I rode the bus to Mt. Vernon, WA today for an interview with my old job to see if I could go with them for the summer. It went well, and I will probably pick up some work during the summer, and to top it all off, I thought I was being brilliant by taking the shuttlebus and writing on it.

Turns out the shuttlebus doesn't leave for another two hours after the interview is done. I feel silly.

I'm 50k into my Crusades fantistorical novel, but there's two characters that I'm having a really hard time getting the hang of. This is a pretty big novel with lots of viewpoints, and out of six viewpoints that switch back and forth, these are the only two women. Well, there's a male character who becomes a woman, but he's not one yet. So I feel rather sexist at not being able to write the women.

On the other hand, my experience has been that the characters one struggles the most with usually turn out the best, because one sweats so much over getting them right.

Also, I'm kind of worried at how R-rated this novel is becoming. Not that I'm really offended by R-rated books--my love for George R.R. Martin and Jacqueline Carey should prove that. But now that I've been an agent, I'm quite aware of marketing issues, and PG-13 books are much easier to market. It's the same principle as movies. Other than the Godfather films, most of the biggest moneymakers are (I believe; too lazy to look it up) all PG or PG-13; Jurassic Park, E.T., Star Wars, Spider-Man, etc. Robert Jordan's books hold steady at PG-13, as do Harry Potter's later books.

Meh. I suppose I'll just write what I want and cry later.