Freak out!!

Argh! Today I have to shave a full page from an already tight 20 pages of manuscript, or shave a page from a tight 6 page synopsis. I'm so screwed. I've already done the "trim paragraphs of the pesky one or two words hanging by themselves at the end," trick, but I still have a full page to get rid of. Ugh. I hate entering contests!

And where is everybody, anyway? My lists are quiet, blogs are quiet...is everyone making a last minute push in their writing challenges? Or have the holidays taken over? I need entertainment! Blog, people! Blog!!!!

Tuesday, November 30, 2004 @ 07:34 AM CST [link]

Cool!

Pages Written: Um, I gave up...

Bright spot of the day...

This morning I got an email from Merline Lovelace, who writes some of my favorite military thrillers and romantic suspense. I've been accepted into RomVets!

Of course, now I think I'll have to dig up one of my old geeky Air Force pics (complete with birth-control glasses,) and let me tell you...they are just scary!

Monday, November 29, 2004 @ 11:21 AM CST [link]

Christmas is Coming!!!

Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving!!! We enjoyed ourselves, ate WAY too much. But now it's time to think about Christmas! Yay!!!!

My husband hates me during the holiday season. He's a Grinchy grouch, and I'm happy and bouncy and always singing Christmas carols. I turn on Christmas music all the time, I burn pine and cinnamon candles...I just adore Christmas.

The bad thing about the season, though, is that my writing suffers. I'm too busy to be able to really dig into my writing. But I'm going to try because I'd like to get a serious push for publication going by the first of the year.

I guess it helps (my writing efforts) that it looks like there won't be any hockey this season.

Okay, enough whining. We're going Christmas shopping!!!!!

Saturday, November 27, 2004 @ 09:20 AM CST [link]

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!!!!

I couldn't resist. I'm weak. I had to take the test, and I had to post the results. It's Thanksgiving, after all!

You Are the Stuffing

You're complicated and complex, yet all your pieces fit together. People miss you if you're gone - but they're not sure why.

Thursday, November 25, 2004 @ 09:42 AM CST [link]

Rant?

Yesterday I read this headline:

Former President Bush was forced to change his travel plans this morning when the private plane scheduled to take him to South America crashed on his way to pick him up. The Gulfstream jet was a few miles from Houston’s Hobby Airport when officials say it struck a tall high tower in heavy fog, and sheered off a wing. All three crewmembers were killed.

And I was disturbed. See, I used to do the weather at Houston's Hobby Airport. I was on duty when a plane crashed on the runway in a non-weather related crash, but any crash within the area is investigated from all angles. So my weather records were handed over, I was interviewed, etc. Standard operating procedure.

The thing that has bothered me is that at the time, the government had been looking for ways to cut back on weather operations, and they instituted a weather monitoring system called the Automated Surface Observation System, or ASOS. Users of ASOS call it, "Applying Stupidity Over Safety." Users hate it. I have been fighting the government over this system for years.

See, the government, back in the Clinton days, began to close weather operations at airports, replacing humans with ASOS. It was supposed to save money. Saving lives? Not so much. At bigger airports, humans monitor ASOS, changing the info to be accurate. While that is a good thing since ASOS is always screwing up, it certainly isn't saving money, since now the government is paying a human AND ASOS.

And another problem with ASOS is that its very presence can lead its human caretakers to be lazy. They don't need to learn as much about the weather because ASOS is supposed to do everything automatically. I've known observers who had no idea what to do when ASOS breaks (which is does--a lot.) No idea at all. They've forgotten how to take manual weather observations, or they never learned properly. I've known weather observers to sleep on the job because they think ASOS will handle things. At one station, the observer woke up from his nap to find a foot of snow on the ground that ASOS didn't report.

So I can't help but wonder if this crash at Houston Hobby, which is obviously weather-related, may also be ASOS related. Several years ago I contacted my state senator (Oregon, at the time,) and told him that it was only a matter of time before ASOS caused a crash at a non-human monitored station. The matter was investigated by politicians, the media, and the FAA, and and my boss at the National Weather Service (who was an ASOS supporter because he didn't have to work with it, plus, his job is a political one) had to fly to D.C. to testify about ASOS's competence (and let me tell you, he was NOT happy with me.) He won, which was no surprise, given how rabid the government was to save money and cut human jobs. My weather station was closed down, and only a year later, a plane crashed because of weather conditions the ASOS couldn't keep up with.

Several more suspicious incidents have happened at small airports around the country, and I can't help but wonder if Houston Hobby is one of these incidents. Replacing humans with machines is SUCH a bad idea. 20/20 did a story about ASOS several years ago in response to the observers who knew the thing was not needed and a danger, and 20/20 highlighted the problems and the fact that your tax dollars were paying for the thing. What a waste.

So anyway, that's one of my rare non-writing related rants. ASOS has frustrated me for years, and every time I hear about a weather-related crash, I cringe. Could it been avoided if humans had been doing the weather instead of a machine? I always wonder. And I won't stop crusading for better ASOS systems and more human observers with better training, because every time I fly I'm paranoid enough. I don't want to have to worry about an automated weather system failing.

Here are some links if you are interested:

Weather Forecasting: Unmet Needs and Unknown Costs Warrant Reassessment of Observing System Plans

Testimony of the National Weather Service Employees Organization

Humans Vs. Asos

And I'm going to get ever so slightly political here. See, in the ASOS/human regard, things have gotten better over the last four years. Government funding for weather contractors has increased, allowing humans to stay employed and augmenting ASOS in sites that were slated for closing. The ASOS issue is VERY important to those who use it and are affected by its observations--weather personnel, air traffic controllers, pilots. Government funding under the Bush administration has been vital in keeping humans employed in this area. So for those who call people who voted for Bush "stupid," keep in mind that this is one of those issues that was a factor for people in those career fields who voted for him. Public safety. Plane crashes. Jobs.

There is still a LOT of room for improvement--my main issue is training for the humans who monitor ASOS, but obviously, keeping humans at those ASOS sites is important, as well.

So anyway, that said, happy Thanksgiving traveling!

Wednesday, November 24, 2004 @ 08:36 AM CST [link]

Pages Written: 88

Woo hoo! I got lots of writing done on my WORD challenge project!

But today I doubt I'll get anything done. Bryan is off for the holiday, so he's hanging around bugging me, and I need to shop and get ready for Thanksgiving, which is not normally a big holiday for us. We never live close enough to family to share the day with them, so it's usually just the three of us having some pathetic meal that doesn't resemble any kind of traditional Thanksgiving meal in any way. Once, when Bryan was out to sea and before I became a vegetarian, my son and I actually had turkey TV dinners.

But this year we're going to a friend's house, so Thanksgiving will be a little more fun. I'm taking the green bean casserole, cranberry sauce, biscuits, and some sort of dessert, and probably an appetizer. Mmm. Just talking about it is making me hungry!

Felix, aka Spooge Cat, is making me nervous as I type this. He loves balloons, and he's found one of my son's and is playing with it behind my chair. I have an irrational hatred/fear of popping balloons that almost borders on phobic. So having a cat play with a balloon is making me sweat bullets. Time to take the little furry monster's balloon away.

Ooh, and we're under a tornado watch!

Wednesday, November 24, 2004 @ 07:27 AM CST [link]

Rejections

Pages Written: 72

So many of us live in fear of the editorial or agent rejection. And when we get them, sometimes we can look at them constructively and use what was given to us in the rejection letter, and sometimes we think the editor/agent is out of their gourd. Sometimes we're mad or sad, or if the rejection is a "good" one, we might be bummed but pleased that there is still hope.

But I've never seen a rejection as GREAT as the one Emma Gads got. I mean, I feel like I should actually congratulate her on the rejection.

That, my friends, is a good rejection that I can only hope to get one day!

Tuesday, November 23, 2004 @ 07:24 AM CST [link]

Woo hoo!

Pages Written: 72

Okay, so I haven't gotten many WORD pages done, but maybe today. Or tomorrow. These holidays are really messing with me.

I received a wonderful surprise in the mail yesterday! One of Portia Da Costa's (Wendy Wootton!) novels! The same one she gave to David Boreanaz and James Marsters. I'm lucky to be in such company! Thank you Wendy!!!!

And I must post the picture of the U.S. Coast Guard's newest cutter, the Shamal. It's my husband's ship, and named, ironically, after a summer northwesterly wind blowing over Iraq and the Persian Gulf.


IMO, the Shamal, and its two sisters, the Tornado and the Tempest, are the coolest-looking of the USCG's cutters. All other CG ships are wussy-white, but I like how the Shamal is still gray, still tough-looking, especially with the powerful guns on the deck. The wussy-white ships...who is afraid of those? If I were a bad guy, would I be shaking in my boots at the sight of a marshmallow-colored, orangy-red striped boat coming after me? I'm thinking...no. But the Shamal...it's fast, it blends into the water background, and it's loaded for bear.

Then the crew went and ruined the image by adopting a--get this--camel as the ship mascot. A camel. How very not scary. A camel spider, maybe, but a camel? *shakes head* Men.

Monday, November 22, 2004 @ 11:05 AM CST [link]

I need to stop taking blog quizzes

Pages Written: 67

How sad is it that many of these are true... (no need to answer that)

You Know You're Addicted to Star Trek When...

Your favorite drink: Tea, earl grey, hot You can quote the name of every single episode just by watching the first 10 seconds of the introductory clip You own 13 Star Trek Technical Manuals and Blue Print Schematics of all Starship but you no longer need them When seeing a doctor, you're afraid of getting a shot and ask for a hypospray instead Your electronic project: Positronic brain You have 4 TVs at home and each of them are playing TOS, TNG, DS9 and VOY respectively 24 hours a day non-stop You remembered the lock up code that Data uses on the Enterprise's Main Bridge before beaming down to meet Dr. Soong and Lore You've learned playing the song "The Inner Light" with a penny whistle After broken your neighbour's window, instead of just running away, you try to use the "Picard Maneuver" to escape You're hosting a conference, your response to any suggestions: Make it so You actually get these jokes and pass them on to other friends who are addicted to Star Trek.

Saturday, November 20, 2004 @ 09:24 AM CST [link]

Mishmash

Pages Written: 66 1/2

Sixty-six and HALF pages done. I got a HALF page done yesterday. I'm so pathetic. I MUST work my butt off to do better today. A lot better.

Of course, given how this morning started off, I'm in a whole lotta trouble. I got my son off on the bus, and as it drove away, I realized I was still holding his backpack. No way on earth was I going to take that backpack to his school, which is not only several miles away but also so busy in the mornings with a line of cars dropping kids off that it takes 45 minutes to get from the street to the parking lot. So I jumped in my car and chased that bus down. I looked like a raving lunatic (not an uncommon thing) to the moms and kids in front of one house where I stopped because obviously they were waiting for the bus. Anyway, I finally got my son's backpack to him, so at least I don't have to go all the way to his school.

The neighbor found another little cottonmouth near her house. She couldn't get to it in time to kill it, so it's roaming around somewhere. Great.

This month, Jodi Lynn Copeland featured me in her "Up and Coming" section of her newsletter. Very cool! Thank you, Jodi!

Cool site of the day: Vote.com, where you can vote on a lot of issues, both political and not, and your votes are forwarded to congressmen, senators, and the President. You can even vote on whether or not you think Scott Peterson is guilty. Fun!

And since I'm on the subject of politics (sort of,) I've made a decision. Like Alison, I'm taking a hiatus, staying away from any site that will send me into a tizzy. I blew a gasket yesterday, which is VERY unlike me, and I hate how it makes me feel. Does anyone give a crap what I think? No. If they care, they'll ask, and even then, I probably won't get my point across so they'll understand my point of view, anyway. So to avoid losing friends and to avoid people feeling like they can't be comfortable at my site, I hereby throw in the towel. Only nice, fluffy, happy stuff from now on. Okay, and maybe the odd non-political, non-religious rant. Oh, and some snarking. And maybe whining--cuz that's fun.

Now, must go write!!!!

Friday, November 19, 2004 @ 08:36 AM CST [link]

Appropriate, given my mood today

Pages Written: 66

Thanks to Sasha!

You are Jack the Ripper. Yours were some of the
most brutal murders recorded in history--yet
your case is still to this day unsolved. You
came from out of the fog, killed violently and
quickly and disappeared without a trace. Then
for no apparent reason, you satisfy your blood
lust with ever-increasing ferocity, culminating
in the near destruction of your final victim,
and then you vanish from the scene forever. The
perfect ingredients for the perennial thriller.
You are quite the mysteriously demented?


Which Imfamous criminal are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

Thursday, November 18, 2004 @ 08:13 AM CST [link]

First Meet

Pages Written: 66

There's a discussion going on in one of my writing loops about the hero/heroine first meet. That's always been one of those things people argue about, and sure enough, it's going on again. "Your h/h MUST meet in the first chapter." "Your characters should dictate when they meet, not the rules."

Personally, if I've picked up a romance because I feel like reading romance, I want the h/h to meet fairly soon. Doesn't HAVE to be in the first chapter, however. I don't mind reading the setup as long as the setup is interesting. If so, I'm willing to wait for the h/h to meet. In fact, getting through the setup and learning how strong the conflict between the characters will be ahead of time can create an intense first meet.

So I took a look at my contemporary romances to see how/when my h/h tend to meet. I found that I'm all over the board. In one, my h/h meet in the second scene on page nine, but she's barely conscious. Does that count? Or is the "true" meet when they meet again, both fully coherent, in the second scene of chapter two, on page thirty-five? (This is Vital Signs, a 95,000 word single-title.)

In another, Flat Line, the h/h meet in the second scene on page 8. It's a "full" meet, with interaction.

Snowbound is my problem story. It's a short contemporary--60,000 words, and the h/h don't meet until the very end of chapter one on page seventeen, and it isn't much of a meet--just some lusting and a polite word or two. The real action doesn't begin until the chapter two. I've been told by some that that's just WAY too long to wait for the h/h to meet. Others who've read it have said that while I could probably tighten the first couple of scenes to cut a page or two out so the h/h can meet slightly sooner, it's fine the way it is. Getting the h/h together before that just won't work. I've tried. In this case, the story and characters overruled the rules and won't let me get them together sooner even though the story is a short contemporary which, in most cases, requires the h/h to practically burst onto the pages in the first scene. This story would NOT do well in contests, where judges are often "rule Nazis." Ugh.

So. In your novels, when do your h/h tend to meet? First scene? Second? Later? When reading a novel, how long are you willing to wait for the hero and heroine to meet before throwing the book aside in frustration?

Wednesday, November 17, 2004 @ 08:33 AM CST [link]

Drive-by

Pages Written: 66

Just popping in before I head out to spend the day in the casinos with my parents. Tomorrow I'll catch up on blogs and blogging and all kinds of things. I've been keeping up with a couple of blogs because watching the comments explode is funny, but I'll get into that a little more tomorrow. In the meantime, write, everyone! Write!

Tuesday, November 16, 2004 @ 08:44 AM CST [link]

Nuts

Pages Written: 66

Been a little scarce...hubby is home after 4 months!!!!

Also, my parents are visiting, so things have been busy and will be until around Thursday. I'm going to have SO much writing to catch up on.

I did have to share this, though:

Before Bryan got home, my parents and I decided to extend ourselves a little and try this little hole-in-the-wall Cajun place near my house. It wasn't bad. Excellent rice and gravy.

Anyway, we came outside and my mom says, "Hey, doesn't that truck look like it ran over some guy?"

I look, and there's something dangling from the underside of the pickup. It looks like...well...a scrotum. And I'm thinking, no way. I've got a bad angle. It's some sort of towing thing. Or a big deflated balloon got caught on the tailpipe. Or something.

So my mom, still obsessed by the truck scrotum, tells Bryan about it when he comes home. He picks up one of his Jeep magazines (he's such a dork) and points out an ad for Truck Nutz. No joke. You can BUY scrotums (in all colors, mind you!) to hang on your vehicle. *shakes head* WHO would do that????? I think it would be funny to buy a really obnoxious color like yellow and put them on Bryan's Jeep and see how long it takes him to notice. Hee hee.

Monday, November 15, 2004 @ 06:59 AM CST [link]

Blonde and Blue? Or Brown and Lavender?

Pages Written: 66

Recently I've been seeing discussions about hero/heroine eye and hair color crop up on at least two different lists. I've seen people saying things like, "I'm sick of seeing red-haired, green-eyed heroines," and "dark hair and dark eyes on a hero is so cliche!"



Is it just me, or does it seem impossible for hair/eye color to be cliche, given that there are only so many combinations in the world? I mean, eyes come in brown, green, and blue, with variations within each of those colors. So you only have so many to choose from. Same with hair. Blonde, brown, black, and red, with variations of each. I really don't get annoyed by REAL hair/color combinations.

What gets me are the "romance" colors like lavender. (I'm not talking about sci-fi or fantasy or paranormals, but stories set in the "real" world.

I don't know. Just seems weird to complain about character hair and eyes being cliche when A) those combinations exist in real life, and B) there are only so many combinations from which to choose. When did real life become cliche? Sometimes I think people scream "cliche" simply because the word is fun to say. Or because they are trying SO hard to create something different (which often doesn't work because it's too outlandish,) that they have to look down on what is real, or common, or normal.

IMO, how the author describes their characters is what makes the character not seem so cliche. Cheesy "her sapphire eyes sparkled in the pale moonlight that glistened off her golden blonde tresses" not only makes me gag, but does come across as tired. So keep the blue-eyed, blonde-haired heroine and make the description fresh. And keep the tall, dark and handsome hero, because that's what I like best!

Friday, November 12, 2004 @ 09:20 AM CST [link]

Snake Verdict

Pages Written: 66

Okay, so we left off with Snaky-Poo being taken to the county wildlife guru for identification. Later that afternoon, the neighbor got home and came over.

Neighbor: I have good news and bad news.

Me: Okay. Shoot. How bad can the bad news be, right? I already know it's a cottonmouth.

Neighbor: Yeah, it was. A Florida cottonmouth. The most deadly and aggressive of all U.S. snakes. And it was a juvenile, the most dangerous of the cottonmouths. Had you been bitten, if you didn't die, you could have lost your foot or leg.

Me: Nice. So what's the good news?

Neighbor: That was the good news.

Me: Um, how, exactly, was that the good news?

Neighbor: Well, you didn't get bitten.

Me: Right. So what's the bad news?

Neighbor (With a touch of glee--kinda like when you see a car accident ahead on a long, boring road trip): Cottonmouths are "live birth" snakes that hang around the immediate area until they mature. Yours was a juvenile, which means that there are up to 14 siblings and a mama cottonmouth hanging around your house.

Oh, goody.

Yesterday was the day of the reptiles, it seems, because on my way to my hair appointment, I ran over (but didn't smash) a big tortoise in the road. I was late for the appointment, but I couldn't leave the poor thing in the road to get squished. So I turn around and go back, but the vehicle in front of me stopped. This big, burly guy gets out of his giant 4x4 pickup with a gun rack in the window and NRA stickers on the bumper, and he picks up the turtle and gently carries it to the side of the road. It was SO cute! He looked a little sheepish as he looked back at me and said, "Hey, I like turtles." Aww.

Thursday, November 11, 2004 @ 07:24 AM CST [link]

Further Proof the South Hates Me

Pages Written: 66

This morning I went to move my garbage can from outside my garage to the end of the driveway for the garbage collectors. Something under the garbage can attacked me, struck my flip-flop strap right over my still painful ant bite, just barely missing my skin. I jumped back, moved the garbage can. Wanna know what attacked me? A freaking COTTONMOUTH snake!

I wasn't sure of the species of snake at first--I only knew that it was poisonous. Triangle head, aggressive, pits, eliptical eyes, very muscular. I thought it might be a baby rattler, but it seemed too big to have not fully developed rattles yet. So anyway, I take my son to the bus and grabbed the lady across the street who works for the county so we could catch it and she could take it to have it identified by the wildlife expert dude she works with. I didn't want to kill the poor thing, even though it did it's best to kill me. It was kinda funny because about 7 other people came with me--her hubby, sons, a neighbor--and they're all thinking I'm some hysterical wife who's upset about a garter snake. I TOLD them that snakes don't bother me, and that this was NO garter snake.

Sure enough, they all took one look and promptly took ten steps back. A poisonous snake just looks...poisonous.

So we captured it--and the thing was PISSED. Very aggressive. After she left, I looked it up, and sure enough, the thing is a textbook cottonmouth. I'll know for sure later today, but I'm about 99.99% certain that I dodged a bullet this morning. Maybe my luck has returned...

Wednesday, November 10, 2004 @ 07:12 AM CST [link]

TSTL

Pages Written: 51

Well, I got Snowbound mailed off to Toronto on Friday. Yay! But this morning as I was thinking about all the things I forgot to do with the story, I realized that I did a really big dumb when I mailed it.

I had paper-clipped a dollar to the self-addressed reply envelope I was including in the package withe full manuscript. The dollar was to remind me to ask the mail person if they had International Reply Coupons, since I couldn't buy Canadian postage to put on the envelope. Well, I asked, and naturally, they'd never heard of them. So I figured I'd just leave the dollar attached to pay for Harlequin's postage.

It didn't occur to me that I was sending them AMERICAN money! What a moron. They are SO going to think I'm a complete and utter idiot. I mean, what the heck are they going to do with an American dollar in Canada??? I'm so humiliated. And the thing is, I actually have a fire safe full of Canadian and British money. I could have just grabbed a Canadian bill to attach. But no. I send a U.S. dollar because it didn't occur to me that I was sending the package out of the country, even though I asked about an IRC!

Can we say, "Too Stupid To Live?"

Tuesday, November 09, 2004 @ 08:55 AM CST [link]

"Pimping for Votes"

Pages Written: 30

LOL--I had to laugh at Kate's comment to "go pimp for votes," so here I am! (And thanks, Kate, for letting me know the contest had started--and thanks for voting! )

The voting portion of Lori Foster's Brava contest has begun, and one voter gets a six month subscription to the Kensington Book Club, so go vote and get your name put in to win!

Oh, and since I'm pimping for votes, vote for ME while you're at it!

Okay, okay, if you at least vote for one of my talented friends and fellow blog buddies like Ellen, HelenKay, or Sylvia, I'll be happy. And actually, there really are some great entries, so go take a look!

And vote! (They promise no hanging chads.)

Ooh! And I got THIRTY pages of Book Challenge revisions done this weekend! Granted, most of what I "revised" had already been done once or twice, but hey, I got a good start--especially since I won't be able to do much for the next two weeks. So I'm happy for now!

Monday, November 08, 2004 @ 08:01 AM CST [link]

Catch up

Pages Written: 0

Wow--it's been quiet on the blogs and on my writing lists! I'm not complaining though; it's actually coming at a good time since I've been so busy with the disasters and writing.

I'm happy to say that things are looking up! My foot no longer looks like a mushy red football, even though it's still swollen and painful. It's not NEARLY as bad as it was. And my nausea and joint aches are no longer an issue. I can't believe how badly I reacted to an ant bite! I've been bitten before, by regular red ants and fire ants, but nothing has ever affected me like the little bastard that got me this time.

The air conditioning is still out, but it's supposed to be in the 70's today, so I won't die without A/C today. Yay!

And I got my printer working! It only took 3 hours of work, but I got it going. Hopefully I can get my ms. printed out and sent today--if the painters don't come. If they do, I'll have to wait until Monday. Grr.

My cable also went out yesterday, but I got it back last night in time for Life As We Know It, which is one of my new favorite shows. Surprising, considering I really don't like teenage/high school shows and movies. But this one is really good. Kelly Osbourne has shocked me at how good an actress she is--at least in this particular role. And it freaks me out to see D.B. Sweeney in his role as the father of a teenager because the last movies I really remember him in were Memphis Belle and The Cutting Edge, (one of my favorite movies) where he's young and good-looking, and then suddenly he's looking like a worn-out father. What really freaks me out is that he isn't THAT much older than I am, which makes me realize that I, too, could have a teenager right now. Heck, if I'd had a kid right out of high school like so many of my friends, I could have a kid in COLLEGE. Ack! I can't imagine that. I barely feel old enough to have my 7-year old!

Okay, enough procrastinating. I must get my ms. printed out. I really, really want to work out today, but I still can't fit my foot into a shoe, so it'll have to wait until tomorrow. I'm probably going to get really grumpy over the lack of exercise!

Friday, November 05, 2004 @ 08:01 AM CST [link]

Latest Disasters

Pages Written: 0

I'm going to be scarce today--dealing with my latest disasters, which includes a massive allergic reaction to a fire ant bite, a software conflict that has rendered my printer useless at the exact time I need to print out a manuscript to send, and broken air conditioning when the temps are in the 80's and the humidity is higher than that. None this could have waited until hubby gets home in a week and a half, huh? Grr.

Thursday, November 04, 2004 @ 10:31 AM CST [link]

Last Minute Revising

Pages Written: Zip

I used to hate revising. Now I don't mind so much. I mean, it still sucks, but I've discovered something that sucks more. LAST MINUTE revising. You know, when you remember that there's something you need to include, so you go back through your finished manuscript to insert whatever needs inserting, and then realize that now you have to go back through the entire thing to make sure it works and that you've got enough hints and clues leading up to the new stuff, and that you've made proper follow-throughs after the new stuff.

It's making me insane. I'm SO sick of this manuscript. I've read it straight through a million times now, and the words are just blending together. Time to send, I think. I'm probably only making it worse.

Oh, and speaking of Halloween (yeah, I know, we weren't speaking of it, but I couldn't come up with a good transition,) a friend sent me this picture of my son and Spooge Cat playing in the trick-or-treat candy. Brennan was a soldier (like he is every year,) and the cat, being the pain in the butt he is, just HAD to help sort candy. His idea of helping was to steal all the lollipops and hide them under the refrigerator. This morning he dug out a few and is distributing them all around the house. I even found one in the litter box. I swear, having that cat around is more work than having a two-year old toddler!

Wednesday, November 03, 2004 @ 08:39 AM CST [link]

Election Day!

Pages Written: NONE!

Finally, it's here. Thank God. I'm SO sick of the nastiness and the sniping and the division of the country. I'm sick of people telling me how I should vote and why my choice is stupid. No one knows how my family has fared under the current administration, and no one knows how the past 37 years of my life has given me the foundation to make an intelligent, informed decision that is right FOR ME. The rants and blog entries that try to tell me how wrong I am only waste my time and make me dig my heels in even more. What it all comes down to is what issues are the most important TO YOU. And what is important to you might not even be a blip on my radar, and vice versa.

So let's get this stupid thing over with and MOVE ON!

Okay. Rant over.

Tomorrow: Back to writing!

Tuesday, November 02, 2004 @ 09:34 AM CST [link]

WORD Challenge

Pages Written: 0

Okay, Sylvia's WORD challenge starts today, and in honor of that, I'm going to keep a running tally of the pages I've worked on this month for the challenge. My goal is to revise 180 pages, and I'll just keep a cumulative tab on them.

I've finished Snowbound, but I got back three full-novel critiques on it, so I'm going to spend the next couple of days working the feedback into it, and then I'll print on Wednesday and send on Thursday. Friday at the latest. I want to get it to Toronto before Harlequin moves the Temptation office to London. Somehow, I get the feeling my poor ms. will end up a casualty of the shuffle anyway. I'll try keeping positive thoughts, but...

Halloween was a lot of fun. We trick-or-treated on Saturday instead of Sunday because the religious majority got its say here in Jackson county, Mississippi. Still, we had fun. Brennan dressed up as a soldier (like he does every year,) and I wore my medieval lady costume. A friend and her two daughters went with us--the girls were just SO cute!

And then Sunday, the 31st, is my wedding anniversary. Unfortunately, Bryan wasn't here (I'm used to that, however,) but he called.

Anyway, hope everyone had a great weekend!

Monday, November 01, 2004 @ 07:34 AM CST [link]