Dear Bryan Singer: I forgive you!

Bryan Singer is the guy who produced and/or directed the first two X-Men movies, the second of which I LOVED. But then when he signed on to do the new Superman movie (a project very close to his heart, evidently), the studio dropped him from the third X-Men movie. And, consequently, I think it sucked. For a while I blamed Bryan Singer for abandoning a series that HE made me care about.

But then I saw Superman Returns. It is the BEST MOVIE OF THE SUMMER!!!!! And you know with how many movies I see, I do not grant this title lightly. It is sooooo good. I was a huge fan of the movies in the 80s. Well, really only the second one where Superman gives up his powers to be with Lois Lane. Yeah, big shocker why I like that one out of all them. : ) So I was fully prepared to be "eh" about this one. I mean, who else could be Superman but Christopher Reeve?

This new guy, Brandon Routh, brought this totally different element to it. Some of it was the story and the writing, but some of it, I think, was also the acting. Superman is an alien. Can't even tell you how old I was before that finally clicked through. But he was raised among humans. In this movie, you really see the human part. The part that struggles with being the only alien, with being different, and the conflict he feels. I cried...twice! The emotions were just so strong.

I even liked Kate Bosworth as Lois Lane. It was weird, though, to see the characters being played by actors near my age, probably younger. Kevin Spacey was a pretty good bad guy, as bad as Lex Luthor ever really is. He's always kind of funny and smart. He was totally the science geek who got beat up in high school by good looking jock-type guys like Superman. : )

So I saw the movie last night with Greg and then today, when I finished up with my work for the day, I hightailed it over to the theater again for a second showing. Only $5 during the day! : )

It is that good! Seriously. I'm buying it on DVD too, as soon as it comes out.

Bryan Singer, you have been redeemed in my eyes! : ) Also, thank you for House.

So go see it!

Friday. Wow.

So far, I'm really sucking with the whole blogging on a regular basis thing. I think it's because I'm busy during the day and then when I'm done, the last thing I want to do is sit at the computer again. So maybe I'll need to try writing entries in the morning.

Anyway, all is well at the Klemstein household this week. I gobbled up Janet Evanovich's Twelve Sharp (Becky, I got Greg to buy it for me as payment for sitting at his open house!) and Laurell K. Hamilton's Danse Macabre. Hee. Here's a funny story that reminds me of. When I was a kid, I always read far more than I spoke to people, so my vocabulary often outpaced by pronunciation. Macabre is another of those words (like lingerie and facade) that I butchered mercilessly. Think "ma-ka-bree." Yeah. I still have trouble with the word "grotesque." I keep wanting to say "gro-steek" instead, which is wrong in all kinds of ways!

Not much on the book front. I've been working and reworking the mystery project, based on some feedback I got, and honestly, I'm so sick of it right now, I could almost ditch it completely without any regrets. Almost. It's that damn almost that keeps driving me back to the keyboard. I love two of the characters in the story. And I can't let go of them even though I can't seem to wrestle the rest of the story in place. So...blame them if I'm crabby! : )

Hope you have a great weekend!

Mondays don't suck anymore!

Fought off a migraine on Saturday night. I was watching the last twenty minutes of Runaway Jury and starting seeing spots. *shudder* I don't think there's anything worse. My stomach tightens up with dread just from anticipating the pain.

My former boss taught me a trick for heading off most of the pain, chugging lots of caffeine as soon as you see the spots. I did it this time, and again, it worked. Of course, I've been off caffeine for like two or three years so two big glasses of Pepsi is a LOT of caffeine for me. I also took some of that Excedrin Migraine, which also has caffeine. So, the spots went away pretty quickly and the pain was less than it would have been, but man, I got NO sleep that night. : )

Head was still hurting on Sunday, but it was manageable.

Saturday was AuthorFest and that was a lot of fun, as usual. Saw some authors I know from years past (J.A. Konrath, Luisa Buehler, and Denise Fleischer--also the organizer) and met some new ones (Elysa Hendricks, among others!)

I also got some good news on Saturday. An author I asked to read Bitter Pill has recommended it to her publisher! So now I've just got to wait to hear back from the publisher. I'm excited and hoping for good news. : ) I'll keep you posted...

Still here!

It's taking me awhile to get the hang of this working from home. I'm slowly finding a schedule that works for me, but I haven't quite figured out where blogging fits in, obviously! If I do it as a break from working, I'm afraid I'll get too distracted. When I'm done working for the day, the last thing I want to do is sit in front of the computer. So, that's one more thing to be figured out.

Things I have learned this week:

-My grand plans of exercising every day now that I set my own schedule have gone out the window. Yeah, that's another part of the schedule to work out.

-I still work better in terms of my writing if I get up in the morning and do that first. I have been really enjoying the ability to keep going when I'm on a roll instead of having to stop when I need to leave for work.

-The chair at my desk upstairs (my freelance area) is really freaking uncomfortable.

-If/when I have kids, Keanu Reeves would be a great labor coach. I'm using Speed as an example in the class I'm going to be teaching at Writers Institute in July, and in watching the movie again, I loved how calm he was when the bus was running out of gas or jumping over the 50 ft. gap in the freeway or partially blowing up. What's a baby compared to that!?! So, Keanu, be on the look out for my email reserving your services for a future date, okay? : )

That's enough for now. I've been on the computer here for HOURS and my eyes are starting to bug out. Or maybe that's from thinking about Keanu. Not sure. : )

Tomorrow--sorry for the short notice--please join me and a whole bunch of other fantastic authors at the second annual AuthorFest at the Schaumburg Library at 10:00 a.m. Come listen to panels, buy books and ask questions! Would love to see you there. : )

RT Photos, Take Two

I still can't get this to work. Ed, help please?!? : )

Weirdness

Status: Still working at 9:47 p.m. (though I did take an hour break to watch The Closer...love that Brenda. "Thank yewwww.")

Song on the iPod: "The Call" by The Backstreet Boys (yes, I should be ashamed, but it's so catchy!)

So I'm getting used to this whole working at home thing. I know, I know, it's been a couple weeks already. But last week I was in Wisconsin on vacation and the week before that my sister was here with me, keeping me entertained and on my toes.

To be honest, I was worried that I'd be tempted by television and books and the millions of things I could be doing instead of working or tracking down work. But what's weird is I've probably watched less television and spent fewer hours on the internet that I would have if I'd been at work. Don't get me wrong, I spend time procrastinating. But so far it's in the form working on backstory for the mystery project (Yes, the damn thing is still stuck, but I think I've figured out at least one of the major problems in it) or assembling four bookcases and putting together our little library here. So, at least it's productive, if not exactly in the right way.

Today I finished the handouts for my Writers Institute conference in July. Stacy G. is, I hope, going to proof them for me. I tend to leave out little words, like "an" and "the," and I don't always catch them right away when I'm the one writing instead of editing. And as the deadline is upon me, I've asked her to take a look at them.

I also figured out that the "party shuffle" feature on iTunes is pretty helpful for providing background music while working. Next I plan to see if I can figure out how to get the pictures off my digital camera. Yeah, I know it's been almost a year that I've had the thing. : )

Have to run...more work to do yet tonight. : ) I may, however, try to load my belated RT pictures on here first. We'll see if it works...

Greetings from the Northwoods

I am such cliche today. I actually left the cabin where my family is staying to come into town and visit the local internet cafe. MUST HAVE INTERNET ACCESS!

Anyway, we're all having a great time, hanging out, watching movies, sleeping in and killing off the millions of mosquitos that seem to see us an open buffet.

More later!!! : )

Guest blogger!

In my effort to keep filling this space with new and fascinating content, I've asked someone from the exotic and young Generation Y to write an entry for me. : ) See below...


Hey everyone its me again!!!
Depending on if you are an avid reader of my sister's blog you may remember my blog from last year. In case you are not (which I can't imagine), I appologize for my spelling, grammar, and basically anything else English related... I'm the math one in the family. So I'm staying up at Stacey's for a week. I'm about halfway through right now and it has been pretty great. Now that my sister is starting her own business she is busier but is at home more and it's fun (for me... who knows it could be annoying to be stuck with me all day... NAW!). We have a lot of inside jokes now which include dancing in the car and making up our own motions to songs (don't ask). This Sunday we are going up to vacation with my parents, my brother, and Greg. It should be sweet. I'm excited for the fishing although I don't quite think that is what Stacey is looking forward to.... you'll have to ask her lol.
On a personal note... for all of you that know me that is... I'm looking forward to my senior year. YEAH 07 BABY! I'm going to be legal in about four months. (my sister is dancing around the living room while cleaning FYI... does insanity run in the family?) Before yall ask NO I don't know what I will be doing for the rest of my life or where I'm going to study for it. I made yearbook editor for my senior year. I have my own office and computer and everything. Yeah it's cool. Yes well I really don't know what else to tell you all that could possibly be interesting to you and as my sister just pointed out... I am not writing a novel for you to read (unlike someone in my family... it's good go buy it!!!!) love ya bratface! So I will let you all go with this inspiring message...
I don't know that just sounded really good.... I'm 17 I'm not inspiring I'm a pain in the butt!!!
Bye Bye!!!!!!!!

It's aliiiiive!

Sorry, I know it's been forever. The last week, though, has been one for the record books. : ) Last Wednesday was my last day at my day job. The same job I've held for the last seven (almost) years. So it's been a bit of an emotional roller coaster. No matter what else was happening at work, I loved so many of the people I worked with. I was fortunate enough to work with some awesome writers, designers and just all around good people.

Now I'm trying to get used to working at home. The hardest thing so far has been the scheduling thing. Balancing my fiction writing with my freelance efforts. But I'm sure it will get better as I get used to it. Plus, my sister is visiting this week, so I'm trying not to work the whole time as that wouldn't be much fun for either of us!

I've got my laptop all connected to the internet, my music successfully transferred from my work pc to home, and I'm working hard on fixing my plot problems in the mystery manuscript. I'm trying to remember that this is like starting a new job. It will take me some time to learn the new ways that work the best and then I'll better be able to balance everything.

Fun book stuff...
I just discovered a great trilogy of sci-fi books. They're intended for young adults, but I thoroughly enjoyed them.

Uglies by Scott Westerfeld
Pretties by Scott Westerfeld
Specials by Scott Westerfeld

RT Wrap up

Have to finish this up as I've got so much else to write about as well...like tomorrow being my last day at the official day job!!!

But first, back to RT. On Friday, Linnea and her husband took me out to dinner--saving me from a totally gross room service cheese pizza. The food was amazing at the restaurant. Billy's Tap and Grill, I think it was called. It had been in Daytona Beach in this same location for over eighty years. I had chicken a la orange and the best green beans I've ever had. After dinner we headed back to, where else?, the hotel bar to hang out. By this time, I was getting pretty tired from late nights and early mornings, so I decided to turn in but not before checking out the costumes at the Faery Ball. Wow. So many beautiful wings and some of them were even motorized to move back forth!

Saturday is the big book fair day. Isabo Kelly wasn't my book fair neighbor this year, but we still found some time to hang out and chat. I brought fifteen books to sell and sold eleven! Pretty darn good for a book that's been out for a year and a half, I say. A few people were even asking about the second book as they'd bought the first one the year before. Highlight of the day was seeing the woman who won my gift basket wearing the shirt with my book cover on it. I have her name written down somewhere, but heaven help me if I can find it! I also took a picture of us together, but of course, until I can get the pictures to work, we won't be seeing it!

Saturday night I hung out with Bonnie Vanak and we attended the Dorchester party, which was kind of an odd combination of rock and roll, bikers and skimpy clothing. I also got to spend a little more time with Isabo and a new friend, Laura Randle and her husband. After the party, a few of us met up with Linnea and headed over the to Mai Tai Bar. Unfortunately, it was much too crowded and loud so we ended up at Adobe Gila's. I had Sex on the Beach--the drink, of course--frozen, and it was delicious! I think it might be my new favorite drink but for my discomfort of asking for it.

Turned in at about 12:45 on Saturday night/Sunday morning and I was so tired I didn't pack a single thing. So Sunday morning was a little rushed. I had to get everything back into my huge suitcase, pack up a box of books to ship back to myself and get myself all organized and prepared for the trip on the plane home. Linnea offered--very generously, I might add--to go out of her way to drop me at the airport in Orlando. Which was a big relief. I so did not want to try to find the shuttle from the Daytona Beach airport to the Orlando Airport. I made it to the airport in plenty of time and settled in with a book and a package of coconut patties. Coconut Patties are the best food ever. I wish I'd bought a box of them to ship home. : )

All in all, a very good RT. Such a great time!!!

RT, Part Two

Sorry about that. Life suddenly intervened, tearing me away from this blog for a bit. I just finished my last full week of work at my day job and between making plans for the freelance business, packing up at work and recovering from RT...I didn't have time for much else!

I did, however, get another positive nibble on a query this week. Yea! So, I'll be keeping you posted on that as news develops.

I STILL cannot get my photos to load here properly, so unfortunately, photographic evidence of my adventures (me with a chocolate martini in one particular shot--wearing the necklace and earrings you made for me, Beck! I mean, I'm wearing them, not the martini) will have to wait until Ed, Master of All Things Technological, returns this week. Hmm, I think I'm going to make that his official title. His business cards would have his name followed by his title, MOATT for short. : )

But I can give you updates on the rest this way and then the pictures will show up eventually. Thursday morning I attended a terrific panel with Charlaine Harris, MaryJanice Davidson and Laurell K. Hamilton speaking. It was all about using humor in vampires books. I could have sat there and listened to them speak all day! They were hilarious. I made sure to stop by and say hi to Jon Green (LKH is his wife) afterward. They have both been so nice to me and really supportive over the years. Lovely people. : )

Then Linnea and I met up and took off for the mall and lunch away from the convention. Access to shopping while at RT is essential because it's guaranteed that you'll forget something. Heck, you're changing clothes three times a day. It's impossible to calculate all the stuff you'll need. After lunch at the Olive Garden--love those breadsticks--we returned to the hotel and I went and did my shift at Club RT. Club RT is basically a big room where all author gift baskets are displayed. Authors sign up for shifts and people who want to meet them come by and say hello. My gift basket, Hot Night of Alien Love, was well-received, I think. And I got to draw the name of the winner. I saw her later in line at another event and she was carrying around the shoulder bag I'd used to hold all the gift items together and then on Saturday, she wore the shirt with my book cover on it. How awesome is that?!? I have a picture of the two of us together and will post it as soon as I can.

Thursday night was the Vampires of the Carribean Ball. I wore my Morticia dress and actually had someone stop me and ask to take a picture of it. : ) I also got to meet Linnea's husband who was so nice! And very, very funny. One of those people who can say things with such a deadpan look that it's twice as funny as it would have been otherwise.

Friday was the only difficult day, programming-wise. They ran the paranormal romance sessions simultaneously with the sci-fi romance sessions, which is tricky because the audience for both of those overlap quite a bit. I attended the sci-fi sessions. Linnea was running the panel, and Kristin Nelson (Linnea's agent), Anne Groell (Linnea's editor), Rowena Cherry and Susan Kearney were all speaking. I'm glad I chose to attend these sessions as I left with a great deal of reassurance and validation that I was on the right track.

Okay, have to run now as I'm late for a wedding reception! I'll wrap up with details about the book fair and final parties when I return. Hopefully, I'll be able to do photos then too!

I'm back! The RT report

Sorry for the delay in posting. I forgot that it takes me a couple of days to recover from RT!

Where to begin? I don't even know. I guess first I have to say that writing is the best job in the whole world. : ) I love the opportunity that RT provides to get together with people who experience the same joys and struggles...at least as it pertains to writing.

I arrived on Tuesday and thanks to Denise Swanson, who generously offered to give me (and Susan McBride) a ride in her rental car, I was able to get to Daytona Beach much earlier than if I'd tried to fly in directly. We flew to Orlando first and then drove to Daytona Beach. It was raining and sooo humid. My hair immediately turned into a giant frizzball. Oh, well. My suitcase was also about ten pounds too heavy, and I could barely lug it around with me. Thank goodness for suitcases with wheels!

Got to the hotel and met up with Linnea Sinclair in front of the registration desk, quite by chance, actually. My room was fabulous (look for a picture of the view from it--I hope to have it posted by tomorrow) with a huge sliding glass door overlooking the beach and ocean. I loved it. I was very tempted to leave the door open so I could hear the ocean crashing onto the shore, but there was no screen and there were a lot of pigeons and cranes flying around. With my bird phobia, I just KNEW that one of them would fly into the room if I left the door open. In fact, that very thing happened later in the week to Anne Groell/Kate Brallier. Anne/Kate is Linnea's editor at Bantam as well as an author (hence the double names). A pigeon apparently flew into her room in the middle of the night. When I asked Linnea how Anne/Kate got rid of it, Linnea said she threw a book at it and it flew away. My luck? I would have killed it accidentally with the book and then I would have had to deal with a dead bird and being a bird murderer. *shudder* Better for me to just keep the door shut, I think.

Now the problem with RT is the days begin to blur together. I think Tuesday night where Linnea, Bonnie Vanak (another of my very favorite people) and I went out with our drinks and sat on the terrace that overlooks the beach. We'd gone to the welcome luau earlier but found it very crowded and overly warm. So, sitting outside with cold drinks and just chatting was so much fun.

Wednesday morning I went to a session about perfecting an in-person pitch to an agent or editor. I suck at this. I've done a couple of times, but I get too nervous and stumble over my words. I'm much better when I can send a query letter or an email. Which makes sense if you think about it. But that's one of the best things about RT is meeting agents and editors in a non-intimidating setting. Well, RT is sort of intimidating, but it's hard to feel nervous around someone who has just been out on the dance floor doing the Time Warp...again. : )

Wednesday afternoon (I think) I skipped a panel and took a nap--so boring, I know--and then went for a walk on the beach. Wednesday night was the Ellora's Cave "What's Your Fantasy?" Party. Cover models and aspiring models are included in this event. I have photos, but they're not cooperating. So, I'll probably have to try this from home.

Hmmm. Okay, the rest of this post has been called on account of faulty technology (or possibly user ignorance!) I'll post more tonight/tomorrow as soon as I can get the photos working.

A quick post...

I'm sitting here at the bar in the Hilton with the ocean right in front of me. So blue in all the sunshine here! Linnea let me use her laptop for a few minutes. : )

I walked on the beach yesterday for 45 minutes, just loving the sand and the water under my toes. I've seen soooo many people and still have a couple more I want to find.

The Ellora's Cave party was last night and...yeah, wow. Linnea took some pictures which I'm hoping she'll send me to post here.

More details later! Having a great time. : )

RT...it is upon us.

So, my huge suitcase is packed. I decided that it would be better to fit everything into one suitcase instead of trying to manage three smaller ones. I've just got to add my make-up, toothbrush, etc. in tomorrow morning. At FIVE A.M.! You know me. You know I don't get up when there's a five on the left side of my clock. But tomorrow, I will be. Flight leaves at 9:30 a.m. and with the checking of the bag ("I'm finished with the checking of the bags conversation!"--Name that movie!), I want to make sure that I've got enough time. I haven't flown by myself in years, and I find myself utterly terrified by this for some reason. I just flew last month with my brother. It's not like they changed anything recently. But going by myself seems so much more intimidating somehow. Like going to a foreign country by yourself.

Plus, I hate flying. I hate the sound when they close the door. I hate sitting next to strangers who phlegm-cough all over without covering their mouths or sometimes touch my leg inappropriately while they're sleeping (this is what happened off and on during our EIGHT hour flight to Maui). I hate that cold sick feeling you get when you're the last one standing at the baggage carousel and your suitcase still hasn't appeared.

And *insert pathetic whimper here* because of my luggage situation--no strong husband or brother coming along to help me haul half the contents of my house--I could only bring three books for the flight. Only three!!! Do you realize what this means? I could be totally screwed if one or more of them turns out to be not what I'm looking to read at that particular moment or if the hook provided in the first couple of pages doesn't pan out. I'm not worried about this on the return trip, of course, because I'll be stocking up at RT. But on the way there...I could be stuck who knows how many thousands of feet in the air without any decent reading material to distract me enough so that I can pretend I'm on a bus instead of thousands of feet in the air!

Oh. I feel faint.

Plus, my version of "excited nervous" is feeling like I have a bad combination of heartburn and nausea.

But tomorrow at this time, I'll be safely on the ground again (Please, God!), checked into my lovely hotel room (oceanfront room, did I mention that twelve times already?) and drinking with my friends. And it will all be okay.

At least, that's what I'll be reciting to myself until then. ; )

I'll try to post updates this week from RT, but I don't know what kind of internet access I'll have. But expect a full report in a week!

Good news...

-I found labels that fit my postcards perfectly. So, I'll get to make use of the thousand or so postcards I ordered (don't ask me what I was thinking, I don't know.) But that means I'll be doing a lot of label-sticking. *sigh* Oh, well. That's what television watching is for, right?

-With the purchase of a cute black blouse (3/4 length sleeves) from TJ Maxx last night ($15!), I think I've got my wardrobe all ready to go for RT.

-Spent the day today online, trying to build my "network" of freelancing contacts. My eyes are crossing from staring at the screen for so long. Know anybody who works in marketing, communications, advertising or any combination thereof? Email me! : ) Just nine more working days until the great experiment begins...

-Progress is still being made on the mystery project--yea!

To Do List for RT

-Figure out what I’m wearing. Six days and five nights. There are at least three different “dressy” events--The Ellora’s Cave “What’s Your Fantasy?” party, the “Vampires of the Caribbean” party (don’t ask me, I don’t know why vampires would want to live in such a sunny locale), and the Faery Court Ball. So many pairs of shoes I’ll have to bring--ugh. For the Ellora’s Cave party, I think I’m going to wear the little sweater with the black fur collar and black pants I bought for the Holiday Book Bash earlier this year. For the Vampire Ball, I’m going to wear one of the black formal dresses I wore last year (hopefully no one will remember). For the Faery Court Ball…I have no idea. Probably another black dress. Every dress I own is black. *sigh* Some people will be wearing costumes. Good for them. I always feel too self-conscious to do that.

Clothing for the daytime is usually business casual or just casual, casual. But I only have one pair of decent functional jeans that I’d be okay with being seen in. I think may have to make an emergency stop by the sales rack at Ann Taylor Loft to see what they have. Plus, I’m guessing it will be warm—weather.com says it’s 90 degrees there today. So, I guess that means capris—I have three pairs that I like. Maybe four. Oh, my head hurts just thinking about all of this.

-Figure out the best way to get my books to Florida. I can either try to bring them with me—in a box or a suitcase on the plane?—or ship them ahead of me. There are perils with both of these options. I don’t really want to lug them through the airport; I’m already going to be bringing enough stuff. But if I ship them, there’s always the danger that they might not get there on time. Or at all. Which would be embarrassing as I’m supposed to have them to sell. Any veteran travelers have any suggestions on this?

-Check out my collection of luggage and bags to see which is going to be the most appropriate for taking with me. I know I’m going to have my computer and my purse as carry-ons. I don’t know how I’m going to do this without taking eighty-seven suitcases with me. Which I can’t do!

-Make sure my swimsuit fits. If not, throw up my hands and declare that I’m wearing shorts to the beach.

-Gather my directions for the drive from Orlando to Daytona Beach.

-Make sure I have all the cell phone numbers I need.

-Confirm my airport arrival and departure times (which if different than what I have now will really screw things up).

-Work on my promotional materials for Promo Alley. Promo Alley is the place where everyone sets up their little baskets of bookmarks, postcards and goodies to be given away. Last year, I used my bookmarks and I wish I could do that again. But I don’t have very many of them left, and with RuneStone closing, I don’t want to spend the money to order more when, in all likelihood, the information on the bookmark will be changing or not applicable in the near future. However, I have hundreds of postcards that have my book cover on the front and the tagline on the back. I’m thinking about checking out some labels to see if I can print the description on the label and paste them on the blank part (the address portion) of the postcard. Then I can use those as a promo item. We’ll see. I'm also thinking about seeing if I can form some kind of booklet for the first chapter and give that away.

-Get Red Hots, microwavable popcorn and a basket or something to complete my gift basket giveaway.

-LAUNDRY!

And about a million other things that I'm sure I'm forgetting...less than a week to go! Aaaaack!!!

Sex

So, I spent most of Saturday writing a sex scene for the mystery project. Five pages worth. It is definitely the longest such scene I've ever written and possibly the most...um...risque. Definitely not one that I'll be mentioning to the parents, except possibly in such terms as, "You may want to skip pages xxx-xxx."

I'd been stuck on this chapter, this one scene, in fact, for so long and I couldn't figure out why. It was so frustrating!!! Everything kept drifting toward sex, and I kept pulling it back, thinking the timing was wrong or the place inappropriate. And I was right and yet, once that scene was on screen, it seemed to bridge some kind of gap. Like it was the piece I'd been missing this whole time and every time I tried to avoid it, that's when things fell apart. Because the timing isn't right and the place is inappropriate and that's the whole point for these two particular characters.

I have no idea if the scene will stay in or not. In fact, that's what I kept telling myself while I was writing it. That was the only way I could make it through writing a scene that went against every bit of logic I could come up with. It was an experiment, basically, to see what would happen if I went in the direction everything seemed to be leading me, instead of fighting it. But when I go back and read the scene now in the context of the pages before it, it really makes sense. It doesn't stand out as a sore thumb (to me, anyway), and I think it works. It speaks so much to who these people are, and how they, in particular, have been "damaged" to use a Grey's term. It's not about love, at least not the way it is in a traditional romance. Which is good because this is not a traditional romance.

So, we'll see what happens. But at least, it was fun and not the frustrating, write two lines and bang your head against the wall while you erase the same two lines, experience that it has been the last week or so. And I'm writing this as much for myself as for anyone else to remind myself yet again that:

1) When you're stuck, you eventually get unstuck, no matter how unlikely it seems at the time. (Stacy G. was right! I'm sure she's less than surprised to hear this as she told me this same thing weeks ago.)

2) When I get stuck, it's because I'm fighting something I shouldn't be fighting. I'm trying to bend the story (or characters) to my will instead of just watching for and aiding natural progression. The answer is there, I just have to listen for it instead of talking over it.

More Grey's speculation...don't read if you haven't watched Sunday's episode.

Wow. Best. Speech. Ever. "You don't get to call me a whore." Yea, Meredith!!!

And, I'm sorry, Derek who? Forget McDreamy. Time to be moving on to the broken-hearted, widowed McVet. (Though it strikes me that Meredith keeps finding men with obvious emotional issues with their wives, be they dead or just cheating. Don't know if this says something about Meredith or the writers. *grin*)

But here's the thing. I said long ago that it wasn't really over between Mer and Der until Meredith found someone else she could love. Not that she would even have to be in love, but just that the possibility would exist. Derek wouldn't be able to handle it. (See, I predicted it! *grin* ) Until then, he would have the comfort of knowing that if he should change his mind, she'd be there waiting for him and would likely take him back. Well, now...not so much. I think when he saw her with McVet (Dr. Dandridge), it pushed buttons he probably didn't even know he had. Even he recognizes that McVet is potentially "love" material for Meredith (versus a one night stand) and that freaks him out.

So, he said those nasty awful unforgiveable things to her. And here's my prediction for the finale...I foresee some Mer/Der moments. Like he shows up at her house in the rain to apologize and...there's possibly kissing involved. Or maybe after some traumatic event in the hospital, he catches up to her in one of those ever-present and handily unlocked supply closets...and there's possibly kissing involved. Because here's the thing, for the first time, Derek's decision to leave Meredith for Addison is real for him and with big-time consequences. It's now or never that he's going to realize he's been lying to himself all along.

And even though I'm a big fan of them together, I have to say, "Run, Meredith!" You deserve better and he should be alone for awhile (not using Addison as some kind of second prize, either) before you take him back, if and when you do.

So, any takers on this? If you got any predictions for the finale, let's hear them!

I'm also prepping myself for the big Veronica Mars finale tonight! I can't believe I have to wait months for the next new episode. Though, I did just hear that The 4400 is coming back this summer as is The Closer (love Brenda! "Thank yeeeew.") Whew. Otherwise, I might have to do something other than watch television. Just kidding.

Actually, lest you think I've been slacking off...see my next entry (which will probably post above this one, so writing this is probably pointless, but oh, well.)

Painful

So, I've been doing pretty well with the whole not buying books thing...but now my will power is really being tested.

There are three that I want RIGHT NOW.

Once Upon Stilettos by Shanna Swendson (I read the first book of the series, Enchanted Inc., as an ARC at RT last year and loved it.)

I'd Tell You I Love You, But Then I'd Have to Kill You by Ally Carter

Broken by Kelley Armstrong

But I have no book gift certificates. I do have a Target gift card, so I'm hoping that one of them will be there. Not all three or even two of them, because then I'd have to choose. : )

Mer/Der--don't read if you haven't watched Grey's from last Sunday.

Okay, I admit my desire that Meredith and Derek get back together eventually occasionally colors the way I see certain things on Grey's Anatomy. But I found it interesting that the writer of last Sunday's episode thought that Addison deserved "a few moments of shower bliss with her dreamy hubbie" because she's trying to be a good person and she's just had a really bad day. All true. But am I the only one who read more into Derek's motives? I don't think he was doing that for Addison...was he? The timing of it strikes me as very suspicious. He sees Meredith wearing only the vet's shirt--and looking freshly-showered, I might add--and promptly runs home to his wife to offer her sex in the shower? He wasn't even listening to Addison--he was too busy taking his clothes off--talk about her bad day.

So, yeah, Addison had a crappy day and she might be a good person--I actually like her, oddly enough--but I contend that shower scene had nothing to do with Addison and everything to do with Meredith being semi-clad in the hot vet's office (to clarify...I'm saying the vet, played by Chris O'Donnell, is hot...I don't actually know about the temperature of his office).

Which I think only makes me feel even sorrier for Addison. Because...ouch. Your husband can only have hot sex with you after he's seen the woman he loves obviously just having stepped out of the shower and with another man? Not so much a compliment there and not much of a reward for a bad day, in my opinion. But I love how they're taking what could have been a "love to hate her" character in Addison and making her more real and more sympathetic, sometimes even more so than Meredith. Who is also very real and consequently sometimes very frustrating to watch.

Okay, and one other thing that's kind of bugging me. Dr. Dandridge (the hot vet) lives above his presumably room-temperature office. Fine. At the end of this particular episode, we're to assume that either Derek calls to let him know that Doc (the dog) is sick and he's bringing him over for Dr. Dandridge to check out or that Derek just shows up with the sick dog with him and rings the bell until Dr. Dandridge comes down.

Situation A. Derek calls. Meredith knows he's coming...and she walks down half-dressed anyway?!? Okay. Also, she asks, "Is he sick again?" Which, duh, of course he's sick. People don't make emergency visits (very expensive) to their vet's office for fun. If he called ahead of time and Dr. Dandridge let her know that Derek was coming, she'd already know Doc was sick. And you'd think she'd put more clothes on. There'd have to be some time delay between Derek calling and arriving, time enough to ask the hot vet for some sweatpants or something. Plus, she'd have to know what conclusion Derek would draw from her appearance and no matter what she says, I can't believe that she completely doesn't care about that yet. So that leads me to believe it could be Situation B.

Situation B. Derek shows up with a sick dog without calling first. This makes sense then that Meredith wouldn't be expecting him and wouldn't know what's wrong with Doc. It also make sense of her surprise at seeing Derek there (though she wasn't nearly surprised as he was to find her there). But again, you're on a date, you've just stepped out of the guy's shower and someone's knocking or ringing the bell downstairs with a work emergency. You would follow him down to the work emergency?!? Without being dressed??? Why? Why follow him? If you're going to follow him, perhaps with the hope of being helpful, why not throw on some pants? Or better yet, STAY UPSTAIRS.

Sorry. That one little moment just struck a weird note with me. Anybody else notice it? What do you think?

Yeah, I know. I think waaaay too much about this stuff.

Oh, you thought this would be a normal entry?

-Had so much fun this weekend with my friends from college! I've been such a giant ball of stress lately, it was nice to unwind for a bit. It's funny how seeing people from a really happy time in your life makes you even happier, not just because they're great people to begin with but also because of all the shared memories and foolishness that we experienced together. : ) My sister is looking at colleges this year, and I'm trying very hard to be impartial but I can't help but push Valpo a little. I can't imagine a better experience, and now, almost ten years later, I'm still close to the friends I made there.

-Read a cute book this weekend, Have Glass Slippers, Will Travel by Lisa Cach. The deification of Oprah was a little weird, but I can see how the main character needed someone or something to look up to. But it was a fun Cinderella-type story with a twist on the traditional telling.

-As my reward for sitting at the open house last weekend, my husband gave me the first season of House on DVD. Yea!!! Because USA runs re-runs on Friday nights, I've seen some of them. In fact, I just saw the one where Cameron decides to leave. What the heck happened to the whole Cameron/House unrequited love thing? It's been almost invisible in the episodes I've seen of the current season. Of course, some of that is because the much-hated (according to TWOP) former love, Stacy, was in town for awhile this season. Yeah, I didn't much like her either, despite her name. : ) As I've mentioned before I'm kind of sucker for the "forbidden love" angle, which exists far more with Cameron and House than with Stacy and House.

So I'll be watching the remaining season one episodes on DVD, which means I won't have to wait until Friday!

-Check out this funny little entry about Veronica Mars's Veronica and Logan relationship.

-Also, I've been listening to my new songs that I bought last week and I really, really like the Tegan and Sara one, Where did the good go?

Have to run now. I'm off to look at Best Buy for computers. The one I bought a couple summers ago is doing just fine, but, as I may have mentioned here before, I refuse to connect it to the virus-ridden internet because I hate worrying about my book stuff getting infected/destroyed. Without internet access and a computer at work after 5/31 (just 16 more working days to go *deep breath*), I need to get something cheap that I will allow to be connected to the internet.


Yes, I am weird. Which part of that is news to anyone here? : )

Random stuff

-I just read The Pleasure Slave by Gena Showalter. Loved it. It's been a long time since I read a pure romance book. I mean, this is paranormal romance--hot guy trapped in a jewelry box for all eternity until he falls in love--but the primary story is about the two people falling in love. Rather than trying to save the world and falling in love or stopping the robbery of some precious artifact and falling in love. I really, really liked it. I thought it was very funny and the characters were well-drawn. So check it out at the above link. This is one of the advantages to library-going. I'm checking out books I probably wouldn't buy because I haven't read the author before, and in doing so, I'm making some great discoveries.

-Sat at my first open house last weekend to help out my husband. As I'm not a real estate agent, I couldn't answer any questions or anything, but that was okay because nobody really came through. It struck me, though, as I sat there, writing and reading on someone else's sofa, how much we trust real estate agents. I mean, seriously, this is someone you only sort of know and you're allowing them to sit in your house unattended and asking them to let in other strangers as well. Weird, when you think about it, right?

-I figured it out this morning. I have only nineteen days of work left at my day job. That doesn't include the four days I'm taking off for RT or Memorial Day. Nineteen. That's it. After almost seven years...I feel both free and terrified at the same time. Stacy G. describes it as just cresting the top of a hill in a roller coaster. You know the ride is about to start and it's going to take your breath away, but you're caught in this almost endless moment of fear and joy and anticipation and...did I mention fear? : )

I've decided that I need to get my little home office area set up. I have one for writing books but I feel like I need a separate area for my corporate stuff, just to help me keep the correct focus at any given time.

-Turned on HBO last night to find myself in the middle of The Wrath of Khan (otherwise known as Star Trek II) and at my very favorite (read with sarcasm) part...where the wiggly bug worms crawl out of Chekov and the other guy's ear. Well, technically, the other guy offs himself before the bug worm crawls out, but I'm fairly certain that's what would have happened. I don't remember if I saw this one in the theater. I kind of doubt it and yet, somehow the creepy bug worms have been in my memories of Star Trek for many, many years. Like before they had movie rental stores. So that baffles me. I'll have to check with my parents.

Still stuck...

But I'm working through it. What's funny is that everytime this happens to me, I inevitably go back to what I already have written to try to figure it out. And there I find clues that my subconscious knew the answer the whole time. That's looking like the case right now.

My problem, not that it will make any sense without reading the book, is backstory. I never work out backstory--at least not all of it--until I need it. Mainly this is because as I get into the story, I learn things that I never could have known in advance. I know the people in the story pretty well, but when it comes to the detail of how person A got into situation B twenty-five years ago...well, I tend to let it ride because who knows if that's going to be important?

I should know by now...It's ALWAYS important. Dangit. I don't know if I subconsciously latch onto the undeveloped part or if it just happens that way by accident, but dude. Seriously. This is exactly what happened with The Silver Spoon. I knew Zara was in danger. I knew Nevan wanted her dead, and it was for personal reasons. But it took me all of Book I (original draft) and most of Book II (original draft) to figure out why it would be a big deal for Zara. Sheesh. Other than wanting to not be dead, obviously.

One of the things I do when writing is assume that every person in the story has a secret. Usually, it's not just any old secret ("I used to love WHAM!") but a secret that has bearing on the story going on or the person's ability to change or grow. Unfortunately, they do not often share these secrets with me ahead of time. Honestly, that's half the fun of the process. Trundling along and someone suddenly saying something like, "By the way, Stacey, you might be interested to know that I once worked for the Secret Service in 1981." Or something. It's cool because normally it's a piece that's been missing all along, I just didn't know it.

Sometimes, though, I only get part of the story. They tell me their secrets but only in a way that benefits them or that glosses over the worst of it. Just as people are prone to do. That makes it harder.

But you know what, even with being stuck (which is frustrating) and even with all the difficulties (one book out, soon to be no publisher), I love this. I feel really lucky to be able to play in this world. It's awesome! : )

STUCK!

@#$@#%@Q$#%@#$%!@!!!!!!

I have probably about 100 pages to go in the mystery project. I've been really pleased with how it's going so far. Not too many revisions in mind for the 240-some pages I have completed already. But now, as I'm approaching a fairly major confrontation in the story--one that starts the snowball, if you will, rolling down the hill faster and faster until we reach the end--I'm freaking stuck.

I keep reminding myself that this happens to me every time. Almost in this exact same spot every time, too. It's like you have to make sure everything's lined up correctly, otherwise the snowball won't roll or it'll roll down the hill the wrong way. But it's so freaking frustrating!!! I know, I think, what happens after this moment in the story. So, I've been trying to work at it from that angle too. If I know xyz happens later, then that means ABC must happen first. But I know there's only one solution for this, and that' s just to keep thinking and working it through. So, that's what I'll keep doing. But still...*sigh*

On the good news front, there's this:
-Becky D. and her husband are coming to visit this weekend--yea!

-And the Star Trek franchise is not dead! I have to admit, even though there are so many ways this could go horribly wrong, I'm kind of interested to see this new movie. Kirk and Spock were two of my very first tv crushes, even though they were both like fifty already when I was watching them on re-runs and my dad's tapes. It's hard to imagine anyone other than Shatner and Nimoy in these roles, but I think it could be done with careful and thoughtful casting, a la Ewan McGregor as Obi-Wan Kenobi. And prequels aren't always a bad thing, as evidenced by last summer's Batman movie, which I really liked because it was done with thought, care and respect for the franchise. You see a theme developing here?

I'm intrigued to see what J.J. Abrams will do with it, too. I liked the first season of Lost, the first few seasons of Alias and the first couple of seasons of Felicity. I think he could bring some interesting character depth to Kirk and Spock. He seems comfortable mixing action and character development. Plus, it will be interesting to see what happens without the allegedly much-hated Rick Berman (a long-time Star Trek producer) attached to this movie. The only thing I can say for sure is something we learned from the most recent Star Trek outing, Enterprise: Don't Mess with Story Canon!

New music!

We're drastically downsizing our anniversary gifts this year--two years ago we "gave" ourselves a trip to Hawaii. This year we have a $15 limit. : ) So, I asked for and received music! It makes my commute so much bearable...for the next five weeks! Plus, I like to create playlists for certain stories and/or scenes.

So here's what I bought (thanks, honey, for the gift card!):
Walking with a Ghost by Tegan and Sara

Where Does the Good Go? by Tegan and Sara

You Wouldn't Like Me by Tegan and Sara

Fix You Up by Tegan and Sara

And We Danced by The Hooters

Love and Memories by O.A.R.

Never Leave Your Heart Alone by Butterfly Boucher

Not Tonight by Tegan and Sara

Life Is Short by Butterfly Boucher

I Won't Be Left by Tegan and Sara

Missionary Man by Annie Lennox

Pretty Vegas by INXS

St. Elmo's Fire by John Parr

Crash into Me by Dave Matthews Band

Bust a Move by Young MC

Your Love by The Outfield ("Josie's on a vacation far away...")

Withdrawal

(Can you tell I just finished a project? All this time on my hands for blogging...which I should be doing all the time anyway. )

It's been almost two months since I bought a book. I know that doesn't sound very long, but sometimes it feels like a long time ago. I used to buy books pretty frequently, at least according to my credit card statement. Today after taking a brief turn around the veranda at work (trust me, it sounds prettier than it is), I came back inside to be greeted with the smell of a bookstore and it set off a great wave of longing. Actually, I should clarify, I was greeted with the smell of fresh Starbucks coffee from the Starbucks kiosk, which I now associate with books thanks to Barnes and Noble and Borders. (What did bookstores smell like before there was coffee? I don't remember. Not new bookstores anyway. Used bookstores and libraries have a distinct scent but very different from the BN and Borders smell.)

Anyway, I just realized how much I miss buying books. The anticipation of a new story. The way the ink and paper smell when you first open it. The smoothness of the pages beneath your fingertips. The way the glue makes little popping noises when you open a new hardcover book. The "full and satisfied" feeling of bringing home my purchases and stacking them in my To Be Read bin, almost as good as having plane tickets and hotel reservations for some wonderful and amazing journey...if I liked traveling, that is.

But alas, this is not to be. At least not as often. I'm attempting to conserve my soon-to-be-limited income by cutting back my spending ahead of time. Most of the time, the books I bought weren't even "keepers." I've had to become very particular about the ones I keep. The others are donated to a library or given away. So economically it's better for me to make do with the library and borrowing from friends. But it's not the same...especially when the library books reek of cigarette smoke. I hate that. How am I supposed to curl up in bed comfortably with that? I'm worried the smell is going to permeate my pajamas and bedding and give me a headache. They should have smoking and non-smoking books. I'm serious about this. Some of them have smelled so badly, I couldn't read them.

Oh, well. Enough bitching about that. On to random stuff...
-Got my hotel confirmation for my stay at RT. Oceanside room, baby! Woohoo!!! Last year in St. Louis, I had a parking lot-side room. : )

-Why, why, why do spammers attempt to fake personal emails to get you to open them? I don't get it. Are there really people out there who think they've forgotten about some friend "Drew" who seems to have mysteriously responded to an email they didn't send about wanting to lose weight?

Okay, I'm done now. : )

Detour

*sigh* I think life is a spiritual journey as much as anything, so I try really hard to make sure I’m making as much progress on that part of things as I am on anything else. Occasionally, I start feeling pretty good about my efforts (which should always cause some kind of alarm to sound). I mean, I’m the daughter of a minister, I attended a Lutheran college and took theology classes, I’m working my way through reading the New Testament (again—I think), and I try very hard to think about other people’s feelings before I speak or act.

Then I go and do something stupid. I hate hurting people’s feelings. I hate doing it even unintentionally. I especially hate when it wasn’t intentional but I realize I could have prevented it.

At our Target store—which is located in utter and total suburbia, we’re talking mini-vans, soccer moms/dads and picket fences around every corner—one of the cashiers is, I believe, a transgendered person (or possibly transsexual, I’m not sure what the distinction is, though I’m sure there is one and I think I’ve even heard it before). I noticed a few weeks ago and yeah, it took me by surprise. First, because my brain kept sending me conflicting signals. Feminine facial features and make-up = woman. Stubble and broad shoulders = man. The nametag was no help because it just said “New Associate” or whatever. Second, because it was TARGET. In the SUBURBS. If the suburbs have any complaint against them, it is that they tend to be too homogenous, not enough texture and contrast from differing religions, ethnicities, etc. This is not to say that suburbs should be this way and that people who are different in some way aren’t welcome, but that usually you find more diversity (of all kinds) the closer you get to the city. And we are very, very far from the city.

I immediately looked away because I was afraid of staring. Then I realized that not looking was probably just as odd as staring, so I tried to act normal and…well, there are very good reason why I’m NOT an actress. All I kept thinking about was the movie Roxanne where Steve Martin plays a version of Cyrano DeBergerac and everyone keeps telling the new guy not to stare at his very long nose, but he does anyway. It’s a very funny scene in the movie, not so much in real life. I wasn’t grossed out or offended or anything, but fascinated and immediately had all kinds of questions (which I, thankfully, did not ask). However, I realize that can be equally offensive in a different way. She (I think that’s correct pronoun and I’m not trying to be funny, I’m just not sure what’s correct) is a human being, not some kind of social experiment to be interviewed. So I did the best I could, smiled politely, tried to make eye contact and thanked her when she handed me my receipt.

However, immediately upon arriving home, I told my husband. Yeah, I know that’s like totally immature and it shouldn’t have been a big deal, but it was. Just sort of shocking. Like opening your back door and finding a dinosaur or something—your temptation is to yell to the neighbors, “Come see this!” (And yes, I know that dinosaurs are not people, the metaphor is not really apt as transgendered people aren’t extinct or particularly dangerous as dinosaurs are or would be…but you get the idea). And this also illustrates what I should have been learning all along—to see her as a person rather than a fascinating variation.

So, you know where this is going. Last night we went to Target again and we ended up (not intentionally—in fact, I would have avoided it if possible just because I knew the potential for something going wrong was high) in her line again. I turned to give my husband the “wide-eyed look of importance” and catch his attention by whispering, “Hey!” I was also trying not to laugh, which is what happens to me when I get into uncomfortable situations. Growing up and getting yelled at by my dad, I would sometimes start laughing just because I couldn’t take the tension anymore.

But that’s where everything went wrong. I shouldn’t have signaled to my husband even though I meant no harm. I’m fascinated by the psychological aspect of it—how hard would it be to feel like you were born in the wrong body (if that’s even the case in this situation, which I’m assuming it is) and to be brave enough to live the life you want instead of the life your body (and society) says you should? But that’s not seeing the person as an individual and with compassion but with fascination and fascination has a sharper edge to it than you might think.

Apparently, my subtle signal was witnessed—though I had my back turned, so it may have in fact been my husband’s face at my signal that gave me away, but either case, MY FAULT—and the cashier was very cold and distant through the transaction. Obviously, I hurt her feelings and the fact that she probably suffers that and worse on a daily basis doesn’t make it better. My husband wasn’t happy with me either as I triggered the whole thing. *sigh*

The dumb thing was, I didn’t even think. It wasn’t like I set out to be a jerk. It just happened. Not that that’s an excuse, but more of a surprise. I have always thought that jerky-acting people set out to behave that way, not that it might have surprised them too.

So what’s the lesson for today for Stacey? This wonderful quote that I’m borrowing from my friend, Tora Pine’s, journal:

"Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle."--Plato

Random stuff

-I bought my first Tegan and Sara song--I know, I know, I know--a couple of weeks ago. I love it. Ed recommended them to me probably a year ago and I never got around to looking them up. But I heard this one on Veronica Mars and really liked it so I went out and bought it. Any other songs by them I should have?

-Last night's House...what Foreman said to Cameron at the end. Wow. Not untrue, exactly, but a lot harsher than most people would have put it. Very character-defining moment for both of them, I think. I'm kind of hoping she'll get a little tougher--not that she's afraid to stand up for what she believes in--but it's hard to keep seeing her expecting the best of people and only getting the worst.

-I'm in that weird lull now that I've sent Bitter Pill out. I think Stacy G. is right. I'm happiest, kind of, when I'm running around with my hair on fire. I still have my mystery project going, but I'm making notes on a totally different project now as well. Can't seem to do just one thing at a time. The note making stage is always fun because it's pure potential. You haven't worked out all the things you can't do, due to logistics, story-coherence, character consistency, etc., yet.

All right, I'm leaving before it starts to rain. I forgot my jacket this morning and my umbrella will help...once I get out to the car where I left it. : )

Big weekend at the Klemstein household

-I'm an aunt again, as of very early Saturday morning--a nephew, this time! I'm not going to go into details here as they're not my details to share. But it's so exciting and fun. And I'm amazed how quickly I forgot just how little and vulnerable babies are in the first few days. And he's soooo cute!

-I achieved a milestone yesterday writing-wise, too. I sent the first Rennie story, Bitter Pill, to a fellow Chicago author who said she'd read it. If she likes it, she said she'd pass it on to her publisher. Yea! : ) This is a milestone, not just because of FINALLY finishing the last little edits to the story--which have been hanging over my head for well over a year--but also because I've got two unrelated (one is not a sequel to the other) books in "marketable" shape at the same time! For those who are interested, making just minor changes to the story--really just fleshing out the parts that needed it--I managed to add eighteen pages. It's 199 pages right now, just a little under 60,000 words. I'm excited at the possibility of seeing Rennie and Sheriff Bristol in print, so we'll see what happens! I have several other story ideas for them running around in my head and I'd love to have the opportunity to get them down on paper.

-I'm getting ready for RT too. I sent in the info for my gift basket giveaway. If you're attending RT, this is my contribution:

A Hot Night of Alien Love
Curl up on the couch for some out of this world romance! Basket includes The Silver Spoon by Stacey Klemstein, a DVD of the sci-fi romance movie Starman, a t-shirt with The Silver Spoon book cover on it, a Silver Spoon Diner mug, a chocolate coffee spoon, popcorn and Red Hots!

The gift basket will be raffled off, I think, on Thursday, May 18, at 4:30 p.m. Huge thanks to Paula and Jeanine, my fellow writers and partners in crime at work who helped me come up with what to include and what to say (I was a little squeamish about using the word "hot," which shocked both of them considering the love scenes I've written!)

-Cooked my first Easter Ham this weekend. It was slightly traumatic. There was a very funny sit-comish moment early on.

My husband: "So how long does the ham take to cook?"

Me: "It's already cooked, it just needs to be warmed. The tag says ten minutes."

My husband (frowning): That doesn't sound right. How big is it?

Me: "Um, a little under twelve pounds."

My husband (still frowning): "Are you putting it in the microwave?"

Me (with a "don't be ridiculous" tone): "No! It says to use the oven."

My husband: "Are you sure about this?"

Me (with a long-suffering sigh): "Fine. I'll check the tag again."
(I consult the tag again at which point I notice that a sticker has been placed over the bottom half of the tag, obscuring possibly important instructions. Hmmm.)

My husband: "Well, what does it say?"

Me (peeling back sticker to reveal one last line of instructions): "'--per pound. Ten minutes per pound.' [expletive deleted]! Who puts a [expletive deleted] sticker over instructions!?!"

But it was okay. We caught the mistake in time. Unfortunately, even with two hours in the oven and following the almighty tag instructions to the "t," the ham was still lukewarm by the time dinner was served. So, my mother-in-law and father-in-law came to the rescue. We cut into it and removed the pieces we needed for the meal (seriously, only six of us--we don't need almost two pounds of meat per person) and heated them at a higher temp.

Yeah, I know, I should have realized that ten minutes couldn't possibly be long enough, but after the store that was to have prepared everything for the meal in a ready-to-heat fashion screwed up (thus totally shaking the foundation of my faith in Target), I was a little rattled. I was supposed to pick the meal up from them on Saturday evening, but they somehow never got my order and had to scramble around to throw everything together at the last minute and I didn't get the right stuff, which threw all kinds of wrenches into the culinary works.

Two lessons learned here. 1) Don't order big holiday meals over the internet, even if it is from the Target Deli. 2) Remove all extraneous stickers from instruction tags.

RT!

I finally made my flight reservations this week for the Daytona Beach Romantic Times Convention, and I'm getting excited about going! It's like my brain has been too occupied with everything else going on to really think about it. Plus, I was stressing over the very indirect flight I'd have to take to get there (from O'Hare to Atlanta, sit for two or three hours, and then get on a plane from Atlanta to Daytona). Ugh.

But now I've got it all worked out--thanks to the generosity of fellow authors who will be sharing a rental car and/or dropping me off at the airport.

I'm really looking forward to seeing everybody that I met last year--particularly Linnea, Bonnie and Isabo--and meeting a few new authors that I've discovered in the year since. Shanna Swendson is going to be there, as is Megan Crane. I'm hoping to meet both of them and gush embarrassingly about how much I love their books. : )

But, as I discovered last year, sometimes it's hard to find people at the convention. There are literally a thousand or more people milling about, and ninety percent of the time, unless you plan ahead and check the author photo on the book jacket, you have no idea what the person you're looking for looks like.

More later!

Veronica Mars and House on the same night!

My thought, as I ran gleefully upstairs to watch both (thank you Tivo as they air against each other), "It's like a smartass-athon on my television!"

This week

-I'm working on revising the first Rennie Harlow story now. I know, I know, I've been saying that for about a year and never getting anywhere. But when presented with the opportunity to send it out as is, I decided to just make a few tweaks, correct some typos, etc. Which has now turned into going through it chapter by chapter and tightening everything, if not out and out rewriting sections. The upside is that I've added about ten pages in length, which was one of my concerns. The downside is it's taking much longer than I ever considered. Probably because I thought I was just going to be "fixing" rather than revising. Oh, well. I'm pleased with how it's going so far. The first three chapters, for example, are much stronger than they were in the original draft. So, now I've just got to keep at it. Becky D. has been of huge assistance in this endeavor, reading each revised chapter and comparing it to the original to reassure me that the chapters are, in fact, getting better and to catch all my inconsistencies (of which there are many).

-Some of the people who've also accepted the severance package at my day job are now leaving. It's weird. I thought it wouldn't bother me because I'm leaving also, but it's still sad.

-Tomorrow I'm at the Indian Trails Public Library in Wheeling from 12:00 to 4:00. Please come by! I'm told there'll be a reporter and photographer from The Daily Herald present. This pretty much guarantees an outfit catastrophe and a bad hair day on my part, but we'll see if I can hold it together. If not, that could be interesting too.

-Shanna Swendson has a terrific entry about focusing on the quality of your story instead of the little stuff (paper clips vs. staples vs. rubberbands vs. nothing at all) when submitting to agents and publishers. It's good advice and I know it to be true. But angsting about such things (which I don't do as often as I used to, believe it or not) provides an illusion of control, and I'm all about that. Constantly reminding myself that I'm sending out my very best and that's all I can do seems to be the only way around it.

-Finally, this is my family history and education at Valpo shining through, but I found this fascinating. I don't know if the Chicago Trib will let you through without registering, so here's a link to a similiar story on CNN.

Reading in order

I haven't purchased a book in over a month. I know that doesn't sound like that long...but trust me, it is. When going over my credit card statements for the accountant, I was pretty shocked to see how often I consoled myself with a visit or twelve to Barnes and Noble or Amazon.com. Needless to say, I cannot afford to be doing that in the future. Plus, most of the time, it wasn't even like I was reading the book immediately when I got home. Usually I bought it just so I would have it when I finally had time to sit down and read, which is not very often these days.

So now I'm relying fairly heavily on borrowed books from friends and library books. The strange part about this is that now my reading is scheduled by date, which hasn't happened pretty much since college. But depending on when the library (or the friend) needs the book back, I have to fit reading into my schedule or return the book without having read it, which always frustrates me. Normally, I'm the type who likes to have a stack of books waiting to be read and pick and choose among them according to my mood. Not so much any more (though I'm looking forward to RT next month--they give away free books there!)

In the last couple of weeks, I've read Jane Austen: A Life by Claire Tomalin (seriously, that's actually the name of the book even though that's the title of every parody of a biography) and I just finished Prep by Curtis Sittenfeld last night.

The Jane Austen book was interesting--and don't worry I won't go on too long about it because then people will start to tease me, again, about my obssession--because it revealed a few things I never knew about her or that I probably once knew and had forgotten.

First, not that this is a great shocker, but life back then was not quite as romantic as my mind would like to make it. People sometimes did have great big houses and servants. But women also had ten plus children and died giving birth. Second, Jane's mother was a total hypochondriac in her later years, as Mrs. Bennet is in Pride and Prejudice (and there may be other parents in her other books with such an affliction but I can't remember for certain off the top of my head--I'm in the process of re-reading them now). She would often take to the sofa to lay down after dinner. But Jane, who at that time was already struggling with the disease that would kill her, would push together three chairs and lie down rather than asking her mother to leave the couch. She also refused to take the couch even when her mother wasn't using it because she knew her mother would never again take her rest there because she'd want Jane to have it. That just struck me as sad and kind and also so telling. This woman who could write the sharpest and funniest remarks about people was not petty or cruel in her actions and actually thought of others. It could have gone the other way. And finally, the disease that killed her is speculated to be lymphoma, like Hodgkin's Disease, which I'm pretty sure is treatable in a lot of people these days. She was only 41 when she died. And I cried when I read the description of her death, so slow and painful, and she was completely aware of what was happening to her. I think when you read someone's writing, you get this feeling of knowing them in some way.

Prep also made me cry but for totally different reasons. There are very good reasons why I don't read much literary fiction. I like happy books. No one is ever freaking happy in literary fiction, usually because they aren't happy with themselves to begin with. And when they are, you know it's only fleeting. That being said, I thought this was the best depiction of being awkward in high school and trust me, I know from awkward. I think one reviewer even said something like, "If you're feeling nostaligic for adolescence, this will cure it." And it's true. Good Lord, it was like being back in high school again with a little of early college thrown in (it's set in a boarding school, so some of the things really remind of me of college instead of high school, but it's all uncomfortable). All the anxiety about saying or doing the right thing, trying to control the uncontrollable people and world around you by doing or not doing something, the intensity of that first love--when I finished, I truly felt that skinless vulnerability I remembered from high school/early college. Eek. The author has an amazing ability to recreate reality, I don't know how else to describe it. It's definitely worth reading.

Okay, so I did not set out to write book reviews in here, but oh well.

Weird

Our email system at work prompts us every few months to change our password. I last changed it in late January/early February, and the system required it again today. Which means...it is, in all likelihood, my very last email password at this company! After six and a half years. Eeek. Don't know why that weirds me out, but it does.

It's dead bird season *shudder*

Last weekend, as I went to the window to check on the flowers emerging from the ground, my eye caught something else. A very dead bird. Feet all curled up and everything. Seriously, I nearly got sick. I cannot stand dead birds, and I hate this time of year because they're all over the place. People always assume that it's because something bad happened to me, but that's not the case. Unless you count almost stepping on a dead robin on my way to the library when I was like seven, but as I recall, I was more fascinated at that point that grossed out.

Nope, instead it's classic phobia inheritance (I'm making up that term, but it describes what it actually is--inheriting a phobic behavior) as I learned in a psych class in college. Basically what it means is that if one or both of your parents exhibit a strong fear (i.e. phobic fear) of something around you as a small child, you can adopt their behavior without actually ever experiencing anything bad happening to you to cause it. For those who've seen The Aviator, it sure seemed to me that Howard Hughes's mother was either a hypchondriac or obsessive compulsive or both and you see that behavior in him later. Of course, if I remember correctly, there might have been some cause for her obsessive bathing of him--an epidemic of some kind--but even still, she was a little over the top. Obviously there's probably a genetic component at work there too.

My phobia is inherited from one of my parents. My mom hates birds. She has good reason. She grew up on a farm with chickens. And you've heard that expression, "Running around like a chicken with its head chopped off"? Yeah, let's just say that actually happens. *shudder* But oddly enough, over the years, my fear has mutated to become my very own. My mom is not particularly afraid of dead ones more than live ones, but I am. And maybe afraid is the right word...horribly and terribly grossed out to the point of gagging might be more accurate. I react to them the way most people react to mice or snakes or really big and hairy spiders. *full body shudder*

I'm also not afraid of big birds, like swans or geese or even ducks. Seeing them dead doesn't make me happy, but I can deal without obsessing over it. Unlike say, a sparrow or a robin. I hate even writing the names! Once Snostorm cornered an injured robin in our backyard--she was off leash because the yard was fenced--and I screamed myself hoarse trying to keep her away from it. I was terrified she was going to grab that bird in her mouth and there would be wings flapping and squawking...I feel faint just thinking about it. I told my husband that if she'd done it, I would have had no choice but to leave her outside until he came home.

So, last weekend, I actually called my poor husband while he was working and requested that he perform body removal services. Immediately. Which he did (it's only fair--I do spider removal). But now every time I look out the window, I kept expecting to see it there. Hmm. I may be suffering from Post Traumatic Dead Bird Syndrome.

Then today at work, as I was walking through the glass walkway that connects two buildings, I looked over and saw another one! Dude. And it takes the facility guys forever to come and get those too. Which means I will be treated to another week or so of averting my eyes and turning my head so I won't accidentally see it. Sheesh.

Incidentally, I do think flawed characters make for great reading/viewing, which is why Monk is so much fun, The Aviator was so fascinating and the ex-demon Anya's fear of bunnies on Buffy the Vampire Slayer was so hilarious. But it's way less enjoyable in real life. Anybody else out there have phobias, inherited or otherwise?

Want ten minutes of good clean fun?

UPDATED:
Don't feed dogs grapes. After all the food warnings I've heard and obeyed(no onions because it causes anemia, no chocolate, etc.), this is a new one. So thank you to my Aunt Lynne for her comment. My vet assures me that a couple of grapes every now and then isn't going to hurt anything, but it can cause problems if they're given on a large scale. We will be putting a stop to the grape game immediately. *cringe* Oh, I'm a bad dog mommy! I had no idea, I swear...

*******
Put a grape on the floor for one smart female greyhound. The lack of pursable lips made it harder for her to get it off the floor (no hands, ma!), but she managed...after pushing it halfway around the kitchen with her snout. Which means it was probably a grape with a liberal coating of crumbs and dog hair. But she loved it, and she's learned a new word--she now comes running whenever I mention grapes, which isn't all that often fortunately. A seventy pound dog barreling into the kitchen on slippery ceramic tiles is definitely something to flinch at.

The television buffet

So last night I should have been working on editing Bitter Pill or assembling contacts for my freelance stuff or getting ready to start another round of queries. But was I? Oh, no. Of course not. My husband (probably even more so than me) and I have gotten sucked into the latest reality show, The Real Housewives of Orange County. It's fascinating like watching an all-you-can-eat contest is fascinating (and disgusting). How much can these people spend in one episode? Surely they realize buying a sixteen year old a new BMW is a little over the top. Nope. Surely the rich son of a formerly famous baseball player knows that school is important because he won't always be able to play ball. Nope. But the really interesting part is when the people on the show, not just the wives, are human and admit their mistakes or strive for a goal even us poor people understand, like trying to be a good parent or recovering from a bad divorce or developing a thicker skin against harrassment from an older sibling. Then the money doesn't seem to matter. All I can say is it's horribly addicting!

I also watched Top Chef last night, mainly because I think my husband had the remote and he fell asleep. But that was interesting too. I've long been against reality shows because they all start to seem the same after awhile and I like to be told a story instead of watching people suffer, which is pretty much the definition of a reality show. Watching people suffer (humiliation, usually)...again and again. And yet, sometimes I forget how appealing the raw emotions (well, however raw something is after being gently scripted and fiercely edited to create conflict) can be to watch.

So, I quit.

That's probably the big news. Enough people have heard me talking about it and it's finally officially official, so I thought I should probably post about it here. I've decided to take the voluntary severance package from my company.

When my uncle passed away last month, I had a major revelation about the kind of life I was living versus the kind of life I wanted to live. I wanted more time with my family, more flexibility to see them and do the things I loved. Life the way I was living it was more about existing rather than truly living. I was surviving, day to day, and squeezing in bits of happiness where I could. And that lovely method left me crying in the car--sometimes two or three times a week--on my way home from work. Not because of anything that had happened to me, but because I got the very clear sense that I was wasting my life. I'd somehow gotten on the wrong path, and I was scared to leave it because the way ahead of me seemed clear and easy if I just kept going.

I've always thought that freelance writing would be the perfect solution as it would give me the chance to earn money doing something I'm good at and enjoy, and yet, I'd still have the opportunity to live the life I wanted. Except I could never think of a circumstance in which we'd have enough money that I could try it. It takes time to build up business and bills still have to be paid in the meantime. And being self-employed would be SCARY.

But then this severance package opportunity landed in front of me. I knew I needed to make a change, I just didn't know what change to make. I looked for another full-time corporate job and found that didn't feel right. The only thing that kept making sense was freelancing. But that would be a huge shift for me and one that might not work out. What if I didn't like it? What if I didn't make enough money at it? What would we do for health insurance?

When I was talking it over with my dad, he had a few things to say that really helped me make this decision. The first was to think of life less like a test and more like a learning experience. There is no right or wrong. You get experience from everything, and once you've tried something, you can always say, "Nope, not for me."

The second thing he told me was a story, one that I think I've heard a version of elsewhere, though I'm not sure where.

A man is sitting on his porch and the floodwaters are rising. He prays to God, "Please save me." A motorboat goes by with some of his neighbors in it, and they ask the man if he wants a ride. He says, "No, God will save me."

The waters rise, and the man climbs to his roof. A guy in a canoe floats by and asks the man on the roof if he needs help. The man says, "No, God will save me."

Finally, he's clinging to the television antennae on the top of the roof and a helicopter comes by. The rescue workers in the helicopter tell him to get on. The man replies, "No, God will save me."

The man dies.

When he gets to Heaven, he's very angry with God. "I prayed and prayed for you to save me," he says, "and you let me die."

God says, "I sent you a motorboat, a canoe and a helicopter. What more did you want?!?"

Obviously, the moral of this story is that sometimes you don't recognize the solution when it's presented to you in a less than "lightning bolt from heaven" kind of way. (And this is NOT meant to be any reflection on recent actual floods, but just a plain old metaphor for being in trouble). Sometimes you just have to have faith. So that's what I'm going to do. I don't know how well this is going to work. I don't know where all the money is going to come from. All I know is I'm going to work hard to make it all come together.

And finally, to be clear, this is not me "quitting to write books." This is "quitting to do something that gives me more time to write books." More specifically, I'm setting up shop, so to speak, as a freelance writer specializing in corporate communications. I have absolutely no idea how well this is going to work out, but I figure a chance like this is rare and I should take it and see what happens. I love my company and the people who work there, but the commute continues to grow and I feel like leaving to try something that is more in line with what I want in life is the right thing to do.

So, as of May 31, I'm officially an independently employed writer. Eeek. It's scary just saying that. And I'm going to be shameless and say if you know anyone who needs corporate communications expertise, please let me know! I've got nine years of copywriting experience. I've even won awards for it. : ) A virtual portfolio of my stuff will be coming to this website soon!

I expect I'll have more time for entries over the coming months, and I'd very much like to document this experience just for myself too. It's the first time in a very long time in which I can safely say I have no idea where I'll be or what I'll be doing in six months. It's very liberating and more than a little scary at the same time. Wish me luck. : )

Know any writers or aspiring writers in the NW suburbs?

Fellow author and poet, Michelle True, has organized a fun event for local authors and writers for April 8. A whole bunch of us will be speaking at the Indian Trails Library in Wheeling, IL from noon until 4 p.m. We'll be answering questions about writing and publishing and then selling and signing our books. You can read more about it here, in the Daily Herald. Please stop by!

UPDATED:
The link to the Daily Herald is already dead, so here is pretty much the same information from The Schaumburg Review:

Indian Trails Public Library, 355 S. Schoenbeck Road, Wheeling. (847) 459-4100. Advance registration is required for programs unless noted otherwise. April 8, noon-4 p.m.: Author Festival. Twelve authors representing various genres will answer questions about writing, getting published, marketing and other related issues followed by book signings. Participating authors include Michelle True, poetry and nonfiction; Renetta Dudzinski, Christian historical fiction; Randy Richardson, fiction; Jeanette Clinkunbrooker, historical fiction; Denise Swanson, humorous mystery; Nick Ostdick, fiction; Caryn Amster, true crime; Stacey Klemstein, sci-fi romance; Jay Hurd, science fiction/fantasy; Arnie Bernstein, history/nonfiction; Sheila Peele-Miller, women's fiction; and Mishawn Purnell-O'Neal, children's books. Free.

Weird dream

To preface this, I must explain that my husband and I were in the car yesterday and we were talking about how, even though he's the more aggressive driver, I'm the one that ALWAYS gets tickets. He gets pulled over but always manages to get by with it. He says it's because I have a poor attitude toward authority figures and despite my best efforts, it shows and that's why they always give me the ticket. Maybe.

But anyway, last night, I had a dream that I was pulled over and in an effort to ingratiate myself to the police officer, I offered to give him a jar of my special homemade spaghetti sauce. Um, right. Yeah. But what's funny is in the dream, I cracked open a jar of Prego, dumped it into a canning jar with some ginger, because apparently, adding the ginger, is what made it mine. All of this, of course, transpired while I was still in the car. Handy, having that jar of Prego, canning jar and fresh ginger right there in the glove box.

Dude. I need to stop eating before bed.

: )

Libraries

I visited my local library for the second time last weekend and found myself charmed again by the quaintness of it. Their card catalog actually has cards. Most "card" catalogs are online now. Plus, they still use that machine--the one that goes "ka-chunck, ka-chunk"--to stamp dates on the due date cards inside each book. When I asked to request a book, they told me to fill out a little piece of paper with my name and number. They had no idea who had the book or when it was due back in because nothing is computerized. It's shocking how quickly you get used to life with computers at the center of it.

I'm pretty sure I was a kid the last time I was in a library like this. I loved our library in Hillsboro. They had a huge wooden circulation desk, one that I could barely see over, right in front of the doors. The finish on the top of the desk was worn and flaking off from all the book covers being slid across it. Two fake leather armchairs sat in front of fake fireplace to the left. The adult section, big, mysterious and full of thick books, was located on the opposite side of the main floor from the children's section, all the better to keep curious children away. If I remember correctly, my mom had to sign a form to allow me to check out adult books as I'd read my way through the entire children's section. In fact, the library used to call our house to let me know when they got new books in. I love small towns and small libraries!

I'm off to go pick up my requested book--I just got the call that it's been turned it. : )

Something to read

While you're waiting for me to get my act together and write a full entry, check out this interview I did with Once Upon A Romance. Connie came up with all kinds of thought-provoking questions, and I had fun coming up with answers.

I haven't dropped off the face of Earth...not yet, anyway.

Making some pretty big life decisions here these days, so my time and energy has been pulled away from the blog. As soon as I know for sure what I've decided to do, I'll post it all here. And for those who hate it when I post these vaguely ominous entries--this isn't anything bad. At all. It's just a change. And everybody knows how much I hate change. So, I've got to make up my mind which way I'm going to go on this and then stick with it for awhile.

More to follow...I promise!

Get this...

-Last night, I went to the Jewel to pick up a few things and I noticed that they had a new pin pad thingy for your credit card (because I'm weird and notice things like that). When I confessed my surprise that they hadn't chosen the model with the screen and the (annoying) pen-like device for signatures, the cashier pointed me to something better. Now, apparently, you can pay at the Jewel with YOUR FINGER. It's true. You go to a kiosk in the corner and give it all your bank info and then it takes a picture of your finger. Then, when you go through the check-out line, you just scan your finger on this little device next to the pin pad thingie and it checks it against the previously taken photo of your finger. How wild is that!?!

-Many of you know of my great apathy toward the Olympic games. I'm one of the few people rolling their eyes at the utter lack of new programming on other stations, just because said stations assume that EVERYONE is watching the Olympics. I can't be the only one who is just not that into them. Now, I find out that there's a reason why. They're not being held on Hoth. Check this out--one guy's way of trying to make the Olympics interesting again. Now this I would watch.

-Enceladusians? Enceladutians? Don't know, maybe they should have picked an easier name for a moon that has water and could, theortically support life forms that would then have to bear the name of their planet in some form. I realize that they're probably like microbes or whatever, but still. Martian is much easier. Also, yea for NASA, they made it into orbit. One of the cool things is that they'll be using this mission to look for water and possible landing sites for human exploration in the future. Neat!

Have a good weekend everybody!

Tee, hee!

I just purchased the soundtrack for Pride and Prejudice. It's such beautiful music and I remember parts of the movie just from listening to it. Oh, yeah, I think it's almost time for an intervention. "Hi, my name is Stacey and I'm a Jane Austen addict."

Yesterday, I even spent a whole five or ten minutes at lunch trying to convince my friend, Ed, to watch it. He tolerated my politicking, but I think only because I agreed to split an order of Max andErma's chocolate chip cookies with him. *grin*

No Veronica Mars or Lost tonight. *sigh* Maybe I should watch a movie. Hmmm, I wonder which one?

Just kidding. Sort of.

Ha! Actually, we have to watch The Corpse Bride tonight because I think it's due back tomorrow. I've been very good so far at returning things on time. I'm notorious for racking up late fees (five or ten dollars worth, at most, but still...), returning the movies and then never going back to that store again because we move. I'd prefer to try a different strategy this time.

I am a head case...not that you're surprised.

I got a little nibble on a query yesterday, which excited me, of course. So I immediately made all the necessary arrangements to respond accordingly. This requires hours of overanalzying every word in a letter that is probably only three sentences long. At which point, I must then freak out about everything ranging from the sturdiness of my envelope ("What if it rips before arriving to its destination?"), my signature on the letter ("Does it look too wobbly, like I was drunk?") and checking three times to make sure all materials are enclosed before sealing the envelope. This resulted in me leaving the post office (after handing over my package to a slightly worried looking woman who appeared to be a little freaked out by the chick who didn't seem to want to surrender her package--me!), fairly certain that I'd put everything in except the very important self-addressed stamped envelope required for a reply. I called my husband twice while the poor man was in the shower demanding that he check the area around the dining room table to make sure that the SASE (as they're called) hadn't slipped unnoticed out of my hands and onto the floor when I was checking my package for the fourth, obssessive compulsive time. He was not happy.

But it's sent now and we'll just have to see what happens. : )

Incidentally, I did check the area around the dining room table and found it SASE-free, so hopefully that means it made it into the big envelope!

P.S. Hi Susan, if you're out surfing the web when you're supposed to be studying! : )

Mrs. Darcy!

Stopped by the video store last night after they didn't have a single copy of Pride & Prejudice in on Tuesday night. They were still all out! But then the manager saw my obvious distress and went to the drop-off box outside and found a single copy. And oh, my, it was soooooooo good. I was a little reluctant to see it when it came out in theaters as I was (and still am) a huge fan of the A&E version with Colin Firth. But this one is good. Really, really good. As in, "I'm stopping by Target tonight on my home to buy my own copy" good. That last scene...I get chills just thinking about it. Keira Knightly did a terrific job. And I loved the way they show so much more of the Bennet family. As I said to someone else today, living back then probably sucked what with the much shorter life span and no feminism to speak of, but it might have been worth it to be married to Mr. Darcy and live in Pemberly. : )

Walk the Line is also an excellent movie. I can see why it received so many nominations. Not one I'm going to own, but it's definitely worth renting.

A short entry today as I'm swamped at work and I'm still preparing materials for the class I'm teaching on Saturday at the Arlington Heights Memorial Library, Building A Believable World. I'm excited, but just a little overwhelmed at the moment with my "to do" list.