Hotel reservations are made. Room cost includes the cost of a full breakfast, so that'll be nice. :) I am both excited and nervous about this prospect! What if I futz around all weekend and don't do anything? That'd be bad! Actually, I don't think there's much danger of that. I'm really looking forward to just totally focusing on the revisions for a couple of days. I've done a lot of work in headspace and know a lot of what I need to do. It's just the sitting down and *doing* it that's time consuming and I haven't done yet.
*jit jit jit*!
Yesterday was pretty much a total wash. I stretched early in the morning and crunked my neck (did I mention that already?) and ended up sort of semi-functional all day, until I finally got to the chiro and Dr. Woody popped my back and neck so much that we both thought it was funny. Ted and I ran around and did a jillionteen errands after that. Poor Ted. *laugh* He was soooo tired and sooooo grimey. :)
We went to bed sensibly early last night and then Ted's new boss called at a quarter to eleven to say he was sick and could Ted handle opening all by himself today. The same thing happened *last* time Ted had a breakfast cook job, too. Hmmmm. :)
I am in fact going to check myself into a hotel room tonight (probably after going to a movie with Ted, if he's awake enough to do that) and then I will spend all day Saturday and Sunday revising Urban Shaman. I shall arrange for a late check-out time on Sunday so that I can have all day before coming back home. I expect I'll be a little wild-eyed by Sunday evening, and man, that's not much like a weekend, but I do anticipate most of the work being done by then, so that's good.
Off to find a hotel, now, and to do work.
miles to Rivendell: 423
Ted's job is for the Courtyard Mariott, where he's working as a breakfast cook. 5am to 1pm, how's that for an awful schedule? But he really loves cooking breakfast, so it'll all be fine. :) Yay for Ted!
The rules are to find your 23rd post and post the 5th sentence from it.
I'm not dressed up and I feel very dull.
Because, like Ellen, I can't follow directions, I prefer this line, the 6th:
My cute, well-dressed coworker Rob claimed he'd dressed up as himself today, and I said, "Yeah, I was going to do that, but I don't have the clothes," which got a laugh, anyway.
But I like the last line best:
*Spikebutt*.
:)
It has not been a good morning here at the Murphy-Lee household. Ted got a job! Yay! But the alarm didn't go off this morning and he woke up 3 minutes before he was supposed to be there (given that this was at 4:57am, it's amazing he woke up at all). So he went tearing off and I fell back asleep and woke up 4 minutes before *I* was supposed to be at work. So I am not showered and I'm staring blearily at the screen and not doing a very good job typing, and I just stretched and gronked my neck in some unpleasant fashion. :P I wonder if Dr. Woody is still here. :P
I read somebody's posting on a mailing list about an author who gets to the proofing stage of her books and goes and locks herself in a hotel room for a weekend so nothing can bother her. In fact, some of my chaptermates in the RWA have done this, too, and I'm thinking, wow, that might be a brilliant idea for the weekend. It's not that my family gets in my way when I'm trying to write (because I have the best husband and roommate in the world), but this editing thing is taking a different mindset, and I need to spread papers over things and be much more in the way, and... going to a hotel where I could do that with impunity and where I'd have no other distractions sounds like it might be a *really* good idea. o.o!
The good news is I didn't screw around today. The bad news is I still accomplished very little. :P
I should go take a walk, shouldn't I?
I really like this meme I cribbed from Liralen:
Invent a memory of me and post it in the comments. It can be anything you want, so long as it's something that's never happened. Then, of course, post this to your journal and see what people would like to remember of you, only the universe failed to cooperate in making it happen so they had to make it up instead.
I got the most astoundingly cool email last night:
I just found your name from the Romantic SF website as a forthcoming author, and I thought you (or at least the title of your book) sounded familiar. When I was working at (publishing house name removed to protect the innocent, or something) (as an editorial intern) last year, I was going through the slush pile and I read a few chapters of a book with a main character named Joanne Walkingstick(?) who was a shaman, and there was a Celtic god in it (Cernunnos?), or something along those lines.I had probably been through hundreds of unsolicited submissions before and none had ever really engaged me - but I immediately stuck a post-it note on it asking my immediate supervisor to please read it and if she ever requested the full ms, to let me read it, too. But I never heard anything about it afterwards.
I'm sorry I don't remember your name, but was this manuscript yours? Did (my supervisor) ever contact you about it?
If it is yours, I am incredibly pleased to hear that Luna bought it, and that it will be published, because I was really excited after reading the first three chapters and I had hoped that (the publishing house) would acquire it.
So either way, best of luck to you, and I hope your books do well!
Isn't that COOL!?
Didn't get up this morning (went to bed too late last night. Curse Alias! Curse it!), but I'm starting to know how I'm going to do rewrites, so that's good.
Got an RWA meeting tonight at which I'm giving an HTML class. I haven't done this in soooooooo long. I think it'll be fun, though!
Finally listening to the Jim Byrnes CD, which is quite wonderful. *beam*
Yesterday involved all sorts of things. I actually went on a bike ride! A little one, just 5 miles, but I'm reaaaaaaallllllly trying not to overdo it, so a little ride was good. And I walked another mile with the puppy. And I finished editing my last 60 pages but I didn't listen to the new Jim Byrnes CD yet, and I watched some Law & Order instead of reading US again. And, um, we gamed, which was fun, and now we all have cool psionic powers, which we didn't before. :) Then we all hung around and talked til 1 in the morning, and then I stayed in bed very late today. I have spent most of the day so far eating grapes and watching E! tv. What a sloth. :)
miles to Rivendell: 422
ytd miles biked: 60.25
ytd wordcount: Hell, I can't tell anymore.
Chugging along. I have 60 pages left to read/edit in US and then I'll, um. Re-read it. I've walked 4 miles since yesterday's posting, so I'm ever closer to Rivendell. We went and saw 13 Going On 30 last night, then watched 3 episodes of Alias, so it was a very heavy Jennifer Garner night. 13->30 is very cute. Alias is very good. I had Jennifer Garner dreams last night. (Ted said,"Jeez. I had post apocalyptic alien invasion dreams.") And oh, Hot Licks opened! A couple of weeks ago, apparently! So after the movie we went and had ice cream sundaes. Hot Licks makes all its own ice cream by hand. I had *really* good peanutbutter chip ice cream with caramel topping. MmmMMMMMmmmm. Ted had a hot fudge sundae with English toffee ice cream. MmmMMMMmmmm. I must make a habit of not going there very often. :)
Oh! HAPPY DEEN DAY!
I'm considering trying a bike ride this afternoon. I was going to wait til next weekend, but, erm. I might not feel like waiting. It's pretty nice out.
Um. Gaming tonight, at least in theory. The Kevin Smith thing got put off til next weekend, apparently. And oh! I got the new Jim Byrnes CD. Haven't listened to it yet. Maybe as a reward for finishing my last 60 pages.
Ok, back to the grindstone. See, the thing is that I actually have two jobs. I never leave the house, so it doesn't really *seem* like I've got two jobs, but I actually do. Sometimes it seems like I'm working all the damned time.
miles to Rivendell: 420
Silkie managed to do what I have not been able to do for months and months: she found IVD Select Care HiFactor cat food online. Apparently by the time-honored method of going to Google and typing in IVD Select Care, which I swear to God has not worked for me. Although I suspect I've been more specific, or something, and that's what's been kicking my ass. Anyway, there are now two VERY GODDAMNED EXPENSIVE bags of cat food on the way to Alaska, and when I break open the second bag I'll call this place and see if I can get them to ship more slow boat instead of UPstupidS.
Anyway, Silkie is wonderful. All hail Silkie!
Not much to say this morning. I got up for the first time all week and got another 50 pages of editing done. I'll just be glad when this first pass is through and I can re-read it again and have more of a feel for the book. If I do another 50 pages at lunch... ok, that's not likely. But if I do my hundred pages tonight I'll just have 60 left to do tomorrow and then I'll re-read it again on Sunday.
I'm babbling.
We watched the first episode of Alias last night (having finished season 6 of Stargate!). Pretty good show. We'll watch more. But not tonight. Tonight, instead, we will go see Jennifer Garner's new movie, or at least I hope that's what we'll do. It looks cute, and I want out of the house. -.-
Oi. Did another 100 pages of editing tonight, which went okay, except it's very weird. I have very little sense of this book, right now. I haven't read it in a long time and I know things happen in it, but I don't really know *when* many of them happen. Once I'm done with this edit/read-through I'm going to have to go through it again, to make sure I really do know where to add things in and stuff, and then I'm going to start revising. So far there's only one 1/2 chapter that probably needs to be tossed entirely, so that could be worse.
Suddenly quite tired. I walked 3 miles today, go me. *waves a little flag*
miles to Rivendell: 416
ytd wordcount: 134,800
In completely other news:
Online registration is now available for Writer's Weekend 2004! We're down to only a handful of slots, so if you want to attend this year's conference, get your butt over there and sign up!
My tongue still hurts like a son of a bitch and I wish there was a way to prevent cereal from being crushed at the bottom of cereal boxes.
And both last and least, my Rogue stripe is developing nicely:
Can't wait to knock off these 5 pounds and re-bleach it. :)
miles to Rivendell: 412.5
Tami Silicio, a Kuwait-based military contractor, got fired yesterday for a photograph of flag-draped coffins on their way back to the States that was published in Sunday's Seattle Times. The story and the photograph are here.
The Memory Hole, a site I'd never heard of until this morning (a site which is running very, *very* slowly indeed, for me at least) appealed to Dover AFB, where most of the US military bodies are processed, under the Freedom of Information Act, and was first denied but upon appeal granted 360 photos of military coffins and processions accompanying them.
Honor your dead.
Ow, god *damn* it. This canker sore on my tongue is in such a place that when I eat I find myself trying to cringe away from my own head, which, y'know, doesn't work. It is in such a place that not just my tongue hurts, but also my throat and my inner ear hurt when I eat. God, this reallly *sucks*.
On the positive side, I feel thin this morning. o.O
Did a hundred pages of US editing tonight, where editing is equal to 'fixed sentence structures and occasionally highlighted big swaths and said PUT MORE DETAIL HERE', as per revision letter. I'm not going to be able to be certain of where to put more detail until I've re-read the whole manuscript, which I haven't done in ... a long time. Some places are easy, many others I keep thinking "there's somewhere better a little further in", but I don't really know because I haven't read it in quite a while. So before I can make sound judgements I must read it all. Fortunately, it's been long enough since I've read it that I don't hate it. :)
I am apparently some sort of stressbunny this month. I've had a canker sore somewhere in my mouth every day for the last two weeks. Right now I've got one on my tongue, and god damn but that sucks. I donno what's up with this. :P
Chanti and I walked 3 miles today! We're both starving. :)
ytd wordcount: 133,700
miles to Rivendell: 410.5
Inspired partly by the conference this weekend, where it was clear having business cards would've been useful, and partly by my brother-in-law Gavin's grandfather, who introduces himself as John T. Mendel, Famous Scientist, I have created a business card for myself.
:)
Printing out US to edit/revise.
Um. That's about it. I've really got to get back on the writing bandwagon. This whole having to stop and edit/revise stuff is detrimental to the forward motion of wordcount. (Of course, it's sort of useful for the whole career aspect, so ya wins some, ya loses some, obviously.)
*stares around* Yeah. Um. Okay. Bye now. :)
Or possibly we'll stay out much later than anticipated, getting a frame for Cairn Dance, and I'll work on editing a short story (thanks Stella! thanks Sarah!) instead of printing out a 400 page manuscript.
miles to Rivendell: 407.5
I met this artist, Jerry Minor, online through Karen Junker. He had this painting, called Cairn Dance (second piece on that page; the first is the ink work, I presume, for the same piece, rather than being a separate piece. I should ask him.), that I madly loved, and the original was still available, so I bought it. It just arrived, and it's *gorgeous*. I donno where the heck I'm gonna put it up, but wow do I love it. Wow. *beam*
Just got back from the chiro. I am so popped now! I feel much better for it, though. Whew. Now all I need is, um. I have no idea what I was going to say. :)
I need to print US out tonight. That shall be Step One.
Whew. I have edited the snot out of Sarah's book, and she doesn't seem to hate me, and now she's printing it out. Yay! Now, as she says, I can get back to my own writing.
Er, yay. :)
Huh. The guy who was shot to death by a trooper last year is somebody I'd known since I was about 7 years old. Obviously we weren't close, but that makes, I don't know, eight or something people from my class who are dead. Well. He didn't actually graduate with me because Nikiski High School opened our junior year, but.
Anyhoo.
Um. Oh my goodness, dinner last night was amazingly good. Ted made an apple stuffing and rolled it in pork loin and made potatoes of some sort that I don't know the name of but holy cow they were good, and lil' baby carrots. And a strawberry sponge cake for dessert. It was SO GOOD! SOOOO good!
Today was a less useful day at the writing conference, but I still enjoyed myself, overall. I'm tired. Um. Oh, Mary Anne, I didn't get anything signed for you because Laurie King wasn't there today. :P
Jeez. That's about it, for today. I'm tired. :)
Oh, no, there's one other thing. :) Ted bought me the Hellboy soundtrack. *beam* Somebody loves me!
Wow. I'm weary. It's been a long, social-filled day, especially for somebody who doesn't get out of the house much.
It was a tremendously enjoyable day. Laurie King's speech this morning was again entertaining, and then I spent the next three hours following Sue Henry from one room to another, which we both thought was funny by the third hour. :) I went to listen to Tom Spezialy's film & tv Q&A, and he said, "Get an agent and send it to SciFi; they've been buying a lot of new stuff recently and they buy year round," when I said I had a SF tv pilot and what should I do with it now. Monday I'll email Jenn about her Hollywood contact, if it's cool with Sarah.
Hung out with some of the local RWAers on and off all day, talked to Wendy Douglas a lot about writing and revision letters and RWA Nationals (going next year! Reno!), talked to a lot of people in general, had a very nice day overall, and at the end of the day during the dinner, they introduced a couple of teens (well, a 7th and a 10th grader) who'd written letters to authors about books that'd affected them. The purpose of doing this is something called, I think, Letters for Literacy, and it's a way to get kids to read and think about what they're reading, then to write to the author not actually to write to the author, but to enter a contest which has local (ie, state) and then national prizes.
The 10th grader, whose name is Allison, wrote a letter to Anne McCaffrey about reading Dragonsong when she was 9, and it was an incredibly affecting letter. She talked about a lot of things in the letter, including the fact that ultimately reading that book had led her to wanting to write her own stories. The letter would've been powerful even if Dragonsong didn't hold a very particular place in my heart already, but I vividly remember the first time I read my cousin Alanna's dog-eared, torn, yellow-paged copy of the book -- which very copy I brought with me to Ireland so I could get Anne McCaffrey to sign it when I was 19. That copy is on my shelves, retired with honor, and I bought a new copy for reading.
So after dinner I went over and talked to her and got her email address and gave her mine, and talked for several minutes, and I most certainly hope to maintain a correspondence with her. *beam*
I even got up and edited chapter 12 this morning. I think it probably still needs more work, but it'll do for the moment. The next few chapters have to be gutted and thrown out and redone entirely, though, so I gotta think a little about what I'm doing. I mean, I've talked a whole bunch of it out with Sarah already, so really it's a matter of doing it, but I don't know if I'll be doing it tomorrow or not.
For the first time this month, I didn't walk today. Tomorrow's a much shorter conference day, so I'll walk tomorrow, although probably I won't make up today's miles.
And oh! I wore two of Stella's necklaces today, the red-purple bead one and the gold bead one, both of which I thought went incredibly well with the deep red silk shirt I was wearing. I felt very pretty. *beam* Thank you so much, Stella. I really love these necklaces.
music: Evanescence, Fallen
ytd wordcount: 132,600
Went to the keynote speech for Writing Rondevous, given by Laurie King, whom I would link to if I weren't too lazy to make sure her URL really is laurierking.com as I'm assuming it is. Despite my general temptation to write up conference stuff in agonizing detail, I don't feel like doing that right now, so I'll just say it was an entertaining speech about the risks (financial, emotional, etc) of being a writer. She talked some about her writing style, which happens to be very much like mine (I don't outline. I just sort of fling myself in and see what happens), and told some funny stories and all in all it was a pleasant couple of hours.
I have drunk enough water today to float the damned Titanic. I'm going to have to bring a *massive* bottle of water to the conference tomorrow. Speaking of which, I'm getting quite the collection of canvas bags. What does one do with 6 or more canvas bags?
Despite the fact that it's been SNOWING *ALL DAY*, I walked my two miles. My stoopid shoes are blistering my heels. Possibly I'm not tying my stupid shoes tightly enough. Anyway, walking tomorrow will be slightly more of a challenge, 'cause the conference starts at 9am. And I really need to do some *writing* tomorrow morning, 'cause I didn't today. Bad Catie. Must do ch. 12 edits.
But for now I'm going to go do edits on as much of Iya as I can get through in the next hour or so, and then to bed.
music: Bon Jovi, Crush
miles to Rivendell: 404.5
The big news in my life today is that 1. I have new socks, so my feets are very happy, and 2. I'm going to the Writing Rendevous conference this weekend.
Live wire, I tell ya. That's me. A real live wire. :)
Wordcount and thinks to do list, not v. exciting for the morning. I did bring my daffodils upstairs so I could admire them instead of leaving them downstairs so Zilli could eat them. :)
thinks to do:
1. change kitty litter
2. laundry
3. vacuum
4. read more Iya
5. walk
ytd wordcount: 131,500
miles to Rivendell: 402.5
I seem to have shaken off the doledrums. The bright yellow daffodils helped. :) So did having a good talk with Matrice, and so did walking my 2.5 miles today. I'm not usually gloomy for days on end. I don't like it much.
But now, to bed!
miles to Rivendell: 400.5
My wonderful Mommy just brought me some bright yellow happy daffodils to cheer me up. *beam* I have the best family.
Well, that was inevitably less awful than anticipated. I re-read my revision letter (I almost typed rejection letter, there. Habit!) and not only was it not bad, which I was able to at least grasp when I read it on Monday, but it was also considerably less bad than I had even imagined it was. See what I mean? A couple of days of wound-licking and everything is better. Dumb brain. :)
But, see, I had to re-read it, because I had a noontime phone call with Matrice, which had my stomach in nervous bubbles for over an hour this morning. I had to be prepared for the phone call, since it was about revisions. :) And despite the nervous bubbles, once I was on stage it was fine. Some of the things she wants me to go into a little more detail are acknowledged weaknesses of mine (motiviation, character interaction ... motivation... :)), and some of it was 'clear up the fuzzy lines between characters X and Y' kinds of things. It's certainly all stuff I can do, and it's stuff that'll be good for the story. We talked some about cause and effect and I explained that Jo's actions are setting up for some definite problems in future books, and--it was a good talk. Touched on a bunch of stuff and ... yeah. I know, I know, I'm being semi-incoherent, but I can't actually go into detail because, well, that'd be detail about the book. Spoilers! :)
Plus there was Hugh Jackman admiration, which had, y'know, nothing at all to do with the book, but which was entertaining anyway. *laugh* We talked about covers, not mine in specific but about Luna covers in general and how pleased people were with them, and she said she was working on back cover copy for the book and she'd probably send it along for me to look at sometime late next week, which is cool. It's all cool!
I tell you what, though. It's also all very scary. Everything's happening very fast, from my perspective. I mean. It is and it isn't. On one hand is the glacial pace at which the publishing industry moves. That's not the part I'm talking about.
The part I'm talking about is the part where I went to the RMFW conference in September 2002 and went away from it with a fire lit under my ass. The part where I decided it was, as they say, time to shit or get off the pot. Fourteen months later I sold my first book. That's *fast*.
I have, I think, done my time as far as developing my skills as a writer go. (Which is not to say I'm done, but rather, that I've written enough to have gotten a lot of those million bad words out of the way. US is the...4th (I always have to count) manuscript I've completed.) But during most of the time I was doing all that writing, I wasn't submitting books. So having gotten off my ass and having started sending things out and having suddenly and abruptly *sold*, I feel... sort of like I cheated, somehow. That I got picked to go to the head of the class without going through the ritual hazing, and man. It's scary.
I knew when I wrote US that it was sellable. Popular genre, entertaining protagonist, all that. But to have more or less turned around and *sold* it shortly after deciding it was time to do that is ... overwhelming. It's *fantastic*, it's *incredible*, and every time I'm faced with another aspect of its reality (contract, cover art, revision letter), I get all balkish and skittery and shy. The only thing I can figure is that it's a fear of success, more or less.
It's not... hrm. Not that I don't think I deserve to be published, because I'm a good writer and I tell good stories. I'm talented, but I've also been *tremendously* fortunate. I know an awful lot of people for whom it hasn't been so easy, so ... yeah. Some feelings of lacking entitlement, maybe, and some panic about having actually *succeeded*. I mean, this is one of those lifetime goals, you know? And whoomp, there it is. Palpable. Actually happening. Scary as all hell.
I feel like I should have some kind of useful conclusion to this, but I don't, really. Just some observations from the trenches, I guess. :)
Got 1200 brand shiny new words written on ch 11. I'm currently writing a phone conversation in which I'm only recording the protagonist's side of the conversation. I suspect this should change, as it's to be followed by a phone conversation in which we hear both sides of the conversation. Oh well. Broke 130K for the year today. Aiming for 150 by the end of the month although with revisions and more revisions and all, I don't know. I'm sort of hoping I'll be able to work on HoS in the mornings and US in the evenings, but I guess it'll depend on how much panic and worry I'm feeling.
Lucy is being so cute I can hardly stand it. She's discovered a Morning Sunbeam on the scanner and has plunked herself there. Despite the fact that I closed the blinds so I can see the computer screen, she hasn't moved an inch from where the sunbeam *was*. :)
I hope everybody else is feeling more cheerful than I am. I'm just all :p.
ytd wordcount: 130,300
miles to Rivendell: 398
Just 60 miles to go.
Wibbling over whether I want to do the Diabetes Tour de Cure in early June. Or, rather, I do want to do it. I'm just so bloody miserable and paranoid about my back that I'm scared to. :(
I can sign up for the ride all the way up to the day *of* the ride, so I guess what I need to do is in another week or so start going on some bike rides, to see how my back behaves. There's a 16 and a 32 mile ride for the TdC (and a 64, but I'm trying not to be stupid here), and if I rode more or less every day I would certainly know by the end of May whether I could manage it or not. I'm just so damned tired of being broken.
*sigh* And I'm whiny this week, too. I'm feeling all down in the dumps. :/
I have actually gone back to work to avoid writing. And to alleviate some guilt, since I'm feeling better. But jeez, how's that for flicking?
Ch. 10 did not want to go quietly into that good night. I think I've beaten it into submission now. It's 1300 words shorter than the amalgamated 9+10 were, but that's good, and I've still gained more ground on the book overall than I've lost. By 20 or more pages, in fact. Which is *also* good, because it's on the short side.
Talked out a lot of plot bunnies with Sarah this morning and haven't actually gotten anywhere near being able to work them in, but at least I know they're there. And Matrice called to ask when would be good to talk about the revision letter and to ask if Jo had any jewelry that might be useable as a theme for the cover art, and had a REALLY COOL idea about using Jo's drum as a splash background thing on the cover, so while who knows if it'll actually happen, it's sure a neat idea. :) And I'll give Jo a necklace. One of the ones that Misty made for me/the contest, in fact. *laugh* What a geek.
Okay. Food, break, then back to writing. I can't decide right now if I'm *glad* writing isn't my day job, because I'm feeling all *SPLAH* about it, or if part of the reason I feel splah is because I also feel guilty about not being at work-work. I think most of this morning's not-feeling-well was due in large part to the horrifyingly rich brownie sundae I ate against all good sense last night. o.o
ytd wordcount: 129,100
miles to Rivendell: 396.75
For some time, I suspected Shaun of snitching some of my cereal. It seemed to be going very very quickly, no more than maybe ten bowls of cereal a box. That seemed way too fast, so I figured somebody else was eating my cereal. Not, you know, that people aren't allowed, but man, it just seemed to disappear really fast.
After several weeks of being grumpy about this, I looked on the side of the cereal box to see how many servings there were supposed to be per box.
Ten.
Oh.
:)
I started buying the larger sized box of the cereal. Now I get 14 bowls or so, and feel much less gypped. *laugh*
I feel vaguely oogy this morning and I'm taking the day off. I'm going to work on Heart of Stone and see if I can get a big chunk of rewrites done. I'm at the "throw it all out and rewrite it" stage, and have probably... 5 chapters, maybe more, to completely re-do. So. I'll see if I can get a bunch of that done today.
That's about all for now.
Following up the weight loss doles with a one-two whammy, I got my revision letter this afternoon. It's not bad, really it isn't. Mostly some structural stuff, some motivational stuff, some, "Explain to me why this is here," stuff. On an intellectual level, I can see without much effort that yes, these are things that will improve the book. No problem.
On the emotional level, it is only slightly less suckful than getting a rejection letter. *snort* I'm grumpy and sullen and hunchy-shouldered. My impulse is to slink off to a den and curl up while I lick my wounds and heal. This will, I imagine, last for about two days, which is about how long it takes to get over rejection letters, too. Then I'll be fine, and get on with the revisions. I feel foolish for having this reaction, because my God, it's a revision letter, these people have bought my book, they're going to *publish* it.
Never-the-less, here I am, slinking around with my tail between my legs. I suspect this probably isn't actually abnormal. Just... *slink*
On the positive side, though, I have very fine friends who have given me a lot of hugs and been extremely kind and sympathetic, which I appreciate to no end. I have the *best* friends. *hugs to all of you*
I'm having one of those, "But I've been exercising a WHOLE WEEK and I haven't hit my target weight!" moments. Whiiiiiine.
In fact, today is more accurately day 12 of walking daily. I've walked 20 miles in the last 12 days, and lost, since the end-ish of March, 5 pounds. Which is really very good, so it's ridiculous to be discouraged right now. Never-the-less, discouraged I'm feeling.
Part of this, I suspect, is due to having bought a new box of hair bleach to re-do my stripe, which is my reward for hitting 185 (5 pounds from now). I want to do it now, whine, whine, bitch moan. I thought buying the box would be incentive, not discouraging. :P
Mutter. I guess I'm feeling in need of encouragement today. :P
miles to Rivendell: 395.5
Lucy, who typically sleeps on top of my monitor during the day, discovered a sunbeam on the scanner this morning. Now she's sprawled out there. V. cute kitty. :)
Working on whacking the 2nd-half-of-ch.9+ch.10 down to a reasonable size. This is the first chapter where I'm cutting more than I'm adding, except it's all hooey anyway because it's an amalgamation instead of just one chapter. I'd like to get it and 11 done today, because I'm a little bit behind on where I want to be. *vague fussings*
Dinner and company last night were very fine indeed. And that's really sort of all I've got to say this morning. Nothing exciting's happened yet. :)
Oh. *laugh* Except yesterday I was listening to Ted talk to his mom on the phone, and he was telling her some of the stuff that I was up to, and I thought, "Gee, that sounds a lot more interesting than it seems when I'm living it." *laugh*
It's like an Easter miracle! I put Chanti's new head harness lead thingy on her, and while she doesn't think much of it, it's AMAZING. She can't pull me and she almost entirely stopped trying, almost immediately. We went for a 1.25 mile walk which was overall extremely good. She did bonk my calf which sent a significant ow into my lower back, and we passed a puppy and she shook her head so much she slid out of the nosepiece of the halter, but she didn't pull and jerk and lunge away, so it was fine. Wow, I'm *stunned* at the difference this thing makes. Now I can bring her on walks! YAY!
Ted came downstairs from playing video games or something or other at 2, and I said, "I've had a very busy day! I've made bread and a cake and rewritten two chapters and picked up dog poop and gone on a walk and cleaned the kitchen twice!"
Ted said, "I need a nap now!" *giggle* I told him he had to clean the kitchen counter, which he thought seemed reasonable. And we went and picked up a couple things at the grocery store and then I walked Chanti and I tell you what, I'm pooped! Soon there will be Easter dinner. Baked ham and mashed taters. (PO *TAY* TOES.) Yum!
ytd wordcount: 128,000
miles to Rivendell: 393.25
Yesterday was insanely busy. Well, it felt insanely busy, anyway. I wrote a bunch of new stuff for ch. 7->8, although I didn't finish it (fnrt), cleaned the kitchen and made mac&cheese for lunch, and then Ted and I went out and ran around doing stuff for what seemed like a very long time indeed.
Got a head halter lead thingy for Chanti, so I'll try putting that on her and taking her out for a little tiny walk later today. Got a different sort of cat food for Zilli and we'll see if Mr. Stinky Butt responds well to it. I hope so; it'd be nice to not have to order food from Outside for the little monster. Stopped by Best Buy to find the Hellboy soundtrack, but they didn't have it! Waugh! And went to Fred Meyer, then to New Sagaya, to do our shopping. Came home and put the groceries away and made brownies. Made bbq meatballs for dinner. Coby came over, we hung out a while, we had dinner, I went to make frosting for the brownies, and got an onset of the tummy blorts that were sufficiently bad, and sufficiently close enough to having eaten, that I ended up not just emptying my digestive system the traditional way, but I also vomited up dinner. Then I went to bed. o.O
So no gaming last night. o.o
Thus far this morning I've finished my ch. 8(7) rewrite, gotten bread started, and walked. And I am v. sleepy. Time to be away from this computer! Zoof!
ytd wordcount: 126,900
miles to Rivendell: 392
Feeling pretty cheerful this morning. Ted and I went to see Hellboy a second time last night, and I think I might've liked it more the second time than the first! We also went and saw Ella Enchanted, which was not good all the way up to the end, which pushed it right over into being bad. Yow. I was very glad we'd paid matinee prices. o.O
Fiiiiiiinally did some more writing this morning. Chapter 7 is Entirely New. Furthermore, I have cleverly figured out how to make the original ch. 7/new ch. 8 work better, even if the mechanics of it are something that probably won't be found out until, erm. Later. Possibly the third book. That's okay, though. *I* know what happens, so I'm good with it. I'm going to do the rewrite on ch. 7/8 this afternoon, too, which will make me feel less lame. :)
I must go for my walk in a little bit here. I'm trying to decide if I'm going to try one longer walk instead of two shorter ones. No: I don't think I will. My back is doing okay. I'm better off doing two shorter ones for at least another week, even if it seems kind of silly.
Let's see, what else. Not much else! Ted's off at an audition for a job (a pastry/prep chef position at Orso's, a good restaurant here in Anchorage) for the summer, and the house is v. quiet.
Gaming tonight!
ytd wordcount: 124,700
miles to Rivendell: 388.5
Ted made splendid steaks and baked potatoes for dinner, for about mmm a third? of the cost that the same meal would've cost at Lone Star. Let's hear it for eating at home. :)
Deirdre's FBR paperwork got here yesterday, in an envelope which FedEx had managed to completely drench. Fortunately it was a cardboard envelope, or instead of being merely Very Damp the paperwork inside it would've been destroyed. I'm lookin' at the penmanship on the certificate and I'm pretty sure that's the sort of ink that would run all over the place if it got wet. Only the edges were wet, though, so. Stupid FedEx. :P But! The paperwork is here. Now I have to ... figure out what we do as the next step for getting passports.
Um, let's see. *looks around* Ted and I went *out* last night! Gasp! We went to see a performance by Battlefield Band, a Scottish traditonal folk band. That was lots of fun, even if it was a Thursday night crowd and kind of dull. I'm going to have to get some of their CDs, and now I want to dig out all my Irish music and listen to it for days on end. :)
I did *not* get up and write this morning. I have been so *astoundingly* lame the last week, I can't even believe it. I'm still ahead on my YTD wordcount, but I'm losing ground fast and ... well. I just need to get back to the grindstone. I *knew* this was going to be the hard part of the year, it always is. It's starting to get light out, I don't want to be at a keyboard, I just wanna go play and goof around and stuff. Laaaaaaame Kit. But I've run out of buffer; today's chapters for Silkie are the last ones I've got done, so whether I want to or not I need to sit my butt down and do a bunch of rewriting this weekend.
And it's not even that I don't want to! It's just that I'm being lame! Lame lame lame!
Got in another half mile walk last night, between going to and from the theatre. I said tangently. I'm v. close to being back to 190, and hell, I haven't even really been trying. The whole eat less, exercise more thing, like, *works*.
Thirsty. Need water. And then to work.
miles to Rivendell: 386.5
Once more with the webpage being down. This time...well. They said to go change the name servers with your registrar, and then to wait about a day and a half and then ask them to move the files over to a new server, which I did, except it sort of looks like the DNS change went through faster than is typical. *crossed eyes* Anyway, so I emailed them and said please transfer my site, and so hopefully I'll be back up sometime today.
In the meantime, writing myself a little blog posting in Word because it's morning and I can't get through the day without my blogging, or something. :)
Ch. 7 is turning out to be Entirely New. Not that this is a bad thing, particularly as I'm pretty sure I can use the original ch. 7, just as ch. 8. Or possibly 9. We'll see how it works out. o.O Anyway, I'm 1800 words into the new chapter 7, and my intention is to finish it tonight. Hopefully it'll let me segue fairly smoothly into ch. 8/7. I think so, since ch. 8/7 needs beefing up anyway and I think I can make it all work. This is going to be a noticeably longer book when I'm done revising it; I've already added 5000 words.
I always feel like it must be terribly, terribly boring for people to read all about my muttery little daily wordcount stuff. Or maybe you all skip that part, I donno. :)
Um. Ooh, Ted made really yummy rockfish for dinner last night. A recipe he learned in class! He was pretty pleased about that, and boy, it was just really good. Yum!
I'm up to 2 miles a day, walking 1 mile in the morning and one in the afternoon. Go me!
Ah, here we go, server's back up. Yay!
ytd wordcount: 123,700
miles to Rivendell: 385
As I was on the phone with Geni just now, Shaun pointed out the moose snoozing in the back yard. Here, then, is Geni's moose!
Sorry for falling off the face of the earth yesterday. My web host service's biggest machine, the one that my sites (of course) are hosted on, had a hard drive crash and it took them a very long time indeed to get it back up. I'm back in the saddle again and will be getting them to transfer my sites to a *different* server that's less overloaded. o.o
Let's see. If I'd been here yesterday, I'd have told you how I rewrote part of ch. 7 but didn't finish it, so don't get to count the words, and how I walked not one but *two* miles to Rivendell, and how my nephew Breic is just like his mommy and has been flinging himself out of chairs and injuring himself, to the point which his mommy said, "He has a bridge across the bruise of his nose."
I'd have told you how I was going to make a list of Thinks To Do, but because my webpage was down I didn't, and oddly enough, none of the Thinks I needed To Do got done. *laugh* I'd have said, "Hey, Kevin Smith (the director) is going to be doing some kind of show thing on April 24th up here, maybe we should go!" but instead we've already gotten tickets, so there's no anticipatory build-up at all. I'd have told you all of those things, and probably some others besides, but instead, I wasn't here yesterday, and so the day is lost to the annals of time.
Today, however, I am here again! And there's email from the Irish embassy saying they've re-issued Deirdre's foreign birth registration certificate and were 2-day fedexing it to me 'cause they told me in January (actually I think they told me in October but I didn't get around to sending it til January) that it would take 3 weeks and it's been 3 months. They're terribly nice people and really on the ball as soon as you nag them. :)
And there's email from my editor about book covers and promising a revision letter by next week (I told her I shall look Very Sternly at her if it doesn't arrive!) and there are new chapters from Sarah! I have re-lost 3.5 of the 5 pounds I put back on in March, and I went for a walk this morning. All is well with the world!
It is my plan, tomorrow, to get up whether I like it or not and go for a walk at 6am, thence to return and shower and write. I must finish chapter 7 tonight and if I am at all a good Kit I will also do chapter 8. Also, I must do more laundry and vacuum, as I've been putting both of those things off for several days.
Then, on another note entirely, prompted by Russ, I have been looking over my friends list at LJ to see how it all breaks down.
There are 53 people/groups on my friends list. Out of those 53, 3 are communities. Down to 50.
There are... *counts* 6 (published) authors I don't personally know on my list, 1 of whom is dead (Peyps). That puts me at 44.
2 of the friends are Opportunitygrrl and SpiritRover, the blogs of the Mars Rovers. 42.
1 is a recipe feed from Jenn. 41. 1 is my mizkit.com feed so I can see if people leave comments there (which they SHOULDN'T because they don't get EMAILED to me *stern look*) and another is my cousin Kerry's LJ which she says is defunct but I haven't taken it off my friends list, just in case. 39.
Of those 39:
8 are college (or before) friends.
23 are MUSH/online friends whom I have known anywhere from 5-10 years.
2 are people I've met IRL whom I didn't meet online first.
The remaining 6 are people I have never met IRL, but for whatever reason I became sufficiently interested in their lives to read their journals.
There are at least 32 people on this list whom I have known ten years or more.
No, there's no point, I just thought it was all kind of interesting. :)
miles to Rivendell: 383
It's been an all right day, really. I got up too late to write, so that sort of sucks, but I'm still way ahead on my wordcount, so if I stop screwing around I'll be fine. I got a tentative release date for URBAN SHAMAN (I'll announce it when it's a little more solid!) and offered some suggestions to my editor about book covers, which, as Jai said, made this all seem much more REAL suddenly! I'm talking to someone Karen put me in contact with about artwork for CHANCE, and... yeah, it's basically been a good day. I even went for my walk. I do wish my back would stop hurting so I could go on slightly *longer* walks, but I'm trying to be good and only do a little stupid bit at a time.
Oh, and my manuscript bags got here! I unfolded the largest one and have not been able to refold it properly. I unfolded the smallest one and have not been able to refold it properly, so instead of continuing to try I declared it the manuscript garbage bag and now it is sitting in front of the file cabinet with a lot of paper in it. :) Anyway, despite my brainabifida, they're very very cool bags. And I can make them lie flat again, but not in the tidy it-won't-come-open-unless-you-want-it-to way that they came in. I'm afraid to open the middle-sized one 'cause I'll never get it to lie flat properly again. :)
miles to Rivendell: 380
I'm calling on people's net fu. I'm trying to find an actress who did a Levi's commercial in 2003.
In this commercial, a tall sort of interesting but not exactly pretty Indian (American Indian)-looking chick has had her car stolen and she breaks into the chopshop where they're going to tear it apart and steals it back. At the end of it she digs some kind of deely bob out from under the driver's seat and puts it back on the dashboard.
Can anybody find who this woman is? Or a picture of her on the net?
Let's see. I had a nice nap on the couch this morning, then read Ella Enchanted this afternoon. It was cute. And then, keeping in the Cinderella theme, went to see The Prince & Me, which was also cute. It's been a good weekend for movies. :) Came home and went on my walk (yay!), then did a rewrite on chapter 6. Chapter 7 is going to take some big work, but in a good way. You know, if I could just sit down and work on this for 2 or 3 days straight (my brain would be goo, but) I'd be able to just slam through these revisions. I suppose I could take a couple days off work.
I am feeling the impulse to work on something Entirely Different once rewrites are done on HoS. I mean, like, a screenplay or something. Something that's so different in format that it'll leave my brain free for other things, because, well, I've got to do the requested revisions on US whenever my letter gets here, and it'd be nice to not have to derail something else for that. So I donno. We'll see.
ytd wordcount: 121,900
miles to Rivendell: 379
I got up at a quarter to 7 for some reason this morning. Quarter to eight, I guess, because of stupid spring forward, but still. *bleary look* Rewrote ch. 5 of HoS, which was good, and ate a couple of doughnuts, which, blick, wasn't good. I might rewrite 6 today too, but right now I'm seriously considering going back to bed for a nap. Man. Pblblht.
ytd wordcount 120,800
It was a nice day. :) I read a book this morning before going to get my hairs trimmed. The hairdresser expressed surprise over how much my hair'd grown in the 6 weeks since I got it trimmed last, and we had a nice talk for a while as she cut my hair, and then Ted and I went out to Eagle River because they're closing the comic shop there and today was "Everything in the store is $1" and Ted wanted to check it out. I looked in the store and was like 'uh, no' and so I sat in the car and read the first 75 pages of Mercedes Lackey's Take A Thief. Ted came out laden with Much Loot. :)
We swung by the Northway Mall to hit Waldenbooks and had a little bookstore accident. I mean, it's not *exactly* an accident, is it, if you have a gift certificate? It was a $30 gift certificate, and I only spent an additional $30 beyond that... *big eyes* Except, you know? Ted bought 3 books at Title Wave and one at Bosco's and I think that no matter how you slice it, when you come home with 14 more books than you left the house with, you've had a bookstore accident. :) But I got the next 2 books in the YA series I'm reading (Among the Hidden, Among the Imposters, Among the Betrayed; they're quite good) and Grim Tuesday, the sequel to Mister Monday, and Ella Enchanted because they've made a movie of it and I wanna read the book before I see the movie, and ... several not-YA-books the titles of which I don't remember.
We also bought a ginormous print that we'd admired several times at the art gallery at the Northway Mall. It was 50% off an already not-absurd purchase price, and we got our tax return and thus had mad money to spend, and so we decided to buy the print. Tomorrow we'll have to put it up. :)
And we had lunch at Tommy's Burger Stop, and then trundled home so Ted could get ready to go be a volunteer chef at the museum fund-raising gala tonight, and I finished the Lackey book and read the other two Among books (evidently there's a 4th out; I'll have to get it), and watched a couple episodes of Highlander AND! Went on my walk! I walked yesterday, too! Yay me!
I have not, however, written one lickity split the last two days. Tomorrow I must write.
AUGH! There is more than an inch of new snow out there! AUGH! Stupid snow! Stop falling! Augh!
Well, despite the snow, a very fine day indeed. :)
miles to Rivendell: 378
Anyone who is a sucker for a good Beauty and the Beast story, Ron Perlman, steampunk, Cthuloid tentacled horror monster gods, sullen chicks setting things on fire, over-the-top Nazi evil, unstoppable legendary sorcerers or good triumphing explosively over evil ought to go see Hellboy.
And really, if you're not a sucker for at least *one* of those things, what are you doing reading my journal, anyway?
I really enjoyed Hellboy a lot. I'm seriously considering going and seeing Hellboy again, like, this weekend or something. Or, hey, Jai? You want to go see Hellboy sometime?
I love Ron Perlman. I want to cast him in Legion in some kind of recurring role so that someday I can get him to call me Catherine. o.o Not that he is Vincent-like in Hellboy, because he's not (Vincent, for one, is never sarcastic), but man, he's just *so* *good*. He's more believable under a zillion pounds of makeup than most actors are with their whole face to emote with. *happy sigh* She loves him, yes indeed.
Nothing to report today, so a meme stolen from Random.
1. What is your middle name?
Eileen.
2. If you had been born the other sex, did your parents tell you what your name would have been?
Nope.
3. Do you have children and if so, what are their names?
Nope.
4. If you were to ever have a child or more children, what would you name them?
Jacob Cameron, Joseph Aidan and Bridgit Maeve or Bridgit Alexandra. At least, those are the names Ted and I last discussed. Of course, I think that was before it became apparent that everybody in our bloody generation was naming their boy children Jacob and Joseph. I still like Bridgit, though.
5. Most people know their mother's maiden name, but do you know your grandmother's maiden name?
My grandmother Malone's maiden name was Dermody. My grandmother Murphy's maiden name was Broadhead. I think.
6. Did you have an imaginary friend as a child?
I don't think so. What with growing up with the Forbeses and the Malones right next door, there wasn't a great deal of need for imaginary people.
7. What was the name of your first pet?
Sie-sie and Belyore. Um, I'm sure I'm spelling Sie-sie's 'name wrong, but she was a Siamese cat (I still have a small scar on my right arm where she scratched me. To be fair, I think I was throwing her into the air at the time.), and Belyore was a bad-tempered old beagle. The first pet we had which was incontestably mine was Loki, a Great Dane.
9. What was the name of the first person you ever kissed?
Tom.
10. What was the name of the school you attended as a child?
North Kenai Elementary, with a brief stint at Kenai Elementary.
11. What was/is the name of your English teacher in high school?
Um. Mrs. Taylor, Mrs. Massey, Mrs.... Satellite... (I couldn't spell her name even in high school, and now I can't remember it.)
12. Do you name your vehicles? What are the name(s)?
Our grey Nissan was called Jeannie, for Jean Grey. I don't think the Jeep's got a name.
I actually walked. Despite it being 22 degrees. The weathermen claim it's going to warm up to 30 tomorrow and to the 40s thereafter. I certainly *hope* so. :P It was only miserable when I had to walk /in/ to the wind. Blah. Anyway, but I walked a whole mile, and my back is a little achy but not bad, and, well, I walked.
Considering spending the entire evening rotting my brain watching Stargate or Alias. Probably Stargate, as I feel like I should finish watching season 6 or whatever we're on before I start a new tv show. :)
Stella says the rewrite on HoS ch 1 is ineffably better. Yay!
miles to Rivendell: 376
The astute among you might've noticed I rearranged my webpage a little the other day. I did that so I could put my ELEM (Eat Less, Exercise More) column above the fold on the page so I actually see it every day. It is meant to be a None Too Subtle Reminder. It's certainly less subtle when I don't have to scroll down two pages to see it. :)
I bought the first season of Alias last night. I have No Idea when I'm going to make time to watch it, but I really really wanted to go spend a little bit of money. So I did. Nanner nanner!
Good morning, everybody!
It's been an exciting morning. Sarah and I are apparently such dreadful people we've driven somebody off two mailing lists and caused her to resign from the Writer's Weekend conference. The power! THE POWER! AHAHAHAHAHAH.
Ahem.
I finished the last book of the Carol Berg trilogy last night; it was, like the others, very good, although probably my least favorite of the three. Some of the things that happened did surprise me, though, so that's good. :) And although I felt like I should've worked on TQB worldnotes some last night, sitting in the new sofa is better for my back (lots of good lower back support!) than sitting in my writing seat, and I had the book to read, and.... :)
Cleaned the kitty litter, made bread, and finished the ch. 4 rewrite of HoS this morning. All is goot. And I was right, ch. 3 still needed work, but I worked on it, too, and it's better now. :)
I'm in a really good mood! This is another one of those, "God, my job is so great!" (Where 'job' equates writing, not the day job.) This rewrite is going well. I feel like I've gotten a grasp on some of the things that AnnaG wanted from the ms, and between her notes and Jenn's, yah, I feel very solid about what I'm doing. And, y'know, annoyingly, the book will of course be better for it. *laugh* I've got an idea on how to punch up the section Jenn thought dragged, and cleverly it brings in the fifth and final of the Old Races, a race which hadn't been introduced in the original manuscript, so I think that'll be good. Yeah. Yah! *dancie dance* :)
ytd wordcount: 119,700