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It’s a Sunshine Day

Saturday, March 10th, 2007

Hello, World!

Today, the sun is shining brightly–in fact, it woke me up–the snow has been steadily melting, we’re supposed to hit the mid-40s, and I saw deer tracks in my front yard. I wish I’d seen the deer themselves, but it’s still cool. This morning anything seems possible. :-)

My local writing chapter meets today, and while I’d like to go, I’m staying home to write. I will write lots, I have to, because I realized yesterday that I need to cut somewhere between 20-25 pages from the beginning of the book. It’s boring and it has to go, but it’s going to hurt.

I’m also hugely thankful that I’ve never had a precognitive dream. Yep, I had an icky one. I dreamed I was staying in a hotel, lying in bed and watching planes take off from a nearby airport. In my dream, one of the planes seemed a little low and a little too close to the hotel. Sure enough, a wingtip hit the building. I immediately started getting ready to get out of the hotel because I knew we were going to be evacuating. In the dream, I heard twice “100 people died.” :-( Like I said, I am hugely grateful that I can’t predict or see the future.

Once, years ago, I did work with a woman who had dreams about plane crashes and she was eerily accurate, right down to the colors on the plane’s fuselage and the exact circumstances of how it looked to bystanders as it went down. I used to say to her, “let me know if you have one of those dreams, because I’m not flying if you do.” She never had enough information to tell anyone and it could be a lot of months before what she saw happened, but there was only one instance where she “saw” a crash that didn’t occur. How freaky would that be? Like I said, I am hugely grateful I can’t see the future.

I do wish I was good at dream interpretation, though. I’d love to figure out the meaning of what I saw–especially the part where I heard the number of the dead. Twice. Numerology would be 1+0+0=1. According to NumberQuest, the number 1 means:

Unity, Beginning, Focussed concentration, Goal-striving, Action, Independence, Originality, Courage, Invention, Leader, Self-reliant, Ambition, Pioneer , Will, Conscious Mind, Positive.

Okay, this is pretty good even if the dream wasn’t. I’d like to think this means that the WIP (AKA The Book From Hell) has turned a corner. I also think it has something to do with realizing what I can’t control (the plane hitting the hotel) and what I can control (my reactions after the crash). I feel better about the dream now.

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Back Up and Reverse

Friday, March 9th, 2007

At the EDJ (Evil Day Job), I’ve been helping another department out by filing manual revisions for them. It’s not the most exciting job in the world, but it’s made even more frustrating by the condition of the pages that need to be put in the binders. Yesterday alone, I had pages with the holes on the wrong side, pages with no holes at all, 11×17 pages that were folded so the holes were covered up, folded so they were all in one big lump, and folded like one, big letter so that the information on the page couldn’t be seen. When I finally had the revisions in order, I grab the manual and find that it’s been filed incorrectly for years and years. I don’t know how anyone used it, and what should have been a quick little job, has now become a major undertaking since I have to fix everything.

The big excitement, though, for yesterday was that my glass nail files arrived! Now, I officially have a back up file, a file for my purse and a third, big file. You know that it’s vital to have back-ups for things you love. I can’t tell you how many times I found something that worked for me, and when I needed to replace it, that item was no longer sold. Anywhere. The problem comes in when it takes a while to realize how necessary something has become to your life. :-) This happens to me all the time with shoes, but I never know how much I like a pair of shoes until it’s too late to buy a back-up pair.

There’s not much else going on. Yesterday I posted that I didn’t have to cut much of what I wrote on Tuesday, but last night, I did cut a lot of what I wrote on Wednesday and started over. Frustrating, but I think the changes work better than what I had.

And I’m still overwhelmed with stuff to do. I owe emails and comments to a ton of people. I hope I still have friends by the time I finish the book from hell.

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Trembling Chins and Wimpy Plants

Thursday, March 8th, 2007

My mom finished reading through the galleys for In the Midnight Hour and she found lots of stuff that I missed. The page proofs are still clean compared to other books that I’ve had, but wow, I’m glad I asked her to read through them for me. She found missing words and wrong words, like: She chin trembled. HER chin trembled. Gah! How did I miss that one? Since she did so much better than I did, I asked if she’d mind doing a second read-through.

I was worried yesterday that I was going to need to cut most of what I wrote on Tuesday, but it turned out that I only needed to lose about 5 or 6 sentences and it took care of the problem I had. Now I’m wondering whether I should have revealed some information about the bad guy in this chapter or if I should wait a little longer. I’ll read through it today and try to figure that out.

These characters or the book, I’m not sure which, continues to be nocturnal. In other words, I get the most accomplished later in the evening when I should be winding down and getting ready for bed. I hate this. I lived through it with Through a Crimson Veil, but my demon children were nocturnal creatures and most of their story happened at night. Maia and Creed have no excuses. I’m just tired. Sigh.

In non-writing stuff, I’m drooling over these exotic flowers QVC has been selling. I don’t like the regular, boring flowers that most people have, and I’m really attracted to these less ordinary plants. Problem? They’re borderline or unable to be grown in Minnesota. Or in the case of one plant, they’re hardy to zero, which means if your temperature will go below that, you need to bring the plant indoors. The thing is that I just want to plant them and forget them. I do not want to wrestle a planter into my house.

I am going to try this cute little bamboo plant, though, indoors. My sink is in the corner with two windows so I’m going to put it there. These plants are supposed to be tough. Let’s see if it can withstand the plant assassin (me!).

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Cavemen, Barbarians and Baseball

Wednesday, March 7th, 2007

This morning, I caught a flash of one of the Geico cavemen commercials and thought, man, I’m getting so tired of them. Then, I read one of my boards and someone posts that they’re going to do a TV series with them, but that she’d rather see the Capital One barbarians in a show. I have to agree with her. I like the barbarians much better than the cavemen. I always think the Geico ads are almost there, but not quite. But then I’m pretty picky on commercials and I have been since junior high when we saw reels of Clio Award winners every year. I saw what was possible and then I saw what most companies were doing.

The Minnesota Twins have a couple of cute commercials playing right now. One features Jason Bartlett and Nick Punto (our shortstop and third baseman who were called Piranha by White Sox coach Ozzie Guillen. Because they’re not homerun hitters, but they just nibble you to death.) Anyway, it shows a girl and her father going through Undersea World or whatever the heck the aquarium is called at Mall of America and the girl is asking her father what everything is. Then they reach the tank with the piranha and it’s the two Twins players under water in full uniform. It ends with the handler dumping a bucket of baseballs in the water and the two swimming to the surface to get them.

This might be one of those ads where if it has to be explained (and if you’re not a Twins fan or don’t live in Minnesota it has to be), it loses some of it’s humor.

The Twins have a second commercial with Johann Santana, our Cy Young Award-winning pitcher and Joe Nathan, the pitcher who closes our games. I’ve only seen this one once, but Santana is driving like he pitches–constantly changing speeds–and Nathan’s getting motion sickness. It was cute too, but I want to see it a few more times because I missed some stuff the first time around.

You know, it’s tough in a way to have a major in advertising and then watch ads. I can sit there and label the tactics the commercial is using, and depending on the skill in which it’s deployed, it might annoy me. If it’s done well, I don’t think about it, but if it’s blatant, I definitely don’t like it.

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Coming Out of Retrograde

Tuesday, March 6th, 2007

Mercury is in retrograde right now. I’d never heard this, let alone knew what it meant, until maybe five years ago or so. There was some communication misunderstanding and someone mentioned the Mercury thing. Ever since then, whenever there’s misunderstandings, lost email, missed telephone calls, etc., I check to see if the planet is in a retrograde period, and you know what? Nine times out of ten, it is!

We’ve got another day or two, I think, till this period of retrograde ends. I’m hoping that makes it easier on my poor computers. The POS laptop that I keep at work is having all kinds of problems. I brought it home last night to do some upgrades and updates and it’s just a mess. But since it’s still better than hauling the laptop I use at home back and forth, I’ll have to fix it up, baby it along, and hope for the best.

Speaking of the home laptop, this thing has gotten slow. I know it’s because it’s over 2 years old and it’s time to wipe the drives, reload the software and start fresh. But not only don’t I have the time to do that, I don’t want to! It’s a lot of work. A lot. I did it on my desktop a few years ago and I never did get everything reloaded, and at this point, I’m figuring those files can’t be that important anyway. :-)

And of course, I’ve been waiting to replace the desktop for more than a year. I’m just waiting for Vista Service Pack 1 to be issued by MS to fix the bugs and I’ll begin the hunt. This has nothing to do with Mercury and is no doubt my imagination, but I’ve been using this computer a lot more since it’s the only one with high-speed internet and it seems painfully slow. Of course, I’ve loaded more software on that thing too since hooking it up to the internet autobahn. :-)

Anyway, every computer I own is having some kind of issue right now that’s making me more insane than usual. I’m counting the hours until we’re clear of this planetary situation and hoping that helps the electronic equipment. :-)

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My Magical Society

Monday, March 5th, 2007

I finished my first read through of the galleys for In the Midnight Hour. I’m not sure I’ve ever had a set of page proofs that were this clean before. Wow! I might not even have to do a spreadsheet. =8-O Of course, maybe I will anyway because I’m compulsive that way.

I’m taking an online class about Scottish History this month. Don’t worry, I have no plans to write a historical and I doubt I ever will. But my magical society from Midnight Hour and the book I’m working on now has its ties back to Scotland and I figured it might be nice to know more about the history of this country. What I find extraordinarily odd is how this all happened.

I’m talking with Ryne, the heroine in Midnight Hour, and she’s giving him incredible amounts of information on her people. I’ve mentioned how my characters will say things like: “my name starts with an R” and then have to page through baby name books. The same thing happened to me with the society’s name. It starts with a G. Sigh. At least this time, I also was told it was Gaelic. To me, Gaelic is Irish, so I do a search for a Gaelic dictionary, get a lot of hits and find an Irish Gaelic one. I go through all the G’s and nothing is right. I’m not quite sure why I tried the Scots Gaelic dictionary next, but I did and there it was: Gineal: race, breed, offspring.

I ended up buying two Scots Gaelic dictionaries and there is a smattering of words in Midnight Hour. Luckily, I’m writing paranormal romance, and even more fortunate than that, my characters speak Canan, not Gaelic. And their language just borrowed from Gaelic so it’s “bastardized.” :-) My world. My rules.

Anyway, I’m reaching a point where I’m going to have to start putting up information on Midnight Hour. I’m shooting for April 1 for an excerpt, but I might hold off till May. We’ll see how it all goes. I have a lot of work left to do on the book from hell and I’m trying not to get too distracted with other stuff. Bad enough that I have to gear up promotion for Midnight Hour now and that’s always time consuming.

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Stranger Than Fiction

Sunday, March 4th, 2007

Last night, I watched Stranger Than Fiction starring Will Farrell and Emma Thompson. The movie was released in 2006, and while I’m going to try my best not to reveal any spoilers, I can’t promise that, so if you don’t want to risk anything being given away before you see the film, you better click away now.

Will Farrell plays IRS Auditor Harold Crick. One day, he begins hearing a voice and it sounds as if it’s narrating his life. No one else can hear it. He sees a psychiatrist and she tells him he’s schizophrenic. Harold insists that he isn’t. The voice isn’t telling him what to do, it’s just telling his life like a story. The doctor tells him that maybe he should see someone familiar with literature. Enter Dustin Hoffman as a college professor. He thinks Harold is nuts too–until he mentions that the narrator said: “Little did he know…”

Along the way, Harold falls in love and he doesn’t want to die. The question is, will he be able to stop it?

I really liked this movie. Maybe it’s because I’m a writer and I feel like my characters are real, but after watching this, I was so glad I write romance. I’d hate to kill one of my people. Especially since they come in as fully-formed human beings. What if they are real? You never know, especially after watching this movie. :-)

Will Farrell, who I normally don’t like, played this role perfectly. I didn’t think of him as an actor, but as Harold Crick. His reactions to something weird were wonderful.

The things I didn’t like? While the movie got a lot right about being an author, it got a lot wrong too, at least in my experience as an author. This was more like Hollywood’s vision of what it’s like to be a writer. First off, Karen Eiffel (Emma Thompson) has writer’s block for like 12 years. I understand the block, but 12 years? Second, her publisher sent an assistant to help her finish the book that she was 10 years over deadline on. Ten years! Um, yeah, sure they’re going to pay for an assistant to help an author that they can’t be counting on at this point to deliver anything. My guess is that they’re more likely to have written her off by now. And wow, her early books must still be raking in the royalties because she hasn’t had to get a day job for that ten year period and she still has a pretty damn nice apartment. Speaking as an author who hasn’t even been able to seriously consider quitting her day job yet, my response was, “yeah, right.”

My other quibble is the romance between Harold and Ana. I wanted more here because I found it difficult to buy they’d developed feelings for each other so quickly. Still, it was sweet and I liked the two characters together.

Overall, though, the movie was a very enjoyable way to spend a couple of hours. It’s not laugh out loud funny, IMO, but the characters are people I cared about and I wanted things to all work out.

My rating: 4 Stars

And head on over to 2 B Read. I blogged today about some movies I really enjoyed.

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Totals and Then Some

Saturday, March 3rd, 2007

Snow fall totals for my city: 18 inches. Previous storm snow fall total: 10 inches. Amount of snow that fell in one week at my house: 28 inches. Amount of snow for November 2006-February 23rd: 12 inches.

A week ago yesterday, there were large expanses of bare grass. Every day more was melting because the sun is so high in the sky. Then the two storms rolled through. I went out last night and tried to take pictures for the blog. The snow is over my knees. Sigh. You’ll notice there are no pictures with today’s post. That’s because I couldn’t get any good shots and I wasn’t willing to slog through more snow to get a good angle.

What’s really funny is that I’m getting itchy to put plants in my yard. I find this amusing for two reasons: 1. The snow and cold weather. 2. Me? Garden? LOL! When I was a kid, my parents used to have several huge gardens and we had to constantly weed and water those damn plants. Ever since then, any kind of outdoor garden has been something unappealing to me. Maybe it’s just spring fever and will pass by the time it’s actually warm enough to do something.

Do y’all remember me talking about my glass nail file that I bought at the Woman’s Expo and absolutely loved? I’ve wanted to buy another, but I couldn’t find one I was willing to buy. If the price was good, the site was unknown to me and I was unwilling to give my credit card number to them. The sites I did know were charging $12 for one plus shipping and handling and I wasn’t willing to pay that. (My file cost $10.) I finally, finally found a set of 3 for $20 plus shipping from QVC and I ordered them. I’ll have one big file, one travel size and one the same size as what I have now. The best thing about these files is that they never wear out! I’ve had mine for over a year now and it still works as great as it did day 1. With these extras, I’ll now be able to leave them in strategic locations (like my purse!) and have one handy if I break a nail.

The Fashion Police were talking about the Oscars and mentioned that Cameron Diaz wore emerald and diamond earrings worth $1 million. Gulp. Can you imagine wearing something that expensive? I’d be worried all night that I’d lose one. I had a pair of really cute earrings that cost $50 and when I lost the special back to one of them, I spent a half hour combing the office in a panic because those earrings were so expensive! LOL!

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Sometimes the Weather is the News

Friday, March 2nd, 2007

I really, really try not to talk about the weather here because I know not everyone is from Minnesota and finds it as fascinating as we do, but sometimes, the weather is the news. It started snowing here Wednesday evening. It’s still snowing. I have no idea of exact totals, but there’s a lot. It’s probably knee deep on my deck, although I hardly consider that an accurate measure of snowfall.

The commute home yesterday was slow, visibility was lousy, and in most places, it was impossible to know where the lane was, so I just lined myself up on the car in front of me. It wasn’t the worst drive home that I’ve ever had, but the top speed most of the way was about 25 mph. It was a long drive.

This morning, the question is how bad are the roads? Because of the early hour, there are no traffic reports available, so I won’t really know until the wheels hit the asphalt–or maybe I should say till the wheels hit the snow pack. :-) If it’s too horrible, I’ll turn around and return home. I’m going to try to leave the house at 5am, which will give me an hour to make it in to work.

In non-weather news, I’m still reading through my galley. I still have a gazillion emails to send and haven’t done even one of them. I hate to set aside a whole afternoon/evening to do email, but I might have to since I’m not sure how else I’m going to manage it and I can see the big clock ticking in my head since there’s a time frame for some of this stuff.

Anyway, after this scintillating post, I need to get moving. The only huge bright spot with the weather is that I don’t work with passengers. I’m sure the gate agents are just having more fun than is humanly possible dealing with all the flight cancellations.

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The Lion’s Roar

Thursday, March 1st, 2007

What is that old saying? Something like: If March comes in like a lion, it’ll go out like a lamb? What’s fiercer than a lion? Because according to all the weather reports, that’s what I’ll be dealing with here today. It started snowing about 6pm last night and it’s not supposed to stop until tomorrow. Depending on how much rain is mixed in with the snow, we could have anywhere from 10-20 inches. Gah! This is a really long way of saying that I have to be brief this morning and not spend a lot of time thinking about what I want to say because I need to leave early. (I heard, though, that the commute home will be the worst we’ve had in years. Oh, joy.)

I’ve been reading through the galley for In the Midnight Hour the last couple of days and it’s been amazingly clean so far. That’s both a blessing and a curse. A blessing because it’s nice that it’s so clean. A curse because when I don’t find anything I find myself falling into the story and forget that I’m supposed to be watching carefully for mistakes. I hope my mom does a better job at focusing. Of course, I forgot to warn her that I used some Gaelic words and she was trying to check the spelling in an English dictionary. Oops!

I made a list of promo things I’d like to do for Midnight Hour and starting doing some pricing. When I added up the items I had dollar figures on, I was 10% over my budget and I hadn’t even checked on the cost of doing teaser booklets yet or advertising on this website I like for fiction. So, I have to make some choices and they’re not necessarily easy ones. I also need to get off the stick and email some people to find out what’s going on and to let them know what I plan to do. I don’t know where I’m going to find the time to do this since these are notes that will take me a while to compose. I’m a slow writer–even when it comes to things like emails and blog posts. And the more businesslike I need to be, the longer it takes me to write. I’m the queen of casual, including with the written word.

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