Morphing

So, as you might have guessed, I've been busy. And all is splendid, but I've been rather absorbed in a veritable panoply of projects, so you might have noticed tumbleweeds have sort of been tumbling through my blog. LOL. Sigh. I hope everyone is grand!! Just for laughs, I thought I'd post this very cool, quite lovely YouTube video—an odd, almost hypnotic look at Hollywood actresses over the decades—forwarded to me by my sis and created by this guy. And so how the heck are you all??

Comments

[Kathy K]

Jeepers! That's an amazing collage of faces and I just cannot get over how each one morphs into the next... totally blows my mind. I'll definitely be sharing that with my family and friends!

As to how things are going, they're going very well! Kids are all healthy and doing well ~ Meagan, 4 weeks after her surgery, has flown up to Whitehorse to visit my oldest daughter, so I'm sure that the two of them are having a blast.. and I'm here and I don't know what's happening, so all the better!
Next week we're heading out to Banff for my brother's wedding. All four of our kids are coming with us and they'll have an opportunity to spend 3 days with all their cousins on my side of the family, so they all are excited about it.
And on Wednesday, I have to take my youngest to register for grade 10 ~ oh wait! Lisa is going to take Teresa... *sigh* I've become unnecessary! *grin*
Kinda looking forward to school starting and getting back to more of a routine; maybe by then I'll have had my fill of TV ~ but I'm not banking on it. Unfortunately a couple of the programs I like the most end at 11 or midnight; waaayyy too late for morning-person me!

Anyway, that's how things are progressing for yours truly right now.. and I feel like taking a nap! LOL

Have a great day Julie and I'm glad that it's just that you've been busy. Fun isn't it?

[Julie Anne Long]

I'm so glad Meagan is doing well enough to go on her trip, Kathy!! That's great! I can imagine those two are having a blast. :) And you guys are going on *another* wedding road trip?? LOL. I think you mentioned this before, though. And THAT sounds like a blast, too. And glad you're keeping on top of the TV watching. LOL.

And so your youngest is a sophomore now -- is that what Grade 10 is in Canada?? I love September. :) Not only is it my birthday month, it just feels like the true beginning of the new year for some reason, for me. I like Fall. :) Its advent is pretty subtle here in the Bay Area, but you can feel it nevertheless. It comes with a sense of anticipation, for some reason. Yay! Summer mostly just comes with fog. LOL. Though it's been pretty beautiful this week, weather-wise -- the fog's actually been clearing by midday. How's your weather?? LOL.

Glad you're all doing great!!

[Haven Rich]

I saw one posted called the women of art. It was wonderful and sometimes a bit creepy. But over all wonderful.

Julie, I've wondered where you'd been hiding. For a moment I thought Avon had hidden you away, keeping you for their own and not sharing hehe. I don't know about you, but I'm getting really excited about the future release and oh so excited about seeing the first hints of excerpts and *my true favorite tease* cover art.

That and I'm hoping to possibly get a sneak peek of a certain secondary character possibly getting his own story? Any chances?? I think the Artist really needs a story hehe.

So do us, your faithful fans, a favor and tease us endlessly hehe.

A bit off topic...
Ya know how I have the t-shirt that says "how many ways to be wicked do you know" across the front? Welp, I've found that it doesn't really matter how impressive or unimpressive the "girls" are, the guys still take the time to read the line and drool. My husband being #1 fan of asking "Can you help me count!"

In any case, it's always good for a blush or a laugh hehe. Love this shirt!

[Julie Anne Long]

Hey Haven! Oh, you have to send me a photo of yourself in your t-shirt! :) I'll post it somewhere -- here, or on MySpace, or something. :) You can be a spokesmodel. LOL. (Actually, I think I have some photos of you in the disposable camera I took to Dallas -- I still have to check that). And yeah, I've been writing a lot as well as developing several new ideas, so I've been pretty busy. When the muse snaps her fingers, you have to pay attention. :) She doesn't always snap. LOL.

And I'm VERY excited about POP! I might just put a wee little taste of it on my website by September 1st. Just a tiny little snack of an excerpt. LOL. I have to decide which bit to use. It's a rather big story, and I don't want to give too much of it away, because I don't want to wreck it for readers. :)

It's funny -- everyone seems to want Wyndham (from TSTS) to have his own story. I do, too! LOL. I've been sort of sitting with the idea, hoping the perfect story and heroine for him will sort of come into focus. I've been playing with ideas, but none have fully gelled yet. If YOU have any ideas for Wyndham, feel free to send 'em my way! The next book in my new series seems to want to be about Miles Redmond, but we'll see, eh?

So check my website on September 1st...I'll have chosen a wee excerpt by then, I think. :)

[Haven Rich]

Hmm...lets see...

Ya know I can always come up with plot ideas better than I can tackling the muse long enough to write the entire story. I'm still working on that bit.

But I'll tell you one thing, I think whoever his heroine is, she needs to be someone who is larger than life in personality. Ohh!! I know! I KNOW! Perhaps he gets a bit more famous by someone who knows The Libertine and decides to commission a painting from him. She's a window, so she's free to do as she pleases...within a certain limit! But she also has a vision of what she wants from Wyndham's art and...well if I gave it all away there'd be no point in writing it huh.

Maybe Miles can hook up with miss opera singer hehe. She actually turned out to be one of my favorite mistresses. She did try to sink her hooks into him, but then turned out to be a true friend..shocking.

[Lareign]

Hey Julie! I'm doing OK. Work is busy (superintendent of a district accused of embezzling $100,000 from it, has not resigned, school board has not removed him, failed to last night during a tense meeting). But I just placed an order on Amazon to celebrate six months of working here (or that was the rationalization).

Now I'm eating dark chocolate and watching Conan. Let's see, what else. Got a new haircut that I really like. Thought I'd lost one of my cats Saturday and I was walking around looking for him, really upset, but I had relatives over and it turned out he was hiding very well in the bathroom cabinet. We'd been through the apartment several times, no luck finding him, thought he was gone forever. Thankfully he was not. I scolded him when I saw him, told him "apologize right now!" He didn't.

Oh, there were streakers in my neighborhood, according to the TV news. We didn't write about it (our police reporter was busy covering a homicide/ possible attempted sucide). But apparently some kids were running through the neighborhood in the buff, surprising drivers. I haven't been surprised, thankfully. Hope it stays that way. Although one of our photographers lives in my complex, I should tell her to keep an eye (and a camera lens) out, ha.

[Julie Anne Long]

Hey Haven! I like your ideas! And yeah, I agree -- that's what I thought for Wyndham -- he needs a larger than life woman. And I had one all picked out for him...but suddenly, another idea and hero sort of sprung from the ether and they were much more perfect for her, so Wyndham remains unmatched, as of yet. I'll have to sit with it. It's funny -- I swear sometimes pulling a story together really IS like looking at a crystal ball. It's like the idea -- the story -- exists fully formed in some future place, and I just have to wait, staring at it in my mind's eye, until it comes into focus, which it usually does a little at a time. Odd business, writing. LOL.

I have a GREAT heroine for MIles, and now I'm genuinely jazzed about this next story, because i'm at the place where I can see and feel and TASTE it. LOL. It's going to be a good one. :)

Lareign!! As usual, you cracked me up. Sounds like life at the newspaper is lively. Thanks to you, I just had a square of dark chocolate. Truthfully, i've had more than one square today. 85%. The hard stuff. :) And poor kitty!! Cats can get shockingly boneless and resourceful when they want to!! I remember once: a friend of mine agreed to keep both of my cats at his small, spare, very neat apartment for an afternoon while my former landlord came in to do some work at my apartment. I went to pick the cats up after work...and they were NOWHERE. Nowhere!!! We tore the place apart. I'd dropped them off in the morning, my friend and I went to work, came back...no one had entered the apartment, and there was no way for them to get out. I can't TELL you how surreal it was. But my friend had a pair of solid wicker chairs -- wide backed, solid-bottomed, a slim cushion on each. You can probably picture them. No way to get beneath them, as they didn't have legs -- just a base. Finally, out of desperation, we lifted them anyway -- and under each one was a cat!!!!! It was like a bloody shell game. How the HELL?? They had to have SQUEEEEEZED down the back of the chair to the hollow place beneath it. We didn't look under those chairs because seriously -- there was no visible way to get under them. Gave me a freaking HEART attack. Anyway, that's my cat hiding story. LOL. They really have a talent for it. Glad you found him. Bad kitty. Smart kitty. :)

Streakers and a homicide...and if that doesn't sum up the capricousness of life, I don't know what does. :) Glad you're doing great. Congrats on the haircut. LOL. Mine is already getting too long -- I keep it long -- and it was cut about two months ago. Sigh.

[Haven Rich]

Hair...long...
Mine is almost to my bum. I get it trimmed but that's about it.

My problem is, my focus. I can be working on a story and then something happen and the focus is gone. I hate it because no matter how hard I try to regain that drive for the story..it's like pulling teeth.

Any advice on getting past that?

BTW, you should visit RI soon...again hehe. We love you over there and ya know it!

[Julie Anne Long]

Hey Haven...Re focus...hmmm...do you mean focusing on getting the work done, or keeping the story itself in focus? In terms of getting the work done, the motivation of a looming deadline helps. LOL. But seriously: sometimes if I'm not feeling particularly creatively fertile, if you will, I find just sitting down and typing whatever comes, even if dreck comes out, helps sort of limber me up -- mental calisthentics. and pretty soon the good stuff will appear. It's like...scraping the congealed crust off the lip of a shampoo bottle before it can pour. LOL. (how ELEGANT of me.) Other times I'll find myself restless, and realize it''s because I haven't turned the music on yet -- listening to music occupies some part of my mind, or calms it or creates a space where I can just write. It's pretty essential, to me.

If you're talking about keeping the storyline itself in focus...well, when I'm writing, I'm conscious of BEING the story. You aren't just writing words-- you're actively thinking, feeling, seeing everything your characters are thinking and feeling, while at the same time translating those impressions into effective, moving, entertaining prose. It's a visceral process, involving the cooperation of your emotions, intellect and body (because you're sitting and typing and feeling things :)), which is why it can be quite draining at times even as it's rewarding. But when you sort of abandon yourself to the story -- BECOME your characters, put yourself IN the story -- it's easier to maintain focus, because some instinct takes over and you know what they'll do and say. :)

Don't know if that helps at all. LOL. Everyone's process is different, but you probably know that by now!!

Oh yeah, I'd love to come back to RI! I still have another blog planned for you guys. :) So do you want to plan a time? I'm starting my countdown to POP with a contest launch tomorrow. :)

[Haven Rich]

The first part is what I was looking for. I seem to get to a certain spot in my story and then..I sorta drift away from it. Basically I need to learn how to keep my interest in my story after it's lost it's shine.

Thank you so much for your advice!

Hope all is going well over there!

[Kathy K]

Oops! I guess it's been awhile since I've been around eh? LOL.. guess that's what having kids visiting can do, having my "baby" brother (the kid's 38 *grin*) come in from England for one of our other brother's wedding and the attendant travelling, visiting, etc. Then there's the getting the two youngest ready for school (actually they did it themselves!), but I should actually consider getting my chauffeur's licence. You know, life and stuff!

Heh heh... On the book front, I can hardly wait for my copy TPOP to come....
I know, I know... I'm going to be waiting awhile, but at least it'll come to my door! And I guess I better check for the excerpt... Yummy!

Okay, I've checked in and I will be around a 'little' more often!

[Lareign]

Julie! I saw your cover on Amazon, and it's purty, as we say down south. I must admit, I was a bit worried, since well, regardless of how good Avon's books may be, sometimes their covers make you think the story is about Viscount Mullet and Lady Cleavage. Or "Interesting, the duke must come from a long line of dukes who don't believe in wearing shirts. And based on the way that couple is posed, gravity must not have existed in Regency England."

Granted, all publishers have bad covers sometimes. But yours is lovely-I like the green, and it's sexy without being too much. So kudos to whoever did that art. With Warner, I think your first two covers were my favorites.

And oh, happy belated birthday. :)

[Haven Rich]

Oh I saw Lareign's post and rushed right over to Amazon to take a look. She's right it's a beautiful cover! I'm so excited about this book!!

I like a wide range of covers, so everything about this one is perfectly pleasing to me!

BTW, that position is entirely possible hehe.

[Julie Anne Long]

LOL!! You guys are cracking me up!! You spotted that FAST, Lareign -- it was pretty much JUST put up there! *I* didn't even know it was yet, for sure. LOL. I'm so glad you like it -- man, you should see it in cover flat form -- it's really just soooo unbelievably striking. I love the green, and the warmth of the skin tones...I'm delighted. It's the cover of my dreams, actually. :) And there's a buxom woman and a bare-chested man (I always wonder why the guy's shirt comes off first, and where the heck did it GO? Where did he put it?) on the flipside, so we have a little something for all tastes. LOL. And you know, I like my first two Warner covers, too, and so do many readers, but quite a number of booksellers I've spoken to actually hated them. LOL. Not sexy enough, was the verdict. I think they'll be *extremely* pleased with this latest cover. So now i'm going to devote a little time to updating my website and MySpace page, etc., with it. And thanks for the birthday greetings!! It was a great day, and the birthday celebration continues -- when you get older, you can milk 'em for weeks. :)

And Haven -- As I mentioned, I have cover flats!! Yay! So I have something to give away. And I'll have ARCs sometime in October or early November. I'm going to run a special contest to give those away to readers, I think, since Avon is really efficient about getting ARCs out to reviewers, etc. But I'll check with some reviewers to make sure. :)

Hope you guys are doing great! Sunny here today!! Can't complain about that!! :)

[Kathy K]

Oooh... I had to check out the cover too Lareign... it's absolutely FABULOUS Julie!! Definitely can hardly wait for my copy to arrive... someday... This pre-ordering is good 'cause I know I won't miss it, but my heavens I've been waiting for awhile... since, like, July!
And Lareign I was giggling like a loon over your comments... I,personally, like the bare chests ~ 'cause I can drool ~ but yes, they certainly were not a common sight back in the good ol' days.

Oh, and I must second ~ and third ~ the belated Birthday wishes Julie!.. Hope your day was great... and that you've managed to stretch it out for a bit... like, say, a week or more... that way I won't be too, too late with the birthday wishes.

[Haven Rich]

I get all giddy when I think about one of your books coming out! Shameful really, you should see my husband's face when I start bouncing around the house giggling when I get my copy.

I can't wait to post a review for this book on RI!

[Diana]

Happy birthday, Julie.

I am loving this nice weather we're having.

[Julie Anne Long]

Hey Kathy!! Thanks for the birthday wishes!! You're so sweet to pre-order POP (I'm going with POP, vs. TPOP, as an acronym, I decided. LOL), but do realize there's an ARC with your name on it. LOL. I just learned I'll be getting a nice amount of ARCs, around mid October, I'm guessing, or early November. (Haven, you, too!) And my birthday was really lovely! Nice presents -- a new teapot!! I totally needed one!! -- and some preternaturally beautiful flowers and -- Diana (hey Diana!!) will appreciate this, because she knows a lot of the restaurants around the city: went out to Indian food and the waiter (who had a bright gold tooth in front!! very sparkly and cheerful!) sang happy birthday to me and gave me a little mound of Indian ice cream with a candle in it. LOL. I made a wish and blew it out with ONE try. LOL. So it should be coming true any minute now...

And yes -- yay! It's officially Indian summer here!! Nice and warm. :) And it'll be brief, of course. But how trippy was that rainstorm we just had, Dianan??? Very anomalous.

[meardaba]

Hey Julie! I've been just as silent as you lately, haven't I? Sorry about that. I finally moved back to Canada, and have been trying to set myself up here in Toronto. It's a...challenge, to say the least. I hate living paycheque to paycheque, but the unexpected expenses keep piling up. :(
On the other hand, life is good. I've decided to go back to school for a professional degree. Like I said, I'm tired of not having enough money to live.
How's your life going?

[Kathy K]

Julie I'm anxiously awaiting the ARC ~ and the book in February ~ it's easier to keep on my shelf! *grin* I, too, think that POP is a much easier acronym to use than TPOP which really doesn't roll off the fingers as nicely.
The weather here is fairly dreary... much cooler temps ~ so much so that my DH covers the tomatoes at night... we've already had a few mornings of frost.. UGH!
The last three or four days have been chilly, gray and somewhat misty.... today it's raining ~ although not hard.
I'm dearly hoping that Indian Summer will arrive to tempt us before the winter snows hit, but I'm not going to hold my breath.
Ah well, that's enough weather griping.. unfortunately complaining about it never changes it.

Have a good day all ~ nice to see you again Mear!

[Haven Rich]

The weather here has been cooling off, much to my delight! I am not meant for hot weather lol. I'd love to go visit you up there where the weather is comfortable, even if there is fog.

I agree, POP just sorta springs at you hehe. Ok, pun intended hehe. I'm in a delightful mood, totally nervous about a few things. 1)Being my graphics are up on the chopping block, aka I entered a contest and people are voting on them. 2)My short story wip is currently being axed away at by a friend who is helping me prepare it for submission to an epub...before Sept. 30th!!! And lastly, 3) I have just emailed two, what I can assume to be, nice authors insulting their website design and offering to create one for them. Ok, I didn't really insult them, or I hope not, but I did kindly mention that I would love to give them a new look...a much more user friendly look.

So there ya go, my day so far...and I've only been awake for an hour (stayed up til 5am this morning hehe).

Julie, I can not wait til Halloween, it is my favorite holiday of them all! How about you?

I'm so glad you had a wonderful birthday!! Mine wasn't bad, but it had room for improvement hehe. Then again, there is ALWAYS next year.

Hope you're having a wonderful day! Care to share what you're working on? Yes, I'm asking to be teased endlessly, I know.

:D

[Julie Anne Long]

First, I wanted to share this link with you guys -- my beautiful new web page at HarperCollins: http://www.harpercollins.com/julieannelong

Every Avon author has her own page featuring a variety of little fun things. It's a gas to poke around, and you may learn a thing or two about me you haven't known before. LOL. So if you get any spare time, pay a visit!

Mear!! So good to see you here! So you're back home in Canada, eh? And broke?? Ah, sweetie, I've been THERE...more than once. LOL. Paycheck to paycheck is rough and nervewracking...but it does build character (and those dark shadows under your eyes from sleepless nights). :) Actually, it's no fun while you're going through it, but I've found it valuable to know what I can live with and without, and how little I can live on. Made me more resourceful, I think, and creative, and definitely mellower. That said, I'd much RATHER be flush. :) But you'll get there. And I know so many people singing that same song right now ("I'm broke!!"). So you're not alone, if that helps any. :) What will you be studying in school?

As for me, I'm working on my next Avon book, planning promo for POP (say THAT three times fast!) a couple of little nonfiction writing projects, another that IS fiction, and various other nonwriting projects. :)

Still gorgeous here today!! But we had a freaky rainstorm just before the autumn solstice. Winter hit early in a number of places in the U.S., or seemed to, then went on its merry (or not so merry) way. I can't believe you've already had frost, Kathy!!

Good luck with all your stuff, Haven!! Cracked me up that you're telling authors that you can upgrade their pages. :) You'll have to let me know how that's received. LOL. And yeah -- looking forward to Halloween. :) I might have a few tricks up my sleeve this year (I *always* have treats laying around. LOL.)

[Haven Rich]

Yeah, I was telling a friend of mine..."Yup, I insulted their sites then mentioned they could hire me".

I'm not that bad..I did it with a big of grace..I hope!

To help keep my nerves in check today, I've been painting! I think it's a flower. I mean it could be...if you used your imagination really well. I painted it spanning 4 small canvases. So it can be a very strange pink/white blot on a blue background or if you have the afore mentioned imagination, a flower haha.

I'll take a photo and post it somewhere.

[meardaba]

Yeah, paycheque to paycheque definitely teaches you that riding a bike is cool, and Starbucks is just too damn expensive. And isn't lifeblood. No. Noooooo, not lifeblood at all. I can live without it. Sure I can...

Ahem.

I am going to probably go into Speech Language Pathology (if I can get in). I will have to take the next year of pre-reqs, then apply like mad to every university in the country that does SLP...which is about 5 places. Sigh. It's very competitive, as well, which I am not. Anyway, the info meeting is today and I'm going to go with about 7 million questions. Wish me luck!

[Kathy K]

All the best of luck Meardaba ~ you've got yourself a challenge, but I think it's a wonderful field to get into.