Depressed yet?

I finished the first draft of ABSINTHE AND LEPRECHAUNS. It's a fantasy/mystery, yet somehow by the end I was so emotionally invested in the characters that I waded through shards of glass to write the ending. Although, I would never compare myself to the greatness of Dean Koontz, the emotional turmoil I put myself through reminded me of my favorite of the thriller writer's books- INTENSITY. I won't give away any spoilers for my book or for his, but when I came to the end of INTENSITY, I lay in my bed crying over the brokenness of the characters even though the book ended in hope. I wondered how he was able to write that ending without slitting his wrists. That's hyperbole, of course, but if it was that difficult for me to read, how much more difficult would it have been to write?

Have any of you read, or better yet, written something that gave you a soul-ripping experience? Share it with me so we can depress the world with tragic writing.

Cute Evil Contest

Greenwoman is doing a fun little contest on creating something that's both cute and evil, and since there's nothing on this planet that is cuter or more evil than my teenage daughter, I decided to share my favorite of her cute and evil drawings, and yes I do have her permission. I must admit it was tough to narrow down, but here it is:

My Blog

Writers are supposed to have blogs, right? That's what I keep hearing as an industry expectation, and I can understand why that's so. Publishing has changed and continues to morph in odd shapes and patterns. In fact, publishing reminds me of lava lamps. The globs come together and separate. Always changing and always in motion.

One of the ways publishing has changed is that authors should do a lot of their own marketing, and it's preferable if they can get a following prior to publishing. That's where blogs come in. Now here's the next question. What should the theme of the blog be? Mindy McGinnis has a very active blog on writing. She does blog tours and interviews agents and published writers. For those who are serious about writing, it's very informative. I believe it to be a good strategy, but will it attract fans who are not writers to her site? It will eventually when fans buy her fabulous books and look for her. But let's look at another blog:

Sigmund Squirrel is a noir writer who has created his blog around many of the different historical elements of his novel. It's highly creative and interesting, and it's specifically geared towards his fan base, but I doubt it gets the traffic Mindy's blog does.

Those are two excellent examples of what writers can do to generate traffic and interest in their novels. Now it's time for me to find my own niche. Maybe next time, I'll tell you about my book and how it's going. After that? Who knows. I write by the seat of my pants, so maybe I'll blog that way as well.