Brave New Scam

There's a new virus/fraud scam out there. It's entertaining to the intelligent receiver, but frightening to one who may not know better. It'll be from your bank or, as I just received today, from the FDIC. I got one from my bank on Monday, saying that my account had been closed. Curious, I called my bank to ask, "What the hey?" I was told that it was a scam (the return address of the sender - some name "@0-0-7.co.uk" - should've been a big clue, though the link the message asked me to click to verify my identity looked extremely legit, not that I clicked on it, just the url) and to forward it to the real banker guys for their investigation. I sent it on, laughed, and continued business as usual.

Just a few minutes ago, I got a similar email from the "FDIC". This opening has got to win a prize somewhere: "To whom it may concern; In cooperation with the Department Of Homeland Security, Federal, State and Local Governments your account has been denied insurance from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation due to suspected violations of the Patriot Act." And how 'bout this closing: "Failure to provide proper identity may also result in a visit from Local, State or Federal Government or Homeland Security Officials. Thank you for your time and consideration in this matter."

If you get any sort of email from your bank or some banking official, call your bank to confirm it before doing anything with it. And let's hope they don't tack on a "launch upon opening" virus. Another big clue: the emails had an attachment that was in no way referred to in the email.

Bad Day

Yesterday started out pretty great. Then 2PM hit, and it all went to hell. I spent a good part of the day catching up with a high school pal, and then I roamed the internet for pictures of my high school and the base I used to live in and the castles I visited. Teared up quite a few times, lost in memory. That barrage of nostalgia, though, got me thinking about my goals and dreams during those years. And that led to the realization that I was doing Nothing compared to what I had hoped and planned. And then I started thinking about how my writing isn't all that great, I'm wasting my life, I can't do anything. Negative snowballing can be fun, eh? I would've found some way to deal with all that nonsense when I got home - watch a DVD with some commentary, play video game, anything to keep my brain from having too much fun with those thoughts. But then I checked the mail.

I received my second rejection letter yesterday.

"That was fast," you say. That's what I said too. I mailed it Jan 10. They mailed their response Jan 20. This agency advertises a 1-3 month response rate. Nice to know my letter was so intriguing that it didn't even make it through the first round of cuts. And, of course, the rejection was a form letter. "Dear Author." The agent wasn't "sufficiently enthusiastic" about my submission. Thank you, junior staffer, for your quick response. With this sort of whiplash reaction, I just hope that someone read the damn query letter. And that I don't go mad trying to analyze what about my letter caused such a knee-jerk "no".

Needless to say, my night did not improve when I got home.

The Sigh Heard 'Round the World

Spirit is apparently back on-line. I would say that the NASA folks would sleep easier now, but their second rover lands tomorrow evening, so I doubt it.

Mars Curse

There's a long string of failed probes and such to Mars. NASA's latest update suggests that Spirit might be doomed to the same fate. I can only hope this is a temporary glitch and that Opportunity lands with the same success as its twin. And when we do get to Mars one day, it will be very interesting to see the remnants of all those probes and rovers and try to figure out What Went Wrong. I can see it now: And astronaut bounds into Gusev Crater, investigates, replaces a 9 volt battery, and Spirit is up and running again.

The Military Family

Military members get tossed all over the world as they serve their country, and their families get moved around with them. People come in and out of your life very quickly, and yet amazing friendships can form in just a year. The other neat thing about the military is that it's very hard to lose touch with anybody. The networks and connections that you form are intricate and plentiful. And strange coincidences are prevalent.

That's why I wasn't surprised that I heard from a high school buddy via email this week - just days after I thought about him and wondered what he was up to. Turns out he lives just a few minutes away from my mother in Arizona. I wish I had known that in time for our Turkey Day trip.

The really neat thing about this friendship is that we were at the same place for six years straight - an unheard of thing in the military. Both his family and my family were stationed at the same base at the same time and had the good luck to stay there for two tours (a tour being three years). Our first aquaintance was during the rocky times of junior high. But we managed to get over that through our church youth groups. We've seen Fatima, Rome, and Lourdes together. We've worked on Catholic youth retreat teams together. And we graduated from high school together. There's a great shot of me, him, and another six-year-long youth group friend locked in a group hug on our high school graduation video. It's at the end of the ceremony, as the video fades from color to grayscale and goes to slowmo to show a montage of everyone hugging and celebrating. That moment of the video means more to me than the five minutes of my Valedictory address (most of which I roll my eyes at because I sound so naive and could think of a million better things to say now) because it represents so many years of my life in Germany, so many experiences, so many friendships, the depth of my faith at that point in my life...so many amazing things.

Now I'm getting all teary-eyed. Excuse me while I smile at a few memories and wallow in fond nostalgia.

Can't....stop....laughing

No words. Just read this.

Power of One?

Both HD and TM are sitting at scenes in which the heroines are struggling with the idea that they can do anything to stop big, bad things from happening. I've been empathizing with them far too much. Can one person really do anything? The best one can do is try and see what happens, I guess. But it's a very disheartening realization that you're pretty insignificant in the scheme of things. Staying there too long leads to depression. On the other hand, believing for too long that you can and will change the world leads to arrogance, or at the least a blind spot to life's harsher realities. So the middle ground of "live your life, do what you can, keep moving forward" seems the best idea. Sometimes it's very hard to stay there, though, when you see so much crap happening that you want to fix or that you know you can't fix.

So this is nothing new, but I needed to put it here as a reminder to me all the same.

Another Update: Added a link to my bio at Forward Motion. This is what I did yesterday instead of write. It's a work in progress. And I got pretty verbose in a few spots, no surprise there.

Bad Muse! Bad!

I was exhausted yesterday and eagerly fell into bed around 11PM. Only to toss and turn and stay awake until 2AM. The reason for this bout of insomnia? A fun bit of dialogue that morphed into a character who morphed into another novel idea. And the ideas just kept coming. The whole first scene is written partly on a scratch sheet of paper when I got up to munch on something and partly on the notebook by my bed. I still haven't seen what the notebook looks like - I wrote a good two pages in the dark. I'm pretty irked at my muse. I had a decent day of revising yesterday. It looks like I'm on track to (finally) finish the revisions for Part 2 this week. And I was able to do a decent amount of writing in The Masque on Friday. All in all, it was a good writing weekend, of the sort that I haven't had in quite some time.

Apparently my muse got a little carried away with the spirit of things.

I don't mind the new idea. Svink is a cool character, very irreverent, very unlucky, very fun to write. He's the sort of character who I can just turn lose in a story idea and see what sort of trouble he causes. All the while making me laugh internally and sometimes even chuckle out loud. And this is just after one scene. Of course, I can't do much with him right now. I've got two projects (technically three, counting worldbuilding) that have higher priority. I suppose I can use him as a carrot and Block Breaker (my "blocks" are project specific).

But I can't quite sing my muse's praises. I mean, 2AM??? She couldn't have dropped this idea in my mind earlier that day, say at 8 when I had called revising quits for the day and was playing video games with Mark? Work with me, Muse! I'm not good to you when I can't keep my eyes open.

Profitable Detour

Mark and I decided to run up to Blackhawk yesterday on a whim. The town bills itself as the Las Vegas of the Rockies. There are quite a few casinos but one, maybe two hotels, so the comparison is a little optimistic. We had a spare chunk of change that we wouldn't mind parting with. The first slot I sat down at yielded the second to highest payline (unfortunately, I was only betting one credit per line, so all I won was twenty bucks for it, but the game had been nice to me before then, so I tripled my money). Some wins and losses occupied the next few hours, with Mark doing very well at Black Jack and me feeding the slots to play some fun bonus games. The last slot I sat down to turned my last twenty into eighty. I was happy to stop gambling then. But Mark had one last twenty to spend, so we decided to use it on the dollar Winning for Dummies slot, which had been very kind to us in Canada last summer. We took turns hitting the "spin" button. We weren't doing so bad, winning just enough to keep us from going bust, when I decided to start hitting the "bet max" button to activate the big bonuses. On my third try, we got back $200. This plus my $80 gave us quite a profit for the day - more than double what we went in with. We decided to call it quits and head back down the mountain. On the drive, we agreed to use some of our profit for a fancy Valentine's Day meal.

All in all, I didn't mind losing a day of writing for this little adventure.

Finished It

Stayed up a little later than I should've, but I finished Kushiel's Dart last night. That was a damn good book. I'll have to bide my time getting the next too, though. Cashflow and reading time are issues. And I have this wierd feeling that having that book unfinished was keeping me from sleeping too well. I really can't say why, but I did just realize that I've been sleeping poorly since I started reading that book. And today is the first day in a while I haven't felt bone tired. It's probably coincidence, but it's an odd one. So the remaining two books in Carey's trilogy will just have to wait a month or so. By then I should be done with HD, so I'll have a tad bit more time as I recover.

The book didn't make me squirm nearly so much as I expected, given all the billing as "erotic" and descriptions of it as the life of a consort. But it did make me squirm, and I really care about the main characters. I have two very teeny tiny gripes: word choice got repettitive (it always happens...you use the word "pontificate" and remember how much you like it, and damned if that sucker doesn't show up a good three more times before the end of the chapter, etc) and Phedre was a bit too modest and humble toward the end - nothing too much, but I wanted her at some point to go "Yeah, and I bloody well deserve your thanks too", or at least think it. Those two niggles were so miniscule though.

Be forewarned - this book is an alternate history set in Europe of a sort. I usually don't like that kind of book, my only experience being The Golden Key - and I had no idea that was supposed to be alternate history until the last hundred or so pages of the book and was extremely miffed. KD tells you right in the first five or ten pages that it's based in this world. And that worked for me.

I think the reason I didn't sleep well while reading the book is that my subconscious sat down with my muse to see if they could figure out how to write such multi-dimensional, gripping characters. I still can't believe this is Carey's first novel - and that she was able to sell it as a 900 page doorstop. It does much to keep my own dreams alive.

Uh-Oh

Science may have gone too far this time. It seems I left science just in the nick of time. Here's hoping Mark will finish up his thesis before a robot can beat him to it.

A Tale of Shenanigans

I've tried to map out what I would post about this group. And more and more memories keep popping up. From the first time I saw the group perform until I got an email informing me that the group had gone bankrupt and was disbanding. Not quite the full span of my four years at Notre Dame, but very close. No matter what I think about the group and all the folks I sang and danced with in it, Shenanigans shaped my college experience.

This group took me to Florida for Spring Break my freshman year. There I got to rub shoulders with several important alumni and hang out with the Glee Club a bit as our Spring Break tours had some overlap (Shenanigans was created by several Glee Club members in 1980-ish). Because of Shenanigans, I sang solo and dueted a couple times - extremely nerve-wracking the first time, fun after that. As the group's treasurer for nearly two years, I got to see the inner workings of Notre Dame - right down to the bureaucratic red tape just to sell burgers before a football game. I also spent a decent amount of time with the President of the Alumni Association (a Big Deal, trust me) because he, through some odd trick dating back to the group's formation, was our club's sponsor and had to sign paperwork and approve things as such. Shenanigans also gave me two out of the three non-senior-portrait pictures I have in all of the four yearbooks I received while at ND (the third being one of me and my roomie playing video games; it was taken by a guy I was dating at the time who happened to be on the yearbook staff). The club also gave me a reason to hang out on campus for a week after finals because we performed for the seniors and their families during the week before graduation. And all that singing and dancing provided a nice break from my studies and kept me fit.

However, Shenanigans had the "Gay" stigma. After all, only fags would want to sing and dance, right? It didn't help the stereotype that a year or two before I arrived saw the outing of two men in the club. Thus we were a bit of a laughing stock with the student body. Thus we didn't get a whole lot of folks auditioning for the group. Thus we had to choose (among the men who tried out) from "decent voice, manageable rhythm" and "voice we can't mask, rhythm we can't hide" and a few shades in between. Thus my second year in the group we became all women for a semester. This was the same year that I took over being treasurer of the group and had to plan our Spring Break Tour (which was supposed to pay for itself and give us a profit besides). This responsibility put me in the Alumni Pres's office quite a bit - and gave me the disappointment of hearing that The Powers That Be frowned on an all-girls group going on a trip. In short, we had to cancel our Spring Break Tour that year. I was furious, indignant, and crushed at the time. Crushed because I hadn't believed that such a gender issue would rear its head among such people.

Remember that Spring Break Tour to Florida I mentioned above? That's also the trip where a Glee Clubber whom I hardly knew told me that I was a flighty bimbo (and other things) because I had only painted my big toe nail that day and my sandals displayed the quirk. That's also the trip where I learned the hard way why the halter top dresses we wore when performing required a safety pin to hold the halter top straps together (long story short: I nearly flashed the audience after standing up from a bow - thank God for long hair).

That last moment alone should taint my memories of the group, but let's not forget my fellow Shenanigans. The women were great. Except the one who wouldn't listen to my treasurer's advice and bankrupted the group shortly after I quit. The men provided me with two of my more assholish of exes, a dance partner who reeked of alcohol during every Sunday morning practice, another dance partner who couldn't dance and ended up wrecking me knee (seriously, I had to skip out on that year's Spring Break Tour in order to go home and have surgery), the only man who ever intentionally got me drunk (he then proceeded to give me unwanted kisses as he walked me home, a fact which sobered me enough to tell him I'd yell "rape" if he tried it again; he stopped), a stalker, and two great guys who are like older brothers to me still.

And if I had to do it all over again, I would still join the group. I would make different decisions about who I trusted in the group and who I dated, but I would be in the group all the same. Now, off I go to find some candy to get the taste of that near strip-tease out of my mouth.

Jack Nicholson is my Dentist

Or at least his long lost twin brother. Actually, the similarity might be more an effect of looking up at him from the requisite chair with the requisite light shining in my face. Still, his eyebrows and lips moved in just the same fashion as Nicholson's Joker (less the make-up and with a Southern accent). Why am I chatting about my dentist? Because my appointment this morning was the highlight of not only today but yesterday as well. Yeah, it's been a fun week.

And because it's been such a fun week, I'm just going to link to this. I've actually got a ton of neato Mars links (The Masque is set on Mars), but I'll save all those for another time. Enjoy the wit of The Onion.

Updates

I've updated my sidebar. I had updated it not too long ago, but it needed it again. Mainly due to my epiphany about romance. I don't want to write it. Not as strict romance genre novels. I'll have romantic subplots in my books, and love is apt to be a thematic element in most of my books. But I don't want to write romantic suspense or historical romance or whatever. It took me a year to realize that it wasn't my cup of tea. However, the original love story behind Red Rocks will have to be written. There's just no question. It's too good. I'll just have to supplant it into one of my science fiction ideas. Or fantasy ideas.

This means I have 30,000 + words of a novel I will never finish as such. I'll take a deep breath and get over it. I hope.

As for the rest of my writing, I've mapped out what I hope to do with it this year. I'm finishing Human Dignity by the end of February. I'll allow a final readthrough to take me until March, but that's it. I'm not one for strict deadlines, but I'm getting sick of lingering. I also have a list of five agents I hope to query this year - barring a very long response time from one of them, or an acceptance. For The Masque, I've decided that this definitely a novel, and it's the next one in the que. For Strings of Betrayal, I really want to finish worldbuilding for it this year. And keep playing around with a few scenes and characters to get familiar with the world. I'm hoping to write it next year.

Overall, I want to devote more time to my writing, take it more seriously, stop being so easy on myself (meaning it's too easy for me to give in to a little bit of frustration and go off and be lazy on the couch instead of write my way through an issue).

Everything is updated, the goals are stated (in several places), the attitude feels better, 2004 awaits.

Lazy Weekend

I know that one of my New Year's Resolutions was to be less lazy. But it's too much fun to lounge around on the couch with Mark and watch movies and play video games. And now that he's getting closer and closer to finishing up his thesis research, there may not be a great many opportunities to have such a lazy weekend. So I took advantage of it. I would've done some revising in Saturday while Mark was at work, but my brief trip to the mall to buy Mark's gifts for his birthday and Valentine's Day turned into a three hour tour. I've managed to work out a way in which this was all Mark's fault. But it's flimsy at best and reflects poorly on me, so I won't mention it.

Plastic is evil. I am now fully aware of this. I walk into the mall looking for just one thing. The first store I walked by was Lerner New York, and they were having the most amazing sale. I figured I'd check it out, see what they had. I had thought I was safe since the last time I wandered into the store I couldn't find anything I liked. I wasn't safe. I was in imminent danger of Spending Too Much. But when the cashier rang up my total and said, "Wow, you saved $130 today!" and I hadn't spent more than $90, I felt good. Then I walked by Victoria's Secret. They were having a huge sale. There went more money I don't have (but you should see the really cool hose I got). Then I walked by Bath & Body Works. And they were having a huge sale. The salt scrub I got is magnificent. And then I walked by Victoria's Secret Beauty. And their sale was also gimongous. I don't want to think about the total damage I wrought. Suffice to say, it wasn't pretty.

I came to three realizations Saturday: (1) Sales are great, but evil when combined with plastic; (2) I'm truly blessed to have a husband who is fully aware of my spending evils and loves me still; and (3) my multi-million dollar writing contract will not come a day too soon.

Not Alone

Came home to a plethora of magazines stuffing our mailbox. A couple outdoorsy things (we like to see what they say about National Parks we plan on visiting), a science one, and one from my alma mater. I usually read only one thing in my alma mater's magazine: the briefs on what members of each class are up to. I actually know the guy who writes the one for my class, which means he'll use more space for my update. I get a full three lines instead of the one line "Kellie Hazell was recently married" summary or somesuch. So I like to read what he's gleaned from the Class of 2000. This time, I remembered a few names but couldn't place a face to them. Or, in one case, I knew one name, but couldn't for the life of me remember who his soon-to-be-wife was, though her name looked familiar. I was curious enough to drag out the yearbook and refresh my memory. Which led to me skimming the entire magazine, looking for names I might remember. Or at the least the "00" notation that indicated a fellow classmate. And I stumbled across this article.

I'm pretty sure Mary Beth roomed with a fellow former Shenanigan (I hunted and hunted for a link, but the group went bankrupt and disbanded my senior year, taking all web traces of their existence with them in their demise, apparently; take home point: Shenanigans is was a singing and dancing ensemble, a show choir). And if I'm thinking of the right gal, then Mary Beth was one of our biggest fans, at all the concerts with posters and cheers and the general support we all too often lacked (for a whole mess of reasons, some good and some bad, most unfair). That's an odd mess of memories - the group brought some of my best and worst moments at Notre Dame. Actually, come to think of it, most of them were bad. Hmmm...methinks I need to post about my Shenanigans experience.

Anyway, I read Mary Beth's article and suddenly realized I'm not the only Domer floundering in a job light years away from where I'm "supposed" to be. I'm not the only alumnae who fudges the "profession" blank a wee bit in order to hide the awful truth. Although one form I think I might have checked "other" and written in capital letters "ADMINISTRATIVE ASSISTANT" just to see if I could piss anybody off or get my name removed from those donation mailing lists. And to make me feel even better, Mary Beth's got dreams of being a writer. She's also blonde with master's degree, working with a bunch of technical folks in a job that makes next to no use if any of her training. There the comparisons start to feel forced or diverge, so I suppose I'll stop. But it gave me a warm fuzzy all the same. I may write her an "I'm right there with ya, sistah" letter.

Another reason why I enjoyed my perusal of the ND Magazine: I found out that the infamous fan at the Cubs game who reached for the ball in left field was a Notre Dame grad (see the third bold name). Go Irish! I actually remember thinking about fellow Domers being at that game while I watched it on TV. It's a quick bus, car, train ride to Wrigley Field. I imagine some dorms even arranged treks to the Championship games. They did back when everyone was counting Sosa's HRs.

And there I go, getting all nostalgic. Which inevitably leads to dwelling on my resume and how woefully overqualified I am for my job. Which leads to remembering the dream I am chasing. And then I'm better. Until the next bout of nostalgia.

I *Heart* RMFWLGCG

That alphabet soup is my critique group. I brought my query letter last night for their feedback. And I'm so glad I did. It's very easy to get so close to something and so focused on one element that you miss the obvious. Some of the more amsuing things they caught:

• I misspelled "suite" in the agency address. But "squite" looks pretty cool, so I may end up finding another spot for that little typo.
  
• I neglected to mention the title of my book anywhere in the letter. I laughed very hard at this.
  
• I never asked for representation anywhere in the letter.

We also had a five-minute discussion as to whether you should write "an SASE" or "a SASE". And the group understood at once what I was doing with my mention of BNW and thought it was very clever without overreaching. Woo-hoo! We also had a new gal there who has extensive experience in non-fiction proposals. Hearing her two cents was great, although I'm not sure how much of her advice to take. I'll let the feedback roll around in my head for another day or two and then spruce up the letter to send it out by Saturday. It feels good to be doing this. Exciting. And yet I'm already prepared for a rejection and considering what needs to happen to the letter to be ready for the next agent on my list. I like this sudden bout of realism. It's refreshing and empowering.

Stereotypical Failure

Well, if all full-time writers sit around in their extravagant pyjamas, eat bonbons, and fight through their hungover stupor to squeeze out a few words, then I'm in trouble. It didn't work for me. I finished one scene and started into another one, only to stall out, despite the silky nightgown and fistfuls of chocolate. I don't think the alcoholic haze would've helped. To be fair, the real problem was an uncertainty as to how the next couple scenes would play out after the one I was writing. I kept thinking about what I had to do after I finished what I was writing at the moment. Couldn't concentrate. I took a break and read some of Kushiel's Dart. Which led to me reading for the rest of the night. Here are the excuses I used for not delving back into the problem scene: Addy had stolen my chair again and slept in it for the rest of the day (and into the night); I didn't feel like changing out of my black silkish pyjamas; the book was really, really good and thus could be construed as research.

The plus side of yesterday's splurge was my inspiration for query letters. I keep thinking about my novel in terms of explaining how something like Brave New World can happen. Yet I've never used that thought in how I describe my book to editors, agents, even friends. So I grabbed Mark's copy of Huxley's book to flip through today, trying to remember if Huxley had put forth some sort of history of how Things Transpired to create his world. In Huxley's foreword, he says that the folks in charge of his world aim to create social stability: "It is in order to achieve stability that they carry out, by scientific means, the ultimate, personal, really revolutionary revolution."

And there it is. Exactly what I was looking for. The connection between HD and Brave New World. I had suspected it was there, and even known it, but had never been able to articulate it. Because that statement sums up Eugene Weber damn near perfectly. The road to hell.... And now I have something concrete to use in my query letters. Said in humble terms that could in no way be interpreted as comparing my book to Huxley's. My book, if anything, aims to be a prequel to Huxley's. A potential prequel. To explain in no uncertain terms how exactly such things can come to be. Oddly enough, that was always my biggest question when I had to read BNW in school. And it was never explained adequately to me. And my reading of BNW was poorer for it because I had a big question mark preventing me from accepting Huxley's future. Which would explain why the original idea of HD stuck with me in the first place, three and a half years ago.

I owe Aldous Huxley and Brave New World more than I realized. Damn. Guess that means I need to reread the book.

The Decadent Life

Somewhere there's a stereotype that won't die. Professional writers have such an amazing life. One of glamour and riches and self-indulgence and the list goes on. One of the images a lot of folks seem to have about full-time writers is that they stay in their pyjamas all day, eat bonbons, and occasionally face their angsty computer. Oh yeah, and a lot of alcohol is usually involved too.

I decided yesterday to give this stereotype a whirl. I was going to stay dressed in my long, black, silkish night gown, burrow in my huge green terry robe, and write. I didn't have any bonbons, but I figured I could dig up some stray chocolate leftover from the holidays and that would be close enough. We had wine, but I wasn't going to drink it unless I was eating dinner, so that part of the image would have to be ignored. I was all set for my day in the life of decadence. After some lounging, I did journal. But then Mark called on his way home from work with an idea to go out for dinner. I couldn't pass that up, so I finally took my shower and got dressed. So today will be the day I put the stereotype to the test.

I've written in my pyjamas before. Usually the outfit was a pair of flannelish pants and a sweatshirt with Tigger on it. No bonbons in sight those times either. And these episodes either occurred after I changed out of my work clothes or on the weekends when I didn't have to go anywhere. So today I'm going for the classic silk - or silk-like material. And maybe I'll send Mark out to get me those bonbons.

New Year, New Rooms

It all started when I realized that I don't like the couch we snagged from my father a few years back. It's the couch that my family bought ten or twelve years ago. And four cats and a dog have, at various points during that time, added to the demise of this piece of furniture. Addy and Nosey have done the most damage, probably mostly Nosey with the daggers she used to have. It's got that "I've been around for a decade or more" musty smell. And the sofa's sleeper mattress is about as comfortable as a bed of assorted and ill-placed rocks. At some point while we were in Oklahoma, I saw one of those "no interest financing until 2007" commercials for a furniture store and realized we had a way out of Couch Hell. I brought this up to Mark, and he agreed we could take a peek at what was available and consider our budget.

Tuesday night we decided to peruse the sofa selection. (This was after we went to two Best Buy stores in attempts to spend the gift certificate my father and stepmother gave us. What kind of idiot buys only 19 copies of "Pirates of the Caribbean" for a store the week after Christmas? This same idiot will apparently keep the store stocked with at least 200 copies of "SWAT".) We wandered the store's showroom, finding a few possibilities. Then we found it. The color was perfect, the style was perfect, the price was pretty good. The store only had no interest financing for a couple months, though. Thus began the budgeting discussion. I might point out that I was the voice of caution in this talk. Mostly. OK, so I did say (once) that we could make the old couch work, I wouldn't like, but we'd make it work. But only once and it was uttered between two very serious financial concerns. But Mark said we could afford it. So we bought the couch. And the chair and ottoman to go with it. I still have trouble figuring out how that happened. I can follow the logic, but it was just so different from my expectations and even wishes for the furniture shopping night.

Buying new furniture means you have to make room for it. We were up past midnight after we chose the sofa, preparing the apartment for it. This involved rearranging the study - something I had already been thinking of doing before the sofa issue. My desk had been crammed into a corner and the entire layout of the room seemed contrary to what I needed in a writing environment. Not that it had been a problem since I was revising and using the dining room table to get more space. But I imagined it would become a problem in 2004 as I started writing new stuff again. So Mark and I tossed around some ideas and came up with a great new look for the study.

Both new rooms were put to the test yesterday. Our furniture was delivered bright early in the morning (7:30 - we went back to sleep after it arrived). Mark watched football on the new chair and promptly approved of it by falling asleep in it. Nosey immediately found a new perch on the ottoman and the sofa back. Addy is still on the fence about the new furniture, but she loves the new study set up. We moved our old chair into that room. This chair has been Addy's favorite sleeping spot. She really enjoys its new location. It's much more secluded than it used to be, and a little patch of sun hits it. In fact, Addy so loves the new spot that I had to fight her for it yesterday. I would get up to take a quick break from writing and go back to find my cat curled up and sleeping on the chair. This continued all day long. I also like the new set ups. The chair in the study became an excellent spot for revising. And my computer is more accessible now, allowing me to spend quite some time last night grabbing songs of my CDs so I can put together novel-appropriate playlists.

It's nice to start the new year with obvious physical changes. Makes it easier to work on those internal changes. More thoughts on what I hope to change internally later. The ideas are still rather nebulous in my brain, but I do know it involves the concept of balance.

The Experts Weigh In

I've had two general writing questions of late. The first was how to classify agent rejection letters. The second was how do organic, write-by-the-seat-of-your-pants writers manage to crank out a proposal for an unwritten book (which is basically the way things happen once your work starts selling). The results are in.

Question 1 yielded several answers. The response to my agent rejection varied from neutral with positive elements to positive overall. Two published authors provided their feedback. From Wen Spencer (via Forward Motion): "This isn't a judgement on her part on your book, but a 'we just don't click' on your writing style and her personal taste." From Sheila: "As an authority on rejections (cruising toward a career total of 2000+ myself) I can assure you this one is very positive. The agent has class and professionalism, sounds honest, and took the time for a personal response, all of which is always a good indicator. When you get three-word brushoffs like 'Not for us' scrawled in the margin of the original query letter, then it's time to break out the solace substance of choice and rethink the proposal."

For Question 2, I went straight to Carol Berg, whose workshop on outlining alternatives I attended at the RMFW conference in September. Seems this is something she struggles with as well. Her own experience has been to write as many as nine chapters of the proposed novel and then write a proposal that concentrates heavily on the events of those chapters while sketching her best prediction of what the rest of the novel will look like.

These answers mesh pretty well with the basic answer I had floating around in my head. The rejection was good. Nothing too earth-shatteringly good, but better than most folks can expect their first time out the gate. A nice bit of encouragement to keep me trying. The organic writer's proposal is a problematic thing, something only writing at least part of the book will accomplish. Which isn't necessarily different from the more structured writer's proposal. Instead of all that detailed outlining and such, organic writers just dive right in and then sketch the basic premise they see unfolding. The problem is that starting the book is usually more time-intensive. And that becomes a problem once you are a published author and have to worry about writing the books that have deadlines and weaving in time to start books that may not get bought by a publisher. Hopefully Carol will have some advice on this at the next conference.

Knowing these answers provides nice closure to 2003, in a writing sense. Everything seems to have wrapped itself up. Not my projects, of course, but my goals and ideas for the year. My first experiences with a writing contest, with a writing conference, and with an agent submission have all concluded. All i's dotted, all t's crossed. That goes well with my hopes for 2003. I still have many things to do, many goals to reconsider and create anew, many self-analyses to make, many dreams to savor, and many realities to face. More on this to come.

Parting Shot

Just when you think it's safe to start ringing in the New Year, the ground falls out from under you. Or, in our case, the ceiling drops on your head. OK, so not the entire ceiling, but even a small piece of it crumbling above you is not a good thing. Here's the best part: I'm not being metaphorical. At all. Shall I explain?

For a month or so, Mark and I have noticed a slight ring on part of our bathroom ceiling. Like the shower in the apartment above ours had been leaking or something. We didn't get too worked up about it, just added it to our list of things to eventually ask the apartment complex to fix. You know, right next to "repair cracked fridge shelf" and such. And what with the holidays, we never got around to putting in the maintenance request. This morning's observations did much to light that fire under us.

There's a hole in our bathroom ceiling. It's small. Maybe half an inch in diameter. But it's a hole. And I likely wouldn't have noticed it were it not for the fact that it was created when I turned on the bath faucet and saw what used to be our ceiling crumble into the water. That'll wake you up in the morning. And make you extremely grateful that you have two bathrooms. Into the Alternate Bathroom I went for my shower.

I'll be calling the apartment complex office shortly (they don't open for a few minutes and I don't feel like dealing with the incompetent folks who run the emergency line - you should've heard the conversation I had when our door wouldn't shut one night; "OK, so your door is locked and you can't open it?" "No, it's locked and we can't shut it." "OK, I'll send someone over to come open your door." "No, I said we can't get it to shut. Something's wrong with the lock and it's stuck." "Oh, I see. We'll send someone over with a key." etc). I wonder if I should call with the cracked fridge shelf and finish up with, "Oh yeah. And there's a hole in the master bathroom's ceiling." Might as well make the last day of 2003 entertaining for as many people as possible.

Evil Time-waster! Beware! Click at Your Own Risk

Random generators are fun. This one is on the same level as the The Surrealist Compliment Generator. Do you hear that? That's the sound of my free time being frittered away. If I ever become a Big Name Author, and helpless PhD students are forced to write thesi on my works, I truly hope the following titles will be used.

The Oral Naming The Disenfranchised: Kellie Hazell, Human Dignity and Objectification
Kellie Hazell Colonizing Reception: Human Dignity and the Violence of Production
Challenging Identity: Discursive Dissection in Kellie Hazell's Human Dignity
Dialectic and Flight in Human Dignity: Kellie Hazell Penetrating Suppressive Ethos
Means of Production as Hybridity: Exhuming Marginalized Epistemology in Kellie Hazell's Human Dignity

I don't know about you, but I would gladly give extra credit to a student who could create a very long title with as much alliteration as possible.

Christmas Report

Because I'm still trying to deal with my anger at the Catholic church, I really didn't get into the spirit of the season as much as I usually do. I regret that. But I truly didn't know what to do about it this year. I'd rather have continued my usual attitude of caring and kindness without battling an enormous amount of anger and trying to not let it infect my celebration. At any rate, December's been great.

Due to our holiday travels, Mark and I celebrated our own Christmas a few days before the actual date. We didn't want to lug all our gifts down to my father's, and we wanted to have our own special holiday time together. We also wanted our own holiday meal so we could have leftovers. And we do indeed have leftovers. Turkeys were on deep sale the week before Christmas. Anything over 16 lbs was $7 and anything under was $6. We decided to aim high and snagged a 18.5 lb turkey. We weren't really thinking how big that was for only two people. And for our oven. We barely dented one breast for the dinner. And then it was time to hack up the rest of it for soup, salad, tetrazini, and various other leftovers. Mark can't carve a bird. I can, but not very well. It took me a good half hour, but I slaughtered that turkey. And now we'll be shifting all sorts of leftovers around in the freezer as we gradually finish the meat. 18.5 lbs. We'll probably go for a smaller bird next year.

And then we went to Oklahoma City, arrived around 5 on Christmas Eve. My stepmother's family is from Spain and everyone was in town for the Christmas. This combination resulted in big gatherings every day. With lots of food and wine. Have I mentioned before that I'm rather intelligent and talkative when I'm drunk? I get it from my father. And now everyone in my stepmother's family knows this. My dad was nowhere near phased by the wine he drank, but I was buzzing very well. With my newfound political attitude, I wanted to pick my father's brain about some key issues. And so I did, slurring a word here and there ("education" is hard to say after your sixth glass). I think we were louder than either of us intended. Not in an arguing way, but in a debating way. I only hope that a few folks were impressed that I could be so articulate and intellectual while smashed. At least, Mark assures me that my drunken debates sounded sound. That was Christmas Eve. Christmas morning was saved from being a nightmarish experience by my stepsisters. They didn't wake up until 10, giving me plenty of time to down some aspirin and stop the world from spinning. I imbibed much less for the big Christmas Day dinner gathering.

I had thought not to get drunk again during the trip. But that was before someone opened up some Asti on our last night in town. So Kellie got drunk again and this time had intelligent conversation with Mark and her stepgrandmother. I don't think I was as bad as Christmas Eve, though. After all, there were creme puffs and eclairs sitting on the table in front of me. Picking one up and popping it into my mouth became reflex. I save the political debate with my father for the car ride to his house. We finally finished that round up (Mark had crashed long before this point), and I went to stave off the morning fun by taking some aspirin and drinking lots of water. I really would've gone to bed then, but one of my stepsisters was up and we started chatting. That lasted for a good two hours. Great conversation. It's the first time I've really had a chance to sit down and talk about anything for any time with either of my stepsisters. And I wasn't about to give that up with the lame excuse of "We're leaving at 6 AM tomorrow for a 12 hour drive".

The trip was great, and the Christmas holiday wonderful. Gifts included movies, chocolate, perfume, tea, hand-knitted scarves, Bath&Body Works stuff (can never have too much of that), sweaters, and jewelry. Yes, Mark was his usual amazing gift-giving self. The lapis lazuli bracelet he got me finishes the set I have of that stone. And he got me the complete first season of The West Wing. There's so much about that first season that I've forgotten. I've really enjoyed remembering it all.

And now it's time for another year. Nice to end 2003 on such a great note of family, friends, and life.

One Wait Over, Many More to Follow

I just got my first rejection in writing. The agent turned down respresenting Human Dignity. The package was in the mound of mail we had to sift through upon our return last night. I saw it sticking out of the pile Mark juggled and grabbed it from him - I'm pretty sure I waited until he had set the mail down, but I only say that because we didn't have letters and bills scattered over the living room floor after I snagged the thing. With a surprisingly muted sense of urgency, I opened the package and grabbed the letter from the top of my submission - I was pretty sure that meant the letter was a rejection, but I had to figure out if it was a good, bad, or neutral rejection. Here' the letter:

It was a pleasure to meet you at RMFW, and thank you so much for sending me sample pages of Human Dignity.

After a careful reading, I'm sorry to say that I don't believe I am the right agent for you.

You deserve an enthusiastic representative, so I recommend that you pursue other agents. After all, it just takes one "yes" and with so many different opinions out there, you could easily find the right match. Good luck with all your publishing endeavors.

I've got this posted in a few areas for feedback from other writers as to which category of rejections this belongs. It's either neutral or good. I think I'm pretty capable of recognizing a bad rejection. Most of the explanations of rejection categories that I've heard focus on rejections from editors and publishing houses, not agents.

I'm actually not all that disappointed. This is a young agent, fairly new, and looking to break into science fiction and fantasy representation (I think). While such a partnership may have been best for both of us in the long run, the combination of two newbies would've made for an extremely bumpy beginning - my luck only stretches so thin before it breaks. And that's the kind of risk I shouldn't be taking with my writing unless I'm given no other choice. So off Human Dignity goes to the dream agent, the highest I know to aim right now. And I breathe a slight sigh of relief now that I can finish the revisions without the pressure of an agent potentially wanting to see the rest of the book in the next few weeks.

Still to Come: The Christmas Report. New Year's Resolutions.

Posting from Afar

I'm in the land of the Sooners right now. Every where I look is maroon and white. It's a good thing we'll be leaving before the big game. Too much craziness. But it is good to be with my dad and my stepmother's family. Lots of holiday insanity and imbibing. And more presents than we deserve. Full report to follow (perhaps I'll censor the drunken revelry, perhaps not). In the meantime, Happy Holidays to all those who happen upon this blog.

Diagnosis

That Teresa's one smart cookie. She's uncovered all the intriguing neuroses of authors. Damned if she didn't get one of mine pegged on there.

My first novel took a long time to write, but now that I’ve been through the process and gotten my feet under me, the rest should go much faster.

Dammit. Now what? I actually didn't realize this was insanity. The others she's listed seem like much more fun. Maybe I'll trade it in for this one: Your editorial comments are brilliant. I adore them. No one has ever understood my writing as well as you have. I am now so paralyzed that I can’t revise the book. That's it. It's perfect! Now I don't have to worry about finishing my revisions. Ahhh. The world is right again.

Hmmm. On second thought, maybe I'll see about inventing a new insane habit that Teresa can uncover and add to her list. Might as well make it interesting for everbody. Or is this like themes and plots? Have all neurotic writer tendencies been done? Can I find a way to create something that's not derivative? I suppose I shouldn't bother if I can't. If I can't be crazy in an original way, I guess I'll just try for sanity.

Addendum: Teresa, in the comments of the above-linked thread, clarified my transgression.

What's the imprudence in #3? Assuming on not enough evidence that the pace of your writing is going to speed up. It may well do so. It may not.

Now I don't consider it a bout of insanity to be guilty of the third, so much as a moment of stupidity. My saving grace is I usually phrased it as "Once I get my feet under me, I hope the rest will go faster."

Straggling LotR Humor

I added this to my original list of things not to do while watching RotK, but I felt it deserved its own little spot.

21. When they go in the paths of the dead, wait for a tense moment and
shout, "I see dead people!"
22. Imitate what you think a conversation between Gollum, Dobby and Yoda
would be like.
23. Release a jar of daddy-long-legs into the theater during the Shelob
scene.
24. Wonder out loud if Aragorn is going to run for governor of California.
25. When Shelob comes on, exclaim, "Man!Charlotte's really let herself go!

Sleeping, But Not Really

I've been exhausted for much of the past week. I couldn't understand why. I got a fair amount of sleep - I'm always up for more, but if felt like I had barely squeezed in four hours when I know I slept six. Even this weekend, I got quite a bit of sleep, yet I'm still exhausted today. I realized on Friday that I was doing some of my sleep apnea-ish things (feeling like I couldn't breathe, startling myself awake as I fell asleep because I had stopped breathing, etc). So I figured that was the cause. But nearly every night this week? I've never had problems sleeping like that. Then I remembered that sleep apnea sorts of problems can be caused by anxiety and stress.

Well, duh, it's the holidays. I may have been ahead of the shopping curve, but this time of year is never just peaches and light. Still, I really have no reason to be stressed about the holidays. We've done the baking, the shopping, the mailing, the decorating. And we did it in fairly laid back fashion. So that would only explain part of my stress. Then it hit me.

I have a submission out to an agent, and I'm still mired in revisions.

That's it. That's it right there. That's the hot button. My writing. I'm not all that nervous about the agent thing consciously, but I bet my subconscious is pacing a path in my gray matter. And I went and gave myself a somewhat strict deadline for finishing the revisions - by the end of the year. Well, one thing 2003 has taught me is that I don't deal well with writing under a deadline. This obviously has to change if I expect to make a career of this. But I still haven't found a good way of dealing with it. It's so foreign to me to resist a deadline, or to even have a deadline have such a negative impact on my ability to finish something. Maybe once it's my career, it'll be different. Who knows.

Movie Experience

I never did share my impressions of RotK. Mark and I saw it again Saturday night. Still just as good, though I was squirming by the end of it more than the first time. Watching the Extended Editions was very nice, even though I fell asleep about thirty minutes into TTT and was out for an hour. I've actually been sleeping horribly for about the past week or so (more on this in another post). Anyway, we get to the theatre about two and a half hour early - we like having our pick of seats and I had a deck of cards to keep us entertained. There wasn't a line set up for our showing. So they told us to hang around until the line for an early showing cleared. I dutifully did this as Mark and PJ went to grab a pizza to bring back. A half hour goes by. The line of the earlier showing gets longer and longer and the pizza has not arrived. Turns out all the restaurant in the theatre area had been mobbed. The line finally cleared, but only then did I realize that folks for my showing have been standing in the line. So I was actually a decent ways back in the line, even though I was one of the first to show up for our showing. Muttering under my breath, I realized that an hour and fifteen minutes had passed since Mark and PJ embarked on their Pizza Recovery Mission. After another fifteen minutes of hungry muttering, Mark brought the pizza. PJ was still missing. He had ordered some bread sticks. Fifteen more minutes until PJ showed up. Finally we got into the theater and were still able to get decent seats (next to a pair of seats with half a cup of soda spilled on them).

The movie was great. I cried for a good half hour toward the end. I had a few niggles here and there, but nothing that pulled me out of the movie. I didn't have a problem with the four mini-endings. Except the last one got a bit tiring. Jackson should've just ended with Grey Havens. We didn't need to go back to Hobbiton one last time, no matter how cute Sean Astin's little girl is. Also, the $9 and three hours of uncomfortable sitting positions are worth Billy Boyd's song. The whole scene leading up to the song, and the footage during the song are incredible. And Minas Tirith is absolutely gorgeous - puts Edoras to shame. There's an amazing sequence of lighting beacons - that's also worth the money and the length of the film, even if you don't like the film as a whole. Those three elements are just too amazing to not be seen on the big screen.

I was disappointed with the mediocre to nonexistant resolution for several characters (Eomer, Eowyn, Faramir, Saruman). But I've heard rumors that those scenes will be in the Extended Edition, so I'll deal with it. Overall, Jackson and his crew did a fabulous job of creating a cinematographical interpretation of Tolkien's books. A perfect adaptation was impossible, and even Tolkien himself knew that. Movies require things that books don't, and certain themes aren't going to be 1) possible to put into film and 2) interpreted in exactly the same way by everyone - even the most devout fans.

If someone should ever make a movie out of a book I write, I hope I remember my love of these movies and my ability to hold them separate in some ways from the books. I also hope that whomever messes with my books would keep me in the loop if possible.

Tolkien Week at Foxtrot

For those of you who don't have access to the funnies or who don't read Foxtrot, check 'em out. Sunday. Monday. Tuesday. Wednesday. Thursday. Friday. Enjoy.

Addendum: Saturday.

Whoa

Saw the movie. Still recovering. Amazing. For various amusing discussions, reviews, comments, nitpicks, gushes, etc about Return of the King, go here. Here's my favorite line (slightly spoilerish if you're not familiar with the books):

As for the floating Ring, well, I'm sorry it didn't do it for you, John. But when we're discussing a malicious and near-sentient magical artifact serving as the focal point for the worldly power of a Dark Lord, I'm not really prepared to get my innards in a twist over its buoyancy.

I mean, we've already seen that it can slip on or off a wearer's finger at will, re-size itself to fit its holder, call out to its holder by that person's name, and be thrown into a fire without becoming hot to the touch. Is it really that much of a stretch to accept that it wouldn't dissolve or sink without a fight?

Go see this movie as soon as you can. If you have the time, watch the Extended Editions of the first two before hand as they link quite a few images and moments into the third. Also, bring lots of tissues. And be aware of any trace of arachnophobia you might suffer. Shelob is frightening enough without catching you off-guard to boot.

Middle Earth's Secret Diaries

I know I linked to this a while ago, but here are the diaries again. There's also a link to Cassandra's livejournal at this site, where you will find diaries with entries pertaining to the action of TTT. One might expect to see more entries after Cassandra sees RotK.

Numenorian Time Scale?

Someone on the radio this morning freaked out when she found notes on how to propose to her among her boyfriend of six months things. Freaked out because it had only been six months. Now, in the grand scheme of human dating, six months is a fairly long time. My perspective may be somewhat scewed as Mark and I decided to get married after only a month of dating and I had the ring on my finger another month beyond that. However, six months of dating just doesn't seem like the freak out level this lady was thinking. Maybe she's watched LotR too much and thinks courting should be dragged out for decades before any concrete decision is made. Methinks she, unlike Aragorn, wouldn't be able to wait until she was 90 to get a definite answer (question? :)) out of her man.

If you're going to freak out about the suddenness of a proposal, I would think you should reserve all concerns for relationships shorter than three months. This all depends on the nature of the relationship, of course. Perhaps six months for this woman only meant occasional dates. Or maybe she believes in dating for five years before the next level of committment is even discussed. Who knows? But six months just doesn't seem to eye-poppingly shocking. Six weeks, sure. Six days, pop away.

Hmmm. Six days. I'm reminded of some guy I went out to dinner with once or twice in college. He was a senior and I was a sophomore (going through a self-identity crisis and my parents' divorce on top of taking physics, cell biology, organic chemistry, and their enjoyable labs). He said the "L" word after only four dates (and something on the order of two weeks). I dropped him like fifth period French. (I love that line. When, oh when, will they stop teasing us with rumors of a sequel to Ocean's 11?) I don't even remember how I met the guy now. All of a sudden, he was taking me to dinner. I must've known him from somewhere or through another friend. Can't think of it now. I do know that I ran screaming from him because I could just smell the "will you marry me" coming and I did not want that. I also remember that he was the third reason I made my "no pre-med majors" rule when accepting dates. The first two reasons were dating mistakes from my freshman year and the summer afterward.

I suddenly feel compelled to sing "Memories." (And yes, I'm fully aware that the Middle Earth relevance of this post was rather low and somewhat forced. I'll try to do better later today.)

Tolkien Week at Kellie's Blog

In honor of the premiere, I'll be trying to keep my posts relevant to all things Middle Earth. Here's the first:

1. Stand up halfway through the movie and yell loudly, "Wait... where the hell is Harry Potter?"
2. Block the entrance to the theater while screaming: "YOU SHALL NOT PASS!" - After the movie, say "Lucas could have done it better."
3. At some point during the movie, stand up and shout: "I must go! Middle Earth needs me!" and run and try to jump into the screen. After bouncing off, return quietly to your seat.
4. Play a drinking game where you have to take a sip every time someone says: "The Ring."
5. Point and laugh whenever someone dies.
6. Ask the nearest ring-nut if he thinks Gandalf went to Hogwarts
7. Finish off every one of Elrond's lines with "Mr. Anderson."
8. When Aragorn is crowned king, stand up and at the top of your lungs sing, "And I did it.... MY way...!"
9. At the end, complain that Gollum was offensive to Ethiopians
10. Talk like Gollum all through the movie. At the end, bite off someone's finger and fall down the stairs.
11. When Shelob appears, pinch the guy in front of you on the back of the neck.
12. Dress up as old ladies and reenact "The Battle of Helms Deep" Monty Python style.
13. When Denethor lights the fire, shout "Barbecue!"
14. Ask people around you who they think is the next "Terminator" sent from the Middle Earth of the future to assassinate Frodo Baggins
15. In TTT when the Ents decide to march to war, stand up and shout "RUN FOREST, RUN!"
16. Every time someone kills an Orc, yell: "That's what I'm Tolkien about!" See how long it takes before you get kicked out of the theatre.
17. During a wide shot of a battle, inquire, "Where's Waldo?"
18. Talk loudly about how you heard that there is a single frame of a nude Elf hidden somewhere in the movie.
19. Start an Orc sing-a-long.
20. Come to the premiere dressed as Frankenfurter and wander around looking terribly confused.

Addendum:
21. When they go in the paths of the dead, wait for a tense moment and
shout, "I see dead people!"
22. Imitate what you think a conversation between Gollum, Dobby and Yoda
would be like.
23. Release a jar of daddy-long-legs into the theater during the Shelob
scene.
24. Wonder out loud if Aragorn is going to run for governor of California.
25. When Shelob comes on, exclaim, "Man!Charlotte's really let herself go!

Minor Amusements

I ran a spell check on the previous entry. The Blogger spell-checker suggested replacing "yahoos" with "yak", "Misadventures" with "mistyping", and "Satan's" with "Santiago's".

It's Still Not Friday?

I'm really wondering if I can just pretend that today is Friday and that it's already 4:30 instead of nearing 1:30. That would be nice. This week hasn't been very pleasant. I spent Monday mired in the hell that is an on-line ordering system for work. Then I had to drive home in snow. Then I had to drive (in snow again) to the bus stop to pick up Mark. Only he missed the bus. So I got to kill a half hour in the mall oh-so-conveniently located right next to the bus stop. While I'm waiting for Mark, the college buddy we were supposed to meet up with in Denver that night called to chat, since we couldn't visit (due to the yahoos who don't know how to drive in snow). Turns out my bud is getting married. The downside: he's getting married on the same day as my brother. Unless there's a stunning breakthrough in bilocation before June, I can't go to my pal's wedding.

On to Tuesday and my Misadventures in Satan's LCD Projector Playground. LCD projectors seem to be rarer than a lunar eclipse. I finally found one that would be available for a presentation. But here's the catch: this technological contraption resembled more an artifact from the 3rd Mingh Dynasty than it did a projector. As I lamented to Peg, I was quite certain I'd have to burn a stick of incense in the projector, pray to Vishnu, and have a Buddhist monk stand on his head and chant in order to get the thing to work. Luckily, at the last possible moment, another projector surfaced. One from the Common Era.

Wednesday, yesterday, should be dubbed "Kellie Runs Around the Site, Pushing a Cart Laden with Pizza." Strangely enough, this managed to consume my entire day. And then I went home to bake Christmas cut-out cookies. Ah, holiday baking. A time of mutated candy-canes that must be turned 180 degrees and inverted in order to see the vague hook shape. A time of de-haloed, de-winged, and decapitated angels. A time when Santa's boots look more like smelly slouch socks from the 80s. A time of squashed and distorted snowmen, stars, bells, and trees. At least icing helps them look like edible cookies despite the irregular shapes.

The positives: My buddy is getting married! Another college buddy and his wife are expecting their first child! I made progress in my revisions! And Friday is only a day away!

Sweet

Got the new commenting system going. And it looks like all the comments that weren't on the past seven entries were kept. In fact, it looks like you can still comment using my old system in my Archives. I'll have to see about fixing that. But this will work for now. Feels good to have one less annoyance in life.

Warning

I'm about to start tinkering with my commenting feature. I'm trying to figure out if I'll lose all the comments I already have or if I'll end up breaking my blog or what. Bear with me.

Blogger just ate my post about snow in the area. Just take my word for it that it was witty and entertaining.

My Mood is Improving

Today started on a bad note. I had just locked up the apartment when I remembered that my lunch was still sitting on the coffee table. Just like I had left yesterday's lunch behind. Rather than have to buy lunch again, I decided to unlock the door and get it. I was running late due to oversleeping, but an extra minute to grab my lunch wouldn't hurt. Only I couldn't get the door to shut after I had grabbed my lunch. So I spent a good five minutes figuring out just what the hey was going on. And then I still had to scrape off the car. Only the ice wouldn't scrape. It sort of scratched off in tiny ribbons, leaving huge stripes behind. After another few minutes of futile scarping, I just got in the car and blasted the defroster. And then I had to face a day of work I didn't want to do. In general, I haven't been a happy camper on this fine Friday.

That changed when I remembered that it's the beginning of a new month and Sheila would have a new story or something on her website. I eagerly wandered over there, and was ecstatic to read her latest update. She's still tinkering around with a blog!!!! It's a Cherijo story in daily snippets. And it sounds like she might do this sort of thing again.

My Friday just got better.

Not Sure What to Think

This guy gives new meaning to the Absent-minded Professor. The quotes that are making me stumble:

"The case has been hotly debated in the US scientific community, where many luminaries fear that it may deter other researchers from working with sensitive biological samples."

Deterring folks from working with nasty substances isn't a good thing. We need people researching hazardous substance so we can better protect ourselves for it. So, after reading this, I'm on the guy's side.

"Most of Butler's convictions concern his business dealings with drug companies, with which he had several clinical-trial contracts. Half of the payments went directly to him rather than to the university. The jury did not accept the argument of Butler's attorneys that such "shadow contracts" are commonplace and not illegal."

I'm not sure about this. It doesn't sound on the up and up. Does "half of the payments" mean that he was paid 10 times and five times the money went straight to him and not Texas Tech? Or does "half of the payments" mean that he was paid 10 times and half of each of those payments went directly to him and not Texas Tech? If it's the latter, then that sounds like it might be kosher. If it's the former, nope. So now my support of Mr. Science is starting to waver.

"Butler was also found guilty of crimes relating to a Federal Express parcel of plague bacteria he mailed to Tanzania in September, labelled "laboratory materials". He said that he was unaware that federal laws required him to declare the contents more explicitly. The jury convicted him of making a false statement on the package label and of illegally exporting hazardous materials."

What idiot after the anthrax scare is going to think that he can get away with labeling the plague as "laboratory materials"? How in the world would he be unaware of the federal laws after that mess? Has the man not mailed any sort of package since then? And what kind of program would Texas Tech be running if they didn't provide some way for this guy to know and/or be required to find out what the regs are? I have little support left for him at this point.

"Jurors also accepted Butler's defence that he was unable to remember the complicated regulations concerning the transport and importing of plague bacteria."

WHAT????? Mister, that's the sort of thing you find out if you're getting ready to mail the plague to Tanzania. You at least ask a colleague for his opinion if you can't remember how to do this.

My confusion: Is this a bigger problem with Texas Tech, or was Mr. Science here a one-of-a-kind screw up in their program? And if it's the latter, why in the world were they letting him send the plague anywhere?

Those Dangerous Funnies

Does this mean that laughter will become a controlled substance?

Evolutionary Hopefuls

While contemplating the situation of my dental hygiene yesterday on the way home from work (admit it, you wish you were me), I wondered why we didn't have another set of teeth waiting, or an endless supply. We've got baby teeth and adult teeth. And if you screw up your adult teeth, you've got to find some way to deal with it. This didn't strike me as being fair - biologically. My teeth are perfect in one regard. They are perfectly straight. Dentists are often shocked to find out that I've never worn braces because they're so straight. But these teeth o' mine are also excessively weak. Mark could gargle with sugar water for weeks and only brush his teeth once, and he might get a cavity. Maybe. My teeth, however.... Well, let's just say that I once had six cavities filled in one appointment. Did I mention that my teeth are also extremely temperature sensitive? My point: It would be nice if humanity evolved to give us at least one more round of adult teeth. Third time's the charm, after all.

That got me thinking about other things I hope evolution takes care of. And, of course, my mind drew a blank. More teeth was as far as I got before I was home, checking the mail, and oohhing and aahhing over the last minute Christmas beauty specials in a Victoria's Secret catalog (one of fifteen I've received in the past month, and I'm not exaggerating). I'll have to start a list of evolutionary hopefuls and see about threading them into a future novel idea. More teeth will definitely be the first.

The Air Up There

I got a little incensed this morning when I read an article about the Bush Administration trying to undue Clinton's Clean Air policies, particularly the allowable amount of mercury factories can expel. The other big environmental issues of Dubya haven't bothered me too much. The Alaska drilling for oil idea isn't a good one, but I had a hard time believing W would be able to make it happen. And it didn't seem too crazy to see a politician looking for another source of oil (the crazy thing is that no politician seems to be looking seriously into another fuel source other than oil). The Kyoto business of a few years past didn't get my ire up. I swallowed the spin that Bush and his gang didn't think the document was well-written (or something like that). Hey, not all laws/accords/pacts/treatises/memos/notes passed between diplomats with good intentions are going to do a good job of putting those intentions into action. It's better for the environmentalist cause if all such documents are as well put together as possible than if they aren't. But wanting to do away with the mercury limits doesn't sit well with a someone who has been warned about mercury for six years of research and lab courses. It's not good stuff. As I wander through my thought process on this, I'm thinking about the arsenic business that was all the rage when Dubya first go into office. Or was that Clinton as he went out of office?

At any rate, I'm pissed about this mercury business. The regs passed just fine at least three years ago, if not more. And companies had all sorts of time to start trying to comply. Now the Bush boys' trying to do away with the reg smacks of something vile. It's never a pleasant thing to watch the idiots running the country muck up science.

Enough of my ranting. Again to bring levity to an icky situation, I link to The Onion. As always, enjoy.

Progress

Got past the hump in my revisions last night. I have been chipping away at it for the past week or two. This is the spot where I stopped on my first round of revision, and I was stalling at the same place during this round. It's a hard spot because I tried to skip the middle of part 2. Which means I had to write the middle from scratch. I somehow didn't think about this as I wrote the first chapter of the middle. And then last night I looked at what used to be Chapter 6 of Part 2. I had to read the whole thing real quick and determine what I wanted to keep and what I didn't. I kept some of the stuff on the very first page and that was about it. The ideas in Chapter 6 are largely still there, but I had to completely rewrite it. Mainly because I was trying to skip the middle and tell the reader what had happened in said middle. I'm happy with the rewrite - much happier with it than I was with the original. And it feels good to be over that hump. There's still a lot to do in Part 2's middle, but it feels more like I'm writing downhill than scrawling my way up it.

Another Turkey Bites the Dust

Well, almost, anyway. But let me build up to that.

The trip was great, fairly uneventful, and relatively low-key. Mark is very glad he won't be spending any time longer than an hour in the car until Christmas, when the drive will be only 10-12 hours as opposed to 14. We got on the road at 5:30 - very early, considering Mark's hatred of the morning before 8 on a good day, 10 usually. The biggest adventure of the trip down was our brief stop in Las Vegas. Las Vegas, New Mexico, that is. We stopped to get gas, and the blue signs near the exit said there was a Wendy's nearby, so we figured we get lunch as well. After filling the tank, we went in search of grub. We saw a KFC and Burger King, but no Wendy's. After journeying two miles away from the gas station, we turned back, figuring that KFC would work just fine. Only to find out it was closed for remodeling (something the marquee displayed on only one of its faces - meaning we couldn't see this important information driving from the gas station). So we tried the Burger King. I told Mark what I wanted to eat and went to the bathroom to put in my contacts. I get into the bathroom and realize I had grabbed the bag with my contact solution in it, but not the one with my actual contacts. I left the restroom, only to find Mark standing there without food, waiting for me. This particular Burger King doesn't take credit cards. Back into the car we go, eager to leave the silliness that is Las Vegas not in Nevada. We had not ventured far out of Vegas when we nearly hit a dog trying to cross the Interstate. At 75 mph, that wouldn't have been a pleasant site. It seemed to be waiting just for the right time to cross as there weren't any cars for quite a distance either in front of or behind us. And that was about it for the drive down.

Our stay at my mother's was pretty relaxed. Watched movies, hung out in the spa, nothing too big. The Turkey Day meal itself was grand, as always. Although it wouldn't be my mother's cooking if there wasn't some sort of misadventure there. The turkey was a little undercooked. We were able to trim off big chunks that were fine, but it's about par for the big bird course. On the bright side, this turkey would've been fully cooked with another hour or so (likely less), which means it's still nowhere in the league of the Turkey that Wouldn't Die. I think we gave up on that one after 15 hours of cooking. Or maybe we did let it go longer.

Saturday we started our first leg of the trip back. We went to Phoenix to grab lunch at the only non-Western New York location of Ted's Hot Dogs. It's set up just the same as the others, with lots of Buffalo paraphinalia. They even had a few Buffalo newspapers there. Mark got a little misty-eyed. Until we realized that they are a cash only restaurant. Enter the fun game of Scrounge for Change. It was actually a rather entertaining experience. And the hot dogs were from Sahlen's, the same supplier of the NY Ted's. They even had Loganberry there.

That night we caught a sunset at the Grand Canyon. Breath-taking as always. It'll be nice to be closer to the park one day. We stayed in Flagstaff. Choosing a place proved somewhat interesting. Two hotels of equal price and caliber were right across the street from each other. Then we saw the marquee for one of them. It announced, "Martians Welcome." We went for the one not proudly catering to those uppity green folk. I mean, imagine sharing a floor with those aliens! Of course, my muse kept wondering what the story behind that announcement was and what these particular Martians would look like. And Mark actually dreamed about why the hotel advertised such a thing.

And now we're back, facing a mountain of laundry and a pile of newspapers. Time to start preparing for the next road trip.

Another End

Last night I officially took a leave of absence from my chorus. I said I'd be gone for a year and hoped to be back after that, but I don't know. Going back depends on how my writing is going. It wasn't all that hard to say last night, and most of the chorus didn't seem too surprised. They were extremely happy for me with my writing and eager to hear all about sending my submission to the agent. And, of course, they all want autographed first editions. Nothing was difficult about the night until I actually had my jacket on, my purse and bags in hand, and was walking out of our practice hall. That put a bit of a lump in my throat and made me look back over my shoulder with regret. It didn't last too long, though, as I realized that I was spinning the next scene I needed to work on for HD and would end up writing it that night. Writing on a Monday night? That's never happened before. And yet it happened last night. So leaving my chorus did hurt, but I've got to look at what I gained. More time to write, and a better attitude about writing now that I don't have the draining distraction of my chorus. I'm so energized about HD, that I'm even going to bring everything with me on our Turkey Day trip. I'm also going to see about writing in the car. I doubt that will happen, but I'm eager to try. So the ending of my chorus days - even if a temporary one - brought about a beginning or at least a refreshing new step in my writing. I can live with that.

It's in the Mail

Sent the packet off to the agent today. If her turnaround time is as advertised on her website, I'll hear back by the end of the year at the earliest, end of January at the latest. If her turnaround time is on par with the email response she sent after the conference, I could hear back by the end of next week. Because I still have quite a bit of work to do on Human Dignity, and on my writing habits in general, I'm hoping she takes her time. But not too much time. Just before Christmas would be good. Because if she wants to read more and/or represent me, that would be an excellent Christmas present. And if she takes a pass, then I've got lots of gifts to cheer me up (not to mention another excuse to eat Holiday goodies).

Silly Astrology

My horoscope is at it again.

Stop thinking so much about what you want to do 'someday' and start making plans to actually do it now. You have so many good ideas -- don't let them all go to waste because you're keeping them to yourself. It might be a bit scary to expose your creative side to the rest of the world, but once you do, you'll feel as though a great weight has been lifted off of your shoulders. Something really good can come from your willingness to share your hidden talent.

OK, fine. I get the point. I'll send the pages off to the agent this weekend and get busy writing every day. Just stop beating me over the head with it!

Ends

The end of a cold is worse than the beginning and middle, in many ways. You're ready to be healthy again, and yet the silly bug still has a grip on you. Your throat always has a tickle, but your coughs never do anything to ease that. Instead, your coughs give you headaches, pulled muscles, and other fun things. Your nose is always stuffed and you can never blow it enough. Your ears pop continually. And you still feel just a smidge of weakness to keep you from carrying on with life as usual. At least when you're in the middle of a cold, you're too miserable to do anything but sleep and take cold meds. The beginning is never too bad because it's usually a dry, scratchy throat and not much else. But the end of a cold sucks.

There's another end happening right now. The end of a few internet presences. Holly Lisle and Sheila. They've both decided to end their blogs and end all involvement with on-line communities. These two women are responsible for getting me into blogging, and they've both taught me more than I can list about writing. They both explained that they need to just focus on writing, "protect the work" as Holly put it.

I went through several reactions to this news. At first it was loss. I enjoyed reading their blogs and their comments in various forums. They had such unique voices and many things to say. And it kept that human element to the writing world alive and well for me. But, despite my loss, I felt respect for their wishes. Then I got angry. I looked at my own life and realized how much I wanted to just focus on writing. How much I wanted to have that option. But I don't. And I got really pissed that suddenly these two women who had shared so much and given so much to my writing experience were suddenly taking it away - and in a fashion that made it all too clear that I couldn't follow their example in their last lesson on writing. Now I'm impatient. Eagerly watching the clock tick away to the day when I can take their lead and protect my work.

I'm trying to do what I can now. I find myself thinking about my own blog and how I use the Internet. What can I cut? What do I need to help with my writing and just life in general? I've already started to cut things out just because I've been so busy at work. I don't post hardly at all at the various bulletin board / communities I belong to. I don't do a daily blog read. I check a couple, skim here and there. But nothing like before. And I don't make it a priority to post here any more. That last I'll probably change. I do like this blog. I enjoy learning about coding and internet stuff in this fashion. And it's nice to know that my relatives scattered all over the country can hop on-line and see what I'm up to (if only they'd comment now and again and reciprocate - hint, hint :) ).

So now what? I'm quitting my singing group to give me more time and energy for writing. I'm trimming down my Internet presence so I don't "waste" my words and time in silly debates that do nothing except frustrate just about everyone involved. What else can I do? I can't quit my job. And I can't keep taking time for granted. It's not the best dilemma to find myself in, but I have the sense of working toward something that will be great, that will work for the way my life has to go right now. That little shaft of hope is mighty pretty. I hope I don't lose sight of it.

Sick, Tired, the List Goes On

It's pretty ironic looking at the entries that are sitting on my blog right now. Well, before I post this, anyway. On Oct 28, I posted about how proud I was that I was taming my pontificating habit. Then on Nov 3, I posted about how I let loose in a thread on politics - I'm certain it was done in true pontificating fashion. On Nov 9, I posted about how I was going to start taking care of myself and my writing more now that I've, more or less, taken the last year to goof off about that stuff. And here I am today, posting about how sick I am and how busy I've been at work. God has to have a sense of humor. Otherwise irony wouldn't exist.

To give some impression of how busy work was last week, let's just say that I could've come into work for just 15 minutes on Friday, and I would've still logged 40 hours. Yeah. That busy. I pulled a twelve-hour day on Wednesday and came in on Thursday hopped up on cold drugs just so I could keep myself vertical. The good news: the reason for all that overtime is a two day meeting that is done. The bad news: I may have to do this all over again for another similar meeting in just a few weeks. While the overtime pay is nice, working myself into a nasty cold isn't. Everyone at work is concerned for my health, but it felt a little less heartfelt when I kept hearing things like, "You should go home and take care of yourself. But since you're here...." Which explains why I really couldn't take the days off I needed last week. The stuff I needed to do couldn't wait and was worked up in a bunch of background work I had already done, making it very difficult for someone to fill in for me.

Being sick wouldn't bother me so much except for the fact that I was unable to perform in my last barbershop concert for a while yesterday. I feel really bad missing that. But I slept through the entire time I would've been on stage, which should say a lot. In fact, writing this right now, I can't believe I'm at work. I thought I would be OK, given that I was at that stage where you really want to be active but know you still need the rest last night. I figured another night's sleep would do me some good and then I would be good to go today. Ha.

I was also going to send off the submission to the agent this weekend, which didn't happen. Nothing happened this weekend except a lot of sleep, a lot of coughing, a lot of blowing my nose, and a lot of watching movies. And now it feels like this week won't be too different. *sigh*

Decisions

There's a lot to weigh when you make decisions. If there isn't, you might call it a choice instead. Choosing seems less dramatic than deciding. Choosing seems more "flip a coin" and "blink of an eye". Choosing implies a sense that perhaps you never really had the ability to make the choice, that it was fate, or someone else made it for you. But a decision is another beast entirely. You have to look at the outcomes. You have to look at the factors leading you to such a decision. You have to balance your needs with the needs of those dependent on you. A decision is never easy. Even when the pros far outweigh the cons, the con will never go away.

A year ago, I made a decision. It was the third and final one in a trilogy of life-altering decisions. The first was to leave a PhD program with a masters and give up my eight-year-old goal of teaching and researching at a university. The second was to quit my high school teaching job (after only teaching a quarter of the year) and give up my twelve-year-old goal of teaching in general. The third decision (made a week or so after the second one) was to pursue a writing career and get a job as a secretary to pay the bills (not using my science degrees - six years in the making). Each decision felt like the hardest thing I've ever had to do - until the next one came along.

I am now a year removed from that trilogy. I've spent the year doing a lot of things but primarily taking care of myself. Since high school, maybe even junior high, I've worked myself ragged. I gave myself breaks here and there, but I always felt guilty about them. Like I should be using that time to study for a test, to participate in another club, to volunteer, to read up on current research, to learn something new that I could use in my chosen profession. But not this year. This year I've slept in. I've given myself countless manicures and pedicures. I've spent a half hour getting ready in the morning, pampering myself with a fun hairstyle or a new color of eye shadow. I've read books instead of writing. I've played video games instead of cleaning the house. I've just sat on the couch and done nothing other than sit by my husband in front of the fireplace and enjoy our companionship. I've soaked up the sun. I've put off doing something at work for hours at a time so I could play a computer game or really spend some time emailing a friend. I've called my brother on a regular basis instead of making excuses not to. I'm planning on calling in sick so I can watch the two Lord of the Rings extended versions on DVD and then go see "Return of the King" in theatres that same day. I'm catching up on all the goofing off I never allowed myself to do or felt horribly guilty doing. The guilt is still there sometimes, but I'm taking care of myself.

That's not to say I haven't done anything this year. I've completed a draft of Human Dignity. I've revised a third of it, then started over at the beginning and re-revised the same third. I've submitted it to a writing contest and got feedback on it from an editor at Tor and from a published author. I've prepped it for submission to an agent. I've written 30,000 words in a romance. I've started building a world for a fantasy trilogy that's rapidly becoming a series. I've written the beginnings of a few short stories. I've played around with different writing styles. I've set up a system for dealing with the writing ideas I get. I've learned. I've also gotten a promotion at work. And I've made another decision - to take at least a year-long break from singing.

But now I want to do more. I want to take better care of myself by exercising, eating right (at least occasionally), and by writing every day and holding myself to a writing schedule for my various projects. I want to succeed and feel healthy, to add to the peace and happiness I've had from this past year. And now is the best time. I've given myself a year to do all the lazy I never allowed before. That's long enough. Time to balance it with responsibility in my health and writing.

Anger

It's easier to dismiss something in anger than actually try to think rationally and logically about it. Last week I realized that this is what I was doing with the Catholic Church. And today I realized that I'm doing it with politics. It's very easy to do when there's so much to be angry about. But something doesn't feel right about it. Like I'm short-changing something. But trying to confront the issue brings a fresh wave of anger.

We went to church about a month ago. And it was a nice liturgy. The homily seemed perfect for welcoming us back, the community seemed great, the priest reminded me of the good guys from my Germany days. But we haven't been back since. A couple weeks ago we even got in the car and were halfway there before I asked Mark to turn around. Our nice clothes had been dirty, so Mark and I had been forced to wear jeans - an article of clothing I was taught didn't belong in church. Plus, I just kept getting more and more pissed about the idea of going to Mass. I didn't want to bring that into the church. So we drove back home instead.

Last week, Teresa posted about the lengths to which Bush and Co will go to create a good image. Usually when I see her post about such things, I avoid commenting. I've gotten the impression that she believes the Florida Election Fiasco was a Republican conspiracy to get Bush into office and that Clinton didn't quite manage to walk on water but only got his shins wet instead of falling in. That's probably horribly unfair to Teresa. I may be guilty of lumping her thoughts on those subject in with a lot of sentiments I read along those lines because of similar language and/or ideas. Instead of trying to figure out, I try to just ignore the subject entirely when it's brought up in her blog. And we had that great chat at Colorado Gold, I did my best to bite my tongue and help the conversation move on to something else.

But I just had to say something about the post I linked to because I found it ridiculous to accuse Bush of pandering/creating a public image and imply that Clinton didn't do the same things or it at least wasn't so bad when he did it. I made the mistake of bringing up Clinton's infamous $200 haircut at LAX. Instead of taking my point and working with that, the haircut business became the topic of debate. It didn't really happen that way...It was all Limbaugh Lies....You've fallen victim to the right-wing malice machine...etc, etc. I honestly had no idea that the disruption the haircut caused was minimal at best and blown out of proportion by the press. OK, I got that point and acknowledged the error on my part. But it's like I was expected to absolve Clinton of any wrong-doing simply because the press decided to warp something. And that's when my anger slapped me in the face. I want to hate all politicians: Clinton, Bush, Cheney, Gore. Hell, even Nader. It's easier. By far. There's too many jackasses involved in politics. Forget "diamonds in the rough". Try "cubic zirconia in the dung heap". As someone pointed out in the comments, is it really worth my time to sift through tons of shit to find a small, cheap, knock-off imitation that may look pretty but will never be the real thing? No, it's easier to just say that all politicians are selfish imbeciles who should be in jobs as far removed from public office as possible.

And, thus, anger wins.

OK, so I've seen my problem. I'm copping out of my religion and my nation's politics due to anger. Probably not the smartest or the best thing to do, but it sure keeps my stress level down and my sanity intact. There's got to be a better way. One that allows me to participate as necessary in both but without having my idealism trampled to bits on a regular basis. Does anyone have any ideas?

They say that admitting is the first step. Well, damn it, what's the second one?

Reading Snob?

As I mentioned earlier, my patience is running thin with books. I gave up on C.J. Cherryh's Faded Sun trilogy because the pace never picked up despite a very cool story. And I've been less than enthusiastic about Sara Douglass's The Wayfarer Redemption because her writing style is omnipresent POV and rife with adverbs and it keeps pulling me out of a very cool story. I get really pissed when I keep wanting to skim through my fiction to follow the story. I finally got sick of trying to force myself to read books I should be reading (due to extreme popularity or frequent referrals by other writers - I figure these authors must be doing something right, so I should read and take notes). Now I'm reading the books I want to be reading. I started last weekend with Sheila's latest Jessica Hall romance The Kissing Blades. But those take me no longer than a week to zip through (and I never skim, and I love every minute of it - thank you, Sheila), and all I had left were books I should be reading. I finally got sick of trying to read Wayfarer and made a trip to a used book store today.

I picked up a couple romances by a woman that used to work in the same desk I just got promoted from (years ago, so hopefully her good vibes were still there). I picked up a cookbook and a book on CD (for our upcoming trek to AZ for Turkey Day). And I found a book that actually grabbed my attention and made me itch to read it instead of writing today. Kristin Britain's Green Rider. I'm just excited that I've got something that I want to read again. I just hope I can stretch it out more than a week.

But this reading problem makes me worried that I might be a Reading Snob. I keep telling myself that I'm just paying more attention to the craft of writing than I used to. (Should've heard me Thursday night while watching the new show "Tru Calling". In the first few minutes, I kept saying things like, "Well, hello, Exposition." I did like the show, though. Neat concept. It'll be interesting to see if they can do something with it. Trimming down the time that they show the main character running would be a good start. She's attractive and has a good body. I get it. Move on.) But I never used to notice when writing was bad or the style was annoying in a book. I would just read and either be interested or not. Now it's "adverb" this and "exposition" that and "stop showing off your research". *sigh* Is this a fringe benefit of being a writer?