Playin' Hookey

There's a lot of stuff going on in my personal life right now that has me stressed out pretty badly. I'd planned on working this week, like normal, but I find that what I really need to do is take a deep breath, step back...

And blow things up.

I'm playing Tabula Rasa today. It's going to throw my self-imposed schedule all to hell and gone, but chain guns are fun! Wheeee!

And hopefully it'll de-stress me enough to head off the migraine I felt coming on this morning.

Blowing up aliens is therapy. Nine out of ten doctors (who play video games) will agree.

I Am Thankful For...

... my grandmother, who's always been there for me even when she disagreed with my choices.

... my boys, both of whom brighten my life in their own, unique ways.

... my mom, who blusters and orders us around but has a heart of gold.

... my dad, for his great booming laugh and the way he has of making things seem like they're really not that bad.

... my friends, who've stuck by me no matter what crazy stuff I come up with.

... my brother and sister, for keeping me from growing up pompous and arrogant, and STOP LAUGHING! Goofs. It's not that funny. Sheesh.

... my m-i-l, step-m-i-l and f-i-l. Yup, I'm one of the lucky ones; they're great people, and I'm not ashamed to toot their horns.

... my niece and nephews, who are growing up to be the most incredible people. I'm grateful to know you guys, and looking forward to the "I knew them when". I am so gonna brag, let me tell you!

... the chance to finally prove I can make my writing my living. Thanks, Angie and Samhain!

... the wonderful man I married, who right now is cursing the Thrax and wishing he had a chain gun. He encourages me, helps me over humps, supports me when I need it and helps me fly. He's my best friend and the best thing that ever happened to me. I love you, sweetheart.

Happy Thanksgiving.

On To The Next!

I plan on writing a novella for the Psychic Anthology open call.

At first, I had a great idea, but as I worked on Cat the idea became less and less... great.

I wound up making a major overhaul that sent Dusty's eyebrows waaaaay up, but since I made that overhaul the story has started to write itself.

So he may be... concerned... about the direction I went, but the characters love it.

In the immortal words (okay, not immortal, but really popular) words of Tim Gunn: "Make it work!"

And in the immortal words of Bugs Bunny: "And I will, too!"

Turned It In, Cross Your Fingers!

I finished Cat of a Different Color and sent it in to the editor; big thanks to the people who agreed to beta read for me for getting it back to me quicker than I expected! You got me a week ahead of schedule. I planned on writing my brains out so I can take some time off around Christmas to play with my family, and you guys just made that possible.

Now, if you guys are that good when I'm ready to go to Disney World next year... hmmm, let me see, I need TWO weeks off then...

Argh!

Okay, for some reason blogger is messin' with my paragraphs. I've edited the post below five times and it STILL messes up the paragraphs.

Sorry, folks! I'll try and fix it again tomorrow.

I Just Can't Do It

Write angsty stories, that is.




I've tried and tried to do the "Boy meets girl, boy and girl fall in love but both deny it, neither one trusts the other, angst ensues, someone grovels, love prevails, happily-ever-after" but I'm just not built to write it. I either wind up scrapping the project in disgust or giggling in my Cheerios over the melodrama that proceeds to spew from my fingertips. One of the rejection letters I have states that "there is not enough tension between the hero and the heroine".





Meaning they start out liking each other, still like each other in the middle and love each other by the end. Now, this was a few years ago, and I knew even then that they were right. There wasn't enough tension between the hero and the heroine. At least, not for the publishing house I sent it to.





Was I mad when I got the rejection? Nope. I considered it a learning experience. A poor business decision on my part, if you will. I still plan on revamping that novel, fixing it up, making it more the me I am now and resubmitting it to someone else.




Now, don't get me wrong, I love a good angst-ridden story every now and again. Diana Palmer is the ultimate cheesy, angst-ridden cowboy story. I know exactly what I'm going to get when I open a Palmer, and nine point nine times out of ten I'm not disappointed. Pick up a Harlequin? Angst city, but it's like a guilty pleasure: something I like to read, but know I can't write.

Now, give me a kidnapping, or an enemy the hero and heroine must band together to fight, or just a situation where they wind up working together for one reason or another and I'm your girl. Outside threats? Easy! Arguments between said boy and girl that actually gets resolved without resorting to half a book's worth of soul searching and groveling? No problem!



Sobbing into your cappucino because your boyfriend thinks you're a) cheating on him b) you're a liar c) you tried to steal his baby away from him d) an idiot or e) all of the above?


Eep.


My brain freezes. My fingers turn to mush. My three year old asks me, "Why you bangin' your head on da desk, Mommy?"





I just can't do it.



And you can't make me. Nyah.





Luckily, I don't have to, either. I enjoy what I write, and I'd like to think that comes out in the stories I make up.





I finsihed Cat of a Different Color this week and sent it to my beta readers (and already got a reply back! Damn, Stephanie, you're quick, lol!), and I'm planning on sending it in to the editor by the end of next week. Another Halle Puma, mated. Next I plan on working on Rossetti's Stone for the psychic anthology; hopefully I'll have it done quickly, since they're already starting to invade my sleep. More hopefully, the editor will like it and accept it for the anthology!





Yeah. My only angst is that my characters won't shut up.

Yup, It's Monday

I open Cat, thrilled that yesterday I managed to hit my end of the week word count of 20k (although techincally I consider Friday my end-of-week, considering everything that had gone down I decided to count the work I did Sunday). I stare at the very odd formatting and think, "What the hell?" All of the text was on the left hand side; the page was waaaaay too huge, but Reveal Formatting showed that it was exactly as I had set it.

Which means that somehow Cat got corrupted. So I did what Dusty suggested and opened my back-up program, all ready to download the file and get to work.

It's not there. NOTHING is there. The daily, three a.m. backups apparently don't exist.

Eep.

I tried my best to fix the formatting, but Word was stubborn today. I finally copied the entire text over to Notepad, opened The Wallflower and copied the text from Notepad over it. It accepted The Wallflower's formatting, so now I'm mostly back on track.

Unfortunately, because I copied it over into Notepad I lost all of my headers, page breaks and italics. I have to read the entire doc and fix the italics; I've already done the headers and page breaks.

On top of all that my headache is back and my baby boy is sick. When I asked him where it hurt he opened his mouth and pointed, so, gee, I'm betting on a sore throat. He and Monkey, his favorite stuffed animal, are currently drinking juice and watching Monsters Inc. while Mommy yells at MS Word.

Rough Couple of Weeks

It's been a rough couple of weeks. Dusty got stuck pulling in serious overtime (it wasn't major overtime since he didn't break sixty hours), Halloween rolled around (and the kids are still trying to come down off the sugar high), and I had an... interesting point of view given to me that lead to the breaking of a long-time friendship. (Okay, the friendship was already broken, I just didn't know it.)

Hence, I got a Migraine Week, stress being my bestest buddy in the whole wide world. It brings me such lovely gifts, like pounding temples, ice picks to the eyeballs whenever I see sunlight, and nausea that would fell an elephant.

That, unfortunately, puts me behind on Cat of a Different Color by about a week. I'm going to try and make some of that up today, since I'm feeling a great deal better. With any luck the rough draft will be finished by the end of next week and my personal edits will begin the week after.

So far this story is flowing fairly well; we'll have to see how it goes! Wish me luck!

Oh, and wish that Dusty doesn't have another Week from Hell, too, ok?