It's getting near midnight. This is always a crucial time for me. If I don't go to bed now, I may flip. If I flip I'll be nocturnal. I think that I was meant by nature to be nocturnal, because it's so easy to flip. Stay up an extra hour . . . and suddenly I'm a creature of the night. Being nocturnal has its advantages. If you don't have any set appointments the next day then it means you can sleep through all the hoorah and wake up and then see what's gone on. Or you can ignore all the hoorah and go straight to writing and then when you're drained of all the writing that you can do for the night, take a look at the hoorah or call your friends. Then you haven't spoiled your writing time. (Of course, when I say "you' I mean "me" because I'm sure there are thousands of authors who can multi-task, go from email to story and back again. I can't, not unless I have a really burning idea or scene that simply has to be written down immediately. Hoorah jars me out of my writing.) I am living with too much hoorah. I listed for my editor the number of publicity projects that I am or will be involved in and it filled two pages--three if you count the things I am doing or plan to do myself. So now I'm scolding myself: it's silly, because I'm a storyteller and while I have the precious gift I shouldn't waste it on anything else. I know what it's like to lose it.This is such a nice little place to write in; I don't think of it as publicity. I have to remind myself that other people can see it. It's not my private diary. But I intend to keep it as if it were. That's the only way I really can write anything in it except announcements of upcoming contests or books or other publicity projects. So...I'll just open a small vein and see what flows out.Happiness for one thing. After not having a website that worked for so long, it's bliss to do something that does work. I love you, David and Usok! You've given me wings to fly with. They're small right now, but eventually they'll grow. Or should I be spending all my time twittering? No, that's silly: I'll watch the other birds until I learn how to sing as well as fly.What else? Shyness because I am innately a shy person and my mental censor suddenly leaps up and grabs me by the throat when I want to say that I have five new ideas for books this week, but I suppose I can't talk about them here until at least I have spoken to Elizabeth. Elizabeth is my agent. Having to say things like that remind me that this is not my real diary, no matter how much it feels like it.One of the ideas is for a continuation of the Vampire Diaries, but I wonder if I will want to continue them after the TV show--if there is a TV show. I believe I wish there won't be. Oh, they've been ever so nice, quite obliging--once I asked--but it isn't my show. The one thing that saddens me is the idea of drugs--just as in the books it will be becoming clear that the girls are not even the wild and crazy gals that everyone thought in the first place. I suppose everyone must be allowed to have their own versions of the characters and the story. And if I can say that to readers then I can say that to the small gods of the TV pilot. I haven't figured out whether I will watch it or not but if I do I will have to go to someone else's house that has a working TV.I am very happy to be writing a Secret Circle story again. I have missed Cassie--and I've missed all the wonderful incantations and the powers she had in charging the directions and summoning the elements. In this story Nick dies saving Adam's life. But Cassie can't accept this and the entire coven puts together all their resources to allow her to descend to the Netherworld to save Nick's life. To anchor herself in this world she has to choose an object of power, but instead of choosing the Master Tools she chooses the chalcedony rose. Nick has already surrendered himself to death and doesn't want to return--until she hold out her hand imploringly and Nick sees the chalcedony rose. He thinks it's meant for him and returns to life--blinded by the explosion that caused his death. And thinking that now he will be together with Cassie. I am so excited because even I don't know what will happen. Naturally, Cassie has been spending a lot of time with him, out of both love and sympathy. But now she's caught Adam and Diana embracing--kissing. Cassie wants to run to Nick--I haven't written it, but I feel it. But should she? She's more mature than she was, as coven leader...but she wants to. Maybe she should give Adam more of a chance to explain. I know--as she doesn't--that it was Diana that went to Adam, meaning just to talk to him about his feelings, to comfort him while Cassie was away. Diana's had a very hard time of it, if you put yourself in her position.I think I'll go write about it while I'm thinking about it. While the vein is still open, you might say. I expect I've flipped.
