Hm. I spent several hours this afternoon doing edits/rewrites on the first 3 Josie chapters -- well, the first 2.3 Josie chapters, and then my brain shut down -- but going with my 50% wordcount for editing, I accomplished about 3450 words written today.
This is not writing?
ytd wordcount: 35,000 (holy moly)
Know what? I'm not going to do any writing todya. Hah. Take that.
In the meantime:
I will be stung by a swarm of killer bees
How will you die? Take the Exotic Cause of Death Test
Okay, the editing made today a not totally lame writing day. Yay me. :) Now I'm going to go watch some of this season's Angel, 'cause I haven't yet, and some cool person sent it to me. Zum!
50K in 30 days count: 16,263
ytd wordcount: 31,570
Or, oop, maybe Dad will forget to pick me up, and instead of swimming I'll get the next chapter of MD edited. Which is a good thing, since I haven't gotten much writing done today overall, only 750 words or so. I used up a lot of brain yesterday, I guess. :)
Speaking of yesterday! Mom came over yesterday with a new quilt that she'd made for us! It's very cool! It's in greens and pale yellows and purples and is in a pattern called an Irish... Cross? Ring? I forget. Oop. :) But it's really neat! I'll take a picture or two tomorrow when there's daylight again. I have the *coolest* parents!!
Ok, the edits on MD ch. 2 (formerly known as the chapter called One) are done on paper, time to move them to pixels.
Headache today. I should go take some aspirin, huh? I didn't write this morning, as I got up around 6:40, went downstairs, stared at the computer a while, and couldn't think. So I went back to bed for an hour. :) I'll write in a bit.
Thinks to do today:
1. write 1700-3000 words
2. swim
I think that may very well be all I've got to do today. Besides, y'know, work stuff, which I don't put on this because I figure I can remember to do it anyway.
I need to get some breakfast and some water. I think today will be a low-output day for writing. Well, that's okay. 5100 words yesterday was a lot.
Boy, do I have bike butt this morning. Ow. (5.25 miles on the stationary bike last night. Not so bad, with a good CD to listen to.)
Jeez o flip, that is one exploded cat.
HoS: 2650
MD rewrite: 2422 words, up from the original 1388
today's total: 5072; I did enough rewriting on MD to count it as entirely new.
50K in 30 days count: 15,494
ytd wordcount: 29,640 (30K! so! close!)
This should not even be... thinkable. Link by way of Teresa Nielson Hayden, and Long Story, Short Pier, both of whom are more eloquent on the subject than I could hope to be.
The opening of the article:
800 missiles to hit Iraq in first 48 hours
The US intends to shatter Iraq "physically, emotionally and psychologically" by raining down on its people as many as 800 cruise missiles in two days.
The Pentagon battle plan aims not only to crush Iraqi troops, but also wipe out power and water supplies in the capital, Baghdad.
It is based on a strategy known as "Shock and Awe", conceived at the National Defense University in Washington, in which between 300 and 400 cruise missiles would fall on Iraq each day for two consecutive days. It would be more than twice the number of missiles launched during the entire 40 days of the 1991 GulfWar.
"There will not be a safe place in Baghdad," a Pentagon official told America's CBS News after a briefing on the plan.
I cannot concieve of how any reasoning, thinking human being could intend to perpetrate such a plan without even the appearance of a moral quandry. I cannot concieve of how any reasoning, thinking human being could not see that this is insanity. That this is genocide. Where is the rightness in this behavior? There is none.
Killing people is a terrible way to change their minds. God, why can people not see that! Killing people doesn't change anyone's minds. At the best it might change behavior for a short period of time, but even the briefest glimpse of history should prove that. Ireland. Croatia. Israel. Killing people doesn't change minds. It barely even proves your military might. Like it'd be any surprise to anyone in the world that the US could pulverize virtually any nation's military and civilian populations into mud?
Do the people in our goverment have no concept of martyrdom? Of overkill? Of extremist behavior? Do they have no care of the world's perception of our country? God, I can't stand this!
And the worst thing is, I don't know how to stop it.
Honestly, I have nothing *to* report this morning except a wordcount. 1945 words by 8:05am; I think I'm on to something with this early-morning writing thing. The house is quiet, no one but me and the dog are up, and the dog doesn't disturb me much, especially if she's got 1. water 2. a peanutbutter bone and 3. food.
I anticipate finishing another chapter today, and hopefully finishing the rewrite of the preface-which-has-become-chapter-one of Manifest Destiny.
But now to shower and then to *eat*, because I'm SO hungry!
Thinks to do:
1. write 3000 words
2. swim^H^H^H^Hgym
3. balance checkbook
I gymmed! I even biked 4 miles! I'll probably have bike butt tomorrow. :) It was a pretty good workout.
Before that, unfortunately, I slipped on the ice and fell under the Jeep, whanging the hell out of my left knee, landing on my right butt cheek, and causing my back to crunch in several places. I will be very grateful to only have a bruised knee and butt tomorrow, and not a whanged-up back. I really, really don't want a mucked up back. :/
Part of my brain thinks I should write some more. The rest of me thinks my hands are tired enough from lifting weights that my typing is questionable and my writing should be left alone for the night.
I suspect the rest of me is going to win. :)
We _tried_ to go to The Music Man to get a guitar. However, it was neither on International Airport Road nor on 36th Avenue where I thought it might be. Turned out it's on Tudor, which is between International Airport and 36th.
Doh.
Soooooo I'll try to get a guitar this weekend, instead of today, and I won't have a guitar lesson tomorrow, but I'll have one in Feblueberry! Actually, I should have 3 in Feblueberry before I have to pay for any again, which is cool.
Brain empty now. Nighty night. :)
Who's your daddy! 3799 words written today, and I stopped at that number because 1. it amused me and 2. I'm at a good break point and I think if I continue I'll be finishing this chapter, which will probably take another 1500 or more words, which is more than I feel like doing right now. I have other things I want to do tonight! Boy, I'm all buzzy and cheerful, though! Writing high! Cat exploded! Yeah!
50K in 30 days count: 12,844
ytd wordcount: 24,570 (25K so! close!)
Oot! I called Mark Fergueson, or however that's spelled, the guitar guy, anyway, to say I didn't have a guitar and so I thought I would have to cancel my lesson, and he said that The Music Man, which is one of the music shops in town, does rent-to-own guitars on a monthly basis and that it's like $16/m to rent and $4 or something of that goes to 'rent' and $12 to 'own', which doesn't suck at all. So maybe I'll see if I can get over to The Music Man tonight! I can afford $16/m! It'll take, okay, like, two years to pay the guitar off, but by the time I get it paid off I oughta be reasonably good at playing guitar, anyway! :)
*dancie dancie dance*!
thinks to do today:
1. write 1700-3000 words
2. rewrite Josie synopsis
3. gym this evening
Feeling very pleased with myself this morning. Got up at 6 and wrote for 90 minutes, accomplishing about 1350 words. I'm starving and in need of a shower now, but am generally pretty pleased with life.
Back from the gym, an hour hence. I had a nice swim, 2500 yards, and the two women in the lane with me were gratifyingly impressed with the sheer amount I swam. Thence to home, where Ted, surprisingly, was cooking dinner (I had expected him to be at aikido, but he is headachy), and so dinner (spaghetti! Yum!), and now I'm poking at the Josie synopsis, which is, quite reasonably, written entirely from a romantic angle (we wrote it as a romance), but which needs to be rewritten from a whole new angle 'cause we're no longer trying to sell it as a romance.
Ted noted that I failed to mention the *stunningly* good scalloped potatoes and ham that he made last night. I mention it now, and repeat that it was *stunningly* good. *Wow* good.
Awwroight. I rawk. 1804 words today. I yam luvin' the world! Although really, I should learn to only post once a day about wordcount, instead of updating every twelve minutes. :)
Oh! I also took some pictures of the spiffy dishes! I'm really delighted with these dishes. *beam*
Chipper, happy Kit! 5 out of the 8 things on my list accomplished! And I'll go swimming later, and bring a book with me for reading after. Hah! *dancie dancie dance*!
50K in 30 days count: 10,370 (10K! YEAH! Go me!)
ytd wordcount: 20,770 (20K! YEAH! Go me!)
895 words before lunch. A mere 705 to go today. I am _very_ pleased with the chapter I just wrote. :)
I tell you, a little Quaker Oats package of oatmeal in the bottom of a 3 cup soup bowl looks preeeeettttty pathetic. *many giggles*
Look! Several things on my thinks to do list already accomplished, and it's not yet 9am!
Thinks to do today:
1. dry my hair. my head is cold.
2. finish the laundry
3. vacuum
4. write 1700-3000 words
5. EMPTY BATHROOM GARBAGE, darn it!
6. go to the pool and swim
7. read some
8. draw some
Managed another 720 words or so before Shaun came home and Ted came downstairs to play with the dog and all the peace and quiet necessary for writing was disrupted. So I dinked around for a while and then watched another episode of Highlander (see, my plan is to watch 2 episodes a weekend until I've finally watched all of season 1, and then I'm going to do the same with Farscape, and then I'll have saved up enough to buy either Stargate season 1 and do the same, or Highlander season 2, and then by the time I'm done watching that, the next season of Farscape should be available... you get the picture), and now I'm getting ready to head for bed, but I thought I'd stop in and update my wordcount, which I'm sure thrills you all to *bits*.
50K in 30 days count: 8560
ytd wordcount: 18,970 (19K *so* *close*! augh!)
music: Chicago
Not such a busy weekend this weekend. I've washed the walls of the house where they needed it (in lieu of vaccuming, which I still need to do but probably won't today) and done some laundry. Ted and I went to a sneak preview of How To Lose A Guy in 10 Days last night and it was *very* funny. We watched Farscape and Stargate, and on Friday we went over to Mom's to celebrate her birthday and had a baked ham that was REALLY good, oh my *gosh* it was good. So we hung out for several hours and it was really very enjoyable.
Mom got money to buy herself some new dishes, so Mom and Dad went dish shopping yesterday.
About 4:30, they came over to our house with a complete, brand-new set of dishes for _us_. They found these really terrific purple and yellow and green and orange dishes which match our kitchen really nicely, and which don't match Mom's kitchen at *all*. And Mom really *really* liked them. So after much consideration, they decided they'd better buy them for us! O.O
So we have these TOTALLY awesome new dishes! They're so cool! They've got mugs that hold an entire 2 cups of liquid, and bowls, soup bowls, mind you, which hold *three* cups of liquid, and plus there's a serving bowl and a serving platter and plates and salad plates and I can't find any pictures on the net, so I'll have to take a couple of pictures to show people, 'cause they're *really* neat. *beam* I have really cool parents! :)
I also got 2600 words written today, and I think I might write more tonight. But right now I'm going to make cookies. :)
50K in 30 days count: 7840
ytd wordcount: 18,250
music: Absolutely, The Young Dubliners
Ok, I think I'm done writing for the day. 2701 words, which catches me up to yesterday's 1700 words and completes today's and puts me a few ahead for tomorrow. Also, chapter 2 is finished. Maybe. I'll have to see what happens in the beginning of ch. 3 and see if it fits better with the end of ch. 2, or if it's okay in 3. _This_ story is fun to write. I'm pretty sure that 7&9 isn't well-aged enough yet. It'll be fun later, when it /is/ well-aged enough.
50K in 30 days count: 5231
ytd wordcount: 15,650
1355 words written thus far today. Also, Ted made me a Perfect Omlette, and I found a nice-looking recipe for scalloped potatoes so we can have dinner tonight. :)
Off to write some more!
850 or so words written this afternoon, prior to going over to dinner for Mom's birthday. I may or may not get more written tonight after dinner, since we'll no doubt hang out for a while, and then it's scifi night on tv, so maybe no more writing for the night.
50K in 30 days count: 2530
ytd wordcount: 12,950
This here movie quiz/response thing I'm about to do is all Russ's fault, and I'll cut it to protect the innocent.
First movie you saw in the theatre: I'm pretty sure it was Disney's Robin Hood. I still love that movie. I can still *quote* that movie. Try me sometime.
Fav movie as a kid: Er. Robin Hood. Ooh, and Bugsy Malone.
Movie you have seen the most times: Probably one of the two above. Last Unicorn and Princess Bride are up there too.
Biggest movie star crush as a kid: John Cusack.
Fav 80's teen movie: Breakfast Club.
Fav song from a movie: Oh dear God. Uh. That's impossible to answer. Moses Supposes His Toeses Are Roses leaps to mind. _Luck Be A Lady_ from Guys & Dolls, except that was a musical first. And Marlon Brando can't sing, so his rendition's a long way from my favorite.
Fav love movie: Possibly _Dead Again_. Also possibly _Casablanca_. Unless we're going for romantic comedies, in which case _While You Were Sleeping_ is in the running. And _Princess Bride_.
Fav horror movie: I don't like horror movies. Having said that, _Psycho_, which is a goddamned scary movie even if you see it for the first time at age twenty-three and it's not like you don't KNOW what's going to happen.
Fav Drama: Um. _Dead Again_, probably.
Fav Sci Fi movie: Star Trek IV and VI. Don't look at me like that.
Fav musical: Singing in the Rain.
Fav comedy: Noises Off
Fav action movie: Hudson Hawk.
Movie that scared you as a child: Some version or other of Dracula. I saw part of it at a friend's house and couldn't sleep for a week.
Movie that makes you cry every time you see it: Anne of Green Gables. The book, too.
Worst movie you ever saw: Mortal Kombat II is right up there...
Movie you walked out on in the theatre cause it was so bad: I didn't, but I should've walked out of 1999 (or was it 2000's?) _Godzilla_, which was so bad and which had such an appallingly insipid female lead that I was actually yelling, "Step on her! Step on her!" at the screen.
Most sexual movie you ever saw (NON PORN): Sea of Love.
Most disturbing movie you ever saw: Disturbing, huh? Probably _Born on the 4th of July_.
Movie that supposedly sucks but you love it: Hudson Hawk, man. I don't know why the critics hated it so much.
Fav actors: John Cusack. Kenneth Brannagh. Sean Astin. Peter Wingfield. (Look, I didn't list him first, aren't you proud of me?) Robert Duvall. Al Pacino. Sean Connery. _Ron Perlman_, my god. Gene Kelly. Gene Wilder. Patrick Stewart. Hugh Jackman. I'll stop now.
Fav actresses: Jodie Foster. Susan Sarandon. Emma Thompson. Gwyneth Paltrow. Mae West. Marilyn Monroe. Julia Roberts. Nichole Kidman. Sandra Bullock. Madeline Khan (an excellent call on Russ' part). Julianne Moore. Judi Dench. Again with the stopping now.
Movie you wanted to see the most as a child but were not allowed to: The only movie I remember not seeing that I wanted to, as a child, was _The Fox and the Hound_, and it wasn't that I wasn't allowed to, it was that we got there too late to get tickets 'cause it was surprisingly sold out and we never got back to see it.
Sexiest movie star of all time MALE: It's a toss-up between Gregory Peck and Denzel Washington.
Sexiest movie star of all time FEMALE: Queen Latifah. /Damn/, sister. I might have to go with Marilyn Monroe as the runner-up/actual movie *star*, though.
Movie that could/might as well been written about your life: Amadeus.
Fave villain in a movie: Um. I don't know if I've got one. Probably General Chang from ST6.
Last movie you saw on TV/rented: Hm. I watched some of _The Client_ on tv the other day. I forget what we rented last.
Last movie you saw in theatre: The Two Towers, a'course.
Despite much expectation to the contrary, I got nearly 1700 words written this evening. I've put 7&9 aside to percolate for a while, because the idea of working on it was just making me grumpy, which is no good. So I think I need to think about it some more. Instead I'm writing (mumblemumblemumble) which I'll talk more about after I've gotten further into it. I'm suddenly feeling sort of like talking abut a book right at the beginning when I'm starting to write it is a jinx. So I'm not going to. I will say this, though: I'm going to try 50K words in 30 days again. Today is Day One. Off to a good start!
I'm becoming very fond of Lucy coming to sit on my shins while I write, though. I think that's a big plus. :)
ytd wordcount: 12,100
520 means I love you.
And, by way of Trip, an appalling possible future.
On a cuter note, this morning's computer cats.
Up and at work early today, due more to Ted being migrainey than any real desire to get to work at 7am. I was going to gym, but Ted needed rest, so I figured since I was up I might as well shower and get to work. At least this way I'll be able to leave early enough to go for a walk while it's still light out. :)
Off to see if I can't get this last bug fixed bright and early so 1. my coworkers will be happy and 2. I can write. :)
I was just obliged to take a seventy minute nap with a cat. Rough life, lemme tell you.
Well. I went to my guitar lesson. The good news is that Mark Ferguson, the guitar guy, is extremely nice and clearly loves what he does. The bad news is that my guitar is a lemon. Can't be tuned. It's a Taylor, and he says he's never seen one yet that could be tuned. The neck is bowed and the strings are a very very long, but not uniform, distance from the frets, and the strings can be tuned at the 5th fret, but can't be then tuned to one another, and by the time you move from the 5th fret down to the body it's lost its tune. Mark says the guy who makes Taylor guitars is an snake oil salesman and that he talks a very good show, but the guitars are just not well made. We figure either the people who sold Ted the guitar (it was a Christmas gift a couple years ago) didn't really know what they were doing, or they were rat bastards. Neither is a particularly nice option; you'd think people at a store that sells guitars would know if that brand of guitar is poorly made, and if they knew and talked it up anyway, well, then, they're rat bastards!
On the other hand, it does make me feel somewhat better about all of my guitar-playing relatives being unable to tune the thing. I had three or four try. :/
So I'm going to ask my uncle Packy, when he gets back from Ireland, if he has an old guitar I could borrow. He's played guitar all his life, as far as I can tell, and he's got a lovely one himself, but he's the only person I know who might have a spare. I really had a good /time/ at the lesson, and Mark was incredibly nice and I'm sure I could learn to play the guitar from him, if I can find a guitar! He suggested an entry-level Yamaha to replace this one, but they cost $250-$300, and it'll be several months before I can save that much up. Soooo. Well. We'll see!
Aaaaand, let's see. Um. I wrote a little bit more, and I read a book and oh! My *extremely* clever husband taped last night's Buffy! So we watched that, and I thought it was a pretty good episode, especially the end. And then I took a nap with Zilli, after I finished my book. :)
ytd wordcount: 10,400
500ish words written so far today. That's a little over 10K for the year so far. Yay!
This is entry #1000 on my weblog/journal thing since I switched it to a comments-based system. Apropos of nothing.
Accomplishments thus far today: I plugged my computer speakers in. Well, hey, at least it's /something/, right? Fixed a couple bugs at work, too, actually. Lunch now, then to sleep. Or something like that. Or maybe something more like fixing more bugs and then going to a guitar lesson. O.O
I swimmed! 1800 yards. It was nice. My ears are not too watery today. I have an Amazingly Ugly Bruise on the top of my right foot. Ted and I discussed the possibility that it was caused by the dog jumping on my foot, but we decided it was more likely to be the Foot Gnomes. After further discussion, we realized that probably the Foot Gnomes liked to chase the cats, which is why cats suddenly leap up and run around the house like fools for no apparent reason. Furthermore, it became clear to us that the Foot Gnomes are beating Zilli up, since he keeps getting scratches on his face. We're considering calling an exterminator.
SO HUNGRY. Having an apple with a little bit of peanutbutter, as a treat.
Jai has learned to eat her baked potatoes with no butter or salt. I'm amazed. And a trifle envious!
Speaking of Jai, we went to see The Two Towers again last night. Well, it was again for me; she hadn't seen it. About forty seconds after Legolas does the Really Cool Thing, she leaned over and said, "Okay, I have to come see this again." Which is just what I expected her to say. *giggle* So we really enjoyed ourselves. It was lotsa fun. And Jai looks great. And she's got a VW Bug! It's light blue! It's roomier inside than I expected it to be. It's very cool.
My puppy is looking avariciously at my apple. Ooh, two points for me for using a ten cent word before nine in the morning! (I should swim every day. It makes me chipper!)
*pantpantpant* 600ish words written. Upstairs vacuumed. Stairs vacuumed. Cake made. Kitchen cleaned. Kitty litter cleaned. Kitchen floor swept. Random Junk Lying Around put away. Downstairs bathroom swept. Discovered do not own mop. More things put away. Must vacuum downstairs. Then house will be presentable to Jai.
*pantpantpant*
Oh, because people keep asking: S&3 means synopsis & 3 chapters.
Man. No email from the publisher. I'd worked myself into an Unreasonable Hope, this morning. :)
I went to The Hours tonight. It's an excellent movie with excellent performances by the entire cast, and Nichole Kidman looks and sounds nothing at all like Nichole Kidman.
I also wrote 1080 words today. I think I can manage to make the other 20 up tomorrow. :)
Did a little bit of laundry. Whee. :) Sarah and I spent quite a while going through our Writers/Novels Market books and finding appropriate publishers to query for Josie. We ended up with an even dozen, 5 of whom request S&3 and 7 of whom ... don't. :) Query-letters only. So the day wasn't a wash.
Don't want to work tomorrow. Sulk.
Think I'll go read.
ytd wordcount: 8980
Oh, on a tangent, Sarah and I decided last night to dig out the Josie manuscript, do a little more rewriting/tweaking/editing, write up a new synopsis, and send it out to people who publish Westerns. We'll be sending out queries and/or S&3s on Feb 1.
Anybody got any opinions on how rewrites count towards total wordcount?
Got up way late this morning. V. spoiled. Have accomplished Diddly, followed by Squat. Well, I managed to put a blanket into the laundry; I suppose that counts for something. And I ate breakfast. I'm becoming rather fond of this apple-before-a-meal plan. It's yummy!
Today is Ted's birthday! Happy birthday to Ted! *beam*
Ted has had a very successful birthday party. :) He made a stunningly yummy lasagna, then got a whole bunch of good loot (cooking stuff, Farscape, LotR DVDs, a circular saw...) and then we ate the stunningly good German chocolate cake I made. :) Now we are bloated, like warthogs, but we are happy!
I also got another several hundred words written, for a total of 1300ish for the day. This is good. :)
ytd wordcount: 7900
700 words written this afternoon. I believe I'll do some more writing this evening after birthday festivities. For now, er. For now I'm going to go to the post office and do some more laundry and and and um. Go over to the university to see if the gym'll be open tomorrow, since the website's down at the moment. :)
Off I go! Zumzum!
I'm sure you'll all be very startled to hear that it's been a busy morning. :) I got up about a quarter to nine (laaaaazzzzzzzyyyyyyy meee) and made a birthday cake which smells SO GOOD! and um. Oh, cleaned the kitchen after that. It needed it. And I showered in there, too. Between making the cake and cleaning, I mean, not in the kitchen. I didn't shower in the kitchen.
Went to dinner with Mom & Dad last night, then came home and watched an episode of Stargate I hadn't seen and a couple episodes of Highlander. And finished reading a couple of books. Yay!
Starving. Going to eat now.
Another busy day. This keeps happening. :) Went to the gym this morning and swam a decent 1800 yards, then stopped at the framing shop and picked up my Goodtree print, which is ABSOLUTELY GORGEOUS, and also picked up the other silly little print that I'd dropped off to have framed. Came home, made a tuna melt for lunch (*YUM*!), Shaun checked the mail came back with, thank HEAVENS, my SASP (Self Addressed Stamped Postcard) from the publisher! One puts this in along with one's manuscript so the publisher, upon receiving it, can send it back to let you know when the manuscript arrived.
Except in this particular case, instead of an arrival date, mine has a note which says: "Sorry, just noticed this! Got the manuscript a while ago! :)" (smiley his, not mine). *laugh* So I'm very relieved to have gotten that, because I sent the ms on the 17th of December and hadn't gotten the postcard back, so I was worried about it being lost in the Pit of Lost Manuscripts, but I didn't want to email and be a nag because I sent it right before the holidays and I figured it wouldn't get there until they'd closed down for the holidays as it was, and so from the beginning of the year it'd only been a couple of weeks since they'd have received it, and--anyway, I'm very relieved to have gotten it. :)
And then Shaun and I went and did a bunch of birthday present shopping for Ted. Hah. :)
Everybody must go read this right now. A sample:
The song is sung to the melody of "if you're happy and you know it, clap your hands"
If you cannot find Osama, bomb Iraq.
If the markets are a drama, bomb Iraq.
If the terrorists are Saudi,
and your alibi is shoddy,
and your tastes remain quite gaudy,
bomb Iraq.
Compliments of John Robbins, whomever he is. :)
Not even SportsAuthority.com has men's figure skates. What the hell. *mutter*
I called the people at NewSkates.com, which is where I bought my skates, and got a return code for the skates I had and talked to the woman there who said that she probably wouldn't bother trying to order men's skates from them, because their men's skates are cut in medium widths and she suspects a medium width isn't going to be any wider than a women's wide. She gave me another URL to try, which has proved to not have any wide men's skates either, but it was still very nice of her!
On another note (laaa!), there will be another Chicks anthology, but they don't take unsolicited submissions. OTOH, the editor, Esther Friesner, has been very nice in email. :)
Crap. Nowhere in the entire universe carries wide men's skates. I want to ice skate, but I want skates that fit! I won't *use* them if they don't *fit*! I could order a pair of custom-made ones for like FIVE HUNDRED DOLLARS, but I don't THINK so. Gaargh!
No wonder I was so thirsty last night. I just looked at my water pitcher from yesterday, which is still 3/4ths full.
I only got about 200 words written last night. I was cranky and cold and out of sorts and, well, didn't get much written! I did read a book and do a drawing, though. A sketch. 'Drawing' is sort of high-falutin' for what I did.
And that's about it, kids. Nothing to report this mor--oh, well, a small thing to report. Having dismally failed to write my 1500 or even 1100 words, I have decided that perhaps I ought not log onto Too in the mornings until I've written my quota for the day. Much of my inability to write at the desktop is due to Too, so, well, by removing that temptation and presenting it to myself as a reward, I might get my writing done early in the day. Except when work swamps me, but that's a different matter.
So as of Monday I may start showing up online later in the day. Just so y'all know.
This is a very aggravating vocabulary test. I got 157 out of 200 (and apparently forgot to answer 3). I disagree with at least a third of the ones it says I got wrong, 'cause I don't think that all of those words are necessarily opposites or the same.
Trip, who is Better Than Me, or who at the very least has a larger vocabulary, got 180 out of 200. Sulk. :)
I've started what I hope will be a very silly short story which I would adore to submit to the Chicks anthologies, although I don't know if they're publishing any more of them. But anyway, be that as it may, I wrote more! Yay!
today's wordcount: 2764
ytd wordcount: 6600
I wrote! Finally. o.o 1700 words, which may be all for the day or it may not, but at least it's my quota and then 600 makeup words. I figure if I do 300 makeup words a day I'll be caught up by the end of February... o.o
I've set up guitar lessons. Eeep! Starting next Wednesday. Double eep! O.O
This is a lovely, pissed-off commentary by author John LeCarre on the Bush regime and its warmongering, by way of Charlie's Diary.
Trip is not at all behind on his writing. I am 12 days behind on my writing. Trip will mock my monkey pants if I don't catch up.
But first I have to do the actual work that has finally arrived for me to do. There's really nothiing to report thus far this morning. I have a chiro appointment in an hour and oh oh, guitar lessons! I have found a place (actually, the same place I called 3 months after getting back here, really) to take guitar lessons, and I'm going to By God Do It. If my mom can drop me off, anyway. 4 30 minute lessons cost $60, which isn't too awful. Besides, according to Deirdre, Breic can already play four chords, and he's only four weeks old. :)
music: Chicago
*sulk* Sports Authority doesn't even carry men's figure skates in the Anchorage store, and the whole point is to not have to guess as to what size I'd wear. Bastards. I'll try going to Play It Again Sports tomorrow and see if THEY carry men's figure skates. *sulk*
In other news, I, er, well. I got the bills paid, anyway!
And, actually, we also went over to the University Center, which is a mall despite sounding like it's something to do with the University, except the University bought up half the mall and made it into its administrative stuff and apparently computer lab stuff and, um, stuff, so it really is the University Center like it sounds like it might be now, and got our Wolf Cards re-upped so we can use the gym. Had you forgotten where that sentence began by the time you got to the end? I just about had.
It looks all different and strange in there! They took out the movie theatre and all the stores and put up rooms and walls and offices and did it all in yellows and golds and greens, which are UAA's colors, and wow, it's very different and strange!
Hm. It appears that my idea of a wide skate is not the same as a figure skates maker's idea of a wide skate. I have recieved my skates in the mail, and they are ... well, they almost fit. But not quite.
Sarah has suggested I go look at *men's* figure skates. I want to know why she didn't think of that two weeks ago. I want to know why *I* didn't think of it two weeks ago! Maybe we can go over to Sports Authority tonight and I can try on some men's skates. And then I'll probably have to send these skates back. Sheesh. Wottabother! Darned fat feets!
However, I also got tapes of this season's Angel in the mail, so there is Angel to watch! Yay!
The bills are paid! Yay! Now there has to be writing. (I'm sure you're all very excited.)
I didn't get anything like as much as I wanted to done yesterday. Not that I had a really clear plan, which was probably the problem, but I'm reaching a state of Terminally Behind with writing, having only written 3 out of the 14 available days this year. I did finish another 1000 drawings drawing, which is *something*, anyway, and I have to go kill the dog now. Excuse me...
Okay, the dog is dead. Well, no, she's not, but at least she's upstairs and no longer chewing on Lucy's head. *crossed eyes*
Thinks to do today: write! I must WRITE. And pay the bills.
This is very good banana bread.
Finishing up a busy weekend. I did work on a drawing a little bit last night, so I feel slightly less lame, and we went to Chicago, which I enjoyed a great deal. I didn't know the music or the storyline, having never seen it before (well, I know All That Jazz, but who doesn't?), and so I had no problems with whatever it is they might've done to the stage play in order to make it work on the screen.
Renee Zellweger, Catherine Zeta-Jones, and Richard Gere can all _really_ sing. Richard Gere had never tap danced before doing this movie, and apparently spent three very intense months learning so that he could do his own dancing -- and he was good. I say this as a tap dancer. He was good. I enjoyed watching him very much.
Renee'd apparently never sung /or/ danced, and yowzah. Especially the singing. Yowzah.
It's not a very *happy* story -- it's all about jealousy and greed and murder and fame -- but I really enjoyed it! If you like musicals at all, go see it!
Hm, the dog wants out. *zum*
I'm just Lil' Miss Suzy Homemaker this weekend. I made banana bread and brownies and cleaned the bathroom. Well. It's cleaner than it was. I'm not sure I'd go so far as to actually say it's /clean/. We also shopped and went to theh post office and now the Farscape tape is winging its way to Sarah, and this afternoon after baking I had to take a nap, so I curled up under the Rogue blanket and slept for about an hour and a half, which was very good but it did sort of throw a wrench into the works because I neither drew nor wrote during that hour and a half, which sorta put me behind schedule.
Despite this, we're going to go see Chicago in an hour or so. :)
I *also* went to the gym, after waking up from my nap, and that was a very good thing. I had a nice workout.
Man, all I've eaten today is some french toast and a piece of banana bread. I'll be glad when dinner's ready! Which should be any minute now, actually, so off I go. Zum!
More thinks to do for tomorrow! I have to write 1100 words and do a drawing and go to the gym and clean the bathroom and maybe go to Chicago (the movie, not the city) and go to the post office and and and maybe some other stuff! (I must post this tonight, because I'm not sure I'll be on to do it in the morning.) Oh, another think to do: go through the comics and dig out all the Gambit stuff so I can prepare to scan stuff for HoC.
But now, to bed!
Busy busy day today!
I vacuumed and did laundry and got conditioner that I hope won't make me break out and had a bookstore accident (does it count as a bookstore accident if it's on a gift certificate?) and read a book and watched 2 episodes of Highlander AND cooked dinner AND wrote 1100 words AND went to the post office (although we left there again without sending anything because the line was 45 minutes long) AND went and brought the Goodtree print in for framing and it's going to be goooooooorrrrrrrrgeous and I can't *wait* to get the Winny/Tyldak print because it'll be all dark and lush next to the all pale and cool Goodtree and it'll be goooooooorrrrrrrrgeous!
Bookstore accident: I got the Green Knowe books at Waldenbooks! All five of them! I don't like the new covers as well as the covers that I had on the books when I had them as a kid, but I don't know what happened to those, so I can live with the less cool covers because I HAVE THE GREEN KNOWE BOOKS! *DANCIE DANCIE DANCE*! I read the first one tonight and it was still pretty darned wonderful. *beam*
I also got Liralel, or I think that's the name, anyway, by Garth Nix. The sequel to Sabriel. And another YA fantasy novel which I'd never heard of but er I liked the cover. :)
And Ted got Naomi K*mumbles*'s Fires of the Faithful and whatever the sequel to it is, and um. And I made dinner! (Sorry, this is something of an accomplishment for me, actually cooking. I actually fried chicken. The mind, she boggles.)
I'm a little spazzy. Or sort of -- I can't tell if I'm very tired and hyper or if I'm just very bouncy because I actually EXERCISED today and did I mention that I wrote? I wrote. And my characters had SEX. In chapter TWO. This is NOT NORMAL BEHAVIOR FOR MY CHARACTERS.
Well, actually, apparently it's normal behavior for these ones, but still. I'm all taken aback.
I'm a bit babbly tonight, aren't I?
My ears are entirely full of water. Well, perhaps not entirely, but definetely full. *gloosh* I swam 1800 yards this morning, which was extremely nice, and if I'd gotten to the pool earlier I'd probably have done closer to 3K, but, well, I didn't. :) It was a nice swim!
I have many thinks to do today. I hafta do laundry, vacuum, write, go to the framing shop, go to the post office, aaaaaaaaand it seems like I'm missing something, but even so, that's several things right there. And I had to swim, but I did that part already. :)
But *now* I'm going to go have breakfast. Ted's making omlettes! Yum!
*laugh* Speaking of Ted. Ted has a problem. Ted has been sucked into fan fiction. He's been reading pretty much all the novel-length Harry Potter fan fiction he can find (novel length stuff tends, it seems, to not do slash, which isn't what he's reading for), and he's been staying up Very Late Indeed to read HPFF. I've been threatening to not let him near the computer after 11 at night anymore. :)
Ok, now I'm really going to go have breakfast! *zum*
Well! In a fit of fitfullness, inspired pretty much entirely by Patch, I redid my art page entirely. I put it in Gallery, so there are thumbnails and little comments of my own, and it's now possible to make comments, should people wish to do so. I've got stuff up that I've never had posted before, although if I'm going to be -- well, hardly completionist, because too much of my stuff isn't good enough to scan, but if I'm going to be at least thorough, I've got more scanning to do. But I've had enough fun scanning for one day. o.o
I moved the 1000 drawings project from the photos area to the art area, although I haven't yet taken it out of photos. Um. What else? Oh: I think this is probably the best drawing I've ever done. It's a college friend of mine, Rob Boyer, as Jesus, from UAF's production of Jesus Christ Superstar.
Um. Okay. That's all! :)
I'm going to have to read some more William Gibson, if for no other reason than his blog is insanely enjoyable.
I'm stuck in my computer chair. Zilli has fitted himself between my shoulders and the back of the chair -- well, now he's slid down to sort of my mid-back -- and I'm a terrible sucker.
Actually, now I've spent so much time taking pictures and uploading them that he's gone away, so I can go get something to eat. What a relief! :)
Whew! Busy day! Well, for some value of busy, anyway. *laugh* Breic has his own little blog now, which Deirdre will update when the mood strikes her. I'll be posting Breicpictures /there/ instead of /here/. Well. I'll probably mention it here, too, but I'm going to put a gallery up over there full of Breicpics.
Also, my friend Patch now has an art gallery up. I'm starting to be the queen of subdomains, here!
Sort of brainless today. Trying to hash out the setting for The Seven and the Nine with Sarah, who has already had a couple of cool wicked ideas.
Hungry. Hm. Must do something about food. Gah, no brain. Trip, did you suck out my brain and have it for a snack? *suspicious look*
Hn. A few things accomplished, anyway. I updated 1000 drawings a little, and updated my goals graphic a little, if not *wildly* accurately, and watched Buffy, and ... now I'll go to bed and try to get up at a sensible hour tomorrow, instead of oversleeping, which I keep doing. Night!
There. The archives are fixed, overlooking the detail that if you're using an older browser they'll be horked because I haven't gotten around to finishing building a barebones version of the site yet. Well, shush; nothing's perfect. Hnf.
Ted is suffiently wiped out from doing things like showering and walking up the stairs that we determined it was the better part of valor not to attend Rent tonight, so I've sold our tickets off to someone on the local mailing list I'm on, and instead of going out to the theatre we'll stay home and watch Buffy. :)
Does anybody else find apples and water to be a particularly unpleasant culinary experience? Glick.
Well, poop. Didn't make semi-finals in the People's Pilot. This time I'm not as crushed as I was last time. I was VERY crushed last time. Speaking of which, I need to spend a bit of time fixing my archives so that stuff prior to Dec. 2001 is available.
Poor Ted is still sick, and staying home again. He's in bed still. Poor Ted!
I should go have an apple. And some water.
More babby pictures. I'm hungry, so I suppose that means I ought to go eat an apple.
Poor Ted is sick and staying home. He has the awful cold I had last month, and he sounds like a bullfrog. It's kind of impressive.
Momentous (sp?) occasion tonight; I finished filling my first paper journal in years this evening, after making a resolution back in mid-November that I would God Damn It Take A While To Write Every Sunday Evening, No Matter What. Since doing that, I've been journalling a couple of times a week, which is different entirely than blogging, even if my blog is just a personal updates thing. It's very satisfying to have finally filled another journal, all with hand-written entries.
And so, good night.
Gallery software is working again. Pictures of Breic here, and the house here. I'll scan more baby pictures in over the week.
We postulate that the President is not a moron, but a sociopath.
Well, *that's* reassuring. o.O
Oop! I forgot to mention I had a little bookstore accident tonight. At Title Wave, so it's not nearly as bad as it could be, but I got, um. Either 3 or 4 books on Native American mythology, a book about Marie Laveau, a book about Mayan shamanism, and a book about Gypsy shamanism.
Galleries! I was going to go look at the help pages and see if anybody'd responded to my bugs! That's what I was going to do! *vrooms off to do that*
Just in case anybody was wondering, Natty Gann was pretty much as wonderful in 2003 at 29 as it was in 1985 at 12. In fact, I'm convinced once more that Harry is one of John Cusack's best roles. (Perhaps not coincidentally, 1985 was also the year he made my favorite Cusack film, The Sure Thing. Maybe I've just got a thing for 19-year-old-John-Cusack.)
Natty Gann's out on DVD. Apparently it's a pan-and-scan, not a widescreen version, but I might get it anyway. *beam*
Mutter. I don't know what I'm doing with The Seven and the Nine. I have to think about it some more. Mutter. In the meantime, I don't know what to work on. I'm not sure I've got enough together mentally to work on Back to Avalon, either. Maybe I'll work on the next Walker Papers book. Or that little paranormal romance I was going to try. Phooey.
But right *now* I'm going over to Melissa's to watch Nattie Gann. :)
The puppy has been collected from the airport and delivered unto Shane and LA. The puppy is very, very cute. Well, of course he is; he's a puppy and he's supposed to be cute, but by George, he lived up to expectations. :) Hopefully he'll fit in with their household, but if not, hopefully we'll find him a good home!
Ted wanted to name him Porthos. He looks like a Porthos. I might suggest that to Shane. :)
Ok, so I subscribe to Shape magazine, which often has interesting stuff that I faithfully ignore. But one of their ads in the newest issue is for this Golds-Gym-sponsored weight loss program thing, in which they're stipulating an apple 1/2 hour before each meal, 3 times a day, as a, well, weight-loss plan.
They're doing a 12 week challenge which requires no entry fee, although they've got a "Total Success Kit" you can buy for nine bucks.
The grand prize is $50,000.
I think it actually sounds like sort of a cool thing to try. (I like apples.) There's more information about it at http://www.getfitfoods.com/contest/the_challenge.html. I know I need more fruits and veggies in my diet, anyway! :)
Anybody interested in joining me? You're supposed to take 'before' and 'after' pictures for the purpose of actually joining the contest.
The no-purchase-necessary info for the contest is:
Mail us a 3x5 card with your name and address clearly printed on it to: Entry Form Only c/o Get Fit Foods - 18 N. Worthen, Wenatchee, WA. 98801-6137.
My ears are all full of water. I swam this morning (1 mile), and Ted and I went to Gwennie's for breakfast/brunch,and it was quite good. And now I'm ... procrastinating, pretty much. I should be doing some writing, and I'll probably get around to it in a while, but I'm, er. What am I doing? Oh. Looking for Shane's phone number so I can call him to tell him when the puppy is coming in.
*calls Shane*
Hm. That particular bit of procrastination is now taken care of. Although I should call his cell phone, too...
*calls Shane again* Okay, *there*, now that's really taken care of. Yay! See, Emily rescued a puppy whom she really couldn't keep, and so yesterday afternoon I sent out an email to one of the local mailing lists I'm on saying 'is anybody looking for puppy?' and explained the situation. An old coworker of mine from Internet Alaska (who didn't know who I was, and who was subsequently razzed by the rest of the list) said he'd been thinking about another dog, and volunteered to at least foster the puppy and see if it fit in with his household. If not, someone else on the list knows people at the SPCA shelter, and someone else works with a woman who works with a Friends-of-Pets foster care system, so the puppy is on his way out of Kotlik right now and will have at *least* a temporary home and maybe a permanent one, and there are back-ups and shelters and foster help to find him a new home if he doesn't fit in at Shane's. So! HOORAY! He's a very cute puppy. I mean, they all are, of course, but I'm glad I know people who could help this one. And I suspect Emily is glad too. :)
Geni got her Big Box O'Books! I've been sending her books printed in English (although not, I admit, with any sort of regularity), because books printed in English cost a Whole Heck Of A Lot in the Netherlands. She has in turn sent a bunch on to Emily, and presumably they'll eventually work their way back to me, which is all kinda nifty! Plus there were Christmas goodies in the box, and despite being a couple of weeks old now, she says they're still very good, so yay!
Let's see. Ears still full of water. I'm very self-conscious at the swimming pool right now, because my swimsuit is not really quite big enough (stupid Speedo site didn't have useful sizing charts and so I miscalculated the size, which became apparant as soon as the suit got here, because *it* had useful sizing on its tag, but anyway), and so I'm all flabby and poking out of the suit very unattractively. Fortunately, for some value of fortunate, this ceases to bother me once I'm actually in the water. And, well. If I swim enough, presumably the flab will go away and the suit will fit me better. None-the-less, for the moment I'm self-conscious.
Hah! Sports Authority has gotten their new shipment of ice skates in, which means I should be able to go over and see if size 9 skates fit me since the size 8s don't, and then I'll be able to, um. Try ice skating.
I literally don't *remember* the last time I ice skated. It was a very long time ago. It's likely I'll be a bit wobbly at first, although I did fine (so long as I didn't have to do anything tricky, like stop or go up a hill) on in-line skates, so it oughtn't be too bad. UAA has a year-round ice rink, and Westchester Lagoon has a gigantic ice loop that they zamboni in the winter (although I don't think the lagoon is frozen enough yet for them to do that), and the Ben Boeke or something like that ice rink is on Northern Lights about a mile or so from where we live, so it is my Stated Intention to get out and skate a couple times a week, at least until summer, when I'd rather be biking. :)
(My idea at the moment, see, is to swim or skate 3-5 times a week for the cardiovascular exercise, and do a full-body workout 2 times a week. I figure breaking up the swimming with skating will keep me from getting bored. We'll see!)
I should go put some pea soup into some containers for my parents aaaand I should get the blankets that are theirs and bring it all to them and go see about the skates. Yes. That's what I should do.
And then maybe take a nap. *sleepy eyes*
Boy, I just made an excellent batch of pea soup. Sadly, Ted doesn't like pea soup, so he can't appreciate its excellence, but I assure you, it's really very good. I also made a less excellent batch of biscuits, which tasted perfectly fine, but which are a trifle flat. Darn it, you roll *pie* dough out very thin! O.O I did better with this batch of biscuits than the last, which were *very* thin. These ones were only somewhat thin, and the first several I punched out are more or less biscuit-depth. I have to practice making biscuits until I get it right, I guess! O Woe Is Me. :)
I wonder if people would like a pea soup recipe. Well, what the hell: it's my blog.
Pea soup*:
1 medium onion, chopped
1 carrot, chopped
1 stalk celery, chopped
2 quarts water
1 pound split peas
4 tsp salt
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
Sautee the onions in a dollop of butter, or don't, as you see fit. Rinse the peas and put everything together in a soup pot. Bring to a boil, then simmer for 90 minutes or until the peas are mushy.
* This recipe is much improved by cutting the remaining meat off a ham or pork roast bone, chopping it up, and putting it all, bone included, in the pot to boil along with the water for a couple hours.
While I didn't seem to think yesterday was Monday, despite having the day off in the middle of the week to psyche me out, I /did/ apparently spend the whole day believing that /today/ was Tuesday. I packed up several bags of garbage yesterday and put them all in the garage, in the mistaken belief that the garbage would be picked up this morning.
To my great bewilderment, today is not Tuesday, and the garbage has not been picked up.
Today is J.R.R. Tolkien's eleventy-first birthday! For this momentous occasion, you are invited to lift a glass at 9pm (local time) and toast "The Professor," in fellowship with fans around the world!
In other news around the world, a worthy cause, by way of Population One, and I think it's a worthy cause not because the people in question grow coffee, but because I think that connecting the world is a good idea. An excellent idea, in fact.
My stupid photo gallery software apparently 1. has a gaping security hole in it and 2. requires a complete reinstallation to upgrade to the next version, rather than having a tidy patch, which makes me *very* displeased. Anyway, it's broken right now, which is why I haven't *posted* the pictures of Breic or the house, and ... that's all she wrote.
My Day, by Catie Murphy
I got up late. I ate breakfast. I did two loads of laundry. I cleaned the kitty litter. I cleaned the dog pen. I ate at Arby's. I ran around the downstairs taking pictures because it was all clean and beautiful. I drank some water. I paid bills. I balanced the checkbook. I cleaned some of my desk. I put laundry away. I scanned a few pictures of Breic. I ate a Russian tea cake in one bite and got powdered sugar all over myself anyway, so I had another one. After a while I did some writing (1200 words).
The End.
The holo print ripples and expands, panning down an idyllic river, golden light shimmering off bumps in the water and warming black, leafless trees on the bank. In silhouette, a raft appears, the sun haloing behind the robed men who stand on its sides, poling upriver. A roughly-built wooden cabin dominates a third of the raft; from the camera's angle, it seems to fill the back end.
The raft glides closer, golden drops of water splashing ballerina skirts into the sedate river surface. The sun's glare lessens, and more individuals can be picked out. They are all robed, fabric pooling on the raft floor as they crouch and sit. An older man sits complacently with a fishing pole, dragging the line through waters most people don't dare to fish any more.
A woman stands. In the brightness of the setting sun, her cropped hair is colored like fire. She looks directly towards the camera, smirking, full of amusement and pleasure, before sketching an infinitely polite bow, and turning away.
The image freezes. Randolph drops the remote on the table.
"They are the Seven and the Nine."
And lo, today, on this second day of the Year of Our Lord 2003, I will get to ... shovel dog shit. And clean the kitty litter. We need to go get bigger bags for the kitty litter box, because the ones we've got don't really stay in place, and it makes for gross.
You might guess I don't have a great deal to say today. Go read Garrett's great-great-grandfather's Christmas Special Deliveries from 1912 and 1913, and come back here later to tell me how spiffy I am for sending you to read them instead of boring you with my life. :)
I read what I considered to be a truly pathetic number of books in 2002: 67. I'm somewhat amused by this, because what I consider to be a pathetic number of books is really rather a lot of books by most people's standards, but my Mom read 164 (or possibly 167, I forget) books in 2002, and I feel that 104 is the minimal acceptable number.
So I'm going to go get a book and read for a bit and then go to bed. G'night, everyone. :)
Busy day today. Didn't get up til late, and Ted made pancakes for breakfast, and then there was _all_ the housecleaning. Enough to make me very grumpy. We unloaded the Christmas tree and the boys took it down and I vacuumed and Shaun cleaned the kitchen about three times and Ted and I took turns cleaning off the kitchen counter which had been eaten up by Junk, and then he finished that, and I did 3453458907 loads of laundry and straightened up the *frelling* mess on the entertainment center and while we were cleaning we found 5 different pieces of rawhide bones, so I put several pieces up in the cupboard where we keep those sorts of things and hopefully Chanti will *finish* the pieces she's got left before she gets more, and we threw away several bags of garbage and Ted and Shaun moved a bunch of stuff from the garage into the crawlspace and I *finally* sat down to write, got about 12 words written, and Mom and Dad arrived for dinner. Chanti got very excited and danced around on my toes while I tried to save what I'd written, and I got very grumpy, but things smoothed after a few more minutes and we had a very nice evening and a very nice dinner which involved pork roast and cherry pie. Yum!
Then I did more laundry and sat back down to write and got 1400 words written over the course of a couple hours, and so I am relatively satisfied.
Be it resolved:
1. to write 400K words of fiction
2. to bike 2000 miles
3. to swim 120 miles
4. to draw 100 drawings
5. to read 104 books
6. to lose 30 pounds
Here is a little graphic thingy I made to try to keep track of percentages of goals attained. I'll color the bars green as I move towards my goals, and I'll update it once a week. People should remind me! :)
HAPPY NEW YEAR, EVERYBODY!!!