Tuesday, July 08, 2008

Desert Sage in Brilliant Bloom























This one's for our friend AZTECLADY....desert sage in the best bloom we've had in five years. What is Karyn doing to these plants to make them so happy?!? Lots of love! Happy summer to everyone.

5 comments:

azteclady said...

Oh man! *hugglepounce* Thank you so very much, guys!

And it's sooooo purty!


(I'm smiling from ear to ear *chuckle*)

Happy summer!

Unknown said...

Not to rudely change the subject, because the sage is seriously gorgeous, but check out the press release from Harlequin about its new "Enriched Edition eBooks." Are you collecting those hyperlinks associated with the historical research on your novel? Very cool.

T.T. Thomas said...

Interesting that you should ask---ever since you edited out "Cafe des Artistes" from my novel in progress (nice restaurant, wrong century!), I have been printing out every single reference, including OED definitions, and I realized something just yesterday. I have nearly 340 pages of the book written, and have almost 500 pages of research!

I also save the links, but I have hundreds and hundreds of links to everything from blogs to Bookworm (Yahoo game), so I figured I better print the references out as well as create links to them. I've also created a folder of links just for novel-related research. Thank heavens I've been doing this since early in the novel. (btw, I knew the restaurant was wrong century, but I so loved that restaurant!) Sometimes I throw things in that I know won't work until I have time to go back and get the historically correct information---but when one does that, one needs to make the changes before an editor pulls out that red pen!

Still, your catch, and a couple experiences published author friends of mine have had, reminded me of the need to "pre-edit" (editing before the editor edits) and document the history. I strongly suggest everyone do it. Not only has it saved me some embarrassment for things I did not know, but it really imbues the act of actually writing with a sense of confidence when you know you can "prove it."

The hardest part, so far, has been finding non-contradictory information on the names and routes of the various lines (during a specific year)in the Transcontinental Railroad---which initially was lots of little "local" trains cobbled together to make a cross-country line. Whatever history I have in my book, I want it to be an easy read---not a textbook treatment of history. I happen to love the period of time I'm setting my book in, so it's pretty fascinating to me to re-read some of the original source material from that period of time.

So, yes, good suggestion about collecting hyperlinks. I should add here that collecting them is one thing---organizing them, even within a folder, is something else again!

Unknown said...

Eek! I've created a monster. (laughing) When do you have time to enjoy your oasis in the high desert?

T.T. Thomas said...

hahaha....perhaps, but this 'monster' is working on a masterpiece---I think! Time will tell. I'm sure having a good time writing something!