just about the only time I write blogs anymore is when I���m up at the cabin.

Except for when I���m committing acts of shameless self-promotion, of course.

This morning is no exception. I woke to a sunrise with a forest fire palate of color, red and orange flame shot through with smoky gray ���

yeah, I know. Morning here brings out the maudlin poet in me.   

I���ve come up here with the supposed intention of working on my new book. I wrote novel first, but then erased it. Somehow calling something I���m writing a novel feels pretentious. I say supposed intention because I���ve brought the manuscript up here the last three times I���ve visited and have yet to work on it.

I���m only fooling myself. 
There���s no one else to fool, and even I don���t really believe myself anymore. 
Which is kind of sad, if you think about it. Or possibly it���s just realistic. In any case, the weather has been unusually warm and the sun is out, as it has been for the last couple of my visits. I can���t possibly be expected to work under these conditions.

Absolutely honest truth?  I���m stuck. This book is so tantalizingly close to completion. Most of the corrections at this point are minor ones, places where there are a few to many words, or not quite enough. Mostly places that need expounding upon. I���m a bit of a poet when I write fiction. I tend to use as few words as possible, so that my first drafts often resemble other people���s outlines. Then I have to go back and flesh out the bones. That���s writer talk. It sounds much classier than having to say now I have to go back and describe Sally���s dress. (Or for those of you who have heard me expound upon Lynn Emanuel���s essay, I have to get Raul to the elevator.)

Finished doesn���t mean ready for the printer, of course. In this case it means ready enough to try and find an agent with it. I���ve been lucky up until this point and haven���t really needed to find an agent. Although in at least one case I probably would���ve been better off with an agent then with a publisher who took my book. Sour grapes.

The woods here are full of wild grapes. Some of the older vines are literally as thick around as my wrist. Sometimes you���ll find a tree with a vine has grown into the trunk, winding its way up from the forest floor into the branches ���

But I digress.

I���m stuck because I can���t find the right voice for one of my characters. I think I know what she feels and how she acts and why she does the things she does but I can���t get the words right. There���s a couple of factors in the book that make this more difficult. This character���s not in any dialogue, which is where you can use abbreviations and spellings and made-up words that just don���t make a lot of sense on the page otherwise.

She���s not the main character, but she���s vital to the book. So I���ve got to get this right. It���s important enough that when I try to start in on it now, several months after I sent the book to my first readers, and got the same comments about her voice from all of them, I choke. I read tons of books and listen to tons of people and I think I���ve got it, but each time I try it just isn���t right yet.

I not only have to get Raul to the elevator, I have to give him a voice. Preferably one that will make you want to get on the elevator with him, and ride the whole way up. Or down.

I took a break to wander around the internet. I belong to a great page on Facebook where you can buy and sell anything in the county, from baby clothes to a `92 Mazda.

I wonder if I could buy a teenage girl���s voice there?

I bet I could. And it would be authentic as hell.