I have such tremendous mind monkey today – ie. I’m having trouble taming my thoughts – and I know it has to do with resistance to finishing this book. There’s an increasingly loud inner voice screaming, “I’m done, I’m done!” just because I want the feeling of being done (I’ve been working on this book since October), but … I’m not done. At this stage of not being done, everything is a distraction. So in lieu of following every shiny thought strand to its inevitable conclusion, I collect all the mental detritus throughout the working day in my working journal, so that my mind is satisfied those terribly important thoughts *koff* aren’t lost. Frex, here’s yesterday’s mind flotsam and jetsom:

-I swear, I do not get to buy Tina Fey’s BOSSYPANTS until I finish this book.

-I want these Sean Yoo bookcases.

-Do men watch movies with tough chicks because they don’t threaten their masculinity like chick flicks? (Badly paraphrased … but then so are most of my random thoughts.)

-Why do my knees hurt?

-I need to stop eating brisket tacos.

-Get new health insurance, and cancel that credit card that just charged me a yearly maintenance fee for f*ck-all.

-Writing sex scenes and fight scenes are soooooo similar.

-Need to go on a ride-along w/K. (Crime scene analyst buddy.) Why do I want to call it a drive-by?

-Work out today.

-Why is there a pig in the bathroom?

-I wish I could flip the sky upside-down and bounce on those clouds.

-If you turn a dead body over, it farts. Can I even get that in a book? Should I ever get that in a book?

-I wish I’d taken more pictures at the Rockabilly Weekender.

-Everyone keeps tiling their head in this manuscript. Learn to spell ‘tilting’ Vic.

-I love that man. He gives me brisket tacos.

-I hate cox cable.

-Jay-sus, Vic! Focus!

And that’s just, oh, an hour’s worth of abuse right there. The mind monkey tends to calm once I get into the day’s work, but sinking into it is the trick. I work extremely well on planes, so maybe I should pop in the earphones and try to recreate that space … limit my mind and ability to move so I can best use the time I have. Because there’s not much of it now. This baby is due.

I’m technically on Spring Break right now – my schedule has now been effectively commandeered by my offspring’s, (the little Napoleon) – but I’ve been thinking a lot lately about space, and how it affects a person’s mood, and a writer’s work. I’ve moved a lot in the recent past – um, five times in five years, along with new three spaces belonging to my S.O./Better Half – and in each place I’ve had to establish a comfortable and dedicated writing space. Something that will allow me to both be present and go away at the same time. Some places have been better than others, but you do what you can, right? I can work in coffee shops or bookstores if I have to, but traveling constantly between two cities tends to stave off the cabin fever, so home – and routine – is definitely where my heart is.

You can tell by my RSS feed, too – it’s equally divided between writing blogs and design blogs. I’m afraid I’ve been dreaming of a place to rest my keyboard for years. However, one of the unexpected benefits of re-establishing a sense of home outside of your twenties is discovering and recognizing what you like, and who you are, when not tied to all the things the defined you in a previous life. I am not the same person as I was in my twenties. I am not the same person who began the Signs of the Zodiac series.

So those who follow my twitter feed have seen my tweets on some of the specific pieces I’m gathering into my home space now – knoll table, ghost chairs – things that are far more than just places to set my coffee cup, but that are a part of me defining the place that will then define me for the next few years. I am making choices that need to accommodate a blended family, and that will also affect my working mind – one that’s putting to bed one beloved series (aptly, I think), creating a new trilogy, and already entertaining two stand-alones.

Now I realize the choices I make aren’t as vast as they’d be if I were working here:

versus here:

(How can these strong spaces not affect one’s mind?)

But I’ve also made a conscious decision in these past couple of years that everything in my life is to be there by choice – nothing by accident, nothing and no one uninvited. It’s how I keep mental (and emotional) peace when traveling creates chaos in my life, and writing does the same with my mind.

So I was wondering if my friends and readers would share what you do to create a peaceful retreat in your lives? Where do you go when you want escape? What things do you gather around you that will allow you to emerge energized again? (And I’m talking small things too – I have an orchid on my table now that is specifically white, deliberately centered, giving me extreme contentment.)

Finally, where would you like to go if time, money, and responsibilities were no object at all? I’d love it if the southern California coast had a place with my name written all over it … but I suppose that’s for another time and place, and for a story that’s as yet unwritten.

I don’t know if anyone has noticed, but I rarely post anything related to the craft of writing. I mostly figure those interested in this blog are here because of the world of the Zodiac, Joanna Archer, and perhaps to get to know a bit about the author behind the work.

But there’s also a lot of great advice already spiraling through cyberspace, and I see no reason to add my voice to the fray. Every writer’s experience is uniquely their own, and mileage varies when applying any given method to regularly get words on the page. The same tools don’t even work for me all the time. Part of learning how to write is learning what works for you, and when. So it’s very difficult for me to say ‘This is the way I do it’ knowing that could easily change the very next day.

But that’s the creative life, isn’t it? Searching, learning, growing – and that’s actually what I want to talk about. And it was this blog post* that got me thinking about it. Mind, the article is specific to writing but I think it’s applicable to any creative endeavor – drawing, acting, parenting. Anything that requires great effort and imagination.

The post is called ‘How to Steal Like an Artist and 9 Other Things Nobody Told Me.’ The thing I love about it is that it’s applicable to everyone, no matter where they are on their creative journey. It was interesting to see which of the author’s points resonated most with me because they were different than what would have rocked my stripy socks** even two years ago. So which points nailed it for me this time?

1)   the artist is a collector.

Oh, yeah. I often use the term magpie, but a day doesn’t go by that I’m not jotting something down that I heard or saw or thought. Sometimes it finds an immediate home in my WiP (work-in-progress). Other times it languishes in my notes for years, waiting for the right story to shape it into something useful. But I’ve learned how to recognize a magpie moment by now, and it’s not something I ever ignore.

2)   Side projects and hobbies are important.

If you read my previous post you’ll know I’ve only recently given myself permission to have weekends off. You know … like a normal person. (What an eye-opening experience!) And yet, when I read this tip I found myself thinking, What are my side projects and hobbies? I enjoy reading, but that’s become entwined with my work life, so I wouldn’t say it’s something I actively pursue. It’s simply what I enjoy in my downtime.

So what do I do, regularly, that I enjoy? I don’t want to say ‘working out’ because that’s so obnoxious it just makes me want to slap myself. But I love pushing myself physically. Always have. (I recently had someone tell me that ‘if it isn’t hard, you don’t think it’s worth it’ and they were right. For better or worse, that’s exactly how I feel.)

As with writing, I get cranky if I don’t do something physical every day, and again, the activity changes depending on where I am in my life. The things that I’ve sweated over intensely in the past include: ballet, tennis, rock climbing, thai boxing, and running. Each endeavor has taught me lessons about life and given me confidence that if I can gain skill in that area, I can do anything. Right now my physical challenge is Bikram yoga, and again, it’s pushing me so hard that I’m learning new things about myself in every practice. I guess that’s what I’m addicted to about physical activity: it’s one more way I can learn more about who I am, and pursuing something intensely teaches me volumes about how to move through this world.

One more thing from this article that I really needed to hear: You should wonder at the things nobody else is wondering about. If everybody’s wondering about apples, go wonder about oranges.

Yes. It can be tempting to do otherwise, but you really need to write, create, parent according to your passions – not someone else’s, no matter how popular they might be. This applies to my current WiP, as well as the one that just mushroomed up out of nowhere to hijack my imagination (along with my midnight hours). Again, this is like nothing I’ve ever written. I’m afraid, in ways, to follow this story, but I’m more afraid not to. So … well, here we go again, I guess.

Anyway, the above is a fantastic post, worth taking a few minutes to read, and a few minutes more to mull, and I hope you find it as reaffirming as I did. It certainly made me feel good about where I’ve been, where I’m going – and most importantly – renewed my awe and respect for the creative process. Damn, this job is fun. I must keep that in mind when daily focus on word and page counts gets a bit tedious.

*Props to fellow UF author Justine Musk for finding and retweeting this. She’s fantastic at mining useful posts of this sort – separating wheat from chaff, diamonds from ore, and all that. So if you’re interested in that sort of thing, you’d do well to follow her on Twitter. She’s a smart cookie.

** “Rocked my stripy socks’ is stolen from Christopher Moore’s YOU SUCK. Wish I could claim it as my own.

I had a glorious weekend filled with warm weather, lawn games with friends, happy little people, and no work. The last of these elements is rather a new one to me. I’ve always worked on weekends (feeling much like a squirrel on a treadmill – ie., that I just can’t go fast enough) which I think is a hazard for all those who are self-employed, regardless of profession.

But Kim Harrison long ago recommended weekends off – she said she not only came back to the page fresher on Monday, but practically chomping at the bit (forgive the cliché – it’s mine, not hers) to get back to the WiP. After years of not listening, and admittedly not really believing this – and after mere weeks of about-facing and taking her advice – I can honestly say she’s right.

Hear that, Kim? You’re right.

(Ick. Pains me to say it.)

So today I’m more than ready to progress on this second draft, the goal being another hundred pages of corrected text by week’s end. Every other writer in the Urban Fantasy realm seems to be headed to the RT convention in LA this week, but I’m pleased to have the time and mental space to myself just now. This book will be on my editor’s desk by the month’s end at the latest, so now’s the time to lose myself completely.

Right now it looks entirely doable … even with restive weekends off.

Meanwhile, the infinitely supportive Publicity Mgr. at Houston’s Murder by the Book in Houston posted this while I was off playing. It’s entitled: Six Reasons To Read Vicki Pettersson, and I’m impossibly gratified by his humbling remarks. Remember, I’m signing at this bookstore on June 4 – only five day after THE NEON GRAVEYARD is released – so it’s a relief to know that the series is so well received there.

If you’re in the Houston area, please come out to see me that afternoon, 1 p.m. My signings are notoriously informal, and often end up being more exchanges between my readers and me than any sort of structured events. I like it that way. After all, that sort of communication, and deliberate touching of minds, is exactly why I write.