like chick lit. I know I'm not supposed to say that because it shows a want of intellectual prowess, but let's face it, I don't particularly care how intellectual I look.