Captain's Log, Stardate 09.28.2005 Well, I finished the novella this weekend. Yay! Now to hack and slash at least 10K from that puppy. Yes, you read right. Luckily I have a very sharp Chinese cleaver. I might even chop out the mystery element if I have to, although I don't want to--it's my hero's main motivation for throwing him with the heroine. I am also finally turning to my Hawaii Chick Lit/Suspense manuscript. I also just received notice that Hawaiian Airlines has cheap fares right after Christmas. Hmm, heavenly sign? LOL Now is the funnest part of a novel, for me (Well, it falls close to the other fun part, when I'm writing those zinger dialogue scenes that just rush out of my typing fingers). Now I get to grab this heroine and peel back her character like onion layers, only less painful to my tear ducts. What's her story? What's her hangup? Who'd she like to kiss and who'd she like to kill? Brandilyn Collins's b...

Captain’s Log, Stardate 09.22.2005 Last weekend was an amazing conference for me. I got in a day early for the conference so I could spend time with the Fab Four— Pamela James , Heather Tipton , Cheryl Wyatt and me. We had a great dinner together even though I was practically comatose from the motion sickness patch and lack of sleep. I had missed them so much the past year. It was soothing and filling to talk with them again. I didn’t see them much during the conference, so I’m glad I had that first day. We fulfill each other in ways only God could have predicted. On Thursday night, I was sitting at a table for the agent panel with a teenaged girl and boy, and another woman. Right after the panel ended, the girl turned to me and shrieked, “You’re Camy Tang! Your story was so funny!” The older woman introduced herself as Linda, one of the women in my Fiction Mentoring Clinic, and her two children, Elena and Val. One day before the conference, Elena ha...

Captain’s Log, Supplemental Everyone has blogged about Katrina, but I will not. Not because I’m heartless, but because I can’t handle it. Every time I read something, see something, hear something about what’s happening, I can’t take it. I feel like I’ve been hacked with a Chinese cleaver. So please excuse my silence, but I’m really not ready to blog my thoughts about what’s happening.

Captain’s Log, Stardate 09.06.2005 I’m reading romantic suspense books (mostly secular) for market research and also to learn craft. I started a secular romantic suspense today and didn’t last three chapters. It started off with an exciting prologue, followed by two more action-packed chapters (I personally think the prologue should have been a chapter or cut altogether since it didn’t add much to the storyline and it wasn’t separated from the main story by a significant amount of time). The hero seemed mildly interesting. His struggle as an undercover agent had good emotional angst, although I don’t know if the author should have unloaded ALL of it upfront to the reader in a single chapter. His strength and lack of emotions seemed a bit corny and cliché. What annoyed me was the logic of the story premise. There were just numerous “Why?”s all through chapter two. The heroine comes from money but she has a mysterious estrangement from her rich relatives (mi...

Captain’s Log, Stardate 09.04.2005 What is it about perfect heroines that annoys me so much? I just read a Bombshell that was rather entertaining, but the heroine bugged me after a while. She’d made mistakes in her past, had a pissy attitude problem, and a lot of crappy things had happened to her. Okay, cool backstory. But during the novel, she did everything well. She had no hang-ups. She had no weaknesses. She met every challenge with strength and bravery and super-human skill. She had insecurities, and while she was confident, she wasn’t insufferably arrogant about her abilities. But the fact she didn’t have much character growth didn’t endear her to me. Her only internal conflict was her still-burning flame for her ex-lover, who had betrayed her years earlier. Maybe I missed the grand Black Moment. If so, it wasn’t very black, and she didn’t change very much from it. Now I know why the writing books say that spiritual/emotional arc is so important....

Captain’s Log, Stardate 09.02.2005 Dr. King said he thinks I might have torn it again. I need to schedule an MRI as soon as my new insurance (under my husband) is finalized. Talk about depressing. But conversely, it’s good this happened while I’m not working, because then I don’t have to schedule the doctor’s appointments and things around my work, and I can go during off-hours to avoid the traffic. I’ll need a miracle to not require surgery again. I’m dreading it because my last time was so horrific—the painful blistering, the nauseating side effects of the pain meds, the inconvenience of it all. My husband is concerned about the cost, especially now that I’m not working. I have to trust God is over all this. It’s just hard to see His hand. I’m not too devastated by the loss of volleyball, though. I miss it, but I’m not as upset as I thought I’d be. Maybe because the writing has been so fulfilling, both emotionally and spiritually. Diet: I’m trying to eat...