I fell asleep over the laptop last night. That's a strange feeling. I'm just glad I didn't add all the crazy letters that can happen on such unfortunate occasions. All the crazy letters that are there--I meant to add! (Grammar is suffering. Sad.)
However, I'm looking forward to some other work. In April I'm taking a class from RWA's Kiss of Death Chapter. They offer a couple of workshops every month, one on craft and one more focused on writing mystery and suspense. The workshops are seriously affordable. I'm doing Discovering Story Magic, and excited about it. I've heard only great things from others who've taken it--and I'm planning to discover as much magic as I possibly can!
Happy Tuesday! Back to them revisions!
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
Monday, March 23, 2009
The Lost Weekend
Not the movie. I'm talking work again. Though I did get some done this weekend, we just had other stuff going on around here. I always tell my girl that she has to focus on the important stuff, not let distressing things get the better of her. Well, I should have managed to take my own advice. My problem was sheer distraction.
Must keep eye firmly on the ball this week. The girl has some study today so she and I are eventually heading to the coffee shop where the noise level is perfect background.
Normally, after struggling, I whine to myself about oh, my problems. Well, the truth is, I don't have any. After seeing the girl come home from precepting, with the weekend on her face, I don't know what she's encountered in her hospital hours, but I realize I just need to buckle down in my rather rosy life and be grateful that whatever has happened to people she's been helping to treat, is not happening around our safe and cozy abode.
So, I'm hunkering down, and I am going to be grateful, rather than whinging. How lucky am I to have a job I love and to live with people who love me as much as I love them? We're all safe and perky, and distraction is nothing compared to actual troubles.
Wishing you a contented Monday.
Must keep eye firmly on the ball this week. The girl has some study today so she and I are eventually heading to the coffee shop where the noise level is perfect background.
Normally, after struggling, I whine to myself about oh, my problems. Well, the truth is, I don't have any. After seeing the girl come home from precepting, with the weekend on her face, I don't know what she's encountered in her hospital hours, but I realize I just need to buckle down in my rather rosy life and be grateful that whatever has happened to people she's been helping to treat, is not happening around our safe and cozy abode.
So, I'm hunkering down, and I am going to be grateful, rather than whinging. How lucky am I to have a job I love and to live with people who love me as much as I love them? We're all safe and perky, and distraction is nothing compared to actual troubles.
Wishing you a contented Monday.
Friday, March 20, 2009
Friday--Revising my own blah, blah, blah
I was having such a good time with this revision. Then I came to my own wordiness. Culling the "what the ?*&% was I thinking" moments is never the best part of revising. Sometimes it's a moment I wanted so badly to get perfect that I wrote all around it instead. You know--that horrible crisis of confidence thing where you know you can't get it out the way it sounds and feels in your head? Uh-huh. I've been working since about six this morning and I've cut about two pages of that.
Forty-seven minutes after starting this expedition through numbing blah, blah, blah, I'm wondering what the ?*&% was I thinking? And also, I'm so grateful we get to revise.
No one will ever see that stuff. What a relief! Don't you wish you could revise certain moments in real life, too?
Forty-seven minutes after starting this expedition through numbing blah, blah, blah, I'm wondering what the ?*&% was I thinking? And also, I'm so grateful we get to revise.
No one will ever see that stuff. What a relief! Don't you wish you could revise certain moments in real life, too?
Thursday, March 19, 2009
Flyby
Revising. I'm trying to make every word count, trying to choose the details that emphasize emotion. It's difficult to choose the words that find the fine balance between wrenching and mawkish. Sometimes, I'm not sure which side of the line I'm falling on, but I've decided that maybe my editor will know when she's doing the line edit. :-) I want to make the ms. as perfect as possible so that mistakes are less prevalent in the line edit--when someone else types changes into the pages. But truthfully, that's another stage of shaping the story. So, instead of doubting myself, I'm leaving in moments I might have edited out before because this book is about letting the reader share in the hero and heroine's delight.
(I heard Richard Harris saying "Delight" in Camelot in my head as I wrote that. He understood emphasis!)
Gotta go!
(I heard Richard Harris saying "Delight" in Camelot in my head as I wrote that. He understood emphasis!)
Gotta go!
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
Wednesday--Almost Spring
How the days and the months fly past. We're in serious spring mode around here. Allergy migraines and crocuses. The pool cover falling to tatters.
But this year, we've had rain. We can plant stuff. When I was younger, spring popped into our neighborhood with my aunt's purple and yellow and orange crocuses. I could plant some of those--although I think they're bulbs and they're supposed to be planted in the fall. Wonder why gardens fare badly under my thumb o'death?
We have another problem in our flowerbeds. The kids in our neighborhood apparently consider them second base in the kickball games they've been playing since the weather began to warm. We've had neighbor issues before. One neighbor posted our land so that apparently only he can hunt on it. Kids breaking into the pool, making ATV paths through our woods, starting a bonfire in our yard during a burn ban and the worst drought in our state's history. The smallest lot in the neighborhood is two acres. It's not as if we actually do have the only grass available for burning or churning into dust.
We had a new survey done and put locks on the pool gates and had serious words with the parents, but I still kind of dread the summer building plan. And I'd love it if the teens stopped running out of the cul-de-sac into our flowerbeds.
It's tempting fate, but I'm going to plant as soon as I finish this revision. I may have to sit out there like my own garden gnome and protect the beds, but oh, for some color! For lovely flowers painting the summer outside my office windows. And I love planting some edibles amongst the pretty stuff. Nothing on earth is as tasty as a tomato fresh out of the sun, nestling in lettuce just cut from the bed.
And, should they all be ground beneath teenage boy's feet, I guess I could learn how to pick up the pieces and make pot pourri!
But this year, we've had rain. We can plant stuff. When I was younger, spring popped into our neighborhood with my aunt's purple and yellow and orange crocuses. I could plant some of those--although I think they're bulbs and they're supposed to be planted in the fall. Wonder why gardens fare badly under my thumb o'death?
We have another problem in our flowerbeds. The kids in our neighborhood apparently consider them second base in the kickball games they've been playing since the weather began to warm. We've had neighbor issues before. One neighbor posted our land so that apparently only he can hunt on it. Kids breaking into the pool, making ATV paths through our woods, starting a bonfire in our yard during a burn ban and the worst drought in our state's history. The smallest lot in the neighborhood is two acres. It's not as if we actually do have the only grass available for burning or churning into dust.
We had a new survey done and put locks on the pool gates and had serious words with the parents, but I still kind of dread the summer building plan. And I'd love it if the teens stopped running out of the cul-de-sac into our flowerbeds.
It's tempting fate, but I'm going to plant as soon as I finish this revision. I may have to sit out there like my own garden gnome and protect the beds, but oh, for some color! For lovely flowers painting the summer outside my office windows. And I love planting some edibles amongst the pretty stuff. Nothing on earth is as tasty as a tomato fresh out of the sun, nestling in lettuce just cut from the bed.
And, should they all be ground beneath teenage boy's feet, I guess I could learn how to pick up the pieces and make pot pourri!
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
Tuesday at the Blog
Happy St. Patrick's Day! I come from a place where it's a big old celebration, but I tend to forget it's happening now until suddenly everything's green, and shamrock-laden. We have two pubs on the square, but one of them is just a bit out of commission right now because an 86-year-old woman drove through the windows. I won't be mocking, though, cause one day that could be me. And the dh and the children already drive that badly. It's a bad driving gene. I stopped letting my beloved mother-in-law drive with our baby son in the car when her performance terrified me--and I blamed it on her age. Many years later, I realize she was only 59. It was the Adams driving gene, hard at work!
After several days of rain, the sun has returned, meaning a good walk could be had. A couple of weeks ago, I strained my back, and I actually loathe feeling bad so I think I pushed myself to feel better too soon. My back is now busy wreaking vengeance. I intend to treat it with more respect for a week or so. I'm already dreading my return to walking. No stamina left. No willpower to grind out those exciting miles. :-)
Because I'm still buried in the end of revision--knitting everything back together--I'm a bit distracted, so I fear my posts are going to be somewhat scattershot in content for the next little while.
St. Patrick's Day, bad driving, rain, sun, walking, hate to walk.
I guess you get the picture.
After several days of rain, the sun has returned, meaning a good walk could be had. A couple of weeks ago, I strained my back, and I actually loathe feeling bad so I think I pushed myself to feel better too soon. My back is now busy wreaking vengeance. I intend to treat it with more respect for a week or so. I'm already dreading my return to walking. No stamina left. No willpower to grind out those exciting miles. :-)
Because I'm still buried in the end of revision--knitting everything back together--I'm a bit distracted, so I fear my posts are going to be somewhat scattershot in content for the next little while.
St. Patrick's Day, bad driving, rain, sun, walking, hate to walk.
I guess you get the picture.
Friday, March 13, 2009
Anticipation
One of my offspring has a birthday soon, and we've found the perfect gift. I cannot wait. The hardest thing about giving a gift is waiting!
What are you doing this Friday? I'm longing for a visit home to see my aunts and uncle and cousins. And the old homeplace. :-)
However, my revisions have been fighting back. We're in a grip now where they're pulling and I'm tugging, and the balance is fragile. One of us gains a little strength, and the whole works could collapse. So I guess I'd better hang on here and get this stuff done.
Wishing everyone a wonderful Friday, especially my baby who never reads this blog, but is taking a vital exam today. She'll be brilliant, but I'm still gnawing the nails on her behalf.
Oh--in case any of you look forward to Suzanne McMinn's blog every day the way I do, visit Chickens in the Road to see info on her newest release. I'd do a link, but our Internet access is so slow today that I can't bring up two pages at a time to get the address. There's a link to the blog in my favorite blog list, and you can page back to see her gorgeous new cover with a link to buy. If you pause to read today's post on her goat, Clover's return to the farm, you'll have a happy weep, too.
Which starts anyone off with a great Friday! :-)
What are you doing this Friday? I'm longing for a visit home to see my aunts and uncle and cousins. And the old homeplace. :-)
However, my revisions have been fighting back. We're in a grip now where they're pulling and I'm tugging, and the balance is fragile. One of us gains a little strength, and the whole works could collapse. So I guess I'd better hang on here and get this stuff done.
Wishing everyone a wonderful Friday, especially my baby who never reads this blog, but is taking a vital exam today. She'll be brilliant, but I'm still gnawing the nails on her behalf.
Oh--in case any of you look forward to Suzanne McMinn's blog every day the way I do, visit Chickens in the Road to see info on her newest release. I'd do a link, but our Internet access is so slow today that I can't bring up two pages at a time to get the address. There's a link to the blog in my favorite blog list, and you can page back to see her gorgeous new cover with a link to buy. If you pause to read today's post on her goat, Clover's return to the farm, you'll have a happy weep, too.
Which starts anyone off with a great Friday! :-)
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