The other day I was musing on the fact that this blog is titled “Inkblots in the Life of an Author,” yet I make very few posts about the authorial part of my life.  Probably most of you think I don’t actually do any authoring.  Rest assured, I do write, every day, from about 10 AM to 4 or 5 PM.  Respectable working hours, almost as if I had a real job!  (And I do generally take my meals at my desk while I work, so I think it’s okay that I don’t start at 8 or 9 like most working people.)

Anyway, all that to say, I actually have something from my writing to blog about today.

When you are a writer, you learn many fascinating things.  Usually these are nuggets of trivia gleaned from researching, but occasionally, they come from your own head.  For example, today I was tweaking the end of chapter thirteen, which I finished last week, and skimmed through to discover that Cupid doesn’t just stick to his day job.  Apparently, he also moonlights as a composer of piano music.

(Consider yourselves very fortunate to get the first ever sneak-peek of Songs for Piano and Voice, hopefully coming to a bookstore near you sometime this decade.)

“Have you ever considered that maybe I’m with a woman who’s so stunningly beautiful that I can’t think about what any other woman looks like?”

Laura blinked, twice.  “Good line,” she said, breathily.  Possibly experiencing the same fluttering sensations as John was, as if someone were using his organs as a keyboard to play Cupid’s “Minute Waltz.”

Eleven years of piano lessons, and I had no idea that anyone but Frédéric Chopin had written a Minute Waltz.  But lo, there is another one — and by Cupid, no less!

Okay, the jig’s up.  That was supposed to say Chopin’s Minute Waltz, but somehow my fingers took leave of my brain and typed Cupid’s.  This is so much worse than the time I was editing my work and found a completely made-up word.  Where did that come from?!

Really, I worry about myself sometimes, and about my future publication endeavors.  How will anyone ever be able to edit my work if they don’t know what the heck I’m trying to say?!

Does it count for anything that I know the above punctuation (?!) is properly called an interrobang?    No?  Okay then.  Back to work.  I’ve got to torture a pianist, recently struck by Cupid’s arrow, with the return of his ex-wife.