Friday, September 30, 2005

It's me. Look at what I did...

Do you remember saying that a gazillion times as a kid? How about it's better known and even more obnoxious cousin, "look at me, look at me!" Well, I'm sure I said it plenty of times as a kid. However, now I'm saying it as an adult.

I just couldn't get a handle on the very structured looking dot mofif I had going on, so I went on a cruise of the www and found an amazing blog template designer by the name of Caz. Using one of her templates I made myself a brand spanking new looking blog. I'm thankful for the beginners html book I read this summer, because it did require a little bit of html (just enough to make me feel really smart) to make it work with my stuff. But looky now, I got me a new blog.

If you'd like to get yourself a spanking new looking blog or talk to Caz about designing one especially for you. Click on her link under my "links" section.

This is what happens when I can't log in to post a blog for 24 hrs because blogger is down and I have to stare at those dumb dots. Ha! Bye bye dumb dots!

April

Wednesday, September 28, 2005

Unstable Table...

That's the name we gave our trivia team last night. That's right, I said trivia team. A group of my girlfriends and I decided that we would venture to a local restaurant/pub to play trivia. Apparently one of my friends' evil boss plays it there religiously.

Sadly, her grand scheme of crushing him and his team into smithereens was blown to bits by two factors. One, her boss and his team didn't show up. No surprise there. She's a smarty, so I'm sure he stayed at home to avoid what he felt would surely be a public beating. Two, even though she may be brilliant, the rest of the group isn't and we sabotaged every answer by debating it to death.

Who the heck would have guessed that -273.05 degrees Celsius is Absolute Zero? Do you know how long it's been since I took Chemistry. A while, to say the least.

We should have known that this wasn't our game when we got there. The place was approximately 80% men, 20% women. And while I first thought that it must be the competitive need to best everyone that brought all the men out, I quickly learned that it was the perky brunette in a tiny school girl skirt that called out the questions that had brought them all out of their little male hiding places. Surprise!?!

We managed to do alright. We placed somewhere in the middle. Which was nice since all of the "boys" around us were heckling us. What idiots. They didn't even know that the statue of liberty wore sandals on her feet. Hello!

Anyways, I'm feeling better today. In fact, I'm feeling great. I've gotten all of the plot reworked in my mind and I'm diving into the changes. I think it'll really make the story better. It'll definitely give me a much better chance of selling it. I have no problem with finding out something is wrong with something, as long as I can find a solution. Solution woman, that's what I'm going to call myself for now on. Warning: some solutions may not seem so bright or doable, but they're solutions just the same!

Now, I'm going to go implement some solutions. Imagine that. No point to a solution if you don't implement it.

Oh yeah, before I go; we named our selves "unstable table" because our table had pigeon feet and rocked like the Titanic all night.

April

Monday, September 26, 2005

Burst My Bubble

Well, I posted too soon today. My wait, wait, wait is over. I got a letter today from the agent. It was a very nice rejection. She also gave me some really wonderful input on what she felt was "wrong" with it.

She felt that I took too long setting it up and that I didn't get into the heart of the relationship soon enough. Her points were very valid. So, I can't really complain.

I am however going to put my current wip aside for the moment and work on reworking the completed ms and possibly submitting it to the publisher myself. I'm gonna pray about where to sub it.

So, I'm down, but not out. Is that the saying?

April

Meetings and Greetings

I've been bad, in that I didn't get any writing done this weekend. But I have some really great excuses. Really!

On Friday, a really great friend of mine released his cd, so we had to go and support him. You did great, Joshua! Then, on Saturday I had a meeting with my RWA chapter. We had Sabrina Jeffries as our guest. She did a great job of helping us learn how to really figure out who our characters are before we sit down to write.

I know, some people are saying, "you don't know who your characters are before you sit down to write?" The answer is yes and no. I know general info, and I thought I knew specific, but I find that in the first 3-4 chapters they change on me because I'm really discovering who they are. So hopefully some of the exercises and resources she gave us will help me to learn more about them up front and save me some frustration later on.

After our meeting a few of us went out to dinner with her. It was nice because I got to learn a lot more about the "business" side of writing. I have to recommend that those of you who are unpublished, like me, and looking for a good resource for info, join RWA and then join a local chapter. You really do get some great info and great contacts out of it. I also highly recommend getting involved.

On Sunday, well... My chapter is 2 hours away, so I went to bed late Friday, got up really early Saturday drove 2 hours there, then drove 2 hours home and got home really late Saturday. So, on Sunday I slept. Then I didn't do much of anything else. I was really tired. Really!

Okay, I'm gonna go back and do some day-work. Then, tonight, I'm gonna write, write, write. Oh, yeah, and wait, wait, wait. ;-)

April

Tuesday, September 20, 2005

I have no idea...


I have no idea if these words will ever actually get posted to my blog. For some reason, the blogger.com stuff is in Greek. Or some language very similar to Greek, so I have no idea if the buttons I press are actually the ones I need to press. Maybe it's German. My hubby knows German, I should ask him to come look, but he's watching sports and I don't want to interrupt him. On second thought, I don't think it is German. Oh well...

Other than for the heat, today has gone well. Day-work is nuts. As usual. But, I've gotten a decent amount of writing done tonight, so I can't complain too much.

I have been trying to complete a technical project, but I think I'm going to have to throw in the towel. I confess, I have a crush on Michael Shoeffling. Shhhh... My hubby may be listening ;-). Michael played Jake Ryan in Sixteen Candles. And I have been attempting to take a "snapshot" from the dvd by playing it on my computer. Only it hasn't worked. All I get is black. I'm guessing it's a protective thing on the dvd, but I wasn't gonna sell it. I was gonna look at it.

By the way, my hubby knows this, so he wouldn't be surprised. He isn't too intimidated by that sort of stuff. He knows how attracted I am to him. But he also asked that I not put him in any of my books, so he doesn't mind trying to help me get pictures for characters.

Well, I finally give up. I have no idea how to do it and it's so frustrating. I have a pic of him I got from somewhere else (see it at the side :-), but there is a very specific moment in that movie I'd like to have.)

I guess I'll just have to watch the movie over and over again to see that moment. Unless I can find a technical genius. Mwahahaha...

April

Tuesday, September 06, 2005

Making Art...

Well, I did paint this weekend, but I didn't have to spend the whole weekend doing it, because my mom helped us. We were able to do it a lot faster than we had originally expected. Yay!

So, today we visited family and enjoyed temperatures that are finally tolerable. This summer has run a 115 degree heat index, but today we ran a nice 87 degrees for a high.

So, last week my heroine decided she had some better ideas about how to handle the story. I wasn't particularly open to her ideas, so I chose to ignore them. As a result, she decided to run off with my hero one night. It took some time, but I finally caught her and we decided to sit down and discuss our differences of opinion over some margaritas.

I have to admit that she had some really good points. I told her that I would try and be more receptive of her ideas and she said she'd quit being so demanding (although she is the heroine, so of course she always expects everything to be about her). We'll see how it goes, but I'm really excited to get back to writing this week.

April

Friday, September 02, 2005

Working for the Weekend

It's a holiday weekend, and what will my darling husband and I be doing? Working! Poor thing, he's even sick. But, we have a rental unit that's been vacant a couple of months and the lack of income is really a pinch. So, we're gonna roll up our sleeves, and do some top notch painting this weekend, in hopes that it'll improve the appearance of the unit to entice someone to rent it.

I guess we really shouldn't complain. Recent events have certainly proven that we have a lot to be thankful for. So, I'll go and paint gladly. We're even taking a small tv to hook up so he can catch his college football games. Well, if he can see them through the fuzz.

I guess one way of looking at it would be that this will be a distraction from the fact that I haven't heard from the agent who has my full. I'm so excited about her, I really hope she likes my work, but we'll have to wait and see. ::sigh::

I hope everyone has a good weekend and a safe holiday for all of us here in the U.S.

My prayers still go out to everyone effected by Katrina.

April

Thursday, September 01, 2005

Game Day

I live in a city where College Football reigns supreme! And today is the first game of our season. We have a brand new coach who is a really big deal in the college football world (of course so was our last one, but it didn't make a big difference, sorry Lou) - I've probably just given away where I live if any of you are college football followers, but oh well.

Our team really isn't that great, but we have a stadium larger than many NFL stadiums, that regularly sells out. We obviously take out football serious here.

Anyways, the opening game is getting ready to start. ESPN is hosting game day from our game. Although I'm watching from home while my dear husband goes to the game with his brother, dad, and his cherished media pass, I can feel the ecitement.

I guess you have to experience it to understand, but our entire city gets buzzed with game day excitement. People fly flags and spend all day tailgating before games. It's a great break from all of the sad news lately. It's also a great distraction - I mean break from writing.

Well, kickoff is in 9 minutes, so I'm off to avoid writing - I mean cheer on my team!

April