Megan Hart

I know you’re out there. I know you’ve read my books. (Or at least, I think you have, why else would you be here?)

Send me a picture of yourself reading one of my books (you agree to let me post it in my blogs and at my site) and you’ll be entered in a contest to win an ARC of my upcoming January release, TEMPTED!

Contest runs from now until August 31, 2007. Send pictures in .jpg or .gif format to: blog  @  meganhart.com

Have fun!

M

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Yes, I have completed my final vacation of the summer.

Wait. I lied. I have one more trip to take, this time with my sister to celebrate her birthday in August. Back to the beach.

But overall, the many, many trips of the summer are over. And we still have the rest of August! Gosh. I guess I need to get back to work, huh? Let me tell you, though, the past week was really wonderful. Very relaxing. I sat on the beach and read and read and read. Didn’t do a lick of writing. Came up with some great ideas, though…

Thank you, bronzed lifeguards who liked rubbing lotion on each other! THANK YOU!!!!

We mostly went to the beach but this year we also went to Assateague to see the…

PONIES!!!!

We knew we were there because we found…

Haha! I don’t care who you are, poop is generally funny.

But then we found some.

And that was fun.

I read so many books, and for once I didn’t run out! And I got…well…not a tan, because I don’t tan, but my freckles sort of blended together and formed a tan-like quality on my face.

It wouldn’t be a blog entry without a photo of me eating:

And I really regret not buying these now that I’m home and I didn’t buy them. :(

And of course…the captain fetish…

And finally, of course, because he claims I always cut his head off on purpose…

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13,750 / 100,000 (13.8%)

line of the day: She’d have liked it better if the caregivers here had just been honest, but death around this place was like the wall-eyed cousin who came for Thanksgiving and mashed peas into his potatoes. Everyone noticed, but nobody said a word about it.

M

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Sorry, guys. I do not have Jared Padalecki’s email address. I’m still not Megan Padalecki. I think it’s a hoot that people searching on those terms come here. I wish I could help you out, I really, really do.

For those of you looking for Dean Winchester erotic again, sorry to disappoint. That stuff is only in my head, not written down for public consumption. Because…Dean Winchester…erotic…

What was I talking about?

Someone’s still looking for bad megan and someone else is seeking hart porn, but to the people looking for “read in bed” I say Welcome! Welcome!

M

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11,250 / 100,000 (11.3%)

When I actually have the time to sit down and do it, I do it. :)

line of the day: How long had it been since he’d heard anything voiced in song but prayers?

I figured out something important, something good. I’m up to 45 pages, not close enough to the 60 I’d hoped for to finish before I leave for vacation, but there’s no sense in rushing it if I don’t have to. A week won’t make much difference, in the end. Not at this point. I may be able to write more tomorrow morning, but probably not. It’s very hectic around here. Doctor visits, dying pets, preparing for vacation, dealing with kids.

But I feel better and better about this book all the time. I got some good feedback on the first chapter, or what was the first chapter until I figured out it needed some more pieces. Which is fine, since the stuff in the first chapter that got good feedback will go to the third…no problem.

So onward and upward!

M

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So tomorrow I’ll do some more writing. That’s the way it’s going right now, in dribs and drabs. I have to tell myself (forcibly) that it’s OKAY. It is okay for this time to be slower.

It’s not like I have a choice.

Well, yes, I have a choice about whether or not to play the Sims 2 or watch a movie or spend time with my kids or husband or write…I always have that choice. But I don’t really have a choice about taking my cat to the vet or being with her as she  passes from this life. It’s taking a long time. I’d hasten the process, but circumstances are preventing it. So it’s a waiting game right now.  I don’t have a choice, either, about taking my kid to the doctor, or going to the grocery store, or doing housework. (I guess I have a choice about the food and the cleaning, but since I like to eat and a messy house destroys my sanity, it’s not really a choice.)

I know when the summer ends and the school year starts I’ll be back to work with a vengeance and any work I do right now will only help me along, but while I know this and I actually have started enjoying “slacking off” (haha, in between ferrying children and cleaning the house that gets twice as dirty with everyone home) I also know that I’m a writer. I write. It’s what I do. It’s more than just the money, though more would be nice. It’s the fact that I have stories to tell and being a writer is so entwined with who I am that I can’t just quit.

It could very well be easy to slack off now, with a bit of success under my belt. I could ride on those books, for awhile. I could rest contented knowing I sold five books to Spice, and they’re good books. Two are getting critical praise and the others might follow. (Or might not.)

But I don’t want to rest. I don’t want to stop. I want to keep going until my name needs an entire shelf in the library. I want to keep working and writing and creating; I want to keep doing what I’ve been doing because so much of me is tied up with being a writer I’m not sure what I’d be or do if I was something else.

So I’ll work in dribs and drabs and run here and there and clean and do laundry and cook dinners and bite my nails and bang my head on my desk with frustration at the constant cries of “MAMA!” and bemoan my lack of time to write; I’ll sit on the beach and read and eat too much and think about books and maybe write some ideas; I’ll never get around to the projects I’d planned to do this summer when I had so much “free time” but I’ll still, at the end of it…be a writer.

M

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I don’t usually give lessons on writing. Mostly because I barely know what *I’m* doing, so how can I possibly let anyone else know?

But I don’t like FELT. (not the soft fabric used in making crafts. The other one.)

Which is better?

“She felt happy.”
or
“A wide grin curved her mouth and she laughed aloud, joyous.”

“Her arms felt heavy.”
or
“Her arms were weighted with languor.”
OR
“Sweet lassitude weighted her arms.”

Or whatever you want to say, really. Think about how often you use felt and think about how often you could show what your character is feeling rather than telling it.

“He felt her hand on his arm” can become “Her hand touched his arm.”

Most of the time, you can cut felt out.

Same with make, but that’s another topic altogether.

M

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And not even care.
I want to go out of my head somewhere.
I want to go crazy, like the dogs in the yard.
I want to cut the rope, but it’s getting so much harder.

BONUS points to anyone who can name that tune.

So last night I watched Supernatural, WHEEEEE!!! And I can not WAIT for season three. CAN NOT WAIT!
And yesterday I had to take care of my cat, who is very sick. :(
And today I am tired and I have a headache and it does not appear I shall do any writing, but I’ll update with what I did yesterday:

BLACKBIRD

8,250 / 100,000 (8.3%)

line of the day:

The priest laughed again. “My son, Jean Harlow has led more men to the sin of lust than I can count.”

M

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Something unexpected I learned today: Amish men in bathing suits don’t look much different than non-Amish men in bathing suits. And Amish men, because (I suppose) of all that physical labor, have verrrrrry nice bodies.

OMG I AM PERVING ON THE AMISH!

Amish women, on the other hand, don’t much look like non-Amish women in bathing suits.

Something NOT unexpected is that going to the grocery store at 10:30 at night is apt to introduce you to some scary people who should’ve thought harder before bringing their screaming, exhausted kids into the store.

In other news, I went out to see EVENING tonight with my mom and sister. Good movie. I didn’t care for parts of it, mostly related to how I viewed how the mother lived her life, but I’m thinking the book might have had more in-depth descriptions of it — at any rate it was a perfect mother/daughter/sister movie and it was great. You know what would have been even better? Coming home to find the dishwasher emptied and reloaded with the dishes in the sink that were there when I left and oh, I don’t know, splatters and whatnot wiped up off the stove, but HEY. Life’s not perfect, is it? I mean, really. What the hell was I thinking, expecting something like that? *kicks self for own stupidity* C’mon, the dishwasher doesn’t UNLOAD AND RELOAD ITSELF, for goshsakes!!! *Someone* has to do it!

Yeah. Have you seen my look, the one I call Wrath of the Gorgon? That one.

I was thinking as I drove home after my late night excursion to the store, that I was only there because I am a wife and mother. I mean, I went out for some “fun” and ended up grocery shopping. Because that’s what we do, us wives and mothers. We make sure our family has food and clothes and sunscreen and half and half, (even if WE don’t use half and half) and OKAY, so I bought a new purse. For myself. But that’s not why I WENT. But I was thinking how if I was a dude, I wouldn’t be stopping at the grocery store on the way home. I’d go out and come home and not bother. And then I thought, how sexist of me! What a thing to think! Surely there are men out there who would generously (without being asked) think to stop for groceries on the way home. Some men would even know what was needed (without being told.)

Well, I guess that happens somewhere, doesn’t it? Doesn’t it!?!

In other, other news, I wrote a bit today.Not as much as I’d have liked and not quite my goal of ten pages, but it’s better than nothing at all. And it’s starting to fall into place, as the stories tend to do. I feel better about it.

6,250 / 100,000 (6.3%)

line of the day:Like Lot’s wife she’d turned, but unlike that unlucky woman, Bridie hadn’t turned into a pillar of salt.

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My favorite search string that led someone to my blog?

“in-bed balls itch.”

Yeah. Brought ‘em right to me.

*sigh*

Someone was also looking for BAD MEGAN. Haha. Yeah. That’s me! Annnnd, two more lookers for Megan Padalecki. Hey, Megan Padalecki. Email me. Or something. Because I am so not you, but someone’s looking for you, and they keep finding me.

I AM NOT THAT MEGAN! I am not Megan Padalecki!!! (Though I still do think that Jared Padalecki is just a long, tall bundle o’cute.)

M

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