Decided to try this technique tonight I'd read about, where you read a chapter of your novel into a tape recorder and then listen to it to hear how your wriitng sounds. First of all, I hate listening to the sound of my own voice but you know I didn't sound too bad. I don't sound like the Valley Girl I've been accused of being and maybe that semester of Stage Speech actually helped because my voice actually sounds decent and normal.

My first chapter is good but needs some fine tuning. The first part has to go because it's boring. I know it's a cliche to open up stories saying "here's an event that changed my life", but I love this technique. Maybe it's my acting background coming through but I want the narrator to reflect in written form this part of her life. She is looking back, kind of like she is almost speaking into a tape recorder and preserving her own memories. She knows this momentous thing happened to her which was life-altering, but she's still processing it. The novel then becomes a story of her trying to understand this part of her life, what part or role she played in what happened to her, what was in her control and what as not. The telling of the story is like a kind of therapy for her. If she tells someone else the story, she will be able to figure it all out. If one can ever really figure anyting out that is.

Listenng to the first chapter read out loud, I also saw how to add an obstacle into the story that I never thought of before. My character has to do her job well because her boss has promised her that if she nails the story then he'll promote to her dream job as in investigate journalist.

Now there's a great dilemma for you. Do you do well in your job and get promoted or do you chuck it all for love, for a crush, for a childhood fantasy that was importnant to you only you'd forgotten it until he came along. That's got to be a romantic story. Good looking rich guy reawakens your childhood fantasy and dreams, only thing is you are interviewing him and your boss wants a hit piece. I was after all trying to write a love story, you know.

I don't know, I like the conflict. It's mild and interesting. God, I hope I'm not writing chick lit. I never read books like that, but I'm a chick and it would kind of be natural for me write chick lit. Maybe I need to go back to writing science fiction and fantasy. I kind of don't want to be known for writing chick lit. I am so jumping the gun here thinking I'll even get the darn thing published. Haven't the book people called for the end of chick lit? How exquisitely like my bad instant karma karma to be writing in a genre I really don't know anything about.

It's been awhile since I've posted and so many things have been happening.

I had some minor surgery last week to have some things growing on my body that shouldn't be growing. It was all very quick and took only an hour in my doctor's office, and did hurt a bit. It's a pretty common procedure and tons of people have had it.

What else ...

I went to a gem and mineral show on August 6 in Golden Gate Park and bought all kinds of fun stones. I will never buy beads in a bead store again after seeing the prices. There was a woman selling pearls for 60% off. I haven't take the class on how to knot pearls, but I think I will so I can make my own pearl necklaces.

Afterwards a friend met me for a late lunch and we went to this italian place on Judah and had a New York maffioso experience. There we were sitting in the restaurant when a bunch of italian maffioso types walk in. Who knew there were maffioso types in San Francisco living in San Francisco. Those people are everywhere!

I kept having flashes of "The Godfather" movie because the mafia guys always knew where to eat at the best italian restaurants in the New York City/New Jersey area. I had always fantasized of eating in some obscure italian restaurant in New York city and having maffioso types walk in, which would be the clue that the food in the restaurant would be fantastic and authentic. I just didn't think I would be having the experience in San Francisco.

And yes, the food at this italian place was great! The portions were amazingly generous and cheap, totally cheap! I had a half sized order of spaghetti with marinar sauce and it was like a normal full order. I wanted to try the spaghetti to see how authentic it was. If an italian restaurant makes a decent spaghetti then you know the rest of the dishes will be very good. The spaghetti was very good and very authentic tasting. I am definitely eating at this place again.

I've seen this place for years and it doesn't look fancy but it's definitely a culinary gem of authentic italian food with maffioso types as an added attraction to boot. The italian boys were noisy which only added to "I must be in an italian restaurant in New York city somewhere". And these guys were big like you definitely wouldn't want to get into a fight them because they looked like they would beat the pulp out of you and then tremendously enjoying the experience of seeing blood squirt out of you.

I'm sitting in bed reading and all of sudden things started shaking. There was a 4.4 earthquake at around 8:12 pm somewhere in Sonoma County, which is about 2 hours away from San Francisco, but I definitely felt it here. I got up to look around to make sure nothing had fallen. It was short but things were definitely shaking.

The summer is zipping by and I'm in the process of editing my newly completed novel. Boy, does it need some major rework. Oh well, this is what editing is for right?

I was fantasizing about going to visit Jerusalem about a couple of months ago, but that's not going to happen now with the war and everything. I am not paying attention to news about the conflict because it's just too much for me to taken in right now. I've got my own horrid life to deal with without having to pay attention to world events.