This n That Thursday

I rock at Jeopardy when I'm at home, but I know if I ever tried to go on the show, I'd totally blank out. 

It's harder to find positive things to talk about when the cat won't eat. 

Ever wonder how you'd feel if you threw a party and no one came?

Walking in cooler weather seems easier, but my ass still hurts when I get home.

Early in the morning, I'm more likely to dream about emails or computer stuff.  I'll dream about checking my book stats and finding a huge spike in sales - which is just mean.  I'll dream I hit the bestseller lists.  This morning I dreamed I got an email from my cover artist telling me that after all the stuff we went through, my font is totally not going to work and she's going back to the old font.  Of course, when I wake up, none of these things are true.  I'm definitely not psychic.

I heard something on FB about walnut shells driving away spiders. It seemed doubtful, so I went online to check.  The opinions are mixed.  I also heard something about osage oranges driving away rodents which seems totally whacky since squirrels tend to munch on the weird looking things.

I had never seen an osage orange until last month. Hubs and I went to the lakeside park and when we were driving around I saw what I thought was a tree covered in huge, green apples.  We parked and walked over to it. Nope, not apples.  Hubs knew what they were, though.  Seriously weird looking fruits.

The vet prescribed L-Lysine for both cats. Max for his mouth and Kira for her eyes. It's a mineral supplement for humans, but is okay for cats, too.  Apparently it helps with tissue health and growth. :shrug:  We'll see.  At this point, I'm willing to try just about anything.  Lucky for me, Walmart carries a pill crusher.  Now I have to convince both cats to eat the food mixed with the crushed pill.  :eyeroll:

What on your this-n-that today?

Munday in the Life of This Writer

Munday* jumped me from behind, knocked me down, slapped me around, and kicked sand in my face. 

First I woke up to an internet slowness that would make you weep.  When I finally got my Gmail to load, I found an email from my cover artist with the first glimpse of WIOH's new cover, but I couldn't get it to load or download or anything.  I could see it in tiny thumbnail, but I wanted to see the whole thing and I couldn't.

By that time, it's late enough to call the tech support for the HIGH SPEED INTERNET that's currently making dial-up seem like a dream. I get someone who's talking so fast in an untraceable accent that I miss her name.  Ruby? Tootie?**  Other than talking too fast, she's not too bad.  However, on her end, she can't see anything wrong with my internet.  Must be the modem.  She's sending out a tech who'll be here before 7pm.  Okay, fine.  There goes my day online.  (It's worse for Hubs.  All of his work has to be done online.  I can at least go read or work offline on something.)

Time for the next chore: Making vet appointments for Max and Kira.  I tried three times and got a fast-busy signal - which made me wonder if the phone company was having a wider problem than just my slow internet.

So I called Mom.  But she was on another line dealing with a Monday of her own, so no time to talk.

Back to the vet.  I finally get through.  They don't have back to back appointments until Wednesday, and Max needs to get in sooner.  Sooo, I make an appointment for Max later in the day and one for Kira this afternoon.

Then I sit around staring and my computer, wishing for it to miraculously speed the hell up because I want to see my cover art!  And I need to check my sales data. No luck. 


I call Mom again.  She's finally free from her obnoxious chore.  We chitchat for a while - like we always do.  Until it's time for both of us to admit we probably should be doing other things.

I never realized how much I use the internet when I'm on the phone with her - looking things up that we talk about NOT doing stuff while she talks.  That would be rude.  I call my mom to talk to her.  But it was kind of annoying when I was relaying a story about a frog and couldn't go look up what kind of frog it was.

So anyway, I get off the phone.  Still crappy 'net.  I unload the dishwasher and wash the few things leftover from the night before.  Time to take a shower...

Except right then, the internet repair dude arrives.  They said 'before 7pm', so figured late afternoon at the earliest.  Don't get me wrong.  I was ecstatic to see him, but I was totally skagged out.  He comes in, plops himself down on the floor next to the router and gets to work.  He plugs his stuff into the router and it's all coming up daisies.  Well, fark.  So, he says it's the modem and begins swapping our 2 year old modem for a new one.  Yippy.  But when he tries to configure the new modem, he can't get the software to load because it's TOO SLOW.  He makes some calls, has another tech check some other stuff, does some magic, and announces something wrong with their big equipment.  Good news is I have internet again.  Bad news for him, he's got to check every piece of tech between the big box 5 miles away and our box in the neighborhood.  Might get some intermittent outages throughout the day, but it'll be fixed by the night.  Yay.

Shower time! Except it's also lunch time.  Eat first, shower after.  I have my priorities and growling stomach trumps clean hair.

So now I've eaten and I'm clean and I have an hour left before I have to jet down to the vet.  Chill out by watching a Bones rerun.  Get the cat into his harness, into the carrier and out to the car.  Off we go.  About 15 minutes down the road, I realize that I left the Max Daily Wellness Charts on the dining room table.  Find a safe place to pull over and park.  Call the Hubs and have him email the charts.  (He wasn't even mad at me.  Which he should've been.  He went through all that trouble, even putting them right next to my keys and pointing them out so I wouldn't forget.)  Off we go once more. 

The vet was jammed.  I was so tired I almost fell asleep in the exam room - because I missed my nap, dammit.  Max's recurring mouth infection is back and just a hair's breadth from going full blown.  New antibiotics, more steroids, and an over the counter supplement I need at Walmart.  Lucky for me, they held onto Max while I scooted over to the store.  Get that stuff, pick Max up along with his new meds, and skitter home. 

The rest of the day was a blur.  The internet is back to normal.  The cat is medicated and eating beef babyfood like it's Filet Mignon.  I got to see my lovely new cover and sent a couple minor tweaks off to the artist to see what she can do.  Font stuff mostly. 

By bedtime, I was bushed.  And for some reason my eyes felt like someone had thrown a handful of sand in them.  So, yes, Munday did thrown sand in my face after all.  ;o)

How was your Munday?

*MUNDAY - when it's so bad, it's not a normal MON type of day.

** for the record, her name was JOVI. I made her spell it for me.

Sunday Update - Week 42

It's Sunday and I'm sitting here wondering where last week went.  Hell, I'm wondering where January through September and the first half October went, too. Zoom.  Right by me. 

Anyway, piecing together the last week, here's what I came up with...

I finalized the cover for BloodFlow and posted it on Outside the Box on Friday.  In case you missed it or don't feel like clicking over there, here it is:

Tada!

I also finalized the blurb.  I'll post that on Outside the Box tomorrow.

I didn't want to wait for the newsletter to come out and I'm really not sure why I have a newsletter.  The people who subscribe are all people who follow me on FB or on the blogs or on Twitter, and holding newsletter contests really doesn't seem to be netting me any new subscribers. (The last contest, I drew the name of someone who already had the book.  Yay, Janet!) So, I'll continue to reward the people who follow me everywhere else and maybe let the newsletter lie dormant until I figure out a way to get people interested.  
We're still on track for launch on November 24th.  I hope to have it available for pre-order on the 13th. 

A friend just now sent me a link to this Q&A with Bella Andre.  She's my self-publishing idol.  Which reminds me that I really need to get cranking on these sequels. Right now, I'm still trying to decide between Djinn2 and SCIU2.  I read through Djinn2 (In Deep Wish) and love it. I'm reading through SCIU2 (Fertile Ground) right now and I'm loving it, too.  Ack, decisions.  If I could afford it and wouldn't think I'd break my editor and my sanity, I'd push them out back to back. 

I read three books in the past few days, but only one of them is available - Until Proven Innocent by my good friend, JB Lynn.  It rocked.  I also read a beta copy of a book that's due out 10/31.  And I read In Deep Wish.  Those last two don't count toward my Goodreads goal (yet), and I'm like 12 books behind.  I knew going into this year that 100 books was too high a goal.  :shrug:

 Other than that?  :shrug:  What's up in your world?

Why Do You Drink?

And no, that's not a lead-in for that song. 

I think about it from time to time - the days, months, years when I drank alcohol.  The nights I came stumbling home, crawled across the house and into the bathroom for a top-level meeting with The Porcelain God.  (Once I crawled right past my father who promptly woke my mother to have her go find out if I was going to live. I was over 21, or I would've gotten way worse then him laughing at me the next day.)  The time I got alcohol poisoning from a night trading shots of Scotch in my dorm room after a particularly bad break up. 

I was never an alcoholic.  I didn't drink because I needed to.  I drank because it was there and my friends were drinking, or I wanted to blot out the world, or I wanted to hush my thoughts.  Oh, I won't say I didn't come close to being an alcoholic a time or three.  If you have a drink every night and several on the weekends, you come to expect to have a drink every night.  And when you don't, you can get a little testy. 

I started drinking probably when I was in middle school.  Little nips from Dad's stash.  I'd get home from school and make myself a drink.  Never very much - because if Dad noticed his bottles were lower than he remembered, he would've tanned my hide.  The first time I got drunk, I was 16 and a friend threw a party. I told the folks she was having a sleepover.  I never thought I could be that sick.  And one would think I'd be smart enough after that night to never drink again.  Nope.  I was stupid and that was the first of many many nights spent hurling after all my 'fun'. 

Man, could I drink.  Like I had a hollow leg.  Throw back a 40 of beer? No prob.  Pound a bottle of Boones Farm? I was so there.  Of course, that was when I was young.  I tapered off the older I was and the more responsible I had to be.

The beginning of the end of my drinking happened right around the time I got married 11+ years ago.  Hubs doesn't drink.  He didn't have a problem with my having a drink, but he didn't join in. He'd tell me to go ahead and order a drink when we were out, but drinking lost its appeal.

Of course, I didn't quit cold-turkey.  Over the years, I just couldn't see the need for it anymore.  And the longer I spent not drinking, the less I could remember why it had any appeal in the first place. Fuzzy head, unfocused eyes, loss of control, hangovers? Yeah, some fun.

I had my last drink a few years ago.  Fixed myself a Kahlua and creme while I made dinner.  I had writing to do that night and I guess I thought it would loosen me up.  Nope.  A few sips in and I was like bleh.  When the alcohol started working, I felt nauseous.  I dumped the rest of it down the drain.

Oh, I still miss the taste of a quality gin and tonic.  Yum.  If they made non-alcoholic G&Ts, I'd be all over that shit.  Luckily, when I have a taste for a beer, I can run down to the store and buy O'Douls.  I'd love a glass of wine - if they made a good Riesling sans alcohol.  :shrug:

Anyway, I've spent some time thinking about why I drank.  Mostly it was to escape.  To blank out.  To not have to think about my problems for a little while.  Sometimes, I drank because, like I said, my friends were drinking and it seemed like the thing to do.  We were having fun.  Except, in retrospect, we probably could've had just as much fun without the booze and we wouldn't have had all the nasty side effects afterwards.  Sometimes I drank to 'loosen up'.  But I know now, I can be relaxed without the liquid encouragement.

Why does anyone drink?  Why do you drink?  I don't really want an answer because it's none of my business.  I just hope you to think about it a little.  If you're satisfied with the answer, more power to you. Lord knows, I'm the last person to judge anyone for drinking.  If you're not satisfied with the answer, though, maybe next time you order a drink make it straight OJ.  That way, you won't get harassed by your friends because you can always pretend it was a screwdriver or a fuzzy navel.  =o)

Mmmmm... fuzzy navel.   I do miss the taste of those.  And I used to make these things I called a stealth bomber - back during the Gulf War.  OMG, yum. Peach/Orange Juice, peach schnapps, lemon vodka. Tasted so good you never saw it coming and then BOOM.

This n That Thursday

According to the newspaper, a bald eagle has been sighted in the area.  I haven't seen one yet.

Yesterday, on the way home from Wallyworld, I saw three red-tailed hawks and a red-shouldered hawk.  Then a wild turkey flew up out of the ditch in front of the car in front of me.  The turkey made it up and across without getting hit.  Yay.  Then I was almost home when I rounded a corner where I'd noticed a dead squirrel earlier.  Sure enough, a black vulture was making a meal.  I rolled up slowly and the vulture took off safely.  Then he circled back around and I almost hit him. He flew over the hood of my car and went back to his brunch.  Silly bird.  No gray squirrel is worth dying for.

We've begun raking leaves.  Should be finished by mid-December - depending on how fast Oberon drops his leaves. 

Oberon is a huge white oak tree that was probably around for the Civil War, maybe for the Revolution.  At some point his center trunk snapped off and so he spread out in other directions.  I'm told this is called a fairy oak - hence the name Oberon.

The hummingbirds are gone for the winter.  I still have to take the feeder down.

I'm tired of marketing.  (As of last night.)  I know I don't have time to be tired of it because when I stop, so do the sales.  I'll be better after some sleep.  I am truly thankful for all the friends who've been such a help - tweeting and retweeting and sharing posts and liking posts.  :hugs:

What's on your this-n-that line up today?

Nature: What a Bitch.

I went out into the woods just now.  Just taking a peek to see what I have to do to clean off the trails I made last year.

Oh holy crap on a cracker.

Half a dead tree fell across the start of trail 2, bending a poor little buckthorn to the ground.  Moved that and propped the buckthorn up. A little tree (15-20ft long) uprooted and fell across the intersection of trail 2, trail 3, and auxiliary trail 1.  A large limb had also fallen near there. Moved the limb.  Needed more tools to move the fallen tree.  A large tree has fallen partway across trail 2 just past the crossroads. It's hanging about 7 feet above the trail. Only a smaller tree is holding it up. Trail 2 is unsafe to traverse until the tree is removed. Went down trail 3.  More fallen limbs and fallen trees.  Only made it halfway to the bottom before I gave up.  I can't even tell where my old trail was past that point.  It's like I was never in there to begin with - except for a couple places where I can tell I cut limbs. I don't even want to think about what trail 1 looks like.

You know, nature doesn't give a damn what we do. When our backs are turned, she waltzes through doing her own thing and generally messing with what we had intended.  Bitch.

Wait'll I get the pretty pink chainsaw I've always wanted.  I'll show her that I won't be denied.  I will have trails.  I will walk from the top of my property to the bottom without worrying whether I'll step on a rattler.  I will remove the dead shit so the living stuff can thrive! 

And then, of course, she'll play around again next summer and by autumn it'll all be messed up again.

Oh well, at least it gives me something to do when I need a break from writing.  =o)

Sunday Update - Week 41

It's that time again, folks!  Sunday Update!

We shall not speak of college football.  I'm still nauseous.

In case you weren't around last week, Dying Embers was on sale 10/14-10/17.  It wasn't as good as if I'd gotten an ENT ad, but sales were certainly better than they have been.  It even hit the top 100 in Serial Killer Suspense, so I got that going for me.

My new artist and I are on the same page, and she's going to play with a few things for me to look at for the new cover of Wish in One Hand.  Please, gods who govern the djinn, let this work this time.

I finished the edit round for BloodFlow and sent it off to my editor.  She'll look it over again and send me another set of notes by the end of the month.  Woohoo.

I'm re-reading Djinn2 - In Deep Wish - and making notes.  Then I'll read SCIU2 - Fertile Ground - and make notes.  THEN I'll make a decision about which one gets published next.  Good news is I'm totally loving In Deep Wish, and I'm about halfway through the re-read.  Other good news is that I wrote this long enough ago that it's surprising me.  (Whoa, totally forgot THAT was gonna happen.)

I spent part of yesterday raking paths through the leaves so Max could go for a walk around the yard.  Silly cat hates walking on fallen leaves.  The afternoon walk after I raked went so much easier.  Of course, satellite photos of the yard right now would look like a leaf maze.

In case you missed it, I did a blog hop on Friday.  It was fun.  I posted a snippet of BloodFlow and a recipe for Hubs' favorite cake.

Oh, while raking leaves I found a tiny snake curled up under a pile on the stone walkway.  It didn't appear to be venomous, and it was very lethargic from the cold, so I used a stick to scoop it onto a shovel and then set it free in the vacant lot next door.

What's on the Update for you today?

Edited to add: The tiny snake was a baby Texas brown snake. Totally harmless. (I could tell it was harmless by the shape of its widdle head. The whole snake was maybe 6" long and no bigger around that a fat nightcrawler.)

Egads, I totally forgot to mention that I'm doing a Kindle Countdown Deal for Accidental Death this week.  99c Thursday thru Saturday again.  Pass it along.  

Taste of Magic Blog Hop

My friend, and most awesome writer, A.A. (Alexia) Chamberlynn, whose debut novelette came out recently and who shortly thereafter found representation (go Alexia!), has started the Taste of Magic Blog Hop.  She very kindly invited me to join.

Seeing as how I've never done a blog hop before, I hop you'll all bear with me.  As I understand it, this is the point at which I'm supposed to talk about something literary and then something culinary.  So, I've decided to post an excerpt from my soon to be released novel, BloodFlow, (due out November 24th) and then give you a recipe for Walnut Graham Bundt Cake with Candied Walnut Glaze (which I'm sure my main character would make if she had time to bake.)

Literary:

“Looks like you finally got your wish, Kruz.”

Agent Miranda Kruz looked up from the reams of data spread across her desk to see Supervisory Agent Jim Klein leaning against the edge of her cubicle.

“Pardon?”

Her brain was still locked in the process of comparing the paper copies to a different set of electronic numbers, looking for disparities that might point toward a lead. Of course, she’d been at the task for better than a week and hadn’t found a single thing with the odor of domestic terrorism. It was a never-ending list of dates and numbers with no correlation to anything. No one promised her work on the Terrorism Task Force would be fun. Then again, no one told her it would consist of this much drudgery either.

“You hate this paperwork shit. Well, Tweeg wants you working in the field again. Starting…” He tapped the clock on her desk. “Geez, is that the time? Kirsten is going to kill me.”

“Sir?”

“What?” He stared at her like she had a third eye on the end of her nose. Apparently she wasn’t the only one whose mind happened to be elsewhere.  Problem was, Jim’s mind spent more time at home that at work these days. “Right. Tweeg sent orders down from on high. You’re on the Reynolds ‘murder’.” He actually bothered to make air quotes. “Effective immediately. Of course, as late as it is, he probably didn’t mean tonight.”

She wasn’t so sure. If Deputy Director Anton Tweeg had anything to say about it, she’d work until the bats went to bed. Still…

Tweeg wants me on an active case.

“Wait. The Reynolds murder? You’re talking about the senator’s wife who had a close encounter with a Detroit Diesel, right?” And suddenly she knew exactly why Tweeg wanted her on this case. Being unofficially demoted from field agent to paper jockey had been bad enough. This case was worse.

Only that morning, she’d watched the husband’s press conference. If she had to guess, she’d say that the man, distraught over his wife’s senseless death, cooked up a huge terrorist plot in his mind to avoid facing the fact that his wife drove in front of a tractor trailer, which he then spewed to the media. Senator Reynolds had just been assigned to some subcommittee overseeing Randi’s own department, but still, no clues existed to point to anything other than a tragic mistake.

Unless she was drugged.

“Tox screen?”

“I’ll leave the particulars up to you and Vic Hammond.” Jim nodded toward her computer. “The files have been encrypted and sent to you.”

She typed the password to bypass her screen saver and reawaken her system. Sure enough, a new email from Jim waited.

“Tweeg said to make sure you understand he wants this case closed as quickly and as quietly as possible.”

Great.

“And under no circumstances are you to bother the senator with this.”

Son of a…

“How exactly am I supposed to conduct an investigation without interviewing the spouse?”

Jim shrugged. “Maybe you should ask your friend, Payton.” His words drifted back to her as he walked away.

Her friendship with the Director Landis definitely hadn’t made life easier for her. At least not in the way her co-workers assumed, hinted, and gossiped about. He’d definitely filled the hole left by growing up without a father. Still, whatever she’d gotten in life, she’d earned. Including her spot on this task force. The cases assigned to her weren’t any easier than her co-workers’; she just solved them faster. No one gave her kudos she didn’t deserve. No pats on the back for doing busy work. Randi Kruz busted her ass like she always had.

Eating Sunday dinner with Payton and Evelyn didn’t mean she came in late on Monday. In fact, to prove how little her friendship with Payton meant to her work, she came in early every day and stayed late. That didn’t help. They still assumed she had her nose pressed firmly against Landis’ ass. Or worse.

The rumor she was banging the boss started circulating a couple months into her assignment to the TTF. They kept going until the day Evelyn had been attacked. Payton was so inconsolable no one could think he’d ever cheat on her.

Back then, Randi still visited him. She tried to help in any way she could—fixing dinners, watering plants, tidying up after a distracted husband whose wife was, for all intents and purposes, gone. Instead of accepting her help like the father he’d become to her, he slowly backed away.

The final blow came when she got to the hospice center where Evelyn now lived and they told her that her name had been removed from the list of approved visitors. She tried asking him why, but he ignored her. He wouldn’t return any calls that weren’t work related. He wouldn’t answer any questions via email. When he ordered her to stop wasting company time, through Tweeg no less, she ate an entire carton of Haagen Dazs. She’d lost one father before she was old enough to meet the man. Losing Payton had been a crueler torment.

The biggest blow came when the Deputy Director started assigning her crap tasks. And Landis did nothing. Her co-workers never told her to her face that she deserved this treatment, but they made it clear they felt that way.

“Oh, how the mighty have fallen.”

She shook away the snide phrase she’d heard too often over the past year and resolved to keep doing her job as best she could. It might not mean much to anyone else, but she could help a man find closure. That had to count for something. Right?

And Culinary:

Walnut Graham Cake with Candied Walnut Glaze

Cake:

1 cup butter, softened

1 1/2 cups packed brown sugar

3 eggs

1 cup orange juice

2 cups all-purpose flour

1 cup graham cracker crumbs

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon cinnamon

1 cup chopped walnuts

Glaze:

1 cup walnut halves (or chopped walnuts as desired)

1/4 cup confectioners' sugar

1 tablespoon water

1 cup packed brown sugar

1/4 teaspoon walnut extract

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.  Grease and flour one 10” bundt pan.  In a large mixing bowl, cream together butter and brown sugar.  Beat in eggs until light and fluffy.  Beat in orange juice until well combined.  In a separate bowl, soft together flour, graham cracker crumbs, baking soda, baking powder, salt, and cinnamon.  Beat dry mixture into wet mixture by thirds until well combined.  Stir in chopped walnuts.  Pour evenly into prepared bundt pan.  Bake for 40-45 minutes or until toothpick inserted into center comes out clean.  Let cake sit for approximately 20 minutes and invert pan over cake plate, dropping cake gently onto plate.  Let cool for another 20 minutes.  While cooling, combine all glaze ingredients into small saucepan (adding extra water if mixture is too dry).  Heat gently over low heat until ingredients are smooth around walnuts.  Increase heat to medium high and bring mixture to boil.  Boil for 45 seconds (do not over boil).  Remove from heat and stir until boiling ends and remaining froth is incorporated into mixture.  Gently drizzle by spoonfuls over cake, arranging candied walnuts halves along the top of the cake as you go until entire glaze mixture is over cake.  (Be careful, mixture is extremely hot.)  Cool and serve.

I hope I did this right, I hope you enjoyed what was on the plate today, and I hope you'll visit the other blogs in the hop:

Alexia Chamberlynn
Jennie Bailey

This n That Thursday

I finished the edits my editor sent me.  Now I just have a couple little things to find and change before I send it off to her on Friday night.  Yay!

I walked around the yard talking pics yesterday morning.  Here are my new mums:

Eight in all - in that order and then in reverse order.  (The last ones were supposed to bloom redder. And yes, the white ones look like daisies, but they're mums. Honest.)

Dying Embers is on sale for 99 cents - here in the US and in the UK.  Go grab a copy.  Gift a copy to your friends.  Send one to the old boyfriend or girlfriend who cheated on you in college.  You know, as a remembrance.  ;o)

LOL, no, I wouldn't do that last thing.  What's passed is in the past.  Fun thing to think about sometimes, though.  "Hey, Dork! Remember me?"  ROFL

I have a bug bite on my arm that will not go away.  It's not big and it's not painful.  Not a mosquito or a spider.  It just itches like crazy.  Bleh.

Did I mention my edits?  I'm a little cwazypants right now.  Edit brain and all that rot.

Anyway, what's the this n that in your life right now?

Scattered

I'm editing and my deadline is Friday.

I'm working with a new cover artist to bring my genie series together as a cohesive unit.

I'm working on a few things to generate sales.

I'm trying to keep a clean... err... tidy house.

Max is a rollercoaster of 'feels good kitty' and 'crashing kitty'.

It's college football season.

I'm 10 books behind in my reading challenge.

The squirrels won't leave my iris bulbs alone so I keep having to replant.

Facebook

Twitter

Spreadsheets

Baseball playoffs

I need exercise of some sort so I don't meld with my desk chair.

Dishes... who keeps using all those dishes??

Kira wants out on the sun porch, even though I moved her special secret water into the office.

Author interview.

News

We need food in the house.

Hubs is working on something at the computer kitty-corner from me.

Leaves need raking.

Max killed a mouse.

There's a centipede on the ceiling.

The neighbor's new truck is loud.

I forgot to write that blog post.

My coffee needs refilling.

:wanders off:

Sunday Update - Week 40

Sorry I'm late, but I didn't sleep much last night and felt like doodle most of the day, so here I am - finally - at quarter to 4 feeling almost human.  Better late than presenting you all with a troll.  Am I right or am I right?

Anyhoo, updates...

I've completed this round of edits through pg 134 of 380.  I wanted to be up to pg 200 by last night, but I felt like doodle - the pre-doodles of the last 18 hours, I guess.  I should still have this to my editor by the 16th. She'll then have it back to me by Halloween, and I'll still be on track for a November 24th release day.  Unless, you know, something comes up that derails everything.  Always prepared for that to happen, doncha know?

In other news, I believe I have a new cover artist for the Djinn series.  Gah, I really need to find a catchy name for the series.  "Jo's Genies" "Mayweather Djinn" "The Djinn Liberation Network" (That last one was from the first incarnation of this book when I emphasized more on the network.  :shrug:)  Anyway, if any of you can come up with a series title I like, I'll shoot you a $10 Amazon gift card. 

Back to the artist.  She's a pretty cool gal who's done beautiful paranormal covers and she's willing to re-do WIOH along with doing the others so I have continuity across the series.  And she won't cost me the farm, if ya know what I mean.  I hope to have something next month that I can show you.

Because you're faithful followers of this blog and most likely my other blogs, I'll let you in on a little secret.  Dying Embers will be going on sale Wednesday.  It's a Kindle Countdown Deal that'll run through Saturday - for both Amazon and Amazon UK.  I'm hoping to have some news to go along with the sale, but since I have to sorta schedule these puppies in advance, I'll just have to hope I get the news I want, and if I don't, then the world still gets an awesome deal.  Tell your friends, tell your family, tell your exes (because they should all be on their toes after reading this book :wink:).

Okay, well, I've got books on the brain, so that's all I can think to update you all on.  You got anything for me?

This n That Thursday

Kira has formed an unnatural attachment to the secondary water dish out on the sun porch.  This morning I'm having an intervention. The door stays closed until we're ready to go out there. Hence, it's very meowiful in here right now.  She always has her main bowl of water in the kitchen.

Coffee is awesome.

I'm up to chapter three on the edits.  I will have these finished by the deadline or die trying.

I finally got Kira interested in her toys, but then she was sticking to the carpet, so I clipped her claws.  She's forgotten about the water dish for the moment.

Wait. I spoke too soon. She's really turned on the cuteness, too.  Reminds me of when she was a baby and the first week I had her.  She must've been experiencing separation anxiety from her foster home.  That week, she would walk around the house all night, meowing. 

Yesterday on the drive home from Wallyworld, I almost hit a red-tailed hawk.  It swooped up out of the ditch on the right side of the road, right in front of my car. A gasped and took my foot off the gas, which gave the car just enough hesitation to let the hawk pass safely in front of my bumper.  If I'd hit it, I would've been crushed.  I love those birds.

My local bookstore will be closed for 6 weeks while the owner and sole-employee goes on a long vacation.  :gasp:

I don't know if you saw it on FB, but Accidental Death finally came back from the black hole of being entered into the library system here in SW MO.  (Don't know where Dying Embers or Wish in One Hand are.)  I know because I saw it in the newspaper yesterday.  The library has a little blurb every week where she lists the new books.  Mine was there.  Problem was, she spelled my name wrong.  Derp. She left off the ON.  So, I'm now B.E. Sanders around these parts, I guess.  She's the second local person to do that.  Must be an Ozarks thing.

Also yesterday, my WIOH ad for ENT was denied again.  It was not a banner day for book marketing.

I keep thinking it's Sunday.  Every morning this week, I've woken up and thought it was Sunday.  On Sunday, I'll probably think it's Wednesday. 

The yellow-bellied sapsucker has returned for the winter.  Still waiting on the bald eagles.

You got any this n that for me today?

26 Unpleasant Things I'd Rather Do Than Edit

1) Clean toilets
2) Pull weeds
3) Medicate the cat

4) Watch Bones reruns for the dozenth time because there's nothing else on.
5) Do the dishes
6) Use the internet to identify bug species
7) Plant iris bulbs. (My ass muscles are still complaining about that one.)
8) Plumbing repair
9) Dust
10) Walk around the outside of the house with a flyswatter, killing bugs - webworms and wasps, mostly.
11) Vacuum
12) Bathe the cats
13) Play 'what's that smell?' followed closely by 'locate the source of that smell'.
14) Check the sticky traps for spiders
15) Reorganize my office
16) Build an entirely new spreadsheet that does what three other spreadsheets are supposed to do
17) Book marketing
18) File
19) Wash all the glassware on all the chandeliers.
20) Scrub floors.  (Ri-ight, that expensive thingamajigger was so much easier than scrubbing by hand.  Hmph.)
21) Clean the bathrooms
22) Clean out the fridge
23) Discuss politics
24) Socialize
25) Walk up the big hill next to the house
26) Pull vines out of the trees

Regardless, I have editing to do and I shall do it.  But I'd really rather do something else.  On the bright side, though, when I get done, I'll have an awesome book to offer all y'all.  And hey, that's worth a little unpleasantness.  Right?

What are some things you avoid doing?  What are some unpleasant things you're rather do?

Sunday Update - Week 39

Yo.

It's early Sunday.  I'm a half-cup of coffee into the day, and I just lit my second cigarette.  The Hubs is still in bed.  Max is still sleeping.  Kira's out on the sun porch worshipping her secondary water bowl.  Life's good, but I'm dragging butt today.

Wednesday, I received my edit letter and marked up copy of BloodFlow. 

Friday, I finished the first draft of Fertile Ground.

I was supposed to work on BloodFlow yesterday, but I wimped out.  I truly dislike editing.  In fact, I think I'll make a list of things I'd rather do than edit.  Look for that on Tuesday.  I will get to work today.  I have until the 16th to get this back to Awesome Wonderful Editor.  Still shooting for a November 24th release date.

Somewhere in there, I dug up the iris beds and replanted all the irises.  They were getting choked.  I also built a new bed in a corner by the garage because I had so many bulbs I couldn't fit them all in the beds I already had.  There are still at least a dozen bulbs in a bucket on the front porch.  Hubs doesn't want anymore beds, but then again, he said that before I made this new one, so we'll see. 

I've come to the realization that when I built my sales spreadsheets, I wasn't thinking ahead.  Right now, when I check my sales data, I have to open four spreadsheets - one for each book and one for the Master Plan.  It's a pain in the buns now with three books.  The 4th book releases next month.  So, I need one sheet for book data and one for the Master Plan - which has all sorts of pretty graphs.  This will be much easier, but building it and populating it with data will be a bear.  :shrug:  I'll get to it in my spare time.  Or when I'm trying to avoid editing.  ;o)  What I really need to do is built a splash page with buttons linking all the sheets together then I would only have one main spreadsheet open and it would work for all sheets.  Unfortunately, I have forgotten how to do that and relearning it would take more time than I'm willing to put forth. 

I read a really awesome book called Vulcan's Kittens by Cedar Sanderson (no relation).  It really refreshed me - being totally different from my own work and by its awesomeness. 

What's up at your place?

This n That Thursday

Welcome to October!  It's my second favorite month.  Except for the scary stuff.  I don't really do scary stuff, unless it's old movies - which aren't really scary IMO.  Except for the original version of The Fly.  My siblings used to torture me by saying "Help me. Help me." in a tiny, squeaky voice.  :shudder:

On our walk yesterday, we saw a huge black and yellow garden spider.  I'd only ever seen one once before.  This year, I've seen three around here.  It's a banner year for spiders.  And tent worms.  I hate tent worms more than spiders.  :shudder:

You know how sometimes you see someone on TV shoving their gun down the front of their pants?  Yeah, bad idea.  Well, yesterday, I saw a news story of a guy who accidentally shot his own penis.  Darwinism at work.

Still waiting for the bald eagles to arrive. 

I used to have long nails all the time.  Mine grow really fast and I'm not inclined to cut them unless one breaks or they get annoying.  I decided to let them grow again - until one of the two factors came into play.  I'm about at the point of annoyance to whack them all off.  They're pretty and I'm great at opening things right now, but they're making typing interesting.  Problem is, once I cut them, I'll have to get used to typing short-nailed again.  I'll probably wait until after Fertile Ground is finished.  So today or tomorrow.

Finished an awesome book yesterday - Vulcan's Kittens by Cedar Sanderson (no relation).  It's as fun as the title promises.  Not that it's a humorous book.  It's not.  But it's damn good, has an interesting premise, and a unique spin on mythology.  I really needed this book, too.  Just the right break from my own writing to make me feel refreshed.  Yay.

Yesterday when Hubs removed the window AC unit in the garage for winter storage, we found a big brown bat on the window ledge underneath.  Poor baby.  Hubs nudged him off so he wouldn't fly inside, and then I went outside with a box to move Bat Masterson to a safer location for the remainder of the day.  Here's hoping he flew away last night and found better lodgings this morning.

What's on the this n that downlow for you today?