Happy Halloween!

Howdy, Mushrooms! I know it's been a really long time, but today I have more to say than will fit in a simple tweet or tumble (and I have more planned for the very near future, including some book reviews and some exciting developments over at a most excellent and exciting venture I've been invited to participate in!).

First of all, I'm lucky enough to know some AMAZING writers, and some of us have gotten together to form a fantastic and spooktacular venture called The Midnight Type. It launched today, on the creepiest day of the year, appropriately enough, so please go check it out!

On a more personal note, this might be the last year I get to go trick or treating with the kid. She's going to be in High School next year, and that's really pushing the age limit for candy begging, so we made the most of it this year. She dressed as Castiel from Supernatural.

Lucifer as Castiel

We took bets on how many people would guess who she was. Five. The winning answer was five. Out of about a hundred. Most frequent guesses were Harry Potter (?) and Doctor Who.

Three or four houses in, we sort of realized we'd made it a family Supernatural outing. Tim was wearing his Crowley t-shirt, and I was wearing plaid flannel and an army green jacket (and drinking a beer) a la Dean. So. We sort of worked out without even trying. The few people who picked up on it were ecstatic. We even introduced a few enthusiastic new viewers to check out the show. Mission accomplished.

The three of us are actually kind of sad now. We spent about 50% of our conversation indulging in quotes from the show.

Every year these two are wearing different costumes.

The best part, far and away, of the whole night for me was when I corrected a Star Wars reference Tim made. You don't understand. He saw the original in the theater, and actually wore out his old copies of the VHS tapes. Compared to him, I'm a total n00b. I danced half way down the street chanting "I'M A JEDI" over and over again. This is a first, people. I feel victorious.

I had a dozen other anecdotes I recall being amused by at the time during our walk through the steady drizzle tonight, but one of the houses we visited was handing out mulled wine and hard cider. TRICK OR TREAT FOR GROWN-UPS IS AWESOME. I don't really recall most of the entertaining moments from the evening. Oh, well. I'll have more updates in the days to follow. Stay tuned, and don't eat all your candy at once. :)

Plans. Okay, Pants.

I was going to subtitle this post "Things within my power to actually bring to fruition in 2013" or something like that, but that's just too long and too silly. I don't usually make resolutions for the new year. I'm not very good at living up to unrealistic goals, and falling short (regardless of how absurd the goal might have been) leaves me feeling depressed and unable to appreciate everything I did achieve.






Plus, I am more of a pantser. I see a list of New Year's resolutions, and I wish I could be that organized. Then again, I start out every year with a general idea of where that year is headed. Sometimes I'm thrown a curveball, but it always seems to take me somewhere I'm pleased to go (like that year I decided to start writing novels. THAT came straight out of left field!). Resolutions look too much like outlines, and I think I'm allergic to those. They make me itch.

As a pantser, when it comes to writing, I always have a few specific goals for each new novel. I know generally what the antagonist is up to, what the main characters are going to go through, and the general outcome of all the individual story lines before I start writing. But that's it. Considering my pantsing style, I've decided to pants my way through some pseudo-resolutions for the first half of 2013.

 The first thing within my power to achieve this year is finally finishing the first draft of the current project. It's affectionately known as BS at the moment, which is how I've unaffectionately thought of it on and off for the last few months. We've had an on again-off again love affair, and right now I am feeling ON. Since I have nothing else to do, at least writing-wise, for the next two weeks, I figure that's just what I need to finally crank out the last 30k words or so. I feel like I've stalled out at 70k for way too long.

 

When that draft is done, I plan to go back to the last MS I finished and do a final edit on it.



Third on the docket is a planned manuscript that's different from anything I've ever written before. I am excited to write it, but also terrified. First of all, it's a YA story, which I've never tried to write, despite my love of reading YA. It's also a sci-fi story, when everything I've written before is undeniably fantasy. It's going to be interesting. Hopefully in a good way.



I intend to get all of this done before school lets out for the summer. That's about as far in advance I can plan for now. If I make too many promises to myself, I will just get overwhelmed and then I'd never finish anything.

So those are my writing goals. As far as personal goals, I would like to get up out of this chair more often. I love that so many of you trust me with your manuscripts, and apparently appreciate my opinions. All of your trust has meant more time at the computer. While I adore the work, this has led me to consider such purchases as the Forever Comfy pillow. The fact that I'm even thinking a gel butt pillow would be a good idea means I really need to get some exercise. I'd rather buy gel insoles for my overworked feet than gel butt support for my overworked behind.

I hope y'all have some great plans for 2013. If any of you want to participate in the Finishing of the Draft with me, I officially start tomorrow. I'll probably cheat at start tonight, because that's how I roll. YOU CAN'T STOP ME, 2013!!!

Tell me about your goals! Do you have 2013 all outlined, or do you have a general roadmap?  Have you decided to throw caution to the wind and go where the pants take you?

Whatever your plans, I hope all of them come to pass in the most delightful manner possible! Now go forth and conquer!

Thankful

I was going to tweet this stuff, but it is too much for tweeting. Happy Thanksgiving to everyone. If you're not in America, Happy Thanksgiving anyway. It's never a bad thing to be thanked. So thanks to you, too. :D

Here's some stuff I'm thankful for today. If I forgot something you think I should be thankful for, please let me know in the comments. I welcome the chance to feel even MORE thankful, at least as long as the egg nog holds out.

I'm Thankful for my family. They accept that I'm not quite right, and love me anyway.

Helper Monkey is thankful I didn't use the ambush photo I took of him.

Thanks, Tim, for putting up with me for the last almost 17 years. Love.

Lulu is not as thankful, since I used her ambush photo. Morning, hon.

I am thankful for Lulu, who is helping me cook today. I'm thankful she's growing up to be an awesome person. I'm thankful she hasn't yet devolved into rebellious teenagerhood. *fingers crossed*

Morgan. High on catnip.

I'm thankful for the fuzzy lumpkin.

I'm thankful for this pie.

Okay. This post seems to be devolving quickly. I have to go make stuffing, gravy, green bean casserole, biscuits, mashed potatoes, and probably other things that I forgot about completely.

But I wanted to also thank everyone I've met on my writing and publishing journey. To everyone who read my manuscript(s), THANK YOU. You have given me insight, advice, and encouragement. To everyone whose manuscript I read or critiqued, THANK YOU! You have given me hours of entertainment, and none of you have actually stabbed me yet! *fingers crossed*

Thank you all for being who you are. Now go enjoy some pie.

Gratuitous Vacation Pictures

I had to do it. Here is a post filled with my favorite pictures from our trip to Savannah. Just so you know, traveling on a bus for ten hours with a bunch of teenaged girls isn't as bad as it sounds. Especially when they are the awesome girls of my Girl Scout service unit. :)

The girls participated in a Muster at Fort Jackson, and learned how to fire a cannon. The picture is blurry because the cannon made a HUGE BOOM

These turtle statues populated Tybee Island.

Here's Lulu with the turtle at the Tybee Island Marine Science Center. She lost those glasses in the surf just a few hours later. :(

Creepy Statue on our Ghost Walk. Supposedly, you can't photograph it without difficulty unless you're a Methodist. Maybe Mr. Wesley doesn't mind lapsed Buddhists taking his picture either?

The whole reason we went to Savannah in the first place, a visit to Juliette Low's Birthplace.

Lulu learning about Victorian era clothing, and how difficult it is to sit when you're wearing a bustle.

Dolphin Magic! They chased our boat for several miles up the Savannah River. It was amazing.

Writerly note: This is Flannery O'Connor's Birthplace. :) It wasn't hard to find...

My Birthday Girl. Lulu's 12th birthday just happened to be the day we went to the Juliette Low house, and to Lady and Sons for dinner. (Not to mention the Ghost Walk after dinner!) The ENTIRE RESTAURANT sang Happy Birthday!

So thank you to the lovely people of Savannah. You might do everything a little slow for us Yankees, and you seem to fry everything in butter, but your city is gorgeous. We had a wonderful time, and are planning a return visit for a family vacation. Not on a bus.

Memorial Day Weekend: Wherein I do All the Things *Except Writing*

This weekend has been full of funly goodness. Saturday we spent the day with some old friends we hadn't seen in a long time. Long meaning we hadn't seen most of them in more than a year. These are the folks we hung out with at least weekly until we all moved, bought houses, had families, etc. The kind of people we used to have a softball team with, the kind of people who were not only at our wedding, but HOSTED our wedding in their yard. Life gets in the way, though, and we've scattered across five counties. We only see most of them at these huge parties now, so we really love it when we have a chance to see everyone.

To wit: we have a picture of Lulu (on the right), our friend's daughter Sarah (on the left) and yet another friend's son Brendan (in the middle).

The girls think they're "babysitting", Brendan thinks he has two new girlfriends.

Another couple of friends recently got back into knitting, and were praising the joys of yarn art. I never learned to knit, but I do crochet. I haven't made anything in a while. Like, more than a year. But I was handed a skein of gorgeous Noro yarn in Iris colors, and sworn to use it ASAP.  To that end, I spent yesterday trying to find a scarf pattern, beginning the scarf, pulling it out, searching for another pattern, beginning again, pulling it out again. I finally have about a foot of scarf, and I think I'm going to pull it out again. Grrrrr. I think this is why I stopped crocheting a while back. Too frustrating. Also, it's too reminiscent of writing. I need to find another hobby that doesn't involve so much uncertainty. I think that's why I try to do something completely non-creative when I need a break. Making stuff is too much like writing (i.e. work).

This is what I have so far on the scarf, a basket-weave pattern that I usually use to make blankets. It's making a thick scarf, and I think I want something more net-like for a scarf in such summery colors, though.

So then last night, after all the yarn drama, I worked the baseball game. We got seven innings in when I went outside for a break and saw this:

Crazy storm! The sky went from beautiful clear blue to this insane wall of storms in a matter of minutes. Everyone in the stadium fled to the small section of the concourse with shelter, or out to their cars. It rained sideways. So we got soaked. It was probably a good thing, because I was also the victim of three beer attacks. I had three different kegs finish  in one afternoon. When a keg is emptied, the last beer you pull out of the tap tends to explode in a blast of air and foam. If you're really lucky, it all hits you squarely in the stomach. I was lucky three times. When I got home, Lulu told me I smelled like baseball: French fries and stale beer. Mmmmmm.

In better beer news, I tried this fantastic beer for the first time. I only picked it out because it has Edgar Allen Poe on the cap:

Local Baltimore beer. It's really quite nice. I wish I had something knowledgeable and pithy to say about it. My ability to analyze the subtleties of beer is limited to "it's good" or "ick." Either I like it or I don't. This, I liked.

Today I have to help Lulu turn a lump of styrofoam, moss, and pipe cleaners into a diorama about Gaia and Iris. Her paper is written and the power point presentation is done. Now, we have to build the final bit of her last big school project for the whole year. Then, and only then, can I get some writing done.

At least I had some fun this weekend first.


And now...bring me the glue gun.

Random weekend update...

First of all, Happy Mother's Day to any mother reading this. And that includes other writers whose only children are their word-babies.

Notable things I've seen/done/heard this week:

I saw my first copperhead of the season. Finally it's warm enough for all the snakes to come out of hiding, and we see a lot of them in my neighborhood. I live in the woods, so we see a lot of wildlife, including reptiles, but too many of them succumb to traffic. The first copperhead I saw was sadly flattened on the road. I hate seeing that. I have no desire to get cuddly with venomous snakes, but they're great at keeping the rodent population in check. It's a real concern out here in the boonies. There's nothing worse than a family of mice taking over the inside of your walls. *shiver*

I spent my birthday jumping in glow-in-the-dark moon bounces with a bunch of 12-year-olds. Oddly, this was a FANTASTIC way to spend the evening. I had cake for breakfast, lunch, AND dinner, and got to sit in an inflatable throne.

A truly awful picture, red-faced and disheveled from moon bouncing, but the pizza was good.

We worked a sold-out baseball game yesterday, and by the time I left, I was so soaked in beer and soda, all the way up to my elbows, that my hands were sticking to things. For reference, the stadium is across the street from the cemetery where Francis Scott Key is buried. You can see the top of his monument from the road. I finished work before the stadium had time to empty out, and there was a bottleneck trying to leave the parking lot, and trying to get back out to the main roads from the stadium's smaller street. I turned on the car radio while I sat waiting for traffic to move along, and made myself laugh when the next cd in line to play was White Zombie. It seemed an irreverent thing to blast while staring at a spooky graveyard after dark. I hope Mr. Key didn't mind. I was so tired I had a momentary panic attack that the zombie apocalypse would start any second, and the undead were about to crawl from their graves. I just turned the volume down a bit and rolled up the windows. Thankfully the cars in front of me started moving, and I got the heck out of there.

So this is what I'm doing instead of writing my novel today. Stupid, eh? I've been complaining for the last two weeks that I don't have enough time to work on the writing, and when I finally have a whole day to write, THIS is what I end up writing about. Now I've made myself mad, which is probably a good thing. I need to write a fight scene, and I hate writing fight scenes. So feeling tooth-grinding mad should help, at least as far as the emotional content of the fight is concerned.

Oh, and I'm seriously looking forward to the 24th. The folks running the Writer's Voice competition (which I failed to submit an entry to because I'm incompetent at filling out online forms) are having a Twitter Pitch contest! Pitch your novel in 135 characters or fewer (leaving room for the #WVTP hashtag). It's terrifyingly difficult! For details, see this post from Cupid:  http://cupidslitconnection.blogspot.com/2012/05/writers-voice-twitter-pitch.html

On that cheerful note, back to work! :)

Happy birthday to me!

So, today's my birthday. Yesterday I worked a double-header baseball game, and stood up for about 10 hours straight. I was so tired I couldn't even think about driving BACK downtown for my birthday dinner, so we stuck close to home and found a place to eat in our neighborhood. It was a relief to sit down, and dinner was good. And we had cake!

I stood in the kitchen, lit a candle on it, and sung happy birthday to myself while the Helper Monkey sang from the couch and Lulu sang from her room. Very personal and loving! At least they sang. They came out when they realized all the singing meant they'd be getting cake, though.

In more upsetting news, the little nose-pincher dealie broke off my glasses at the game yesterday, so I'm stuck with my emergency glasses today. Now I remember why I don't wear them more often. I miss my light, nearly non-existent glasses. These are heavy, and the thick plastic frames are incredibly distracting. Still, they're not as distracting as being blind would be, so small favors, eh? Now I just have to make an appointment to get new glasses. I was due anyway.

I'm just glad I'll finally have some time to write again, either today or tomorrow, come hell or high water. I don't have to get up in the morning, so I think tonight is going to be a word marathon. At least, I hope so.

So for now, it's back to work-work. Then, when I'm done, it's back to writing work. It is work, but it's a heck of a lot more fun than any other work I've ever done. On that note, toodles for now.

Happy St. Patrick's Day.

I hope you didn't eat anything green today that shouldn't actually be green. For example, after a 5 hour Girl Scout cookie booth, I took my daughter to Burger King for dinner. They offered us GREEN KETCHUP!!! This is wrong, people. And truly gross. And real Irish beer is black, not green. Have a Guinness. Or a Jameson's whiskey. That's what I'm doing today.

I did, however, eat two cupcakes with green frosting. They were delicious.

I've also learned how to make a pyramid out of little foam craft bricks and hot glue. I told my daughter to tell her history teacher that we can't imagine how much hot glue it must have taken to make the big pyramids in Egypt. We still have one more day's work to do on the pyramid project. The clay palm trees are drying on the table, and we still have to print out a bunch of facts about Cleopatra to stick all over the pyramid. Fun, fun!

Pyramid

Drying palm trees

Lastly for today, I had a horrible dream last night. I woke up in a cold sweat. Literary agents had apparently lined up at my front door. They wanted to show up in person to see the look on my face when they rejected me, I guess. Either that, or they wanted to see what kind of idiot would ever submit such a thing to them in the first place. Or maybe they wanted me to watch them laugh in my face. It was a horrible dream. Agent after agent after agent. Stupid, huh?

Anyway, I just realized how late it is. All that construction work really took it out of me. And I burned my finger on the darn hot glue gun. I can really sympathize with the Ancient Egyptians now.

Happy V-D!

And of course I mean Valentine's Day. Ahem.

I finished the book last night, and put it on the Kindle for Tim to read. We'll see when he gets around to it...

I also got my widdle heart brokded yesterday. I had my first rejection on a full manuscript by an agent. Granted, it was very positive (she liked my voice and characters, and called my world building "strong"), but she didn't love the story. I guess that's better than hearing it all stank to high heaven, at least. I can't argue with someone to convince them to love my story. Wish I could, though. Sigh.

I sent out half a dozen new queries, though, so hopefully someone else will find it and truly love it. We can only hope.

I have started on the third book, though. I don't know if it's a pointless task now, or if I'll keep going no matter what. I could always do what I did before, and write something completely different. The first two books I wrote were to be the beginning of a series (it was more of an epic fantasy kind of thing), but I never wrote the third book. It's a shame, because I liked those characters, but the first book was CLEARLY my first novel, ever. Maybe someday I'll go back, rewrite it, and make it better. But not right now.

I had the third book in that other series all mapped out, knew the plot, etc. But I never wrote it. Instead, I started writing this current series. So going on and writing a third book for an unsold series is kind of a leap of faith.

Writing the first book is always a crazy adventure, discovering the world and characters, giving them voices, etc. Starting a second book is an act of hope. You hope the first book sells, and therefore there will be a call for a second, and voila! you pull out book 2 all ready to go. Writing a third seems a little either insane or desperate since I haven't even managed to charm an agent with the first book, yet! :)

So for Valentine's Day, we are doing absolutely nothing romantic. Lulu has chorus again tonight, so I'll probably sit in the back row writing merrily along on my laptop again, and Tim will be home power napping, because that's what he always does on Tuesday night. I don't even have anything special planned for dinner. We usually have pizza, because we're in such a hurry between Lulu working on homework, and then running to chorus by 6, we don't have time for anything fancier. But I don't have a frozen pizza. Tim and Lulu ate it on Sunday, because I didn't feel well enough to cook or eat. And of course I haven't been to the grocery store again. I was going to do that tonight, while the kid was singing for two hours. Oh, well. Chocolate it is!

So that's our romantic, special day. Since I don't think all the romantic, loving gestures in a relationship should be saved up and spent on only one day a year, I don't really have any special feeling for Valentine's Day. It's one of those holidays that rates a solid "meh" on my scale from "ick" to "ohmygodohmygod."

So to all who enjoy the day, have a great time. To those who hate it, have a horrible time. To those who also meh it, have a day.

NEW BOOK TALLY!!!:

Words: 155
Pages: 2 (well, really only one, but I did leave a blank page for the eventual title page at the beginning).