Satan Works at Keebler

I discovered an insidious plot today at the grocery store.  Satan works at Keebler.  He has to be the frigging president of the company.  (Or at least middle management.)  Otherwise, I wouldn't have bought a package of these today...

 

Those bastard elves have to be working for the King of All Darkness.  And to prove it, just try to find those cookies at Keebler.com.  They aren't there.  Satan snuck them into my store (and at Amazon - where you can buy them in bulk for petesakes).  They are Evil Evil satanic snacks.

And so damn good. 

Satan just knew I lost another pound.  He wants me fat and sluggish.  Bastard.  I hope he burns in... Ummm... Never mind.

Mademoiselle S. Doubt

Self doubt.  What a bitch.  And a sneaky French one at that.  Here I am, writing along and happy as a lark when Mademoiselle S. Doubt whispers in my ear...

"Ah do not like thees.  Eet's too choppy.  Eet does not flow.  Feex eet."

"Shut up," I say, swatting at her like the gnat she is.

"And thees part, where you... how you say... insert thee backstoree? Thees whole part is merde."

"Go away," I mutter.  "I like that part, you Parisian floozie."

"Ah am only tryeeng to help," she says as she flounces off to pout.  "I do not want thees storee to fail like zee last dozen."

"It wasn't a dozen and it's not going to fail."

"Such hope you Americans have.  So noble and yet so seelee.  That agent... Zhree yeers ago?  You zhould av leestened to eem.  Write non-feection.  Much more suiteed to a clerque typeest like you.  No?"

"No.  And that guy didn't know what he was talking about.  Hell, he misspelled 'plausible' in his rejection letter."

"Ah beleeve that was 'implauseeble', because that is what your chanceez of getting published are.  Seelee girl."

"Bitch.  Other agents have loved my writing."

She smiles so politely, but behind her eyes I can tell she knows she's winning.  A lilting giggle bubbles out from between her perfect lips.  "Zey were just beeing kind.  Eef zey loved your writeeng, you would be working weeth zem, no?"

"The time wasn't right for those books.  This one will be the one."

"Whatever you must tell yourself to geet to sleep at night, monchere.  Eef you want my advice..."

"I don't, you silly French tart."

"...Ah theenk you zhould erase thees meestake and start over.  Your characters?  They are flat. Your premeese?  Eet is seelee.  And your voice?  Eet keeps changing from scene to scene.  Give up on thees eell-advised writing theeng.  Go back to being a secretaree.  Maybe the steenkeeng cow place is hireeng.  You zhould feet right een there."

I bang my head on the desk a few times, hoping to knock the bitch out of my subconscious.  All I end up with is a headache and the growing suspicion she's not going anywhere until after I finish this book and get someone else's opinion.  Because you know, when Mam'selle Doubt shows up, your own opinion doesn't seem to matter anymore.

Now, if you'll pardon me, I have to kick some French ass so I can get back to work.  It's a never-ending battle, but I'm still winning.  And if I ever lose, I can still do better than the stinking cow place.  ;o)

Do you battle self-doubt?  How's your skirmish going?  Ever think you'll win?

Meme, Anyone?

Thursday I was tagged by Natalie Murphy for a meme.  The rules are merely to fill in the blanks after what were bolded words, but are now after the colon.  (That's me: Dare to be different.  LOL)

So here goes... (in no particular order)

I like: hard copy books
I like: puppies
I like: the way the forest smells after it rains
I like: standing on the coast of Lake Superior before a storm
I like: emeralds
I like: kittens
I like: springtime
I like: Dilbert cartoons
I like: learning new things
I like: ice cream - especially Choco-Malt Chip which I don't think they even make anymore.
I like: bird watching
I like: crocheting

I love: my family
Today was: filled with potential

I hate: stupid people (ignorance is fixable, stupidity is when you know you're ignorant and don't care to fix it)
I hate: Pizza flavored combos
I hate: ironing
I hate: people who pretend to be one thing when they're another
I hate: keeping my mouth shut when something really really ticks me off
I hate: insincerity
I hate: the games politicians (or people with political aspirations) play
I hate: when I'm afraid I'll never be published

I (secretly) like: South Park
I love: my husband (I know I already said 'my family' but I love him so much, he deserves his own space.)

While I enjoy being tagged for a meme, I'm not a person who passes along these things.  I figure, if you're interested in participating, you'll do it.  And if you do decide to, please leave a note in the comments.

Weekly Update Plus the Story of a Funk

This past week I finished the rewrite of DLN (which stands for Djinn Liberation Network and is not the real title, btw - the real title is better, trust me).  I ended up just short of 90K on this second draft.  Just about right for a paranormal suspense/urban fantasy.  I still have some weaving left to do, mind you, but I don't expect the sum total to move much.  Maybe a few thousand up or down max. 

Other than that, not a whole lot has been going on around here.  I spent yesterday in a total funk.  And I thought it was going to be such a good day.  Hell, I saw the first robins of Spring first thing.  Two of them were chasing each other around the neighbor's tree.  If that isn't a harbinger of good things, I don't know what is.

And then I made the mistake of talking a walk down memory lane.  Wouldn't you know it, the damn path had uneven cobbles and I fell on my face. 

First off, my post yesterday reminded me that I hadn't searched the web for my missing CP in a while.  Now that might sound a little stalker-ish, but when someone just drops off the face of the earth, I kinda feel the need to at least find out whether they're still alive.  Ya know?  Sure, it'd be nice to know why she just up and stopped responding to my emails - without so much as a 'I realized I don't like you, your politics, your philosophy, your writing...'  Seems like a more honest way to end a partnership than sudden disappearance.  Anyway, I found her.  She's still alive, has a new blog and seems to be doing very well.  I'm happy for her.  Seriously.  But finding out she wasn't dead or horribly crippled or deported, just made me understand that it wasn't her, it was me.  And reading one of her early posts at the new blog made me understand why our friendship was probably ill-fated to begin with. 

Which of course, started a cascading downward spiral of my normally okay self-esteem.  Suddenly I needed to find other lost friends and see what they were up to.  An hour of googling and facebooking later, I found the girl who first got me drunk, the first boy I had a crush on and the guy who was in almost every one of my classes from K-12.  I also found out the man who was my best friend for about ten years finally got his pilot's license - go Larry. 

Still, I wasn't satisfied.  I still felt a burning desire to connect with my past for some reason.  Back to facebook and a new college search...

Lo and behold, I found my group of college friends.   They seem to have kept in contact with each other, but not with me.  (Of course, one of those people was an ex-boyfriend and our breakup was less than stellar, so I can't really bitch about them leaving me out.)  This, of course, did wonders for my funk.  (Note sarcasm.)

I finally came out of it after a total diet-fail (a Moolatte and a cheeseburger), a trip to the thrift store (18 paperbacks and two hardcovers = $2.75), and driving around listening to crappy music at as loud as my ears could stand.  Pathetic.  Because I was feeling bad about myself, I tortured myself with things that were bad for me.  Umm, right. 

Now that I'm back in my right head this morning, I wonder what the hell I was thinking.  I mean, it's not like I chased my CP away.  Whatever her problem was, it was her problem. And if her problem was with me, dropping off the face of the earth wasn't the most mature way to handle it.  :shrug:  As for my old friends, I'm reminded of a line from All Dogs Go to Heaven:  "You can never go back." 

And you know something, even if I could go back, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't fit in.  We had a lot of fun together, but none of are the same people we were.  I know I'm not the same.  Hell, since I left college I lived through being a single mom and getting brain damage.  If that doesn't change a person, I don't know what does.

Like I said, the funk is over.  I go through this whining for my past every once in a while.  I try to find my HS best friend - who doesn't facebook, apparently - and I look for old relationships.  And then I realize that even if I did find them, it wouldn't be the same.  You really can't go back in time.  And trying just leads to a funk. 

Not that I won't do this again.  I will, and with the same results.  Stupid self-perpetuating cycle.  Bleh.

Have you ever tried to connect with your past?  How'd that go for you?

Editing Fun

Ummm, where did Wednesday go? 

Okay, enough about missing days and silly cats.  Let's talk about something really exciting... EDITING!  Yay.  (Would you believe 'whoopee'?)

As you might be aware, I'm not a huge fan of editing.  Oh, don't get me wrong - especially if you're a potential agent - I have no problem doing the work to make my story shine.  I'd just rather be writing something new.  I finish a project and my brain says something to the effect of 'that one's done, what's next?'  Maybe that's why I have a few fully written but totally unpolished manuscripts laying around my harddrive.  I always want to drive on to the next project.

Anyway, I think I'm past any of the really deep edits.  What I'm doing now is:

- Proofing (I know I meant to type its, so why does the sentence say it's?)
- haggling over word choice (did that rat scuttle or skitter along the wall?)
- checking for clarity (in a conversation between more than two people, who the hell is talking at any given moment?)
- making sure every bit of world building, characterization and interpersonal relationships jives throughout.

So, this 4th day of a 31 day month, I've got a good start.  I already edited the first chapter, sent it off to a beta reader (against my previous promise to never send a part when the whole isn't done), and entered her suggestions.  (Thanks again, Nat.)  Chapter two is going a little slower - maybe because Chapter One has already been rewritten a bazillion times. 

Part of what's helping me with the edits - other than beta help, that is - is a series of posts over at Literary Rambles wherein Casey McCormick talks about omitting needless words and tightening your writing: Part One, Part Two, and Part Three.  Other things that help are pieces of advice I've gotten over the years from my blog friends, writerly buddies and internet research. 

Like when Kristen Painter pointed out I was using the word 'it' too much.  Or how my old CP (may she rest wherever she disappeared to) had a penchant for highlighting every single adverb - most of which were totally unnecessary.  (Although the one time I used peremptorily gave us both a hearty laugh.)  Or how the gals over at edittorent continually post about how to make writing tighter and cleaner.

Needless to say, there's a lot of thoughts going on up there in my swiss-cheese head.  Add to all that the need to keep my own voice, and let's just say it makes editing fun.  Wheee.  It's definitely a tight-rope I'm walking.  But it's worth the work if I come out the other side with a manuscript that will finally snag me an agent.

Having said that, here's hoping I have a clean, tight, exciting manuscript at the end of this month.  Keep your fingers crossed for me.  ;o)

What's on your plate lately?  Any editing tips, hints or links to share?  How about your own editing stories? 

Picture Pause

 

"I believe the whole 'no news is good news' thing is erroneous.  I dare say, if my human hadn't left this particular piece of news lying around, my posterior would be cold."  - Kira Kitty

March? Still Feels Like February

Happy March 1st.  According to my Maxine of the day calander, it's time to return the neighbor's snowblower and borrow his lawn mower.  Umm, right.  I woke up to two inches of fresh snow today.  I blame the groundhog.  Stupid rodent.

How's the weather where you're at?  Sunny and warm?  Please share stories of sun and warmth.  If I can't experience it, I have to settle for living vicariously.  ;o)