Tuesday, January 29, 2008

Those Darn Eyeballs

I'm in the second round of edits on The Wallflower, and I have to say that the process hasn't been nearly as painful as I thought it would be. A lot of what Angie is showing me is "noob" mistakes that I'll learn to do less and less over time. (And if not, she'll be more than happy to kick my butt and remind me I'm not as much of a noob anymore, lol.)

Apparently one of my biggest problems is spastic faces.


No. Seriously.

Eyeballs twinkle and roam all over the damn place. (I keep thinking of a beholder on LSD.) Lips try to teach us the Macarena, even though that dance is so dead even Anita Blake couldn't bring it back.


I know. It's not a pretty picture.



Who'd want to kiss that?

So now I'm in the process of once again taming those roving eyeballs and spastic lips while a three and a half year old repeatedly pokes me with a plastic toy. Ah, the joys of writing...

So what's your pet peeve in a story? Is it roving eyeballs and spastic lips? Is it "he said/she said" after every bit of dialog? Is it lengthy, prolonged, utterly boring descriptions of places that you'd rather chew broken glass than visit? (I'm a huge LoTR fan. I've read and reread the books ten or eleven times, and even I skip a particular chapter in The Two Towers. I feel like Nina Garcia on Project Runway: "Don't bore me!")

And on that note, it's tea and red pen time.

Thursday, January 24, 2008

"It's Dead, Jim"

My coffeemaker died today! Ack! My caffeine! My beautiful caffeine!

I had to nuke water for my tea. No hot water on tap. Sob! I looked up the model number on-line to see if anyone else had had the same problem. Turns out that you can burn out the heat sensor, causing the coffee maker to die a lingering, horrid, cold death, leaving its loved ones in a hell of non-caffeine.

I wants it back! My poor precious! Waaaah!

P.S.: The hubby suggested I look at Mrs. Tea or something, since technically I don't drink coffee. Since he told me he'd messed with it to make hot water for hot chocolate, I'm wondering if he isn't being accomodating to hide his guilt...

P.P.S.: He also offered me a little cheese with my whine. Yup. He's feeling better.

Wednesday, January 16, 2008

My Brain Is Going To Explode

For some reason, my creative muse has decided to drop a whole lot of story ideas into my poor overworked brain this week. Luckily, after a long talk with Dusty I managed to work out one major snafu the rewrite on Beta Testing would have had, and managed to make it even better. (Thanks, love.) I've also gotten an idea for a set of sexy demons/angels and a plot about a sorceror who is dying to find true love to add to the Halle Pumas and the Gray Court series I have planned. And I think there might be something else percolating back there, too. Something to do with Loki having gotten a bum deal...

Thank God I have a PDA, or I'd never get this stuff down. Gah!

Beta Testing is back up around seven thousand words. It got chopped, again, down to a little under three thousand, but I'm slowly adding stuff back in that still fits with the new plotline. Hopefully I'll be able to have it out to the beta readers in about two or three weeks, and then off to Angie for a final yea/nay. After that I'm setting the Pumas aside for a bit of a rest and playing with some elves.

Wednesday, January 9, 2008

Yes, I AM Insane

Back before Christmas I got an R&R on Beta Testing. Everything Angela said, I totally agreed with, especially after I sat down and re-read it. What I had to decide was, did I want to start rewrites immediately, or finish working on my submision for the Psychic Anthology? The due date on the anthology is January 13th, not a lot of time to make a decision considering it takes me six to eight weeks to write a novella.



Well, I finally decided I wanted to do the rewrite. I love the Pumas a good deal, and I think Becky and Simon deserve their own story. (The other novella, Rosetti's Stone, will get finished at a later date as part of the Gray Court series I want to start.) So I started changing things. And changing things. And changing things.


Today, I deleted the story down to 4k words. I'm revamping almost the whole thing. I have a better handle on how the story should go, but most of what was there isn't going to work. I've saved a good deal of it to a seperate file, and plan on reintroducing some scenes, but I think the new direction will work a lot better than anything else I've come up with in the last two weeks.


So now I know what I'm doing, it shouldn't take nearly so long to get started on it. I'm still waiting to hear on Cat of a Different Color, but I know how busy Angela is (pokepoke) and she doesn't have a lot of time (pokepoke) at the moment. I figure I'll start poking at her for real in about two weeks to see if she's had a chance to look at it yet.

Friday, January 4, 2008

Gremlin!

I made these with the lolzbuilder over at icanhascheezburger.com:





Maybe I'll send the editor one over to my editor at Samhain, Angela. She'd probably get a kick out of it.
P.S.: That is my kitteh... um, kitty... Gremlin. He loves all things electronic, and is the inspiration for my logo.

Tuesday, January 1, 2008

Hottie of the Month

You like? Julian Gil with long blonde hair. I hate snow, but I'd play in it with him!

I so have to use this pic as an inspiration for a story. Hmmm... Let me think about it.

Favorite Quotes

"I had the right to remain silent, but I didn't have the ability." Ron White

"So let me get this straight. You want me to kill the little guys, kill the big guys, crowd control those I can't, buff the team, debuff the boss, keep myself alive, AND keep you alive, all while waving a stick and dressed in a towel?" - Anonymous Role Playing Gamer

"I think that statue over there is a statement on modern life. The statement is, "Well, shit." - Varric, Dragon Age II

"Why is it all claws and guns? Can't we piss off a fuzzy planet? Still dangerous, but hey. Bunnies." - Joker, Mass Effect

"Last night, I lay in bed looking up at the stars in the sky and thought to myself, "Where the heck is the ceiling?" - Dilbert


"Aim at the high mark and you will hit it. No, not the first time, not the second time and maybe not the third. But keep on aiming and keep on shooting for only practice will make you perfect. Finally you'll hit the bull's-eye of success." - Annie Oakley

"It is only when you fall that you learn whether you can fly." - Flemeth, aka The Witch of the Wilds, Dragon Age 2

"The very existence of flamethrowers proves that sometime, somewhere, someone said to themselves, 'You know, I want to set those people over there on fire, but I’m just not close enough to get the job done.'” - George Carlin

"I hear there's a wild bridge tournament down the street. And you know Bridge. It's a lot like sex. If you don't have a great partner, you'd better have a good hand." Barry Weiss, Storage Wars

"You know, I used to think it was awful that life was so unfair. Then I thought, wouldn't it be much worse if life were fair, and all the terrible things that happen to us come because we actually deserve them? So, now I take great comfort in the general hostility and unfairness of the universe." - Marcus Cole, Babylon 5, "A Late Delivery From Avalon"

"I aim to misbehave." - Capt. Malcolm Reynolds

"Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid." - Albert Einstein

“If you think you can or think you cannot, you are correct.” - Henry Ford
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