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Archive for July, 2008

A 1930s Wife? I Don’t Think So.

Wednesday, July 30th, 2008

The other day, Blogthings had a new quiz up called Would You Have Been a Good Wife in the 1930s? I guessed immediately that the answer would be no. I’m not exactly the ideal of domesticity. The first question, though, stopped me cold.

You would ask your husband’s opinion before making a big decision or purchase.

I knew what I was “supposed” to answer to be a bad 1930s wife, but I had a dilemma. I believe that when you’re half of a couple, you should be asking for your spouse’s opinion about big decisions or purchases. Why wouldn’t you?

What? I get a job promotion that would require my moving to, say, Los Angeles and I’m not going to talk it over with my husband? Do I just start packing the bags and say, oh, yeah, I’m moving? Or what if I’m going to spend our money to buy a new car. Do I just show up one day and say, surprise! We’ve got a loan payment!

I also believe a husband should darn well be discussing big decisions or purchases with his wife as well. It’s a two-way street, baby.

Of course, this is what I grew up with. My parents discussed everything with each other and I think that’s the way it should be. How selfish and self-absorbed does someone have to be to think it’s reasonable to not discuss important things with the person they profess to love?

So the first question on the quiz was stupid beyond belief in my opinion. The rest of it was so-so. I used to love the Blogthings quizzes, but lately they’ve been fairly lame and they’ve even had misspelled words in some of their latest quizzes! Call me a nitpicker, but if you’re going to put a quiz out there to be done by hundreds, if not thousands, of people, the least they could do is run it past an editor.

You’re dying to know what my results are, right?

You Would Make a Horrible 1930′s Wife

You are way too non conformist, independent, and sassy to be an ideal retro wife.

You may be so wild that you aren’t even considering marriage!

Good thing we don’t live in the 1930s anymore!

Would You Have Been a Good Wife in the 1930s?

Told you. Terrible 1930s wife.

Tags: quiz
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Super Sloth Saturday

Monday, July 28th, 2008

I used to belong to a meditation group and one of the women who was in it used to do something she called Sloth Day every now and then. She said her kids hated it because she wouldn’t cook or do anything else. All she’d do was sit and read. She wouldn’t even take a shower. This woman didn’t do it often, maybe a couple of times a year, but I always thought it sounded like a fabulous idea. This weekend, I adopted it myself–Saturday was Super Sloth Saturday.

I slept late, messed around on email and the computer, and at noon, I went back to bed for a three hour nap. It was totally fabulous! I did shower, however. (I can’t stand not having a shower.) And I also did laundry and finished loading all my rock CDs onto the computer so that I can download them on the iPod, but that was the extent of my productivity. The rest of the day was spent playing games (I love hidden object computer games) and playing online.

What I should have done, of course, was answer the dozens of emails that I owe people. I’m feeling hugely overwhelmed by all of them, maybe that’s why it’s easier to do none of them. If you’re one of the people I owe an email to, hang in there. I’ll get to it. Some day. Sorry.

Today wasn’t meant to be a second sloth day, but it kind of ended up that way. I had credits at one of those online royalty-free photo sites that expire tomorrow and I couldn’t just let them disappear. The problem was that I don’t need any pictures right now and I ended up spending most of the day going through the site, looking for pictures that I might be able to use at some point in the future. I never realized how much time that was going to suck away. Right up until 5pm, I thought it would only take a little while, not six hours. Now I’m feeling totally guilty for wasting the entire weekend. Saturday was a planned sloth day, Sunday most definitely wasn’t.

To close out the post, I did go outside and check on my flowers yesterday. A new lily is in bloom. This is supposed to be yellow, but the pictures in the catalog were much darker than what actually grew in my garden. Neither shot is great because of the position of the flower relative to the chicken wire fencing it in, but I have another yellow lily coming in, and when that blooms, I should have some better shots.

Tags: flowers, garden, sleep, sloth
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Characters. Sheesh!

Friday, July 25th, 2008

No one who’s followed this blog for a while will be surprised to hear me say that my characters are driving me nuts. Again. While I was writing the book I turned in July 1–Logan and Shona’s still untitled story–Kel would come in and talk to me. Kel is Logan’s brother and has a pretty major role in the finished book. I’d have to tell him, later, Kel, I need Logan now, not you. Thankfully, he’d listen and I’d get back to work.

So Logan and Shona are turned in, I’ve had time to rest even if I’m not caught up yet, and I’m ready to work on a proposal for Kel’s story. Do you think he’s talking to me? Of course not. Hasn’t said boo. Who’s talking now? Logan and Shona. They’re showing me scenes of Logan meeting Shona’s parents for the first time (something that happens after the end of their story). This time telling them that I need Kel isn’t working. Grrr! Come on, Kel, I need to know what your story is–start talking!

::Shaking my head:: Is it too much to expect a little cooperation here? It’s not as if they’re not going to have a pay off at the end even if they do have to suffer some to get there. And besides, it’s not like Kel isn’t already suffering. Poor guy was captured and tortured. He’ll be happier when his story is finished, I promise.

Tags: characters, stories
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Daffodil Picture

Thursday, July 24th, 2008

Here’s the picture of my daffodil that I meant to post yesterday.

The elodie and white lilies are beginning to wane, but I’m hoping that the other lilies will move along and I’ll have more flowers before this wave ends.

Tags: flowers, garden
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Two Dozen FREE eBooks!

Wednesday, July 23rd, 2008

Free eBooks!

Tor.com is giving away about two dozen free ebooks! There are two paranormal romances and the rest are SF/F, but it’s a good opportunity to try new authors or to get copies of books you’ve already read in another format. I’m trying to figure out how to load them on my iPod because I don’t want to carry my laptop with me to read them. They’re only available for a limited time, so if you’re interested, I wouldn’t wait too long to click over.

The Rest of the Blog

Now on to my usual stuff. I looked out of the window this afternoon and thought I saw flowers around my daffodils. I couldn’t be sure, though, from the distance I was at and I decided to take my camera down just in case. And wonder of all wonders, my new daffodils, the ones I planted back in like April or May, have little, tiny flowers on them! Pictures another day. I ran out of time to download them off the camera and crop one up.

I spent this afternoon trying to get all my snail mail items ready to go in the mail. I think I succeeded, too! That means I can cross one item off my lengthy To Do List. It took forever to get it all together and I think I have like half a dozen separate things that need to go, but it’s a huge relief to accomplish something. I haven’t done much of that since I turned my book in. I was so excited, I even started to tackle my email backup, but I only answered one note before my laziness kicked in again and decided to do my blog instead.

My next goal for the day after I finish here is to get to bed early. You’d think that would be an easy one, but the Cubs are playing in Arizona and the games don’t start until 8:30 my time. Even staying up for just a few innings is too long when the alarm goes off at 4am for the Evil Day Job.

Tags: ebooks, flowers, free, to-do
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Review: Man Of the Year

Monday, July 21st, 2008

Man of the Year stars Robin Williams as a comedian who decides to run for president. Warning: this is a movie from 2006, so my review will contain spoilers.

Robin Williams decides to run for president and thanks to a computer glitch is elected. Eleanor, played by Laura Linney, notified her boss before the election that there was a problem, but with his millions of dollars in stock and his company’s reputation on the line, he tells her to keep quiet. Then he sends a thug to fill her full of drugs. When she freaks out in the cafeteria and is admitted to the hospital, the drugs are discovered and it calls everything she says into question.

Since that closes off almost every avenue to her–the press would investigate and discredit her, law enforcement would discredit her–Eleanor decides to go right to Robin Williams and tell him herself that he really didn’t win the election. She can’t get the courage together at their first meeting, but she does manage to finally tell him. Tom Dobbs (Robin Williams) is ready to give a press conference to tell the world that he’s not legitimately elected, but Eleanor’s old boss finds out what’s going on and preempts everything, announcing that Eleanor was obsessed with Tom Dobbs and has been seen with him after the election and so on.

I found the fact that Eleanor could approach Tom Dobbs with secret service protection around him to be unbelievable. And as much as I love romances, I didn’t believe that Tom could fall in love with Eleanor as fast as he did. They were only together briefly before he’s getting comments from his staff about being in love. I didn’t buy that at all.

Overall, I was disappointed in the movie. I wanted something more like Dave starring Kevin Kline. A movie about an ordinary or unlikely guy being president and the humor arising from what he’s seeing and experiencing. I guess that’s more a failing of meeting my expectations rather than a failing with the movie itself, but I found the suspense weak and felt that the movie was derailed from the premise of a comedian going to Washington as the president. It was an okay film since I was willing to sit through it, but not great.

My rating (with the warning that I was expecting something completely different): 2.5 stars

Tags: movies, reviews
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Rituals

Friday, July 18th, 2008

Writers have rituals. Some of it has to do with the actual writing like always doing so many pages a day or always playing music. Some of it is just superstition.

Like the baseball player that’s on a hitting streak and won’t change his socks until he has an 0-for night, writers have quirky little behaviors. Or maybe I should qualify that as some writers because I certainly can’t speak for everyone.

What are my quirks/rituals? I always have to have a picture of the hero and heroine when I’m working. Usually before chapter four, although I had one book where I didn’t find an image of the heroine until nearly the end and I was obsessed until I did find exactly the right shot. That’s one of those things, though, that can teeter into a real process if you’re drawing a line. I use the pictures to keep details straight about the h/h, and since I’m not particularly visual, they help me describe things.

Other quirks? I always have to post dancing Hobbes on my blog when I finish a book. I always have to move the pictures of my hero and heroine from the Characters In Progress page of my personal web space to the Characters Living HEA page. I nearly forgot to do that with Shona and Logan, but did it tonight. If I didn’t, bad things might happen.

I have to send my finished chapters to my writing buddy the minute they’re done even if she’s out of town because I can’t seem to move forward until she has them. Once the chapter is sent–no problem.

I think those are the extent of my little rituals, but I might be missing some. It’s easy to overlook them in ourselves, I guess, because anything we do is normal, right?

Tags: rituals, writing
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The Book Is Done, But What About the Cover?

Wednesday, July 16th, 2008

Those of you who are regulars know that I turned my latest book in to my editor July 1st. (It still has no official title, BTW, so it’ll be interesting to see what it’s going to end up being called.) Along with the book being finished, there are a few other immediate steps. (There are other steps like revisions, copy edits, and galleys, but those come later) The first was writing some back cover copy for the story–my editor writes the official version, but she likes to see the author’s take on that blurb–and the second is the Cover Concept Memo.

I always consider the cover art information a type of author purgatory. I used to fill them out in excruciating detail–now? Not so much. No point investing a ton of hours in it. I’ve learned that the hard way. So what do I include?

Pictures of my hero and heroine. Lots of pictures if I have them. I always have pictures of my characters by the time I start writing chapter 4. Sometimes it takes hours and hours or even days to find just the right image, but once I see it, I immediately know it’s him or her. I use the pictures to keep details straight about the h/h and I figure a picture is worth a thousand words for the art department, which is probably staffed with people who are visual.

I also describe my h/h’s attitudes and give information about their height, eye color, the way they wear their hair, what kind of clothes they like to wear, and any other key information like in The Power of Two Cai always wears a ring. That’s important to know and if you look really closely at the cover, you’ll see the model has a ring on just like I said.

The art memo also asks for scenes I think would make a good cover, but I’ve stopped taking the time to describe those and just give the mood of the book. Dark or Very Dark. Those seem to be my defaults. If you look at the cover of my latest book, In Twilight’s Shadow, it’s not a scene, it’s more of a mood-type of cover.

After I do all this–and even with the cut down version of what I do now, it does take a lot of time–I send in the memo form and pray to the cover gods. Please, I beseech, let me have a cover that I’ll love, that readers will love, and if you’re feeling particularly benevolent, please let the characters on the cover bear a passing resemblance to my hero and heroine. And then I let it go and hope that I’m thrilled when I see my cover art.

Tags: covers
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Groan!

Monday, July 14th, 2008

I can’t believe the weekend is over already! In a way, though, it’ll almost be good to get back to the Evil Day Job (EDJ) because I worked like crazy this weekend. After sleeping so late that I couldn’t make it to my RWA chapter meeting on time, I cleaned the entire house from top to bottom. I also began the process of putting my music onto iTunes for my iPod. I have way too many CDs and it’s taking forever! I nearly have my country music collection uploaded, but the rock is the bigger of the two.

While I’m working, I also had my parents call me–four times! Does anyone else’s parents call them like that? I’ve asked them to refrain unless it’s important, but of course, to them it’s always important. It was making me crazy.

But anyway, today, I worked even harder. It all started so innocently, too. I took my camera down to the garden to get pictures of my new lilies. I have some white ones–I can’t remember their name–and wanted a few shots. On the way down, I grabbed my gardening gloves. Around the stone of the garden, the weeds had set in pretty thickly and I thought I’d rescue my tree lilies.

Here’s three of my four elodie lilies:

And here are my unknown name white lilies:

After getting these shots, I pulled on my gloves and started pulling. And cursing. Those weeds were out of control and had developed root systems that were incredible. I pulled with all my strength and couldn’t dislodge some of them. I don’t own a hoe, so I toughed it out, and pulled the entire side with the tree lilies. It looked much better.

But it needed some mulch and I mentioned that to my dad this morning on the second phone call with my parents. He came over with a pitchfork and other tools and we worked pulling weeds on three sides of the garden before he decided he was tired. (Keep in mind, this man had his kidney removed in April and he’s already doing things like this. Gah!) Next came putting in the edging to hold the mulch in, then layers of newspaper, followed by the mulch. Half the area around the outside the garden is mulched, but that leaves half left to go.

I’m sore from all the weed pulling and I managed to get a blister on the bottom of my toe which means walking is ever so much fun. I also managed to do a few loads of laundry and load half a gazillion more CDs onto iTunes.

So all the things I meant to do today–like get caught up on snail mail, email, and blog comments–all fell to the wayside. The damn thing is that I should do something similar around the tree ring and then there’s the area around my evergreens that seriously need a weeding and a lot more mulch put down. I also could add some more mulch around the house because a lot of that got beat down over the last two winters. In other words, thank goodness I’m going back to the EDJ so I can rest up!

I think it’s easier to be on deadline! I hope everyone else had a relaxing weekend.

Tags: chores, flowers, garden, pictures, yard
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And the Thunder Rolls

Friday, July 11th, 2008

Today after lunch, the sky went dark as night–even the parking lot lights came on–and everyone at the Evil Day Job was forced to evacuate to the designated storm shelter. In our case, it’s in the hallway in front of the hangars, so we’re not talking basement or other hugely secure area. It was crowded and loud with hundreds of people, but we weren’t down there long.

And when we got back to our floor, the sky looked worse than when we evacuated! So of course, we all stood right in front of the window to watch the storm.

I checked out my damage when I got home. One tree had a couple of large branches down, but luckily it wasn’t the tree in the back where my flowers are. Some of the flowers had been pushed sideways by the storm, so I had to do a little straightening, but by and large, everything came through all right. I even have my first elodie lily in bloom. I took pictures, of course.

And here’s a closeup.

The lily is so tall that I had to stand on the garden wall to get a shot of it, which is kind of why the shot is looking down.

Now for the big mystery. I’ve got a lily coming up where I didn’t plant a lily. Now if it looked like a tiger lily, I’d just shrug, but it looks like the new lilies I planted. The problem is that it’s coming up a quite a distance from where I put it originally. I looked, but there are no signs that it had been dug up and buried by an animal, but I can’t figure out what did happen. Weird.

Tags: flowers, garden, weather
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