The latest accessory to hit the streets is the keffiyeh.  I totally want one!!!  My sis, as we speak, is hunting one for me during her trip to NYC this weekend, and a co-worker promises me that when her family arrives from Palestine, they will stash a few in their suitcase for me.  But that’s not until August and I want one now, dammit!  Where can I get one?

Okay, page count in FAST DRAFT: 60

Because of illness, it hasn’t budged.  But I’m feeling better today, at least enough to write at least 10 pages. 

And the reason why Mark Kanemura has become my favorite dancer in SYTYCD.  I don’t think I’ve fallen in love so fast and so early in the season:

...so no pages last night.  Bummer.  Just veged out to SYTYCD.  My favorite dancer:

His Argentine Tango with partner Chelsea Hightower absolutely mesmerized me.  Must have watched it about 7,275 times.  Last week, I split my vote between my favorite dancers (Chelsea T, Joshua, Mark and Will).  Last night, it was Mark Kanemura all the way.  I wish someone would upload their tango already.

You are now entering an edit-free zone...

For the first time in many, many months, I’m having fun with my writing.  There’s something to be said for Candy Havens’ Fast Draft exercise.  I’m at 60 glorious pages now and feel that I could continue to realistically keep chugging away at this pace.  I haven’t gone back to edit, haven’t agonized over a turn of phrase or tortured myself about whether A should happen or B should happen.  I just...write.

I don’t know where this new story of mine came from.  All I know is that one morning last week, it popped in my head, with fully formed characters and a plot ready to go.  And it’s (drum roll...) a full-blown romance.  Even more surprising, not one of my characters is packing heat.  No one commits a terrorist act, no one is trying to escape from a building that’s about to explode, no one is speaking through comms, and no one will engage in hand-to-hand combat.  Well, maybe not the last one.  I can’t envision writing a completely violence-free book.  When I told my long-time CP J.T. Bock about this new development, I thought her eyes were going to bug out of her head.  Hehe…

Speaking of J.T. Bock, she and I have partnered together in the Fast Draft challenge.  One of the things Candy Havens strongly encourages is getting yourself a writing partner for greater accountability.  Basically, anyone who doesn’t cough up 20 pages per day pays $1 into a pot.  The person with the most pages at the end of the two-week period (June 29) brings home the pot.  Good system, eh?

And now, for something awe-inspiring:

Am I the only one who feels that Armageddon is upon us? 

First, there’s the heat wave in the northeast United States.  Then the tornadoes that landed in Maryland, of all places.  Then snow in Wisconsin in JUNE.  Then floods in Iowa followed by more tornadoes there that killed four boy scouts.

Maybe I should go to church this weekend…

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In happier, more writerly news, despite teaching until 9 pm last night and not coming home until 10, then watching (and voting) SYTYCD, I managed to bang out 7 pages yesterday, mostly at lunchtime.  Question for you all:

In the genre-obsessed world of publishing, where do books with characters set during college fall under?  I know books like these are not considered “young adult” any longer because the characters are typically over 18.  If it’s a dramatic love story written in third person set in an urban college campus that explores themes of family, ethnicity and self-acceptance, what genre would it fall under?

Just wondering…