The Roller Coaster

Relating back to something Deb Salisbury said in the comments yesterday...  Ever see the movie Parenthood?  (Not the show... it started out good and then got meh.)  Well, in the movie, the wise old grandma character tells a little story about when she was young.

(I tried to embed it, but it wasn't working.  I'll wait while you go watch the clip.)

Back?  Okay...

Here's the deal: I don't like the roller coaster.  Sure, when I was younger - before all the shit that's happened to me - I loved going to Cedar Point and jumping on the Blue Streak or the Gemini.  The faster the better.  (As long as it didn't turn me upside down.  I hate being turned upside down - ever.)  Nowadays, I'm not even sure about the merry-go-round.  (I get dizzy easy.)  Hell, I'm probably more suited to the ferris wheel.  It goes around - up high, down low in a slow enough round and round that I don't feel like I want to pray to Ralph, the Porcelain God.

However, having said that - and still keeping with the analogy - I will ride the roller coaster if I have to.  You can't live life just going around in circles.  Nothing ever happens when you do - you never get anywhere and while the rest of the world is going someplace, you're trapped in place.  I did the Harper Voyager thing.  I'm doing the Baker's Dozen thing.  I'll jump through whatever hoops are necessary to make my dream happen.

But that doesn't mean I'll enjoy the ride.

What about you?  Do you like the roller coaster, the merry-go-round or the ferris wheel?

Baker's Dozen Submitted - Urp

Y'all might already know about Authoress' Baker's Dozen and the fact that the submission window for adult manuscripts opened this morning.  What you might not know - because I didn't know myself until this morning - is that I entered the contest this time.  Sure, I've tried entering before but I never managed to make the submission window.  Today, I woke up, got my shit together, and made it in!

I got the confirmation email this morning letting me know Djinnocide will be entry #14.

Here's hoping I get some good responses.  Hell, I'll settle for some not so good responses.  The only thing I really don't want is crickets.  I always feel bad for the people who get crickets.  So, keep your fingers crossed the crickets stay away.

And now... the nausea begins.  Oh, and it came with a friend - Self-Doubt. 

:urp:

Good thing I got that prescription for Prilosec yesterday.  I haven't started taking it yet, but it should help with my indi-stress-tion. 

NaNo? No

I really really want to do NaNoWriMo this year.  I miss the camaraderie.  I miss pushing myself toward that goal of 50K in a month.  But mostly, I miss writing new words.  I've been pretty much editing off and on since I did the HoHoWriMo thing last December. Because if all I do is write new words and never edit, I'll never get a damn thing published.  Which means I'm not doing NaNo this year either. (Unless you count the fact that I'm editing a suspense I wrote a while back that I affectionately refer to as Nano.)

I could always do what I've heard other people call NaNoRevMo.  Spend November revising my brains out.  Commit to having this thing whipped into shape in a month.  But I did that from September 15th to October 14th for the whole Harper Voyager submission window, and frankly, I think I'm too pooped for a marathon of that nature right now.

Nah, I'll just edit at my own pace this time.  If I get it done in November, great.  If not... :shrug:

So, while I'm not going to be in the trenches this coming month, I'll definitely be rooting from the sidelines.  Make sure you let me know in the comments if you're participating in either the Wri or the Rev, so I can cheer for you.

=o)

Uh Oh, Looks Like a Bad Brain Day

Earlier, I read and commented on a blog post thinking the person who wrote it was a completely different person.  It wasn't until after I submitted the comment (complete with word verification) that I realized I had my people mixed up.  (Which, of course, made my comment completely off the charts weird.)

It's early yet and when I do something that totally brainfartalicious it's a pretty good indicator I've got a bad brain day ahead of me.

Which means it would probably be a good idea if I kept my brain and my comments to myself today.

Ever mix up who you're talking to online?  Or is it just my broken brain?

Tackling the Nasty

So, there I was sitting around after my marathon session to complete Djinnocide and submit it to Harper Voyager.  I was wiped out.  And I promised myself a week off (at least) to recover.  I submitted on a Sunday.  Sunday night I felt weird because I wasn't at my computer working.  By Tuesday, I was being inundated by my other stories - all clamoring for their shot.  On Friday, I made my decision as to which of the whining bitches manuscripts I would tackle next. 

I spent the weekend thinking about how I was going to approach this particular unfinished, hot-mess.  If you've been here long enough, you may remember a little behemoth I called Nano (short for Nanotechnology - aka Bloodflow).  I finished the first draft a few years ago and then left it to simmer.  I've gone back to it several times - each instance discovering it had taken on a scary quality.  It's big.  It's got so many twists and turns it puts my paperclip box to shame.  And every time I look at it, it adopts the attitude of MONUMENTAL UNDERTAKING.

In short, it's nasty.

It has the main plot.  A sub plot.  A sub-sub plot.  A budding romance.  A villian who isn't.  A villain who is.  Henchmen working behind the scenes doing things even the villains haven't authorized.  A red herring or two...  :shudder:

Yeah.  It's nasty.  But it's also delicious.  I can totally see how this could be the BIG BOOK.  I just need to jump on ride this f... sucker like the untamed beast it is until it becomes the dressage champion I need it to be.

But frankly, the idea is scaring the holy hell out of me.  And it has for years.

The last time I tried to tame this thing, I did the note card approach.  Each scene written down with major points and key ingredients.  I have a whole pile.  And it didn't help me one bit.  (Still isn't helping - since I picked it up over the weekend and went 'arrgghh'.)  Note cards are not my process, apparently.

"Whyfor did you bathe me, Mom?"

So, Sunday I printed off the best couple first chapters I'd come up with and yesterday I sat down with a notepad and pen.  That's my process.  So far?  Well, it hasn't bitten my hand off yet.  That's something.

Wish me luck.  I may need it.

What nasty job have you tackled recently?

Oh yeah, I was so not wanting to tackle this bear that on Friday, I bathed the cat.  That ought to show you how much this thing scares me.  Max does not make bath time lots of fun.  ;o)

How Picky Are You?

I've been thinking lately about something someone told me a few years ago and wondering what my blog pals think.

If you're reading a book and a little detail is wrong, how much does it irritate you?  What about big details?

Are you more likely to get irritated if the detail is about a place you lived or a job you've done or some hobby you're familiar with?

Personally, I don't think I'm all that easy to irritate.  Let's say I'm reading a crime novel.  Everything I know about crime I've learned on TV, so let's just say I'm not the best expert.  I wouldn't know if someone got something wrong unless it was glaringly wrong.  Like a veteran cop gets a tip on the location of the murderer and he rushes right over - without calling for backup or telling anyone where he's going.  That would probably make me want to chuck the book at a wall.

Unless the story really grabs my attention - so much so that I don't really notice he's just done something no self respecting officer would do.

And maybe that's the 'get out of jail free card'.

Let's take Grey's Anatomy.  I lurve that show.  But I also recognize they get a lot of things wrong.  The end of the musical episode where Callie wakes up after all that brain trauma and answers the question Arizona asked her in the minutes leading up to the accident??  Yeah.  That would never happen.  I've never met someone with brain damage who remembers the time around the accident that caused their brain damage.  Personally, 27 days of my life went ba-bye forever .  Heh, and the musical episode is still one of my favorites.  Grey's is so awesome, it gets a whole deck of 'get out of jail free cards' from me.

So, I'm guessing the answer to how picky a reader is would be subjective.  Still, I'd like to know the answer.

How picky are you?

Kitten Update

In case you missed it, last week I had a stray kitten show up on my porch (go here for the story).

Yesterday I picked her up from the vet.  She's got the mostly-clean bill of health.  (She still has ear mites, but those take 3 wks to clear up.)  And she's ready for a forever home.  Sooo,

Today I'm taking her to one of the local humane societies and Friday she will board a pet bus of sorts headed for the Denver area, where she will be a PetsMart adoptable pet.

She's wicked awesome.  I'd keep her if I could.  But since I can't, she'll make someone else a great pet.  She's smart and funny and playful.  She has a loud purr.  She's litter trained, comes pre-medicated, and - if they'll let me leave it with her - she has her own stuffed pink pig to sleep with.  (Because I felt bad leaving her locked in a bathroom all night with no one for snuggles.)

And now for what you've all been waiting for... kitten pics!  She was pretty much into everything right off the bat.  The kitchen counter...

The bed...

The end table... and the bedside lamp...

Done exploring!  Time to eat!

Which is what she's did right after I took these shots.

And thus, we say goodbye to Lil Bit.  May she live many years in a happy home.

If you're inspired in any way by the story of Lil Bit, please help out an animal in need or donate to your local shelter.  Help them spay or neuter a pet to help stop more itty bitty kitties from being unwanted and let to fend for themselves*.

*A large Northern Harrier (a hawk) flew over the house today.  Lil Bit could've easily been it's lunch.  She also could've been run over, munched by a dog, harassed by the dominate male Toms in the area, picked up by mean people... you catch my drift.

ETA:  The place Lil Bit is supposed to go to tomorrow is called Every Creature Counts.  It's a no-kill animal rescue organization.  Yay!!  Wish her luck.  =o)

A Higher Standard

Since I'm not writing or editing right now, I'm trying to wade through my Leaning Tower of TBR, as well as hack my way through the Forest of eBooks on my computer.  So, yesterday was pretty much a reading day for me.  (I mean in between life and Grey's Anatomy reruns.)  First off, I picked up the two books I suggested yesterday.  I read Wolf Moon first because there was some question about formatting issues and I wanted to help the author out.  Afterwards, I started Further Confessions of a Slightly Neurotic Hitwoman and read that until my butt got tired of sitting here and I moved off toward the couch.  (Sometimes not having a Kindle is a bitch.)

The first book I picked out of the TBR pile was a YA that I bought because it sounded cute and fun.  It's paranormal, which is right up my alley.  But it pissed me off on the first page by making some offhand snotty political comment.  "Okay," I says to myself, "shake it off and keep reading."  Which I did.  I made it through the whole first chapter before the sheer snottiness of the MC made me want to throw the book at the wall.

Okeefine.  That one obviously wasn't going to blow my skirt up.  Still in the mood for something a little different, I picked up an MG fantasy I'd been waiting for for-like-ever.  (I didn't pick this up first because, frankly, it was heavier and a hardcover.)  This story waited until several pages in before it pissed me off.  I still tried to make it work, but every time I tried to shake it off, the story would remind me of why I got pissed in the first place. 

So I set that one down, too. 

Since then I've been thinking about whether I was being too hard on those books.  I wondered whether I would've stopped reading if they'd been adult-age novels.  The answer?  Yeah, probably, but I might've been more tolerant.  I mean, if the author of an adult novel throws something I find offensive in, I can usually shrug it off and keep reading.  Unless, of course, they continue to hammer the point ad nauseum.  Then I chuck it. 

Still, the more I thought about it, the more I realized that I hold books for young people to a higher standard.

MG and YA have the ability to change minds and effect opinions.  I mean, adult books do, too, but not to the same degree.  It's so much harder to have any influence on an older mind.  After all, we're old fogies and set in our ways.  The kids, though?  It doesn't take a whole lot to plant a seed and with all that fertile ground, have it take root like a dandelion.

Like all the MG and YA books I've read over the years with crappy senses of life (less prevalent in MG, but still there).  As if the teen years aren't angsty enough, these books have to show that life sucks and it always will, and if you ever try to make it better, you're going to get slapped down.  :cough:bridgetoterabithia:cough:  Better learn that lesson now, kiddies, because life's rough and the sooner you learn that, the better off you'll be*. 

Bleh.

I want books that show kids that yeah, there may be troubles in life, but in the end, it's possible to grow past those bad things and end up with a successful life.  Thinking otherwise? Well, if a kid doesn't see that it's possible to succeed and achieve and be happy, it's no wonder we keep seeing them taking the alternate way out.

:climbs down off soapbox:

Anyway, I expect more from MG and YA.  Yesterday I was thoroughly disappointed.  I just hope this isn't a trend, because that would truly suck.  I like taking time away from urban fantasy and suspense and romance to read a little of what's meant for the younger set.  I love Rick Riordan and Brandon Mull and Dean Lorey and Beth Revis.  I just want to keep loving them and stories like theirs.  (And please don't get me started on The Hunger Games trilogy - which started out great but ended poorly, imo.)

What about you?  Do you hold certain books to a higher standard than others?

Oh, and on the upside, the third book I picked up yesterday was a winner - Freak by Jennifer Hillier.  If it's anything like her first book, Creep, it will make me wildly uncomfortable and make even squeeb me out a little, but I doubt it will offend me.  It's Adult Suspense, though, so make of that what you will.  ;o)

* Thank goodness my parents never drummed that lesson into my head.  Nope, they taught me I could be as happy as I wanted to be if I put in the effort.  Thanks, Mom (and Dad, who isn't around to hear me anymore.)

Release Day!

Well, folks, it's Tuesday, which means...  Release Day!  And this week I actually know a couple people who are celebrating releases.

J.B. Lynn's second book Further Confessions of a Slightly Neurotic Hitwoman hits the shelves (or rather, ereaders) today.

Take three wacky aunts,
two talking animals,
one nervous bride,
and an upcoming hit,
and you've got the follow-up
to JB Lynn's wickedly funny
Confessions of a Slightly Neurotic Hitwoman
Knocking off a drug kingpin was the last thing on Maggie Lee's to-do list, but when a tragic accident leaves her beloved niece orphaned and in the hospital, Maggie will go to desperate lengths to land the money needed for her care.
But the drug kingpin is the least of her worries. Maggie's aunts are driving her crazy, her best friend's turned into a bridezilla…and a knock on the head has given Maggie Dr. Dolittle abilities—she can talk to animals. Unfortunately, they talk back.
It's just another day in the life of this neurotic hitwoman…

Here's a guest blog she did for Barnes & Noble today.

---------

And Silver James' fourth book in her self-published Moonstruck series Wolf Moon.

Sean Donaldson, former combat medic and demolition expert, answers an SOS from an old Army buddy and rides smack dab into the middle of a conspiracy. Murder and kidnapping are just the tip of the iceberg. Going undercover with a biker gang seems the quickest solution but Sean’s best intentions are complicated by Annie Simmons and her son, Cody.

Annie is a waitress at the Half Dollar Bar and Grill just scraping by to provide a better life for her son. She doesn’t want a man in her life, especially a scary dude like “Boomer,” the big biker who steals a part of her heart. What she doesn’t know about the lies he’s told can hurt her…and put Cody in danger.

Secrets, lies, and betrayals are more personal under the full moon but when a Wolf fights for his heart, he’ll risk his life to make sure the family he loves survives.

Warning: When it’s the month of the Wolf Moon, anybody who gets between a moonstruck Wolf and his mate deserves what they get. Blood, sex, and four-letter words dead ahead.

Here's the whole series at Goodreads (minus Wolf Moon, but not for long).

-------------

Those are the biggies on my list for today.  Any releases you want to talk about?

Disclaimer:  I consider both of these authors my friends, but I got no freebies for posting this.  (Although, ladies, free chocolate would not be refused.  :wink:)

Done and Done

Well, that didn't at all go like I planned.  You see, when I first heard about the Harper Voyager unagented submission window (See Oh Holy Crap from 9/15), I was all like "Hey, I can finish this and then tweak that and maybe, if there's time, I can polish that, too." 

Yeah.  Talk about pipe dreams.

I got one thing done.  Well, lots of things for one submission.  In the past month, I have...

- Finished inputting the last third of a total rewrite.
- Done a line by line deep edit of the entire 124K word behemoth, chopping out 16K words.
- Written a 1500 character synopsis.
- Polished the blurb part of a query letter.
- Re-read through the entire 108K words for typos.
- Fixed all 10+ pages of handwritten notes on said found typos
- Fixed two plot holes I missed before.
- Wrote the rest of the query with personalization for the contest.
- Submitted the synopsis, the query, the first 1000 words, and various other stuff via web form along with the entirety of the manuscript (attached in .doc form because they don't do .docx)

Everything but the first two items on that list, I've done in the last few days.  Proving, of course, that I can in fact do this deadline stuff when I have to.  And I did it with about 8 hours to spare.  AND I took care of a stray kitty-baby, plus tackled a clogged shower drain.


My house is a pigsty.  We did Dairy Queen for lunch and dinner today - and lunch on Friday.  Yesterday, I think my family foraged around the kitchen.  I don't remember.  I don't remember much of the past week.  I don't remember hardly any of the weekend.  Michigan won, but I didn't get to watch the game (due to said shower drain).  I watched the MSU game while I edited on the couch.

But I'm done.  I did it.  For a while there, I wasn't sure I could do it.  (I mean after the initial over-confidence went fizzle.) 

And I'm done.  Like a Thanksgiving turkey dinner, done.  Baked, basted, stuffed, and by the end of the day, down to the carcass.

Needless to say, I will not be participating in NaNoWriMo.  (Maybe NaNoEdMo, but that's something to think about on Halloween.)

This week, I will be cleaning my house before my family stages a revolt and the cats go on strike.  Do not expect anything writerly of me this week.  (Well, unless one of my queries comes back looking for a partial or a full, then I'll work.)

What did you do this weekend?  How does the coming week look for you?

We Interrupt This...

We interrupt this regularly scheduled morning to bring you...

WRITER FREAKING OUT!

I'm never going to get this done in time.  There are too many little mistakes scattered throughout the damn thing to fix by tonight.  I'm tired.  My eyes are killing me.  I've been staring at all this for so long that words no longer make sense.  Carry is a word and it's spelled right, right???  I need more coffee.  I need another cigarette.  I need a Valium - which is saying something because I'm allergic to Valium, but hey, maybe a few hallucinations are just what the doctor ordered...  VODKA!  'cept I don't drink anymore.  And who the hell can edit while they're drinking??  I need all my faculties... but I don't have all my faculties anymore.  I'm losing my mind.  This will never ever ever be finished.  It's going to kill me.  Or I'm going to kill it.  Either way something is going to die by Monday morning...

AARRGGHH!!

Thank you.  I just needed to freak out a little.  You may now resume your regularly scheduled morning.  And I'll go back to editing. 

PS.  The above was brought to you by the letters Y and O, and the number 0.  It is no way intended to be serious, but was merely a way to get all that out of my head so I could work - and is a better way to do it than standing on my front lawn screaming (which would wake everyone and have men in uniforms arriving to cart me away).

Peace out.  ;o)

So much for getting anything done today

I posted a lot of this little drama to Facebook, so if you've already seen it there, forgive me.

Last night, a tiny calico kitten decided we were the bestest humans ever and she definitely wanted to be our friends forever.  Umm, yeah.  Sorry puny-mew person, but I can't have any more cats.  And I went to bed feeling like the worst person ever, where I had nightmares about finding her little broken body in the road this morning.

She made it through the night - probably because she hung out in Max's winter residence.  First thing, she announced her presence and her need for foods.  So, I pointed out the food I'd just put out for the strays.  Needless to say, she dove right in.  Okay, so I fed her.  And took responsibility for this itty bitty feline.  Which meant getting the cat carrier so she'd be safe and warm, opening a can of Fancy Feast (the kibbles took the edge off, but didn't do the trick, because she inhaled the wet food), and starting the round of calls to find her a home.

I called my vet and left a message.  After which, the kid tells me she's pretty sure she heard from someone that the Doc was on vacation.  Great.  When I took the Kid to work, I stopped by his office just to make sure, and his truck wasn't there.  Plus, all his lights were off in the office.  Crap.

So we went back home.  I made a few more calls.  According to the chick at the police department, they 'don't do cats' and never have.  When I told that was funny because I've had them pick up cats before, she passed me off to an officer, who said they don't officially pick up cats, but they have people they can call.  He said he makes some calls and get back to me.

I made a few more calls and then got the idea to talk to the gals at my local grocery store.  No luck there.  Went to the dollar store.  No luck there.  Stopped by the old folks village because I know the manager, and she knows everyone.  She said to talk to the gals in the ceramics class.  They didn't want any kittens, but one of them thought it might belong to her son.  She called.  No luck there.

Meanwhile, I bought kitten chow.  I also made an impromptu litter box and found an old pillow for her to sleep on inside the carrier.  Hurray, she's litter trained.  Loved the kitten chow.  And promptly fell asleep half on the pillow and half inside her food bowl.

The officer calls back.  His contacts only want adult cats who they can use in their barns.  He'll try a couple other places and call back.

My neighbor might know someone... she hasn't called back yet.

Finally, the phone rings.  It's the vet!!  Who promptly jerks my chain for ever thinking he'd get time for a vacation, especially when he has large potentially pregnant animals he needs to check every day.  Derp.  He tells me bring the kitten in.

I'd say long story short, but short went out the window several paragraphs ago.  Kitten - who I refuse to name because I CAN'T KEEP HER... but she's kind of Gingersnap in my head now - has an upper respiratory infection, ear mites and probably worms.  She needs antibiotics and drops in her ears daily. (She already got dewormed.)  I do not have time.  Aside from the fact that I can't have any more cats in the house, she's contagious and my other can't expose Kira and Max to a URI.  So, she's now staying at the lovely Shangri-La Suite at the veterinary clinic, where she will get excellent medical care from trained professionals and all the Fancy Feast she can eat.

I've already had one person offer to help financially, but I can afford this.  I'm taking it out of my book budget - and with my overflowing TBR pile, it's not really a hardship.  If you're interested in helping, though, please take $60 and get a cat at your local shelter neutered, so there are less unwanted kittens in the world.  Or help someone who can't afford meds for their own cat.  Lord knows, someone owned this very well socialized bundle before she got here.

And now, I have to find her a home.  So if you know anyone in the northeast Colorado area who wants a kitten, here she is:

They can have her for free if they promise to love her and care for her like she was their own kid.  Contact me via email for more information.  If I don't get any takers by next week, I'll drive her to the nearest Humane Society location.  She'll find a home fast - as cute and friendly as she is.

And if her 'actual' owners show up, they owe me for the meds, the kitten chow, the Purell I had to use to keep from infecting my cats, and the vet boarding bill.  I have loads of kindness for lost kittens.  I don't have an ounce for people who can't bother to get medical attention for the fur-people who depend on them.

Just ask the dipshits who tried to claim Max last year.  "Sorry, chickies, but I paid a shitload of money to fix his broken jaw--you know, the break you laughed about when I asked what happened?  You don't deserve him.  He's mine now." 

And Gingersnap is mine until I find her a forever home.

Flippin' Subjects

I have a confession to make.  When I'm reading, I have a tendency to flip past certain subjects when they crop up in whatever book I'm reading.  I know the writer worked hard on that stuff - trust me, I know - but some subject matter just isn't my bag.

For instance, there's this SF writer I just lurve.  Great science, gripping action, believable aliens, a little romance... It's just that sometimes this particular writer gets a little more indepth on the romance scenes than I enjoy.  They get, to borrow a word from Mom, raunchy.  I get to those and flipflipflip - while scanning to make sure I'm not flipping past anything crucial to the storyline, of course.

And then this author (sorry to be picking on them because I really do love their stuff) put out a novella in the same world, and it was not only raunchy, but it hit on another of my flippin' subjects - BDSM.  Pain and sex together squeeb me right out.  I don't care if other people read it.  It's just not for me.  So I flip past it.

I also flip through wordy descriptive pages.  Ever read James Fenimore Cooper?  Love the man and his work, and he does write beautiful description, but after the first few pages, I think I've got an idea of what the MC is seeing.  It's a forest, right?  With a lake?  Tada!


Personally, I don't think there's anything wrong with flipping past certain subjects.  Everyone has their own tastes.  I'm sure I've written scenes that will squeeb people the hell out.  My friend and beta reader had a real problem with one of the scenes in Djinnocide, for example.  And my daughter found a scene in Blink that made her uncomfortable.  That's okay.  Flip past it.  (Well, unless I think you're reading for content and clarity as a beta reader, then try to forge ahead - or at least let me know you didn't read those places so I know they're not critiqued.)

Now, seeing as we all have bits we're not necessarily comfortable reading, I'm betting I'm not the only flipper-paster.  What I'm wondering right now is whether I'm the only person who not only flips past, but also avoids writing those subjects that squeeb her out.

As such, there's very little chance you're going to pick up one of my books and read a graphic sex scene.  Also, I will never have people hurting each other and getting off from it.  And yeah, my books are a little shorter on description than they should be.  (I'm working on that last one.)

So, is there any subject you're not keen on reading?  What squeebs you out?

(And before any trolls crawl out of the woodwork, I'm in no way saying the subjects that I flip past shouldn't be written.  I'm never going to tell you what should or shouldn't be allowed in a book.  And other authors shouldn't take it personally.  This is a subjective business, people.  It's all about taste.)


*I just made squeeb up this morning, but I'm keeping it.  It kinda means that uncomfortable feeling - a combination of grossed out and creeped out and nauseous with a twist of ewewewewew and a smattering of the willies.  For example, certain scenes I've heard about from 50 Shades of Gray totally squeeb me out.  (I guess there's a scene with a feminine hygiene product?  :shudder:)

First Snow of 2012

Yessireebob, it's snowing on the eastern plains of Colorado.  Happy beginning of October.

And this is what it looks like here this morning...

Hope you're all warm and safe and happy wherever you are.  Personally, I'm staying home.  Coffee's on, the furnace is working, and I've got editing to do.  ;o)

Time for a Quickie

Update that is.  Not the other kind.

If you've been following along on FB or Twitter, you might already know some of this, and for that, I apologize, but in the interest of keeping everybody abreast of my most interesting and exciting life, here goes...

I finished the rewrite of Djinnocide.  It topped the scales at 124K - which means I have about 20 or so K to slice and dice out of it.

In the course of chopping, I was slapped upside the head by Insight (that big bully) and ending up changing a crucial plot point, which means I have to change all subsequent references to said plot point.  Some scenes are complying easily.  Others are being turds.  The worst of the lot so far growled at me Sunday, sunk it's hobnailed feet into the mud and refused to be changed.

It kicked my ass all day Sunday.  Sunday night, I kicked it back.

Right now, I'm on pg 93 and at around 119K words.  Since the Harper Voyager window opened yesterday, the countdown clock is ticking.  I have less than 2 weeks to finish chopping, do some polishing, check for typos, and submit.  I have committed myself to doing this.

In other news, I've unintentionally suspended querying.  I'm just too busy.  Once I get past this submission window, I'll start it back up again.  And no, I don't have any news on that front.  Wish I did, but them's the breaks.

On the real life front, I've been dealing with some personal stuff interfering with my writing stuff.  Nothing major and nothing horrible - just distracting.  Everything should be mostly cleared up now, though, so the only thing stopping me from working is me.

Okay, so that wasn't as quickie as I thought it would be.  What's up in your worlds these days?