I’d like to wish everyone out there a great Valentine’s Day–a day filled with romance, roses, and lots of chocolate.

And while you’re here…let me share a few Valentine’s Day trivia facts:

1. 15% of women in the U.S. will send themselves flowers. (Tell me…do you know someone planning to do this?)

2. Estimates are that 1 billion Valentines cards will be exchanged. (But you still know some poor kid is gonna get left out of the exchange!)

3. Pets will get gifts–about 3% of the pets in the U.S. will get some sort of Valentine’s presents. (I’m actually surprised this number isn’t higher–I know my friend Ashley got her dog a gift!)

4. Signing a Valentine’s card in the Victorian period was believed to bring the signer-in-question bad luck.

5. Don’t be surprised if your guy hasn’t got a romantic evening planned–64% of U.S. men do not make advanced plans for a fun and romantic Valentine’s Day.

For more facts, check out this trivia site–and have a great Valentine’s Day!

I really, truly do. Sure, I often mention on this blog just how much I love my reference books, but some days, I can definitely appreciate the convenience of the Internet.

Recently, I’ve needed to research voodoo in Haiti, learn some Haitian creole, get driving directions from LA to Las Vegas, and discover the appropriate names for certain groups of animals–all for my WIP. Of course, none of this info was available in my reference books–but I found the facts I needed instantly on the Internet. Ah, the fast, fun convenience. Ah, the researching made easy!

Don’t you just love technology?

When I’m writing, I don’t actually sit down and draw out a character sketch before I begin a story. Sure, I figure out what my characters look like. I jot down notes to keep their images strong in my mind. And sometimes I go ahead and write notes on motivation. But often, well, the character motivation and history comes to me as I write the story.

I know many writers use character sketches. I also know some of these sketches can be quite detailed (I’ve heard talk of a sketch with 80+ questions). I found this character sketch on the internet and it got me to wondering…am I in the minority here? For any writers out there–do you sketch? Or do you create as you go?

It’s time for me to begin a new novel (yay!), but in the last few days, I’ve been really torn about the story I want to write. Several ideas have been milling around in my mind, making me seem very absent-minded because I keep trying to work them out in my head and, ah, I seem to miss actual, real-life conversations while I’m doing the said working out.

But anyway…tonight I’ve narrowed down my focus to just two stories. Both paranormal (of course) but with very different plots and beginnings.

Oh, the beginnings. Lately, when I’m trying to decide if I’m really “feeling” a story, I’ll write a few pages of one tale, then try writing a few pages of a different story. The story that flows the best for me, well, that’s what I write, and the other goes into my idea file (so I’m ahead of the game for next time).

This time, both stories flowed well for me. One is about a psychic, specifically, a woman who has premonitions (I think I’ve mentioned this idea before) and the other is about vampires and murder. Now, the premonition story has a rather light-hearted beginning (and this finally gets me to the topic of this blog!) but the tale later takes a darker turn (at least in my mind, seeing as I haven’t actually written that far yet). As for the second story, well, the beginning is very dark and very violent–definitely the darkest I’ve ever written.

I read both beginnings one more time before I started this blog, and I think I’m leaning toward a favorite now. I’m going to sleep on it tonight, then get into the story seriously tomorrow (yeah, back to my 10 pages a day goal).

So, now I wonder, does anyone out there have a preference for light or “dark” stories? And if so, why?

Just a quick note…I updated my author page last night. Included some random bits of trivia. Let me know what you think.