I went to Dallas on Tuesday to see Glasvegas, and the COOLEST thing happened, ever. Don’t get me wrong, I love me some Glasvegas. But I’m a bit obsessed at the mo’ with a band called Ida Maria. They’re Norwegian. And they ROCK MY WORLD.

On the ride over to Dallas, I genuised a playlist on my Touch* using Glasvegas’s Geraldine, and there was tons of Ida Maria mixed in. Squid, my friend who I was going to the show with, was like, “Who is this band? They rock? Can we listen to that song again?” So we ended up listening to tons of Ida Maria on the way down.

Anyway, we show up at the venue and there’s Ida Maria signs mixed up with the Glasvegas signs ALL OVER. And I’m all, “Oh, Ida Maria must be coming to town! Let’s see them when they do!” Squid agrees.

Now, keep in mind that Squid bought the tix and didn’t know Ida Maria from a hole in the wall before the drive to Dallas. As we watch the opening band’s roadies set up their stuff, I’m all, “Who’s opening?” and Squid’s like, “You know what, I have no idea.”

Then this girl takes the stages and I’m like, “Oh my God … That’s Ida Maria!” And it WAS! And they were amazing! If you haven’t heard their stuff, download NOW. I heart. I really, really heart.

And Glasvegas was amazing. Although they made me miss my braw Scottish lads.

That was my Tuesday.

On Wednesday, we drove back to Shreveport, and on the way I talked to my editor regarding my revisions of Tracking the Tempest. Basically, she’s happy with them. I still have a leeeetle more work to do on the mystery aspect. My mystery is still is a bit lame. BUT it’s getting there, and I think I fixed EVERYTHING else that blew about this sequel.

In the past few months, I’ve learned about 1,027 lessons about writing. And I’ll be going into book 3 with an entirely different mindset and with an entirely different focus than I had for book two. I don’t think my struggle with my sequel was that bad, and I know that struggling with a sequel is really, really common. I think I got off pretty lightly, really. But I did struggle, I AM struggling, and I think it comes down to how I approached it, in the beginning.

Which was, essentially, “I’m gonna write my sequel, yo! Woot!” Apparently, more should go into it than that.

So I’m going to do some more work on an academic article I REALLY need to revise, and then I’ll go another round with Tracking. And in the meantime I’m going to pick the brainz of other writers to see how THEY organize for an upcoming book.

And in the meantime, I’m learning the fine art of mystery writing. Or at least learning to be less crap at it.

See ya’ll on the flip side. 😉

*Yes, I speak Mac along with Twitter. I am a technology whore.