One of my little sorority sisters e-mailed me last night to report that while traveling on a Honolulu-Los Angeles flight, she sat in the same row as a woman who was reading Love Like That. It is said that the woman had red hair, looked like she was in her 20's and didn't appear to put the book down once. Isn't that darling? And by that, I mostly mean how Marissa included a description of the passenger.

I'm so depressed about the hurricane making such a mess of the Gulf Coast. I'm especially saddened to see images of New Orleans choking in floodwaters. New Orleans is one of my favorite cities to visit, and one of my favorite cities to have my characters visit. I think it could actually be one of my author trademarks because it is somehow mentioned in every book I write, even if the characters don't ever go there in the story.

Lately I've been suffering a seriously horrendous bout of writer's block. I keep thinking and thinking about what I want to give my agent to shop around next instead of writing and writing it. I feel that this could be due to several circumstances. One being that I don't feel it's in me just now to write another book that's in the same vein as Love Like That and Only the Lucky, which is the book I just finished for RDI. Two being that so many topics have now been covered so extensively in the chick-lit genre that I feel if I were to write another book in that same vein, I would have to give it an alien twist to make it even slightly interesting (which, as it would seem, actually might not be interesting at all. To me, at least. To each, their own, if you happen to currently be writing a chick-lit novel with an alien love interest!) Three being that if I try to navigate away from chick-lit, does that mean I have to write something "literate" and if so, does that mean the heroine has to be a brooding (but not self-absorbed!), man-hating, nonconformist genius-woman who never refers to herself as a girl, had her ovaries removed at the age of 16 (by choice) and is still wearing her kindergarten clothing because she does not believe that shopping can be a legitimate pastime of an intelligent female?

All kidding aside, these are serious creativity stilters. And despite the logical advice that I should stop worrying about all this gobbledygook and just write, for some reason I just can't bring myself to do it.

Maybe I just need some inspiration.
Maybe I just need a drink.