Checking in...

Don't hate me because I'm warm. I'll be back there in there in negative sixteen degree weather soon enough, right? : ) Donald Maass seminar is tomorrow. Today was the beach : )

Water was too cold to do more than stick my toes in,

but it was warm enough to enjoy the walk and the sand!

Our new house...ha!

What is that big ball of glowing yellow light in the sky?

I swear, I'm not saying this to rub it in but...I'm leaving for a few days to attend a seminar. In FLORIDA! Woohoo!!!!

I'm going to be hanging out with Linnea, and we'll be attending a seminar taught by the great and powerful literary agent Donald Maass. : ) I'm very excited! Writers speak his name in a hushed and reverant whisper, so it'll be interesting to see what he has to say. I've taken classes from people who've taken classes from him and use his techniques and found them to be helpful when it comes to viewing common writing problems in a different way. So, that's great. I'm really hoping to come away with some new methods to try and new ways of thinking, and I'm grateful to Linnea for getting me in to the class. However, I fear I will be fighting back a case of the giggles as well as the urge to whisper, "the man, the myth, the legend" when he's introduced. : )

Anyway, this is my long and roundabout way of saying that I'll be gone for the next few days. Don't know how often I'll be able to post from the road, especially because I have another round of EOB edits that must get done. But I didn't want you to think I'd forgotten about you, and I'll be full of details and photos when I get back!

Pre-order Eye of the Beholder!!!

Eye of the Beholder is now available on Amazon.com! Look, isn't it beautiful!!!! : ) I'm SO excited.

Thank you!

Thank you to everyone who voted for The Silver Spoon in the P&E poll. It was at #6 when the polls closed! Nothing will be official until February, but how awesome would it be to finish in the top ten?

Again, thank you!!!!

I just got telemarketed...

It serves me right because...shh, don't tell anyone, but I haven't signed the new number up yet with the Do Not Call list. (No fear of government conspiracies or anything, just laziness.) The woman who did the telemarketing was supposedly calling for a charity, something about policemen rights and benefits. Probably legit and probably a very good cause. However, after seeing some special on, like, 60 Minutes a few years ago about how some of these charities are fakes with the supposed cause receiving little or no money and said fake charities may use criminals in jail as free labor to make the calls, I have not made a donation in this manner. I still feel horrendously guilty, though, and am always looking for a way to extricate myself without out and out lying. I hate lying to them, even though they'd have no way of knowing for sure that's what I'm doing and they may, in fact, be lying to me.

 

Anyway, this woman, clearly following a script, says something like, "We're looking for law-abiding citizens who want to make sure policemen have the same rights as the criminals they take off the streets." Okay, honestly, based on that description, I have no idea what her specific cause was--a new Constitutional amendment, not sure--but she was definitely leading up to the "asking for a small donation" bit. The part that stopped me was the "looking for law-abiding citizens." How absurd. How do you know I'm law-abiding? Would you not take my money if I was a criminal?

 

And, of course, I soooo wanted to interrupt her right then and say, "Ooohhh, sorry, I totally can't donate then. I'm a convicted hash dealer." (To be honest, I don't even know what hash is, but it does lend a nice air of specificity to the statement, doesn't it?) Just because the dead air on the other end of the phone would have been hilarious. But I am a good girl to the core and kept my mouth shut. : )

 

 

Edits almost done...

In the meantime, though, please check this out: The Green Bee Buzz. Most of you know the Green Bee as the oft-mentioned Stacy G. here in this lovely blog locale. I have been after her for years--literally years! (though not every day because she probably would have killed me by now)--to start her own blog. She is one of the funniest people I know and an incredibly sharp writer. She has a gift for taking an everyday kind of circumstance and turning it into something that will make you laugh (read the thing about the soap and lotion mix-up and you'll see what I mean).

 

So, please go read and leave a comment to encourage her. Most of us out here in blog-land are, to quote another friend, "attention whores." We love seeing that you're out there and our words are reaching you in some way.

 

Okay, other stuff...watched the Sarah Connor Chronicles (SCC) last night and--how do the kids put it these days?--it rocked my face off! I loved it. : ) I am so looking forward to the continuation of the premiere tonight. The actor playing John Connor may have a tendency later in the show to go all whiney, but I'm hoping the writers resist. The actress playing Sarah is awesome, tough, but in a different way than Linda Hamilton. Harder around the edges somehow, I think. And what can I say about Summer Glau? Oh, that girl can play creepy-tough like nobody's business. I am intrigued by her character, by the hints they have given that she's different than the others. And yet, she can't be too different. We saw her take multiple bullets last night. Perfect example of her awesomeness...John, Sarah and the good Terminator (Summer Glau) are closed in a bank vault. The good Terminator (gT) is assembling a weapon while Sarah and John watch. A loud noise sounds outside and John steps closer to the door to check out.

 

gT without looking up from her weapon: "Get away from the door."

 

John, backs up maybe a little but mostly just looks over at her with a frown: "Why?"

 

Glass inside the door shatters and everyone flinches except gT who doesn't even look up from what she's doing. "That's why."

 

One weird thing...I saw Nick Wechsler's name on the credits, but I didn't see him. He played Kyle on Roswell. It says on IMDB he played Deputy Ridge in the Pilot of SCC, but if he did, man, I missed it. Anybody else see him?

 

I did watch Persuasion as well, but I fell asleep about halfway through. I liked the actor playing Captain Wentworth better, but I preferred the actress from the BBC version for Anne Elliot. The read on the character was just slightly different. She was more visibly emotional and not as resilient, in my opinion. The whole point of Anne is that even while she may cry in private, she holds herself together in public. She knows the choice she made and that he'll never forgive her for it. And she suffers in silence. I don't know...I can't even put my finger on what's so different. I'll have to watch what I missed and see if my opinion changes, but right now, the better version is the older BBC one.

 

 

More fun with links and other stuff...

So, I'm stuck now on what I'm working on. Really stuck. This is supposed to be a short(er) SFR piece. More space opera than what I typically write. Very escapist type storyline. I started writing it last winter/spring in fits and starts because it wouldn't leave me alone, even though I was devoted to another project at the time.  (Yeah, I "cheat" on my main project with another occasionally. Not proud of it, try to resist, but sometimes it happens). But at this rate, it's going to take me as long as a full-length novel! (Although I really, really hope not...)

 

I think some of the "stuckness" is because my brain is in edit mode, thanks to the EOB edits I'm working on as well. Sometimes you just lose that rhythm and it's hard to pick back up again. Everything feels offbeat...and not in the good way. Unfortunately the only situation is to keep plugging (or typing, as the case may be) away. The great part is, if you do that long enough, everything will eventually start to flow again...at least that's been my experience so far. The rough part is getting to that point.

 

Anyway, the purpose of all this blathering is to say that I usually beat myself up on this kind of thing, trying to figure out some way to keep moving, figuring I must be doing something wrong. But then, this week, Lisa Shearin (fabulous fantasy adventure author) and I were exchanging emails about writing books on schedules and she wrote a blog entry about it that contained this (and many other) fabulous line(s)..."I'm arriving at the conclusion that novel writing -- like any other creative endeavor-- refuses to be confined to the schedule of a mere mortal." Ha! So true. And I'm so relieved it's not just me.

 

Other stuff...This weekend a new version of Persuasion (my second favorite Jane Austen novel) will be on WTTW-11 (I think that's Chicago's PBS station) on Sunday at 8:00 p.m. It stars Anthony Steward Head (Mr. Giles from Buffy!) as Anne Eliot's father. Anne is the heroine. I love her. She is fabulous but in a totally different way than Elizabeth Bennet. As a younger girl, she fell in love with this guy, Wentworth, that her family disapproved of (he had no name and no money) and she turned him down because of their advice. She was too young, really, to really  know the ones who were giving her advice, if that makes sense, and know they weren't people she should listen to. Then, years later, he comes back with both a name and money (made his fortune in the military) and Anne's family is poor (and ridiculously spoiled, despite it). Now her family thinks Wentworth is okay, but he's courting this other annoying but younger chick. Anne is still in love with him, of course. Never stopped being in love with him. But, of course, he won't want her now. He never understood why she turned him down before, completely crushing his feelings. Can these two sort it out? *sigh* I LOVE this stuff. So, check out the book or the movie. Can't vouch for this version of the move, but the book is awesome!

 

Sarah Connor Chronicles also start this weekend on Sunday at 7:00 p.m. Can't wait to see that one as well. Hope the TIVO is fixed by then (long story...) I love that Summer Glau (Serenity, Firefly, The 4400 ) is playing a young Terminator. She just has that other-worldly look down pat!

 

Here's an article from Maureen Ryan at the Chicago Trib talking about Persuasion and The Sarah Connor Chronicles.  

 

 

Edits are in...

Eye of the Beholder edits are in, and I'm (MUCH) farther behind on incorporating them than I'd like to be. So there will be less original content this week, but I'm still hoping to maintain my regular updates. Hence, much linkage to follow in the coming days...

 

I've been reading John August's blog to keep up on the latest strike information. It's work-safe and he has some really cool and informative posts about scriptwriting and writing in general. The article I'm sending you to this time is full of good advice, not just for writing, but for life in general. I've never played World of Warcraft (heck, I'm still trying to master my serve in Wii Tennis), but I can imagine it based on his description and I really like how it works as a metaphor for life. So, check it out... Seven Things [John August] Learned from World of Warcraft.

Me being sappy and sentimental...again!

We took Susan back to Valpo last night. I know it's ridiculous, but even after ten years, I get just a bit homesick for it and kind of weepy when have to leave. Some of it was dropping Susan off, who I miss and don't get to see as often as I'd like. Some of it was the weather. We're in this very weird warm streak. 65 degrees in January! So, when we got to campus, all of the snow had melted, and it was that damp warm feeling of spring. The ground smelled wet and well, earthy. You know, that "plants are going to start growing soon" smell. Plus, the pine trees had lost a lot of their needles during the rain, so you could really smell them and I always find that scent comforting, familiar.  It reminded me of those spring semester days when you were so desperate for the sun to shine and the weather to warm that people stopped wearing jackets and donned shorts in 55 degree weather. 

 

But most of it was just memories. Susan lives in a dorm that I used to live in, and despite all the other changes on campus, it remains virtually the same as when I was living there in 1994-1995. I walked past the exact spot in the grass where Julie, Becky, Debbie, Jill and I (and others) took our Sophomore year floor picture. The Chapel still looms in the sky as the tallest building on campus, but now with the Center for the Arts (which was built between my sophomore and junior year, I think. Someone know for sure?) and the new union in the way, you can just see the top of the roof. The back doors/maintanence entrance for the science center are right there too, near the front of the dorm, and it's there that a nail punctured my foot, through my boot, thanks to the VUCA construction, probably. Fortunately, Julie has a much steadier hand and stronger stomach than me, and she patched me up. 

 

The dorm still smells the same too. Girly lotions and shampoos on the girls floor, plus that stale old building scent. Made me feel like I could go up another two flights of stairs and find my friends waiting for me.

 

Not to mention the fact, after we dropped off all of Susan's bags, I walked back to the car--on the same sidewalks I'd walked countless times before at eighteen and nineteen years old--holding hands with my college boyfriend. Who knows me well enough (these days as my husband) to look at me as we were leaving and say, "You okay?"

 

And yeah, I'm fine. : ) Don't miss being nineteen and full of angst. But I do love to remember it!

The Silver Spoon--Please vote!

I'm so excited--The Silver Spoon has been nominated for a Preditors and Editors Reader Award! I've never been nominated for anything before. : )

Please go and vote today. Voting ends January 14, I believe. The only requirement is that you give your email address (which will not be saved or distributed--it's only to make sure voting is legit) and vote just the once.

http://www.critters.org/predpoll/novelsf.shtml

Just scroll down until you see The Silver Spoon.

Thank you!!!

A Happy New Year's

Okay so for all my bitching and moaning about New Year's, I had SO much fun. I'd forgotten how that works sometimes. I remember as a kid, dreading certain events and activities only to discover that, hey, they were great! 

 

We went over to our friends' house and saw other friends we haven't seen since Greg's summer volleyball league. We played Guesstures--I totally suck at that game, by the way, and I kept getting body parts or things I could only describe using body parts ("rear" and "bosom" are two that I recall off the top of my head). And we watched Roger Rabbit because it was on tv and nobody could quite remember how it ended, ate a TON of "bad for you but good tasting" food (Doritos, cookies, Bagel Bites, corn dogs!), played the dice game and broke in our new Wii system. The Wii was fabulous! We played tennis until we were sore and boxed until everyone was out of breath and sweating. Sounds gross, but it was great!  

 

On New Year's Day, Greg and I made breakfast together and then promptly slept for another two hours in front of the television. Football games make for great white noise when you're trying to blank out your mind and get some sleep! Then I FINALLY fixed my iPod, which is to say, got (most) of my music loaded back on after my hard drive crashed in September and then in the afternoon/evening, we met our New Year's Eve hosts at the movies to see National Treasure: Book of Secrets in our little downtown theater.

 

All in all, a pretty awesome holiday and a great start to 2008! : )