This darn Windows ME computer gave me the Big Blue Screen of Death this morning! Argh! I HATE Windows ME, I won't count the ways, but anyone who's been unfortunate enough to use it knows exactly what I mean. I still have to take some stuff off the good laptop so it can go in the shop, but after getting the BBSD, I seriously considered running out to Best Buy and getting a new laptop. They have a great looking Toshiba in their ad this morning. Of course, I can't afford to buy another laptop, but it's sooo tempting.

On the good news front, The Power of Two is down to 195 on Barnes and Noble.com! Hurrah! I broke 200. Now if I could break 100 so that I could print out the 100 top sellers for my scrapbook. I mean really, how cool would that be?

Now I need to get to work. Coffee is finished and I have a looming deadline.

I'll warn y'all up front that this is going to end up being a long post. I can feel it!

I'm a morning dawdler, so I drank coffee and dawdled. I preview all my email up on the server before I download it to my computer and I saw I had some entries for my contest, so I retrieved them. And in the thirty seconds it maybe took between checking email and downloading email, some spammer sent a note! I hate spam which is one of the main reasons why I preview all my email and this just torqued me off. So, I decided to sign them up for my Yahoo newsletter. :-) I know this won't do anything because spammers change email addresses like crazy, but it made me feel better. In fact, it made me feel so good, that I'm going to make it a regular policy.

It rained here most of the day yesterday, really light most of the time, mainly a sprinkle so it was just enough to mess up traffic. Despite this and the fact that I'm surrounded by road construction with roads closed or down to one lane, I managed to arrive on time for my haircut.

I did swing by the mall and Waldenbooks. There was a sale, buy 4 and the 5th is free. I figured if I found The Power of Two and bought two copies (one for me and one for my parents), it would be easy to find three other books I wanted to get. So I looked and looked and looked for TPOT. Not on the bestseller rack, but I really didn't expect to see it there since I'm such a new author. Not in the new paperback section or the short shelf unit near there. Not in the romance section. Hmm. This store must be adhering to the on-sale date of November 2nd. Now the question becomes do I ask if they have it and if I can sign it or do I just come back?

I decided to check for other November books from Dorchester, and sure enough, they were out on the shelves. I made another run through the store looking for TPOT. I finally found it on the small shelf unit near the new release paperbacks. One side had a big trade paperback coming way out and the other had a lot of paperbacks coming way out. But I figured this can't be a good thing if I can't pick out my own book in the store because I'd already perused this particular set of shelves. They had 5 copies of the book, so I took 2 and signed the other 3. And I confess, I could hardly wait to get home and check out the book. Actually, what I should have done was look at it in the mall parking lot because I was sooo tempted to check it over while I was driving. I didn't, of course, but I wanted to.

When I got home, I started laundry and started reading TPOT. Let's just say it was an experience. I hardly made any changes to the galley that didn't involve typos, but the changes I did make were important to me. A lot of them didn't get made!!! Including a sentence that makes NO SENSE as it appears in the book. I did NOT write it that way and I CORRECTED it in the galleys and it's STILL WRONG!!! ARGH!!!!

There was another moment were I shrieked too because the word tense that's there reads so stupid. I don't know if it's grammtically correct or not, but it reads wrong and that should be all that matters. That didn't get changed the way I marked it either. There were other things too and it just made me nuts! I could see it if I'd made a lot of changes, but I didn't. It was a very frustrating experience for me.

And to add to my frustration, whoever they sent TPOT to for line editing makes me nuts too. This person put COLONS in my book. COLONS!!! You don't use colons in fiction writing. Every time I saw one of those colons as I read, I just gnashed my teeth. And then there is this line editor's extremely ODD use of commas. Putting them in places where there should be NO comma and making my book read choppily.

I couldn't take it any more. I had to quit reading. I only made it about halfway through the book. I'll just have to hope that readers don't have this same reaction. I'm sure they won't. I mean this is my work, so I know what's wrong and I'm sure most readers won't be looking at the weird punctuation. Plus I tend to be a perfectionist, especially when it comes to my writing, so this was just more than I could take.

I should spend the day writing, but I made an appointment for a haircut. I need it desperately and heaven knows that if I don't get it done now, I probably won't have time later. And I figured since I was out anyway, I may as well swing by the mall and see if The Power of Two is on the shelf yet at my local Waldenbooks. If it is, I'll sign the copies on the shelf and see if the store wants some bookmarks. And I might buy a copy for myself and maybe one for my parents. You see, I don't have my author copies yet! I'm dying to see the book in it's finished form; I can hardly stand the suspense!

You see, it's such a long road to publication. I started writing the proposal for TPOT in May 2003. I sold the book in September of 2003 and began writing the entire story. I turned it in to the editor in January 2004 and did revisions in May of 2004. Then I had more revisions in June, although these were light and mostly small things. I went through my galleys, the test print of the book, in July and mailed them back. And I haven't seen anything since. So it's been 17 months since I first began the book and almost 14 months since I sold the story. That's kind of a long time and finally, finally I get to see the results of all the work I put into TPOT. The results of pouring my heart and soul into Jake and Cai and their story. It's a lot of my life invested in this and holding the actual book makes it seem so much more real.

So that's the plan for the day, see if I can track down a couple of copies of TPOT for myself. Oh, yeah, and try to write the next book too. I really need to do that. But something tells me, if I do find TPOT, I'll be reading it. Some authors don't read their finished product since there's nothing they can do about it. I understand that because I can pick up all kinds of things I would change if I could still make changes. No book is ever finished, it's just published. ;-) I'm one of the authors, though, who does like to reread and I think it's because I'm revisiting the characters.

You see, I live with my hero and heroine in my head for months. Jake and Cai stayed with me from May 2003 until August 2004, that's a long time. And when they left, as great as it was to get a couple of the voices out of my head, I missed them. We spent a lot of time together. I not only know about their lives before the book and during the book, I know some of what happens to them after the story closed. I know that Jake and Cai wait six years before having children. I know that their first is a little girl and she wrapped her daddy around her little finger right off. Jake is really cute with his daughter.

I couldn't wait to get rid of them in August. I had all these other characters in my head, and to be honest, I was tired of working on TPOT. But now that they've been gone for a while, I want to revisit them, so I read.

I hate Windows ME. As if the big blue screen of death, the freezing and the error messages aren't enough, it's decided to develop issues with Norton. sigh. Reloading hasn't fixed them. The computer refuses to do a system restore to any date I've tried. And uninstalling and reinstalling hasn't helped either. I've no doubt this problem can be laid right at the foot of Windows ME. Fortunately, email is still being scanned in and out, and that's the most critical element, but it's still irritating. I'd upgrade to XP, but that would entail wiping the entire hard drive to do a clean install and then reloading everything. Been there, done that on the desktop and I still don't have everything reloaded. My good laptop can not come back from the shop fast enough! Especially since I have a deadline!

I updated my website yesterday. This is one of my favorite procrastination tools and it's positively insidious. Hours pass as if they were minutes and before I know quite what happened, I've lost all opportunity to write. Sigh.

But really, I had to update the site, didn't I? I mean I sold a new book, I have to update the "What's Next" page and the "News" page. Oh, and of course the "Home" page. Actually, these updates shouldn't have taken that long, but FrontPage was doing some goofy things to my layout on the "What's Next" page. I must have redid it about 20 times. Finally, I just started from scratch. Twice. I still don't love how it turned out, but after wasting hours messing with it, I decided it wasn't hideous and so I left it.

Found out at work today that I'm going to be swamped for about a year. There used to be two of us doing this job, but when Kris left, they didn't replace her so I've been on my own for more than a year now. It's mostly been okay. There's only been a few times I've been overwhelmed and they didn't last long. Now, however, it's going to be a different story. Almost all the fleets have one or more big projects coming in the next year and they all need me to do something time consuming, yet BORING, for them. They're trying to find someone to help me out, but there really isn't anyone. We're stretched VERY thin in Tech Ops.

I've also found time to obsess about the new book. Clearly there are copies out there that have been read. I mean Amazon and Half.com both have used copies for sale. Or had. I've been watching. So obviously people have read The Power of Two and didn't like it. I mean if they liked it, they'd keep the book, right? And I haven't heard anything from anyone saying they loved it. Okay, so the book isn't officially out until Nov 2nd. Okay, so people have lives and may not have finished it yet or even started it yet for that matter. Okay, so most people do not email the author to gush or post on the message boards about how much they loved a book. I get that. But I so want to hear that people loved Power of Two. Not only did I put my heart and soul into this story, but I think it's the best thing I've ever written. The silence seems so deafening.

Anyway, I need to do some more thinking and working on the new, still untitled book. I really have to get going on that because the deadline is short. I know I can do it, but I need to start!

I stayed up WAY too late watching the World Series last night, although I didn't make it until the end of the game. Now that I see the Red Sox swept the Cardinals, I kind of wish I'd stayed up! The Red Sox and the Cubs were vying for most potent curse, but it looks like the Sox overcame theirs. It was great to see a team that hadn't been to the series in so long, a team that hadn't WON in so long, actually do it!

Only bad news is now I have no more baseball. I like to write with a game on and the sound muted, but guess it's the shopping channel for a few months. Spring training is a LONG way off!

In other news, I did get the good laptop taken care of. Kind of. I called the 800 number they have for service, and instead of just saying, "you need a new keyboard," they ran me through like a gazillion things. Took an hour! And now I have to send it in to be repaired anyway. That's okay, though, because the CD burner wasn't working either and this way I'll get it all fixed at once. The worst part is getting everything off the computer and then wiping the drive. All the passwords have to be cleaned off, all the favorites, all my documents. And then they all have to be reloaded when it's fixed. Ouch! But it'll be worth it to have a laptop where everything works. It's just going to feel like forever till I can get OFF this Windows ME computer.

I just reread what I posted this morning before I went to work. I see I used amaze or amazing three times in one short paragraph! Considering I just finished coffee, I guess I'm lucky I could post anything halfway coherent.

Speaking of amazing, the Barnes and Noble.com watch continues. This morning, The Power of Two was down to 234! Whooo hooo!!! Actually, I think it was even down as low as 222, but I can't quite remember. In any case, this is the best ranking I ever had! But I haven't seen anything about anyone actually having the book or having read it. I'm dying to hear some feedback. Okay, let's be honest, I'm dying to hear how much people loved it. Neurotic writers need ego strokes.

So anyway, I sold my third book yesterday and it's part of a series like my second. What I totally forgot was how much time was taken up in the beginning on series issues and things completely unrelated to actually writing the book. It's coming back fast, though. Anyway, still addressing some continuity/plot issues, but once I actually start writing again, I think I'll have a much better grip on what I'm doing. It's worth it in the long run, but right now I feel like a horse in the starting gate, just raring to go.

It's amazing sometimes how neurotic writers can be. I never cease to amaze myself. And the mood swings. From down to excited in the space of a couple of minutes. It's amazing. I used to be so well-balanced emotionally and grounded, but that was before I sold my first book.

I'd colored outside the lines on my proposal. I tend to do that. And when I didn't hear anything by lunch time, I was sure I'd colored too far outside. Or that I sucked, one of the two. Then my agent calls, we've got an offer, and that fast, I'm all excited again. Yep, I'm going to be one busy writer for the next 4 1/2 months, but I will have a book out in 2005 and I get to write characters that I've been interested in for months. Hurrah!

Then to add icing to my cake, The Power of Two was in low numbers again on Barnes and Noble.com I made it all the way down to 347 last night!!! If I wasn't so busy writing the LONGEST email I've ever written in my life, I would have happy dog danced around the room.

BTW, longest email ever took hours to write. Finally, it dawned on me that I'm using a computer with Windows ME and I better save the thing as I continued writing it or I might lose it when the inevitable big blue screen of death showed up! It didn't, thank God, but I REALLY have to get my good computer fixed. And no, I didn't accomplish my one goal for yesterday, but I must do it soon. Must, must, must. I really need a personal assistant to handle things like this for me, though. Time is short and I'm tired. I didn't finish the longest email ever until after 10pm, and by the time I got ready for bed, it was after 11pm. Since I get up at 4am for work, it's not a pretty picture.

Speaking of work, gotta run.

By about 12:25, I couldn't take it any more and had to email the editor to see if he'd received my proposal. Good thing I did because their servers were down and my proposal was lost! Of course, I probably over did it by sending the proposal twice, but, hey, in my defense, I used web mail the first time and I never quite trust that, so I resent when I got home from work. This time I know he has it. I feel much better.

Of course, I didn't get to nap because he said he'd get back to me tomorrow. Which promptly brought on a freak out. I'm now sure this proposal totally sucks and that absolutely nothing happens for the first 7 pages and why didn't I cut them considerably? Um, did I really say earlier today that I'd rather be focused on this set of worries? Well, okay, at least I feel better that the proposal arrived, but man, neuroses are not a pretty sight.

I did try to sleep after I printed out a copy of my proposal to snail mail to my agent, but the freak out was in full force so I ran through lines/paragraphs from my chapters in my head and alternated with what I should have done instead. I just hope I can sleep tonight or I'll be worthless tomorrow. Already, I can hardly see straight.

Project for tomorrow: Call about getting the good laptop fixed. The g, h and - keys pretty much don't work on the keyboard and I despise the backup laptop. It has Windows ME on it! Anyone who's used it is probably shuddering in horror at the memory. I forgot what a PITA it is to freeze up, see the big blue screen of death every day and/or have error messages thrown up at the most inconvenient times. I must have my Windows XP laptop fixed so I can write on it. And so I can have the bigger screen and nicer keyboard. I wish I made enough money to hire a personal assistant. I need one!

Now Amazon shows The Power of Two shipping in 24 hours. Semi-EEK moment. I'm supposed to have another week before TPOT is out, but I'm guessing by the time the book actually ships and arrives in people's homes, it'll be close to the Nov 2nd release date. I'm at 3300 on Amazon, but watching numbers there isn't quite as exciting.

Speaking of Amazon rankings, what did they do? I mean, the numbers never made sense, but they were familiar and I could kind of figure out things. Now, my rankings are bouncing around like a ping pong ball and they're exceptionally confusing. They've been having a lot of problems over there. Reviews disappearing, then reappearing, then disappearing again. Some new weird field about customers who shopped for a book also shopped for these books. It took forever to get them to load my cover for TPOT too. I think it was last week, and here the book is showing as shipping today.

The Barnes and Noble rankings are more accurate from what I've been told since they include the brick and mortar stores as well as online sales. My number there jumped to 8100. Sigh. No fun like I had yesterday watching my number go lower and lower.

Work today is really dragging, but I made it to lunch time, and when that's finished, I'll only have 2 hours left to go.

Here's the neurotic writer part. I emailed my proposal this morning and put a return receipt on it. I almost never do that, but wanted to make sure it arrived safely. Here it is, almost 1pm in NYC and no return receipt. So does this mean my email with attachments was lost? That the editor is out today? That he didn't have time to check email yet? That he clicked "no" on return receipt?

These questions are vying neck and neck with, "he's going to hate it." "I deviated too much." "This heroine is too different from my last heroine." And so on. I'd actually rather be focusing on this set of worries than the first.

Still longing for a nap.

I think I ended up with maybe two hours of sleep last night. I stayed up past 11pm and then couldn't fall asleep. Then there was all the waking up I did. Yes, I was stressing about my proposal even after I swore I wouldn't do that.

That's off to the editor now. Nothing for me to do now but go to work and wait until a decision is made. As tired as I feel right now, I don't think stress will be an issue today. More like how I'm going to keep my eyes open till I can get home and take a nap. It would help if my job was a teensy bit more interesting.

The synopsis is done now.

More or less.

It was really agony writing that thing. I don't know if it was psychological or not, but I wrote it better on my dekstop computer. I only spun my wheels on the laptop. Of course, I also revised my website on the desktop, so maybe I just took a look at the time and realized I had to buckle down. Either way, it doesn't matter. I have something now. I'll just have to hope it's good enough.

The Power of Two has been at 1174 for hours now, so my fun is over there.

I'm tired and I have a headache from the synopsis, but I'm not ready to say it's okay and go to bed yet. I did need a break from it, though.

Well, I'm back up over 1,000 on Barnes and Noble.com. That's kind of disappointing after the run I had from 11:30 am onward. I've found a new way to procrastinate on the synopsis, though. I'm updating my website.

Whooo hooo!!!! Happy dog dancing around the room! The Power of Two is down to 674 at Barnes and Noble.com now, the lowest I've ever seen it! Totally, totally fab! Oh, man! I'm dreaming of double digits. Even 99 would be exciting, but wow, wow, wow!

This is only my second book ever and the first time around I was so stressed about everything, that I didn't get to enjoy things. I'm more relaxed now. Of course, my first book never broke 10,000 on BN.com so this is new ground for me. I'm loving these low numbers. Totally, completely loving it!

If anyone who bought a book is reading, THANKS!

And I'm still procrastinating on the synopsis that's due tomorrow. I just hate writing the things and I know I need to do a good job, not just hurry up and slap something together. It's just hard to write one. I have to balance the plot with the characterization and the character growth, as well as the romance and the suspense and every other element of the story. And all this in as few pages as possible. No wonder I hate writing the things.

Oh, well, at least in another hour, I can refresh my screen at BN.com and wait for the next ranking update.

The Power of Two is now down to 721!!!!

That's not the best it's been. A couple of days ago, I saw it at 691. Clicking the refresh screen at Barnes and Noble.com has now become my primary method of procrastination. I keep expecting it to go up, but it's dropped every hour. This is like the coolest thing. I hope it drops again next hour.

And yes, I'm still trying to work on my synopsis. I think I wrote a few paragraphs. Really, if some editor sees this, will you tell me why you want a seat of the pants writer to tell you lies about what's going to happen in her book? I don't get it.

Back to work. At least until next hour.

WOW! I dropped another 100 on Barnes and Noble.com! This is sooo cool! Now that I'm in triple digits, I'd just love to hit double digits. How exciting is this? I just hope all these people who are buying The Power of Two love it and look for all my future books.

BTW, it's almost 1pm and I haven't done one thing on the synopsis that's due tomorrow. EEK! Someone please tell me to get to work!

Okay, well I finished chapter two, finally. Maybe. I hope. I had to revamp it twice to get the foreshadowing in, but I think I've got it now.

So now I'm trying to avoid the synopsis. Damn, I hate those things! So I tootled over to Barnes and Noble.com to check my ranking on The Power of Two, not really expecting it to have changed from its morning ranking of 7000 something or other. But I was wrong! I'm in triple digits! Whoo hoo!!! The lower the number the better, and for the second time in less than five days, I'm below a thousand! I've linked to the page with the title of this entry, but if you're checking it out even an hour later, I might be up higher again.

Anyway, now I'm all excited, but I still don't want to work on this synopsis.

I'm beginning to think I'll never finish this chapter. First, I had to go back and do some cutting after one of my friends pointed out some slow areas. Now I have to go back and change something. It all came about because of brainstorming on the synopsis and what I could put in it. Well, for what I ended up with as a general plot, I have to start foreshadowing in chapter 2. So instead of heading straight to work on the synopsis this morning, I'm going to have mess with two. Sigh.

Okay, "straight to work" is relative. As we can all clearly see, I'm writing on the blog and procrastinating again. Let's face it, this freestyle, stream of consciousness writing is a lot easier than fiction writing. And a gazillion times easier than synopsis writing. Have I mentioned I HATE SYNOPSES? Of course, most writers do so this hardly makes me unique. But for seat of the pants writers, it's worse, I think. We honestly don't know what's going to happen until we write it.

Take chapter 2 for example. I have a trap show up there. I had no idea there was a trap! It was a complete shock to me. I had to write it to discover it. And that's what I'd prefer to do with the whole story. Just keep writing and discovering. But I suppose having a general framework isn't necessarily a bad thing.

It's now two hours since my last post. I can tell until the novelty wears off, I'm going to be making a lot of boring entries. Oh, well, no one has to read except me.

I finished reading through my chapters one last time and making small corrections. I think I'm happy with the way they turned out. Maybe. This is where the neurotic part comes in. One of my sayings is: All writers are neurotic, it's just a matter of degree. I might just be on the high end of the spectrum, although I've seen a few others more hyped up than me.

So I read through my two chapters (proposals are usually three, but I've turned in two before) and I like my characters. I think their personalities are coming through and that they're developing depth as we go along. (Not a royal "we," by the way. My characters are as real to me as people and we're in this storytelling thing together.) My friend tells me I have the suspense in and the tension, so I'll just have to trust her. I can never see any of this in my own writing, but others can.

I still need to work on the synopsis, but I'm taking a short break now and then I'll start frustrating myself with that thing.

Okay, it's been nearly an hour since I made my first post on the blog and I'm still messing around, trying different settings and stuff. Have I worked on my story at all? Of course not. I'm contemplating filing my nails down next so that I can type better. Oh, yeah, I'm still in my jammies and I need to take a shower and do laundry.

Seriously, absolutely, positively must get to work. NOW!

I'm supposed to be writing right now. I have a deadline for a proposal. It absolutely, positively has to be done and in Monday morning before I leave for work. My chapters are basically done; I just need to do a little clean up, but the synopsis... EEK!

To be honest, I'm not sure why editors want a synopsis. I'm a seat of the pants writer and I can almost promise that very little of what I put in the synopsis is actually going to show up in the finished book.

I want to do a synopsis that explains who my characters are, gives what I know of the story (which is very little) and then conclude with, "and then some stuff happens that helps my characters experience emotional growth, advances both the romance and the story and concludes with a happy ending."

Unfortunately, editors don't seem to go for that. Shrug. Oh, well, I'll write a short story (AKA: The Synopsis) which will have no connection to the final version of the book other than the characters and everyone will be happy.

Anyway, I'm a world champion procrastinator. I think a lot of writers are, at least the ones I know. We all can find incredible ways to waste time instead of writing. Doesn't matter how tight the deadline, there's always time for email. Or to create a blog.

So far I've wasted about an hour and a half. I console myself with the fact that an hour of that was spent having coffee and waking up. This last half hour, well, it's procrastination at its best. I have been toying with the idea of a blog for a couple of months, but now, with the deadline looming fast on the horizon, it's absolutely the perfect time to create a blog and make entries.

Okay, seriously now, I'm going to get to work. I have to. I love these characters and want to sell this book. Even though it means another short deadline and another 4 months without enough sleep. And the stress and getting wound up tight. On the plus side, I've been through this kind of pressure before, so I know I can do it, and I wrote my best book ever.

The Power of Two is going to be in bookstores any day now. Another EEK moment. I hope the readers think this book is as good as my first and as good as the others in the 2176 series. Like I said in my previous paragraph, I think this is the best book I've ever written and I adore Jake and Cai. But, you never know if readers will feel the same. I'll be finding out soon, though.