CONTEST WINNER!

It was sorta clunky, but I really did have my dog pick a winner. I printed out all the blog commentors and wrapped the slips of paper around a chunk of dry dog food. Vange in Colorado won! Perhaps she is dog-lover. I will send her a bottle of Fresh Grass scented lotion, one of my calendars and an ecopy of Green Grass. Thanks to all who commented! More contests to come!
Gem

They are making by book into a movie!

Not really. But that was fun to type....
So, as writers we like to indulge in that fantasy. We sit around and ponder who would play our characters. I saw this model in a newspaper ad -- don't even remember what store -- it was Kevin Shepherd, right down to the dark curls and sculpted cheekbones. I cut it out and taped it to my computer. Now there is this character on the TV show Old Christine. He plays Christine's brother. His name is Hamish Linklater. He reminds me of Kevin. Maybe not quite as cute as Kevin.

Adrian Culpepper...holy smokes. Who would play her? A petite blonde. A cute blonde. Is Dakota Fanning old enough? Kate Hudson? Oh, oh -- Hayden Panettiere!

Oh this is so exciting. Any movie execs out there reading this? (yeah, right...) Let's put these two lovely people togehter in my movie, Green Grass. Starring Hayden Panettiere and Hamish Linklater. You provide the set, the camera thingy, some donuts. I'll bring the script. Meet me in Maine.

Done.
Gem

Essentially, oils are difficult to get at

I like to dabble in aromatherapy, herbal medicine -- even crystal healing. I really believe there are hidden energies in plants and rocks and trees and everything else, all around us. But alas, my senses are just too 21st century to lock into anything but radio waves. I took a fairly down-to-earth herbal medicine course once -- lengthy and thorough and I started using some of the teas and tinctures for healing. I tackled only the simplest of ailments. Stomach aches, menstrual cramps, head colds. My daughter had cradle cap and I concocted a salve to "heal" her. She had a green scalp for months. (I like to think she is more clever now because of it :)

The one thing I have tried with some success is distilling essential oils from plants material. That's what Adrian Culpepper is up to in my latest release, Green Grass. She's a self-taught chemist. She brews huge batches of flowers and mixes up massage oils. OK, so here's my experience. I've done the easy stuff -- orange peels. I boiled down a pile of peels and collected the condensate. I got a tiny thimbleful of limonene. Smelled great. Then I tried a large flask full of lavender flowers and -- well I burned them and it stunk for days. I tried a flask full of simple green grass and got nothing more than a smear of oil. But that one did smell fresh.

Bottom line of this blog post? Distilling essential oils from plant material is tough. You need huge amounts of plant material to get a little bit of anything even remotely resembling an oil, and even then it's probably full of impurities.

I created Adrian to learn the art at her mother's knee, and a lot of trial and error. Read the book and see what her future holds! Essentially, it's a happy ending!

later - Gem

See that bottle of lotion? Top shelf, right? It's massage lotion from Garden of Eden! I'm giving away a bottle of that! I picked the custom fragrance of...you guessed it. Fresh Grass! No kidding. It smells like a dream and surely something Adrian would brew up! Also, I willthrow in a nifty desk calendar and a pdf copy of Green Grass for one lucky winner. All you have to do is leave a comment here, on my blog during the next week, August 2nd-8th. I will pool the emails and select one winner.

I recently did an interview with the hero of my new release, GREEN GRASS. (Out today from Whiskey Creek Press Torrid! http://www.whiskeycreekpresstorrid.com) If you want to check out the interview, it's over at my author page at Coffee Time Romance.
http://www.coffeetimeromance.com/board/forumdisplay.php?f=1351

It's great fun to "talk" to your characters. Dang, they can be clever. But here's the rub. Get really close to the monitor, because I am going to whisper something....they are not real.

At some point the conversation becomes inevitably ridiculous.
"So Kevin, do you wish I would have given you a bigger dick?"
"Ah, yeah Gem. Why so stingy? And I want to be a body builder, not a scientist."
"Too late to change you."
"Will there be a sequel?"
"Perhaps, but some body parts I can't change."

It's all in good fun. Honestly, relating to my last blog about writing conflict, I think it might be good writing technique to interview all the characters BEFORE you write them. Get them on the couch. "So tell me all about yourself. What are your goals? Your motivation? Your conflicts?"

Wow, I am onto something here. Gotta go. I'm going to do some interviews....

Check out Green Grass!

Gem

Writing Conflict

That title has multiple meanings. I am having a writing conflict lately. I sit and write endless dialogue -- some of it really pretty darn good. Page after page turns into chapter after chapter. What's the problem? No conflict. My characters are just blathering along, happily, with occasional angst. We are getting to know them, we are getting a sense of place, setting, emotional involvement. JUST NO CONFLICT.

My strength as a writer is in character development. I've also "been told" that I can create a feeling -- put you there with the characters. Mood... So we are are warm and fuzzy and feeling the mood. Yawn.

Story ideas pop into my head like daisies. They really do. I've heard other authors talk about a lack of ideas. That's not my problem, but I can't seem to get beyond the initial story line. I imagine all my characters are in position, sitting around the bonfire that I have so painstakingly created and then suddenly all eyes are one me.

"What do you want us to do? Roast wienies and sing songs?"

No that won't work. How about somebody stand up and strike another with a baseball bat. Yikes -- not my style. WHERE'S THE CONFLICT?

I'm in a pickle. We live our lives every day with little conflicts arising. Makes me realize how insignificant our daily strife really is. We should always ask ourselves -- when it seems the world will come to an end when the person in line ahead of us takes the last cupcake -- would this make for an interesting plot conflict? If the answer is no, we should let it go. In life and in writing.

Later - Gem

Green Grass has a cover!

The artist captured the feeling of this book PERFECTLY!