I was taking Mia out for a playdate, and when she got to the front door she asked me if I would carry her. I picked her up and asked why. I was expecting something adorable like “because I love you” or something similar. Instead, she replies, “It’s because I’m lazy!”

• At the airport. Flying to Denver for the day. #
• Denver is as hot as Dallas. #
• Finishing up my day writing two hours worth of emails. Salt Lake City tomorrow. #
• Off to the Denver airport. Salt Lake City here I come. #
• Packing up to head home. #
• Back home having lunch with my family. #
• At my writer's group meeting. #
• Brought the house down reading this essay: http://bit.ly/1axKL9 #
• Using all my willpower not to go back and rewrite chapter two after critiques last night, but promised myself to move ahead. Rewrites later! #
• Watching the Chiller channel with Lea. I didn't even know there was a chiller channel. #
• Looking forward to an enjoyable night at home with the family. #
• Walking the dogs. #
• Just wrote a blog post from my iPhone. #
• At Starbucks. #
• Debating which theme to use on my iPhone. #
• Just realized I can make a playlist on the iPhone. About time. It's damn convenient. #
• Out shopping for PMS food. Don't ask. #
• I'm doing my once a week glance at Facebook and am once again shaking my fist at those who update Facebook but don't update on Twitter. #
• 102 degrees. #
• Looking at a house for my sister-in-law. #

My young adult novel is coming along very nicely. I started with an interesting scenario featuring a boy and his grandfather facing monsters in an alley, and the story has progressed well in my mind. I’ve written this as I have all of my previous longer works over the past few years–a first draft of a chapter and the LOTS of polishing before moving on to the next chapter.

I had already decided to stop doing this after I had written chapter two, but my recent experience at my writer’s group confirmed this was a good idea. Chapter two features a lot of violent explosions of a similar nature, and I was so focused on making them different and compelling that in the process of rewriting I lost sight of pace and style. In short, I overwrote the chapter with adverbs and unecessary elements.

I had a simple idea of a calm surrounded by storm, and I lost sight of it in the rewriting process.

I’ve always wanted to write straight through and do one whole draft at a time, but I guess I’m a bit of a perfectionist and can’t stand moving on from a chapter if I’m not happy with it. That changed for sure when I saw how poorly my draft changes were and how they affected the pace of the story. So now I’m going to just keep writing and save the rewrites for when I’m finished.

A few days ago I finished the next chapter, and I immediately began on another one. I didn’t have any problem doing that at all, so I think I’m ready to follow the advice of many others and keep moving forward.

Although that problematic second chapter keeps calling to me. “Fix me! Fix me!” it cries. But I cruelly am ignoring it. Fixing can come when the novel is over.

• Heading to the airport. I have a three day business trip to LA. #
• Just landed at LAX. #
• Wrote about 500 words of my novel on the flight. #
• Workday started at 5:45 AM and just ended at 10:30 PM. Such is life on the road. #
• Non-stop meetings from 8:30 AM to 5:30 PM. #
• Hanging out at the bosses house. #
• Was totally enamored with Toluca Lake in LA. Downside: 2 bedroom 2 bathroom houses sit at around $1.4 million. #
• Excellent… Got to upgrade to first class. #
• Walkiing the dogs then off to a business meeting. #
• Finally got Facebook under control. Maybe I’ll log in more than once every two weeks now. #
• Trying to sleep in… Failing. #
• Out shopping with Lea. #
• At Whole Foods with Lea. #
• Gettiing pizza. #
• Great father’s day morning! Full homemade brunch and wonderful presents! #
• Driving around looking at old small town Main Streets and town squares in North Texas. #
• Taking the kids swimming. #

I’m traveling in Los Angeles for business this week, and I visited my boss at his house in Toluca Lake. It was an incredibly cool experience as Toluca Lake is pretty much the definition of old Hollywood. It is roughly between the Warner Brothers and Universal studio lots and it is near the mountains, so in the 20s and 30s, Hollywood stars naturally settled there. A good example is Bob Hope, whose widow still lives there.

My boss lives in the house that was built by Jack Webb, the star of Dragnet. There is a lake about a block away, and across the lake is a golf course. Apparantly in the thirties, Johnny Weismuller (Tarzan actor and former Olympic swimmer) would swim from his house on the lake across the lake to the golf course.

Anyway, you can learn more about Toluca Lake via Wikipedia.