Back and With Stephenie Meyer!

It's good to be back and my jet lag is minimal now after taking midafternoon naps for three days. I couldn't yesterday because one of my cats barfed on my bed and I spend the next 90 minutes washing and drying sheets. So in essence, her vomiting put me on schedule.

I watched "Coach Carter" when I came back and enjoyed this quote, which was adapted from Marianne Williamson.


Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate,
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us.
Your playing small does not serve the world.
There is nothing enlightened about shrinking
So that other people won't feel insecure around you.
We are all meant to shine as children do.
It's not just in some of us; it is in everyone.
And as we let our own light shine
We unconsciously give others permission to do the same.

I also finished reading "Twilight" by Stephenie Meyer to see what all the hubbub was about. It was adequately executed but nothing terribly original.

She does have a great story though -- I dreamed it, then for the first time ever, started to write a 500-page novel. Do you believe that? I'm not so sure.

She has this to say about standing up for her art.

"When I first started with "Twilight," I didn't have any experience. I didn't know what I was doing. So I was pretty intimidated by the editors and the publishers, and I felt like I was a kid in school with the principal telling me what to do! It was hard for me. There were things I changed in the story that I sometimes think maybe would have been better [if I hadn't], but I found what really unleashed the lioness waiting inside was when they tried to mess with who my characters were. When they said, "This is how we would like this to go," I was like, "Edward would never do that! That's impossible!" It always got back to that. If it was something [threatening] the characters, I could hold my own. And that taught me the confidence I needed to continue with a career in writing."