Guest Blog at The Naughty Girls Next Door!

I'm blogging today about getting into the mind of my medieval warrior, Eaduin over at The Naughty Girls Next Door. Please stop by to visit. One lucky commenter will win a copy of my book.

The OtherWorld Diner and Research...

The topic for the week at The OtherWorld Diner is world building. To me good world building is done through research. Researching fiction? Isn't that an oxymoron? Not really. Good fiction starts with truth and to find truth, you need to do research. Arthur D. Little said, "Research serves to make building stones out of stumbling blocks."

Every time you figure out how your world works, you're doing research. Whenever you discover how your characters think, you're doing research. It's a long voyage of discovery where your world and your characters reveal themselves to you so you can share them with others. I love research, but then I'm also a librarian. ;-)

Guns are no longer in my immediate future...

I'm so bummed. I got a message over the weekend that the Citizen's Police Academy will be postponed until Fall of 2008. I was looking forward to frisking people and shooting guns. Just in case the letter I got in the mail was wrong, I confirmed with the Lieutenant. No classes. Sigh.

At first I wondered if this was a polite way to say "we don't want to teach you cop stuff cause you scare us girl!" However, since I KNOW I don't have any convictions I couldn't imagine there would be any reason they would be unwilling to teach me stuff. Heaven knows there's no way I'm going to take down any of their officers in a fight either. It's all about money. I hate budget crunches and staffing shortages.

Of course we get budget and staffing issues at the library too. Fiscal year rolled over in July and I've been spending money like a drunken sailor. Well, if drunken sailors actually bought things like the Standard Catalog of World Coins, the College Blue Book, or the Guinness World Records. Frankly, I can't picture them buying any of those books. But you get the idea. I'll soon be forking over the big bucks for the latest edition of the WorldBook Encyclopedia too. Reference books are so entertaining...not. Enlightening yes, entertaining, not so much.

Oh well, at least I still have airplanes to look forward to. I'll keep you posted on flying.

Police Academy - Citizen's edition

This week I had two very cool programs at the library which unfortunately were painfully under attended. A program on arson investigation and one on police investigation. At the police one I met my first Lieutenant. He's a very cool guy and imparted tons of useful information.

Why is this a big deal? Well, almost as an afterthought he mentioned that the Police Department in my town holds a Citizen's Police Academy which is free and encourages citizens to learn police procedure. You have to complete an application (which if I had a first born, I think they might want him or her!). How do I know this? Well....

I'm listening to the Lieutenant talk, and granted after the first mental flash to the movie Police Academy 4: Citizens on Patrol, I thought to myself this was a golden opportunity to learn. I get to learn how to take finger prints, dust for prints, and shoot a gun. Could anything be cooler? So sometime this fall, I'm going to be "on duty" as a citizen trainee. More after class starts. This rocks!

Oh, and I'll let you know whether or not I can handle a gun or you should run like hell if you ever see one in my hands. ;-)