I’ve read more than a few articles in the last few weeks that preach you must put your nose to the grind stone, chain yourself to the chair, write write write every minute you have, give up all pleasures, shun your friends, and if all your friends happen to be on Facebook, Twitter or Backspace, stay off those places as much as possible if you ever want to become successful at this game called writing.

I’m sure that works for some, perhaps for most. What it doesn’t do is work for me.

My Muse is a fickle bitch. She comes along whenever she damn well pleases, whispering words which I type as fast as my fingers can fly over the keyboard. She eggs my characters on, encouraging them to give me the hardest time possible should I even attempt to control their actions. She twists my plots on their head and shoots them off in directions I never imagined they’d go. I follow her like a whipped puppy, obedient to its master.

And then she leaves again. In the middle of a scene. In the middle of a paragraph. In the middle of a bloody sentence.

She might stay away for hours. Days. Weeks. While I while away the time at solitaire or Facebook or Twitter or Backspace, clean the house, clean the cat boxes, twiddle my thumbs, stare at the last sentence I wrote.

Writing for me is not a job. It’s a passion, a need, a drug of sorts. To be in the world I’ve created for my characters is so much more pleasant than being in the world I’ve made for myself. I can’t count the number of books I’ve read over these 60+ years in which I wish I could crawl between the covers and become a character within.

My Muse is a fickle bitch and at the moment she’s left me hanging, right in the middle of a scene. I don’t hate her for that. She is the love of my life and I know she’ll come back. She always does and I always greet her at the door, a smile on my face, my netbook open and ready.

A game of cards, anyone? Perhaps a movie? There’s drinks in the frig and chips on the table. Just keep in mind I might slip away if She shows up. I’m sure you can find your own way out the door and home. I mean, I love ya, ya know, love your company, but writing, writing is what I do.

Here is something you should never do: start reading a book from the library, one which happens to have a hold list a mile long, the day before that book is due. The libraries around here are pretty tolerant; no fines, easy online renewal, but, if a book has holds on it, you had damn well better get it back on time or they get positively cranky.

The book in question here is Alice I Have Been by Melanie Benjamin.

My friend Cindy had taken this book out unbeknownst to me. I stumbled across it one day while in search of something to read and, as I had heard so much about the book and know Melanie from Backspace, I decided to give it a read. I got about a third into the book when I was told it was due back that very day. With great reluctance, I headed off to the Newberry branch and dropped the book off, immediately putting myself on the hold list.

I finally got it back the other day and have spent the last two reading it cover to cover, despite the fact that I have my own manuscript I’m suppose to be working on along with gearing up for the imminent release of Stealing The Marbles.

I will admit I had a bit of a hard time getting into it at first. Alice I Have Been is not my usual genre of reading material. But I persevered and OH MY am I glad I did.

What a charming, beautifully wrought story about the little girl who inspired Alice In Wonderland and, more importantly, the story of her life afterward. This is a blend of fact and fiction so tightly woven together that I found myself ‘curiouser and curiouser’ as to what was which, or which was what. I found myself laughing with the child Alice and feeling the frustrations of the constraints put upon her by her place in Victorian England. And later, as the adult Alice, I followed the twists and turns of her life with a mixture of mirth, joy and sadness.

This is a compelling read, one you shouldn’t miss. Bravo Melanie Benjamin.

I haven’t been writing much on this blog; busy busy busy, getting organized, working on Meter Maids Eat Their Young, getting ready for the release of Stealing the Marbles. The edits are done, just waiting for the proof readers to do their thing and for the greatest editor on the planet, Jayne Southern, to sign off and then STM will fly out on her own.

Kind of scary, that. As a writer, you do the best you can, operate at the highest level of your craft to tell a story others will want to read but in the end, you never know. Time will tell, I suppose, and a review, a comment, an email, a death threat or two.

Up on Facebook, I’ve been connecting with Rebel e folks. Rebel e is my publisher and what a great publisher they are. I mentioned in a previous post how much I loved the cover for STM. Well, I met the guy who created it, Jacques Stenvert. Here is his blog. Check it out. I’d been talking to him for like a week before I discovered he was the one who had done the cover. Man, did he zero in on the heart of the story with that cover? Thanks, Jacques. That cover says everything I wanted to say.