Sunday Update - Week 39

How did a whole other week go by already?  I swear time is zooming by faster and faster all the time.  Sheesh.

Once again, I didn't do any writing.  Unless in my head counts.  And it wasn't even anything I was working on, but the opening lines and the premise hit me in the head when I was out smoking, and it won't leave me alone.  I stuck it in my writing ideas file.  I ain't go time to be birthin' no more stories right now.

I'm up to 20% on the read-through, note-taking phase of Wrongful Termination.  It's a hot mess, but I still like it. 

I also worked up a submission letter so one of my other books can be sent to a small publisher. 

Last night, I was telling the Kid about all the irons I have in the fire right now, and her comment was 'Wow'.  To which I replied, "I will get published if it kills me."  Then she did some pompom waving and supportive stuff.  I am committed to this.  Or maybe I should be committed because of this.  LOL

In other news, I bought a new office chair.  Well, an old office chair that's new to me.  It's very comfortable on my butt, but I'm not sure if my back likes it yet.  Since my previous chair was 8-10 years old, I'm not surprised.  With as much time as I spend sitting at my desk, I probably spent upwards of 8500 hours in that chair.  And chairs should come with a sit-ometer to let you know how much 'mileage' it has so you know when to change it - like tires. 

Anyway, here it is:

The dark spot on the seat is stain remover waiting to dry.  It had a few gnarly spots that needed cleaning, but it looks fine now.  But hey, I got the chair for $5 - marked down from $20 because the seat wiggled and is missing a bolt.  Hubs worked on the wiggle while I polished the wood and cleaned the upholstery.  It's much better now.  =o)

This past week was also cleaning week.  Deep down dusting and sweeping and vacuuming.  I also cleaned the bed linens and Febrezed everything.  (Including the above chair.) 

And I still feel like I didn't do much.  Why is it some weeks I can lay around doing nothing and feel fine about it, and other weeks I do all sorts of stuff and still feel like a lazy slob? Ugh.

How was your week?

Sunday Update - Week 38

It's that time again.  I don't know if all y'all are getting bored with these, but I'm going to keep doing them until the year's over.  I may even do it next year because, hey, it keeps me honest.  ;o)

Writing-wise, I didn't.  I did spent time off and on all week reading through WIOH looking for errors, and boy-howdy did I find a lot of them.  Eight college-rule notebook pages worth of them.  :eyeroll:  I don't know what the heck my fingers were thinking, but they obviously weren't listening to my brain.  (Either that or my brain was sending the wrong signals again.)  But I did get that part of the editing process done.  Starting today, I'll take my pages of fixes and input them all into the computer so I can send this puppy out to a most wonderful person who offered to proofread it for me.  (You know, in case I missed somethings - which is entirely possible.)

Submitting-wise, I didn't do that either.  I did, however, spend time doing more research on places to submit to - including ordering a book from a small-publisher to see how the books they put out compare with traditional publishing.  It arrived Friday, so their shipping is speedy for what I assume is a POD thing.  And looking at the physical book, I must say, I don't see any difference.  I'll start reading it as soon as I finish this other book I'm trying to read.  That's the true test, I think. 

Reading?  Well, let's just say I got distracted reading my own stuff, so the advanced copy I got of a fantasy novel from an acquaintance of mine that I started got put on hold until I finished reading WIOH.  Now that's done, I can get back to reading.  Which is good because Goodreads says I'm 6 books behind on my goal.

In other news, Hubs and I washed the windows that have been driving us nuts out on the sun porch.  Once he risked life and limb sitting on the window sill so he could cut away the caulking holding the storm window in place.  After we got those suckers out, everything went so much easier.  Trust me, chunking out old wasps nests with a sign stake was not the funnest thing I've ever done.

Other than that, the week was pretty non-spectacular.  How was yours?

Bummed Playlist

Well, I did the Happy Playlist yesterday, so it's only fair I do the Bummed Playlist today.  This one is for when I'm in a bad mood and I want the music to match the mood.  (Wallowing in my own misery, really.)

And yes, there are some songs that are on both - because depending on the mood I'm already in, they can make me smile or they can call out to the bummed place within me.

Whatever - Hot Chelle Rae
Shimmer - Fuel
Call and Answer - Barenaked Ladies
Circle - Edie Brickell and the New Bohemians
Carrion - Fiona Apple
Mad Season - Matchbox Twenty
Everything to Everyone - Everclear
Elvis - Sister Hazel
Anna Begins - Counting Crows
Love Ridden - Fiona Apple
Honestly - Hot Chelle Rae
Bent - Matchbox Twenty
My Immortal - Evanescence
Sullen Girl - Fiona Apple
Walking After You - Foo Fighters
Bittersweet - Fuel
These Hard Times - Matchbox Twenty
A Mistake - Fiona Apple
Hanging by a Moment - Lifehouse
Misunderstood - Better Than Ezra
Funhouse - Pink
The Child is Gone - Fiona Apple
Her Diamonds - Rob Thomas
Hemorrhage (in my Hands) - Fuel
Your Winter - Sister Hazel
Bright Lights - Matchbox Twenty
Paper Bag - Fiona Apple
Can't Let You Go - Matchbox Twenty

You'll notice this one is way shorter than the last.  I haven't really finished this one, because I know I have other songs that bring me to that Bummed place, but I'm not really jazzed to fill this playlist out.  I'd rather by Happy.

What songs bring you down?  Personally, I had to get rid of my Taylor Swift CD because I wept through it every single time.  Something about her songs make me cry.  There's being bummed out and there's open weeping, and open weeping is not encouraged when you're driving.  ;o)

Happy Playlist

Mostly when I want to hear music, I hit Pandora.  They tend to have the right mix to get me in whatever groove I'm looking for.  But I also have a wide variety of music on my hard drive.  It's all from either CDs I have on hand or from music files I've purchased. 

Of that, I have certain songs that are grouped together (I mean other than by artist or album), and one of my playlists is simply called 'Happy' .  It's comprised of songs that just make me smile.  Here's what's on it...

Brighter Than the Sun - Colbie Caillat
Call Me Maybe - Carly Rae Jepsen
From the Clouds - Jack Johnson
Change Your Mind - Sister Hazel
Unwritten - Natasha Bedingfield
Love Will Do That - Darius Rucker
Good Life - One Republic
How Far We've Come - Matchbox Twenty
Keep Your Head Up - Andy Grammer
Everything - Michael Buble
Uncharted - Sara Bareilles
What Doesn't Kill You - Kelly Clarkson
I'm Yours - Jason Mraz
Some Fantastic - Barenaked Ladies
Strange Cup of Tea - Sister Hazel
You and Your Heart - Jack Johnson
This - Darius Rucker
Dream Life, Life - Colbie Caillat
Good Time - Carly Rae Jepsen w/ Owl City
I Like it Like That - Hot Chelle Rae
Lunatic - Andy Grammer
Whatever - Hot Chelle Rae
Walk - Foo Fighters
Southern State of Mind - Darius Rucker
Thank You - Sister Hazel
Brown Eyed Girl - Everclear
Downtown Girl - Hot Chelle Rae
Hanging by a Moment - Lifehouse
Marchin' On - One Republic
Biggest Man in Los Angeles - Andy Grammer
Love Song - Sara Bareilles
Think Good Thoughts - Colbie Caillat
Honestly - Hot Chelle Rae
Beautiful Thing - Sister Hazel
Don't Know Why - Norah Jones
A.M. Radio - Everclear
I Don't Care - Darius Rucker
I've Got the World on a String - Michael Buble
Alcohol - Barenaked Ladies
Baker Street - Foo Fighters
I Do - Colbie Caillat
Make it Mine - Jason Mraz
Elvis - Sister Hazel
Tonight Tonight - Hot Chelle Rae
Owl City 'Fireflies' Cover - Elliot Minor
Carry On - FUN

Sometimes I start at the beginning and go down the list. Other times, I put it on shuffle.  Sometimes, like this morning, I pull out a particular song and just listen to that*.

If you had a Happy Playlist what would be on it?  

*This morning's song was Biggest Man in Los Angeles by Andy Grammer.

Sunday Update - Week 37

Good morning!  How the heck are all y'all?

Well, I'm sore.  And stiff.  But satisfied.  Yesterday, I got a wild hair to wash the deck.  Over the summer, it got all mildew stained plus had this green patina going on.  So I took to the internet, found a place where they had suggestions for cleaning mildew off a wood deck, and I took their suggestion (partly).  I mixed up some vinegar (1 qt) and dishsoap (1/4 c) and water (3 qts).  Using a big broom and a little scrub brush, I applied it to the deck, then waited fifteen minutes.  Then I used the same mixture to scrub it all down.  It isn't totally spotless, but it does look way better.  Hence, stiff and sore but satisfied.

In other news, I finished Bloodflow's rewrite.  I wrote like a mad woman for like 5 hours straight on Wednesday - putting out like 6300 words.  That left me with a total of 110488.  Now I need to tweeze and polish this.  Friday I snipped out an irrelevant scene leaving me with 109K.  It's kinda top heavy, but I can make it awesome.

Also, I've got WIOH on the Kindle and I've been going through line by line looking for errors I may have created during the tweezing phase.  Yup, they're there.  I'm about a third of the way through - jotting the flaws in a notebook so I can fix them later.  Ugh, there are way more than I expected.  

Otherwise, I haven't been doing much of anything else.  I planned on making cookies.  That didn't happen.  I planned on vacuuming and dusting.  Nope.  I did get the fridge washed out, though, so that's something else. 

What have you been up to this week?  Anything exciting on tap for next week?

This n That n The Other Thing

I've been cranking so hard to finish Bloodflow that I am a total scatterbrain.  When I'm not deep in the world of government intrigue, I'm wallowing in downtime. Thus, my sporadic posting lately.

Hubs and I have been in deep talks about stuff I don't feel comfortable sharing yet.  I can tell you this: Our marriage is still awesome, we still aren't ever talking about babies, and we still love our home.  Also, it's nothing to worry about.  Just stuff I'd rather not make public yet. 

I cut my own hair.  After successively bad haircuts, I finally had enough.  The last haircut wasn't too bad, but she left my bangs too long and the sides too long, so I went after my head with a pair of scissors.  I'm still snipping uneven bits here and there when I see them, but all in all, I'm pleased with the look.  I think it looks sassy and hey, at least it's out of my face.  Ugh, I can't stand hair in my face.  The last hairdresser was all like 'you can tuck it behind your ears'.  I actually hate that worse than hanging in my face. 

My fawn, Elias (aka Big Boy) lost his spots.  It makes me kinda melancholy when we reach the point where the fawns are spot-free.  Leftover mother junk from sending the Kid off into the world, I guess.

I spent yesterday morning cleaning out the refrigerator.  Yuck.  But it has to be done from time to time.  Now it's all shiny and new looking again. Yay.

I've also been spending time shredding old manuscript pages.  By hand.  We have a shredder, but it only takes like 5 pages at a time and I can rip through way more pages than that on my own.  It also helps that I used to do this for a living when I worked for a medical record copy service.  No one hand shreds paper like I do, baby.  I have one tall kitchen garbage bag almost full and about a dozen chapters left to rip.  (Of course, that's not counting the new pile I'm making, but let's take care of one pile at a time, shall we.) 

Your turn.  Tell me your this n that.  Or just tell me how you dispose of printed manuscript pages no one should ever ever read again.  Or whether you've cut your own hair.  How often do you wash out your refrigerator?

Mistakes

I've made a lot of mistakes in my life.  I ran that red light.  I fell off my bike three times in one summer.  I dated... too many wrong men to count. 

You know, they say if you don't learn from your mistakes you're doomed to repeat them.  And I think I am the poster child for that statement.  Didn't learn from the red light that almost killed me, ran another one and not only totalled my car, but got sued.  I wore the wrong shoes while riding my bike the first time... and the second time.  The third time, I was carrying a tote bag in the handle bars and when the bag got caught in the spokes... Well, I only did the one once, but it was in the same summer, so I'm counting it.  As for the men, the fact that I can't count them should account for the fact that it took me a really long time to learn from those mistakes.  (Hubs proves that I do eventually learn, but that was after 17 years worth of heartache, etc.)

Anyway, now I'm stuck in a rut where I rehash everything.  What could I have done differently to avoid making the same mistake in the future?  Well, I don't ride bikes anymore.  I am super viligent on the roads - especially at traffic signals.  And like I said, I fixed the dating mistakes by finding the right one and hanging onto him.

But I still wonder about past mistakes.  I know there's nothing I can do about them.  You can't change the past.  Maybe I'm hoping to change the future.  Maybe I'm looking for places where I've done something I can still rectify.  Perhaps I'm still looking for a way to fix the unfixable. 

Most days I'm pretty good about staying in the now and looking toward the future.  Some days I get stuck in a loop where I'm still rehashing a phone conversation I had years ago wondering where I went wrong, or I revisit a fight with someone I don't even know anymore to figure out what I could've said to end the fight on a different note, or I remember some parenting thing I did that finally years later I realize was probably the wrong way to have handled it.  (And then I apologize to the Kid who doesn't even remember what I did and who rightfully thinks I've slipped a gear.) 

:shrug:  It's a thing.  But I like to think I'm getting better. 

Although, next week, I'll probably be laying in bed wondering if this post was a mistake and whether I could've written it differently.  ;o)

(Don't even get me started on the nights I lay awake wondering if I started a story in the right place, ended it in the wrong place, or totally screwed up the plot.)

Sunday Update - Week 36

Hey all.  Sorry I'm late.  I thought about scheduling this right as I was getting ready to shut down for the night and I was so tired, I just skipped it. 

Sorry also for last week's pity party.  Bleh. 

AND sorry for the infrequent posts.  I've been busy in some ways and lazy in others.  Plus, the only things I can think of to post about are all ranty, and let's face it, the world is insane enough without you having to see that here, too.

So anyway, here's what I did in week 36:

In writing, I re-wrote 15629 on Bloodflow last week, bringing my running total to 95305 with about 47 pages left to rewrite.  If I average 300 words a page, that leaves me with about 14K to add to the book, which will bring the finished total on this draft to 110K. A little on the hefty side, but I think I know where I can trim.  And hey, I trimmed 9K out of Wish in One Hand by just tightening the prose...

Oh yeah... I got that polishing project for WIOH done.  I still need to go through it and make sure I didn't make any mistakes while I was polishing, but for intents and purposes, this sucker is good to go.  I started reading through it last night.  Part of my problem is I've seen these words so many times, it's easy for me to just scan past potential mistakes.  Soooo, I loading the thing onto my Kindle and then changed the font appearance - you know, to shock myself into looking at it differently.  We'll see how that goes. 

In bruise news, my northerly gluteous maximus is a lovely shade of yellow.  TMI?

On the garden front, my yellow mum is blooming, as are the white mums.  The red and the purple ones have buds, but no flowers yet.  Also, my marigolds in the wildflower bed are looking lovely - I just need to weed up there.  Thankfully, the temperatures have finally gotten out of the 'OMG it's hot' stage so I don't feel like I'm desiccating every time I step outside.

How are things in your world?

The MONUMENTAL FLAW... Not so monumental after all

So anyway, if y'all were here Sunday, you'll know I wasn't all Suzie Sunshine.  I'll admit it - Bloodflow had me down.  And all y'all were very supportive, including them what threatened to kick my big ol' bootay.  As the addendum said, I did get back to work the very night I wrote that post.  I still was angsting about the damn thing in a big way, but I ate my brussels sprouts and got the words out.

Let me tell ya a little story before I continue with this...

Back in 2004, I started my first book and I was pretty damn proud of myself.  So I took a chunk of what I'd already written and I showed it to my ex-boyfriend (cuz he was all like 'English professor' and junk).  I know, I know... big mistake, right?  But not for the reason you're thinking.  It wasn't that he found a shitload of grammar or spelling mistakes.  I don't even think he had a problem with the writing itself.  (Don't remember now.  I'm kind of repressing a lot of that BS.) 

No, he had a problem with the premise as it related to facts in reality.  As in, he read a news story about something that had actually happened that didn't jive with how my book was written. 

Hopes crushed.  Heart smushed.  Burgeoning writerly dreams smashed like so many eggs on Devils' Night. 

Until one night a few days later, I was laying in bed angsting about the damn thing in a big way (only back then, I couldn't push through the angst), when a flash of insight hit me like a bolt out of the clear blue summer sky.  I popped up out of bed, turned the computer back on, and rewrote one particular scene that freakin' handled the issue. 

The same thing happened to me last night.  I was laying there angsting because no matter how many words I pushed ahead with on this rewrite, it was still flawed.  And KERPOW!  I turned to Hubs, gave him a quick kiss, and popped out of bed.  In no time at all, I was back in bed after having addressed that MONUMENTAL FLAW... that really only took about 100 words to address.  Problem solved, I went back to bed.

Unfortunately, by then, I wasn't really tired, so I just laid there thinking about other stuff and hoping Mr. Sandman would throw a handful of sleepy dust my way. 

Anyway, the problem is fixed.  The angst is gone.  And I feel better.  Thanks everyone for being awesome and supportive and junk.  :hugs:

And a big thanks to the Hubs for being so understanding and supportive and laughing with me when I do crazy things like jump out of bed to fix a flaw that wasn't really a problem for anyone but me.  ;o)