[Note: This is cross-posted on my personal diary/Mommy blog, CarolynBahm.com.]

Tomorrow is Read and Comment Day, as proclaimed by social media guru Chris Brogan. Go forth and drop a comment on some of the blogs you adore.

I’m as guilty as the rest of ya — I’m subscribed to more than 200 blogs and read them all regularly, but I only comment when something really tickles my fancy. Tomorrow, I’m going to work at getting my fancy tickled. (Gee, that sounds filthy.) And I’m going to try to make the comments more than just a litany of “Cool! Me too! LOL!” if possible … although even that is usually welcomed because it’s nice just to know that you’re not blogging in a void.

ANYWAY. As Chris suggests for your blog drive-bys, “Contribute to their conversations. Find some good stuff and add to it.” Then we’re to pop back to his post on this topic and report our good deeds. :o)

Technorati Tags: Read and Comment Day, blog comments

I’m currently writing a story about a pregnant woman who’s bitten by a desperate vampire. It usually helps me figure out what way I want a story to go if I make lists of some plot options and some background options. Here are some of the weird/gruesome possibilities swimming through my brain right now:

Vampirism is caused by:

• Nanos.
• Virus.
• Magic.
• Other?

Options when a pregnant woman is turned into a vampire:

• She turns into a vampire but loses the baby.
• She turns into a vampire, but her pregnancy proceeds as normal and she delivers a human baby.
• She turns into a vampire, but her baby slowly starves. (Does her body reabsorb and return to non-pregnant shape? Effect on her mentally?)
• She turns into a vampire, but she stays pregnant forever. Her son remains human.
• She turns into a vampire, but she stays pregnant forever. Her son becomes a vampire in her belly. (Do they communicate telepathically?)
• She turns into a vampire and gives birth to a vampire. He eventually grows to adult size and is a vampire too – a totally “normal” vampire. (How long does his childhood last? Breastfeeding - does he bite her AND get milk? Just bite? Is given blood in a bottle? Do children vampires lose their baby fangs?)
• She turns into a vampire and gives birth to a vampire. He stays infant size forever but develops normally mentally.
• She turns into a vampire and gives birth to a vampire. He stays infant size forever but is mentally deformed by this.
• She turns into a vampire, and when the baby turns too he claws his way out of her belly to feed. It kills her.
• She turns into a vampire, and when the baby turns too he claws his way out of her belly to feed. She recovers because of vampires’ recuperative powers.

Reactions of local vampire coven/seethe/nest when they find out what happened:

• They help the woman and the baby.
• They help the woman but kill the baby.
• They kill the woman but help the baby.
• They kill both the woman and the baby.
• Indifference; it’s not their problem.
• Nothing; they never find out.
• Other?

So. What kind of lists, if any, do YOU make when you’re tinkering with your fiction?

Photo credit: Memnoch, some rights reserved.

Technorati Tags: making lists, fiction writing, vampires

I only have a few random thoughts for you today:

• It’s a pitiful start, but at least it’s something: I got up this morning and scribbled 250 words on the short story I’ve had bouncing around in my head for the past few days. First fiction I’ve written in weeks. And I just got one of those fabulous mental clicks — figured out the perfect title for the story: “Wrong Turn.” You’d have to know the subject matter to understand why that’s such a good fit, but it’s making me bounce up and down in my chair. 
• Someday, I’m going to incorporate some of my daughters’ mannerisms, words, and activities in my fiction. At odd moments, I’m still struck by how utterly charming I find each of them, and I’d like to preserve some of my fleeting impressions of them as children.
• My dreams lately have been wild. I wonder what my sleeping mind is trying to tell the rest of me? At least I have some brain dribbles to amuse my husband with on the ride to work each morning.

Sorry to have been so absent from the blog lately, but my brick-and-mortar life’s been a lot busier than my cyberlife. And as my mother-in-law is known to say, “A poor excuse is better than none.” (Don’t you love her?)

What’s up in YOUR writer’s mind lately?