Yesterday I decided that my goal was to hunt down copies of all my favorite Christmas songs. This is not going to be easy because my favorite songs, sung by specific people, are on a LP collection my parents had when I was a kid. From the time I was old enough to be allowed to work the stereo, I played those records over and over each holiday season. Which means they're scratched up and can't be transferred from vinyl to digital format.

But I figured, hey, everything is available on download from iTunes or one of the other places, right? How hard can it be to find Steve Lawrence and Eydie Gorme singing "Let It Snow, Let It Snow, Let it Snow" or Robert Goulet doing "White Christmas?"

Well, as it turned out, extremely difficult. First there's the search feature which doesn't allow a search by both artist and title, so a search for "White Christmas" turned up like half a gazillion hits, none of which was the version I wanted. A search for "Robert Goulet" produced fewer results, but none was the one I wanted. The situation was even worse for Steve and Eydie because they're two people and sometimes they were only listed as one.

Anyway, I never did find either song available to be downloaded from the net. On Steve and Eydie, I never found their version of "Let It Snow" at all. With Robert Goulet, I discovered a CD with "White Christmas" on it. It's titled "This Christmas I Spend With You" and is apparently impossible to find.

It wasn't at Amazon or BN.com or BMG Music. Amazon Canada, my secret place for finding items out of print/sold out in the US, didn't even have it. Neither did Amazon UK. eBay only had the LP version for sale, and I already have an LP of this song. Half.com had one copy--for $40 before shipping! But I also found a Robert Goulet website. I don't know if it's his official site or not, I'm guessing yes, and it has a store. And there, lo and behold, they were selling a CD copy of "This Christmas" for $20. A little higher than I wanted to pay, but hey, I'm buying my childhood Christmas memories, right? It wasn't until I was checking out that I discovered shipping was $10. Gah!

At least I have a whole Christmas CD, even if I was only looking for one song. Now if only I could track down the Steve Lawrence and Eydie Gorme song....

Revisions went really well yesterday and I got a lot accomplished. It's amazing how much better and more creative I feel when I have a decent amount of sleep. :-) I seriously have to try that more often. Anyway, if I keep going like I did yesterday, I should have the stuff I know about fixed by this weekend--maybe even before depending on how it goes.

No work was done on the house again yesterday, which is actually okay since I don't have time to go pick out flooring or lighting.

Have a project at work that's keeping me busy and I spent the day listening to one song over and over as I worked on it. That wasn't my original intention, I had music programmed in the MP3 player to keep me going for about an hour, but once I started listening to "I'd Do Anything For Love" by Meatloaf, I couldn't seem to stop. I set it to repeat and that's all I played all day. I think this might be the theme song for Eternal Nights rather than the Martina McBride song I was thinking of using. This is exactly how it happened to me on Ravyn's Flight too. I was driving home one day while I was working on revisions, DEVO's "The Girl U Want" played on my CD, and I kept replaying and replaying it.

Speaking of RF, the $34.95 copy someone was selling is no longer listed on Amazon. Geez, I hope no one paid that for a used copy of my first book. Especially when it's going to be reprinted in August. I've been trying to get that info out there as much as possible so people wouldn't pay outrageous money for the book, but there's only so many people I can reach.

And on the what the heck is going on front, what's up with Blogger? I used to be able to fix my time on my posts. I like to set it to when I actually finish writing my post because it can take me a while. Like this morning. It's 4:39 am now, and that's the time I'd like to post under, but I can't since that field is gone. Why?

There's a lot of green on the local radar again this morning, only this time, it's snow. Given the fact that our temperatures are only in the twenties, and predicted to stay there, I can officially say that winter has arrived. :-(

I actually got a fair amount of revision done yesterday. The thing that was weird for me, though, is that wasn't working linearly. Usually, I start at the beginning of the book and work my way through, chapter by chapter, until I finish. This time, however, I've been hopping around between chapters, and not doing everything I want to do before moving on to another chapter. It's strange, and probably inefficient, but we'll see how it goes. Sometimes, you just have to humor the muse. :-/

I went to bed early last night because I knew I was going to need an early start today because of the snow. I actually feel halfway decent right now, although I got up at 3:36am. I've been wearing the fashionable cam boot because my foot has still hurt, but with the snow, I'm going to wear regular fashionable winter boots, and try regular shoes again at work. We'll see how it goes. I might be dragging the cam boot to work in a plastic bag. Oh, joy.

No work was done on the house yesterday. The gas company was supposed to come out, but they didn't. Apparently, they can't move forward until this happens.

I have to cross the train tracks twice to get into work. Light rail. Grrr! (I maintain that no one is going to the Mall of America at 5:50 am so why must the train run constantly at that hour?) Anyway, usually I get some kind of backlash from the train; if not the train itself, then other cars and trucks backed up from an earlier train. Today, however, I set a new record for me. THREE trains! Yep, I sat at the light through three trains. How often do these things run for heaven's sake!

The day wasn't all bad, despite this unpleasant start. I was on time, despite Metro Transit's best effort, and Loud Vendor Guy didn't show up until after lunch. He was even relatively quiet for the two hours or so he was there. Except for the muttered swearing as he experienced more computer difficulties. Sigh. This man needs remedial computers 101.

On the writing front, revisions went well during lunch. I think. As groggy as I still feel from sleep deprivation, it's difficult to be sure. Of course, everything I've done so far has ADDED to my page count. Gah! I'm going to have a 500 page book at the rate I'm going. I'm trying to console myself with the knowledge that after I make the changes I need, I can go back and ruthlessly trim--back to 480 pages. ;-)

Back to revising....

The weather map is loaded with green color, which means a wet day. At least it's above freezing, so it's rain and not freezing rain. They're saying we could get an inch all told. Then tonight, well, that's when the snow rolls in. Damn, I hate snow.

Anyway, as expected, I could not fall asleep last night. Usual Sunday night thing, plus my brain was full of Wyatt and Kendall. So of course, I overslept this morning. Again. Starting off this week, the same way I spent last week, only this time I don't have a fabulous four day weekend to look forward to. :-(

I didn't get as much done this weekend as I'd hoped. Yesterday, the day I planned to really hunker down, ended up being frustrating. I had some notes from my writing buddies that I needed to reread, and I couldn't find them. I searched everywhere on the laptop, and nada. For two hours, I searched because I honestly couldn't remember anything we'd discussed. Finally, I emailed my friends asking if either of them remembered anything. I honestly didn't expect them to because the conversation was more than a month ago, but I got lucky and one of them did! Hurrah!

Not much else going on. One of my friends heard the perfect quote for Eternal Nights. True love is friendship set on fire. A Google search revealed that it's a French proverb, but it fits the book to a T. I'm going to try to work it in somehow, or baring that, get it inserted before the book starts. Of course, I'm way, way over on page count, and everything I've done so far has added more pages, not taken anything away. Ah, well.

I finished reading through Eternal Nights yesterday. It was slow going. I swore I wasn't going to fix anything, just read, but of course, that didn't happen. I was constantly fiddling with stuff. Overall, the story seems pretty solid. There are things to be fixed, of course--I made a list--but in the big scheme of things, I think the structure is solid. That means medium and small fixes. Story structure fixes are enormous, so I'm happy not to see one of those. Now I just need to keep my fingers crossed that my writing buddy doesn't find any. :-)

Of course, with the reading done, now the real work begins. Revising. Sigh. How I wish I could write a perfect first draft! That's never going to happen, I know it, but a girl can dream, can't she?

The sheet rock guys came yesterday and had everything done by late in the evening. I should go over and take a look today--the report is from my dad--but I don't feel like it. I think I'll just stay in and work on the revisions.

I can't believe the 4 day weekend is over already--or nearly over--and it's back to work tomorrow. And back to Loud Vendor Guy! GAH!

I read through about half of the newly named Eternal Nights yesterday, and so far, so good. In those 12 chapters, I have one medium size change to make, and a bunch of little ones. I didn't see anything major.

Another half to go. Both my writing buddies spotted some stuff I need to change in one of the chapters in this section, but it's another medium size change so it shouldn't be too bad to do or take too much time. I'm keeping my fingers crossed, though, because I have enough work to do without finding anything that would take major effort.

I've been using a new program on email for a couple of weeks now, and I love it! It's called MSGTag, which stands for message tag. What it does is tag your email so that you know when it's opened. Since I hate those darn return receipts, especially for emailing my agent or editors, this is the perfect answer. It's invisible, and it triggers when the email is opened. I've got it set up so that some emails aren't logged, but I haven't explored all that it's capable of. I'm using the status version, which I love. There's a free version too, which I did not like at all. Not only does it put a slug at the bottom of each email, it also emails you when the note is opened. Status version has a cool little report screen, and you can turn off the footer, which I did immediately.

Now that I've been using this, I've been able to stop worrying if people have received my emails. It used to absolutely drive me nuts to send an email that I expected the receiver to answer, and then not get a reply. I'd obsess and obsess that the email didn't make it through, and I hate asking people if they got my email because nine times out of ten, they did, they just didn't answer. Which also makes me nuts, but at least now, I know they're just not replying to me. :-/ What does that say about me, that I'd rather know they got the email, and are ignoring me than worry that they never got it at all?

I know this kind of sounds like a commercial for them, but I'm not getting anything for touting this product. I can only dream. :-) I just love this program so much, that I wanted to share. I can't be the only obsessive person out there.

The sheet rock guys did not show up yesterday at the house, but the insulation guys did, and they worked on the basement.

The other thing I find kind of interesting is the searches people do to find the Crimson City Residents' Blog. Some of the more interesting ones have been searches for: demon breeds, Orcus, and dangerous city, just to name a few of the more recent ones. We've also had a lot of people searching for "crimson color." The thing that baffles me is the sheer number of people who've done that search. Why?

This morning I was up at 8am. I still haven't done anything yet. Well, nothing productive. I have looked at printers. First, Epson Ink Jets because they have separate color cartridges and I'm so tired of replacing the whole color cartridge when one color runs out. Plus, I hate my printer. But none of the Epsons had stellar reviews at CNet, so I moved on to HP. My first printer was an HP and that thing was a work horse. For 8 or 9 years, I never had a lick of trouble. Of course, the printer I have now and totally hate is also an HP. I decided, though, to look at laser printers. Color laser printers. I found one I really like. The price is a bit squirmy, but my department paid about that much money for just a regular black ink HP laser printer. But I can't find a single review for the thing. Before I consider whether or not I'm actually going to spend that kind of money, I want some darn reviews!

Anyway, back to procrastination. I think I'm in no hurry because I don't want to see all the things I'm going to have to fix on revision. :-( I keep telling myself that this is just a read through, I don't have to fix anything now. I just have to make notes on issues I need to address, and write down the timeline. I'm still fighting to work up any interest.

Thanksgiving was quiet. I watched the original "Yours, Mine and Ours" with Lucille Ball and Henry Fonda. I adore that movie, and won't bother to see the remake because remakes are never as good as the movie they're trying to improve on.

They're supposed to be putting up the sheet rock at the house today. That'll be cool once the official walls are up. I still need to find time to get out to the back of beyond and the flooring/countertop store. Soon. Yikes! Also, I heard they're supposed to put the siding up next week. It's supposed to be snowy/rainy/slushy most of next week so it'll be interesting to see if they really do anything with that.

I stopped by the new house I'm building today, and I have brand new pictures, hot off the digital camera. If you'd like to look at thumbnails, which can be clicked on to view larger shots, visit House Gallery Part Two.

If you'd like to compare it to what the house looked like on November 5, 2005, you can visit House Gallery Part One.

Edited to update links.

I hope everyone has a safe and happy Thanksgiving! I had a really cute .gif I was going to post, but I think it's on the laptop I leave at work. Oops!

Today, I guess, is a day to list all the things we're thankful for, but I'm not going to do that. Too expected. So I'll just wish y'all moist turkey, perfect stuffing, and no family squabbles. :-)

My day will consist of a brief, cameo appearance for Thanksgiving dinner with my parents, but the rest of the day will be spent working on Eternal Nights. (I'm still trying to get used to that title!) I need to do a read through from start to finish, and make some notes on what I need to do. I also need to get the timeline straightened out. I lost track as I was writing. This will be something else to jot down notes on.

I did work yesterday on chapters 12 and 13. I had a logic hole in 12, which leaked into 13. Thankfully, it just affected a few scenes and not story structure, so I fixed everything that tied into this, and I'm now ready to move forward.

After I finish the read through, I've got markups from one of my writing buddies to go through, and work on. I'm not sure if I'll get to it today because 480 pages is A LOT to read through, but I'm sure going to give it my best effort. My mantra will be cut, cut, cut. :-) Anything extraneous will have to go.

I'd also like to make a run over to the house today, and see what they've accomplished since the last time I was there, oh, two weeks ago or so. Good thing my dad can stay on top of this for me.

Mr. Congeniality left at 11am today. As I sat in my cube, I contemplated how nice and quiet it would be for the rest of the day. After all, Loud Vendor Guy hadn't been in all week, he must be off for Thanksgiving, right?

Then, at precisely 11:07am, Loud Vendor Guy wheeled his laptop in.

There went my peace and quiet.

Sometimes I wonder what I did in a past life to be constantly inundated by these noisy people.

We'll save the champagne until the entire book is done, but the first draft is in the can!



I'm totally elated to have this monster done. 480 pages. That's a new world's record for me. Yikes! Now, of course, the revising will be begin, but the bulk of the story is there.

In other news, so far this move to the new cube hasn't been too bad. The phone guy finally showed up on Tuesday, so I'm connected again, and Loud Vendor Guy hasn't been in the office all week. The other good thing is now that he has to walk the distance of a whole cube, Mr. Congeniality isn't bothering me as often. Cool! The constant chatter just got so wearing.

The other interesting thing going on is that when I got to work, I had a whole bunch of undeliverable emails. It seems someone who has my work email in their address book has a virus and/or worm, and it used my email to send out little replicas of itself. Fortunately, no one has sent me an angry email demanding to know why I sent them a virus. Now if I could just figure out who's infected...but the possibilities are nearly endless.

It must be the week for viruses, though. I've gotten a bunch of suspicious email at home too that I've just been deleting, and my ISP (God love them) has been screening out a lot of viruses too. I was screening all but one of my email accounts, but as of today, they'll all be screened before I have anything delivered to my computer. It's a PITA, but better safe than sorry. Wish I knew why the surge in activity, though.

The house is being insulated now, and allegedly they're going to do the siding this week. It's a holiday, so I'll be surprised if that's true, but whatever. Apparently, it's critical that I pick out flooring ASAP, which surprises me since I would think that would be toward the end of the building process. The big problem is that the floor place is out in Rogers, which is like forever from here. It'll probably take me longer to drive out there than to make my choices.

And I think that's it. If you're traveling today, be safe, and Happy almost Thanksgiving!

It's official. The new title for Temple of Dreams is:

Eternal Nights

I feel like a marathon runner must feel when they're within sight of the finish line. I'm done with all the chapters, now all I need to do is write the epilogue and I'm done with the first draft. At this point, I honestly can't wait. This book just kept getting longer and longer and longer. I was beginning to wonder if the only way to stop it was to shoot it. ;-)

I emailed with my editor yesterday about the title. It's either going to be Eternal Ecstasy or Eternal Nights. I threw my support behind Nights, but I didn't hear anything back so I don't know what the final verdict is yet.

Yesterday was a cabinet crisis. Sigh. I was so tired, all I wanted to do was sleep, and yet I had to have a consultation with my dad. He'd talked to the builder who'd talked to the cabinet guy who had come in way over the allowance. Keep in mind this is after he told us he wouldn't have any problem staying under that dollar amount. He's also now saying he doesn't think he can do my master bathroom the way I want it and this is after telling me he could do it. Grrr.

So anyway, we have to come up with a way to shave huge dollars off the cabinets. The ideas my dad and the builder came up with were largely nickel and dime stuff. But I had a brainstorm and took care of it. I'm taking all the upper cabinets out of the laundry room. I can put cheap shelves in there or something, and that was a big enough drop to put us under the allowance.

I overslept again today. Two days in a row now, but I'm exhausted from the massive number of hours I put in writing this weekend.

This story just continues to grow. My God! I'm on page 470 now and I'm still not done. Almost, though. Almost.

I wrapped up Alex and Stacey. Hurrah! Almost done wrapping up Wyatt and Kendall. I reached a point, though, where I literally had no clue what I was writing or why I was writing it. I figured it was a good point to stop for the night. :-/

Yesterday also brought an epiphany about the epilogue. Because TPOT and TACV were parts of continuity series, and because they had books after them, I had to keep the epilogue very close in time to the end of the book. I was doing the same thing with The Now Unnamed book whenever I thought about the epilogue. Then, all of a sudden, I realized that if I wanted the epilogue out farther in the future, I could do it! There was no reason why I couldn't go a year, two years, ten years out. Wow. :-) I'm thinking more like a year, but we'll see.

Anyway, that was my entire day. I wrote from the time I got up until my brain shut down, then I tried to catch up on email. Killed the first Box Elder bug of the season. And I overslept this morning. I'm just happy I slept at all.

Emailed all the title contributions off to my editor before I went to bed. Thanks everyone who made a suggestion! And as I was laying there, I came up with another idea. I'll send that off too, although it seemed far more brilliant when I was half asleep than it seems now.

They moved my computer on Friday into the cube next to Loud Vendor Guy, so I'll spend the day moving my stuff. Happy, happy, joy, joy.

Finished chapter 22 yesterday--more or less--and started chapter 23. In my defense, chapter 22 is short. I actually could have added the two scenes I have planned for 23 to that chapter, but I decided to split it out. I think it will look better that way, and seem more organized. 22 winds up the action. 23 winds up the two romances. Then an epilogue and I'm done. Hurrah! Of course, that means I start revisions, so the work isn't finished yet, but I'm looking forward to this just because it means the book is basically completed!

Since all I did yesterday was write, I don't have much else to talk about. My dad wants me to go over to the house today and check where they put the lights. I really don't have time for this, but I guess I'm going to have to make it. I'll try to remember to take my camera and get a second round of pictures.

I'm looking forward to Thanksgiving. Four uninterrupted writing days! And isn't that sad that I look at the holidays like that?

If I can write lots of pages this weekend, I might finish the first draft of the Now Unnamed book. When I talked to my editor, I told her to expect about 475 pages, now I'm wondering if I'm going to be closer to 490. Gulp. It seems to be taking an inordinately long time to wrap up this story, and I have to finish up Alex and Stacey too, which is why I think I may need the extra pages. Kendall and Wyatt are moving along nicely. Stacey and Alex. Sigh. Anyway, as I revise, I will be looking for anything I can trim out of the story.

I did about 6 pages yesterday. They're a little rough, but move things along nicely. However, now I have some questions as to whether or not my epilogue will work. Instead of simply wrapping everything up, it raises a new issue, and then wraps everything up. I have to figure out a way to either raise that issue in the book itself (because it clearly is an issue for Wyatt), or find a way to have it not be an issue. I have an inkling of an idea.

Still trying to come up with a title. I sent about half a gazillion suggestions to my editor, but none of them clicked. I've put out the cry for help not just here, but on other boards I visit, so hopefully, one of these ideas will strike the right note. I'll send the email off before I go to work Monday morning, so there's still time to get your ideas in! Please!

My editor called yesterday. She wanted to tell me what they'd decided to do for the cover of my next book. They're going to do the hero's face with some geometric/crop circle patterns in the background. Sounds like it could be cool. The model they're hoping to get apparently resembles Angel from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Cool.

The other thing she mentioned is that Marketing has decided we can do better on the title than "Temple of Dreams." To be honest, I never expected to keep this as the name of the book. I'm horrible at titling, and when I become desperate, I reach. Temple of Dreams was always a joke. Kendall, the heroine, is involved with archeologists, and it's an adventure story, so I was calling it "Kendall Thomas and the Temple of Dreams" to be funny. Only I couldn't come up with anything better. So when it was time to submit, a friend suggested I just lop off the start of it, and use the last three words. I did.

Temple of Dreams is a spin off to Ravyn's Flight. Here's the little blurb I have on my website:

Since being stationed on Jarved Nine four months earlier, Special Operations Captain Wyatt Montgomery has been in pursuit of Captain Kendall Thomas. She's skittish of romantic relationships, but he's managed to become an important part of her life--as her best friend. He wants more. When Kendall catches antiquities smugglers red-handed, he just might have his opportunity. If Wyatt can keep them both alive long enough to convince her that they belong together.

It deals with reincarnation--the hero and heroine were lovers in a past life in the Old City--and they become trapped in the temple (it's a pyramid). The majority of the book is them trying to find a way out.

My editor suggested "Eternal Ecstasy," but I have until Monday to come up with alternative titles.

Any help/ideas/suggestions would be much appreciated.

I want to find somewhere without a phone. Well, not without internet access, but without a way for people to get a hold of me. Everyone needs something from me right now, and I'm busy. I have a book due. Everyone needs to go away for a couple of weeks and let me write. Grrr. Didn't I pick out appliances? Didn't I drive out to the hinterlands to meet with the cabinet guy? There should be plenty to do on the house without my constant input.

Although, I should add that even the internet isn't safe. I made the mistake of giving the builder an email address, and as we speak, I have a note I need to answer.

Anyway, I wrote lots yesterday. Today, I will be cutting most of it and starting over. I lost the tension when I switched POV characters. The part that makes me insane is that part of me knew it, but kept writing anyway. So instead of working on fixing it last night, I just kept writing. Maybe I was thinking the tension fairy would pop in and work her magic. Unfortunately, she didn't show up. :-/

Mr. Congeniality is on vacation for two days! Hurrah! He was driving me out of my mind this week. Honestly, the man can't sit quietly for 10 minutes; he always has to be talking to someone. Unfortunately, this week, that someone was ME! Gah! Constant prattle through the cube wall. I'm beginning to think that sitting next to Loud Vendor Guy can't be worse. At least he will only be talking to other people, not to me, and certainly not all day long. I still have a headache.

I arrived home yesterday to discover I had no phone! Since I'm on dial up, no phone means no internet! =8-O

I have this small little addiction. Sigh. I can't even believe how twitchy I was all evening. I kept checking and checking and checking. Finally, around 8pm, I went to bed. Yes, I actually had somewhere close to 8 hours of sleep last night because the phone was out. I think there's a lesson in here for me somewhere, but I don't want to learn it. ;-)

This morning, I had to get up early because of the weather. First snow, and everyone in MN will have forgotten how to drive in the stuff. I was afraid I'd have 6 gazillion emails, but I went to digest on the few groups I'm not no mail on, so I hardly had any. This isn't a bad thing.

Not much else to report. I threw out everything I had for this chapter I'm working on and started over for a third time. This should be the last chapter in the book, but I'm pretty sure it isn't going to be. I just have too much emotional stuff to cover in addition to the action/climax, so I can easily see there being a chapter after it. Gah! I wish I could write faster. I wish I could stop cutting everything I write and starting over. I wish I had the first draft completely done.

I didn't mean to not mention some of my news, but I just forgot. Blame it on being sick as heck the day the email came, and then having deadline and house stuff going on.

First on my list of news, The Power of Two finished third in the Laurel Wreath Awards. I posted on my website, but completely forgot to mention it here.

Second is another item I posted on my website, but I'm 99% sure I forgot to post on the blog. Ravyn's Flight will be reprinted to coincide with the release of Temple of Dreams in August. This is big news because the cheapest copy on Amazon is now going for $46.98 and it's an ex-library item. Those things get so banged up! I feel angered on my readers' behalfs over this price gouging, so I'm hugely excited that the people who want RF will be able to find it without paying an arm and a leg.

Third bit of news I just learned on Monday. The Power of Two is being translated into French!!! How cool is this? The part that makes it extra cool is that one of my writing buddies is a French teacher who lived in the country for a year. She's going to have her friends take pictures of it on the shelf for me and pick us both up copies. This is my first foreign translation, so I'm all excited.

House news: I picked out cabinets. I went with a Shaker Front T-Panel. It's simple and clean, which is what I like. Now I have a catalog to go through to pick out knobs and pulls and there must be half a gazillion of them. (BTW, I got lost twice on the way to the cabinet maker and ended up being 20 minutes late.)

Also picked out appliances. Stayed under the allowance for that, so that's a good thing. I went with a flat cook top, which is way cool; a built in oven with a microwave above it; a quiet dishwasher; a washer and dryer; and a refrigerator with the freezer on the bottom. I didn't think I would like that, but I wanted to take a look at it. I ended up falling in love with it. By putting the freezer below, it puts everything in the fridge itself within easy reach. No more crawling on the floor to dig things off the bottom shelf. Then, with the pull out drawer type bottom freezer, it's like having a tiny chest freezer. My parents had one of those when I was a kid. It seems like I spent an awful lot of money for not many things, but the fridge alone was over $1000. Ouch!

Work news: I found out on Monday when I got to work that my manager wants to move me over one cube--RIGHT NEXT TO LOUD VENDOR GUY! OMG! I asked him if I could move somewhere else instead, anywhere else, but he said no because they were going to squish our department together. I'm still in shock. I can hear LVG through foam ear plugs AND the ear muffs the ramp guys wear around airplane engines to protect their ears. How bad does this suck that I have to sit closer to him???

And it that were the answer on "Jeopardy," the question would be: How much sleep did Patti get last night?

I hate Sunday nights. I especially hate Sunday nights when I toss and turn for hours. I literally did not sleep. And it wasn't like I was worrying about anything, although I did have story fragments--that I won't use--going through my mind.

So what do I have to do today on no sleep? Well, it would be bad enough it I had to sit at work all day like this, but I've done that before. I'm not this lucky today. I have a schedule chock full of fun events. First, I have to drive all the way out to Andover, MN which is like forever away from everywhere and meet with the cabinet guru. He only works 6 to 3, and since I work 6-2:30, I get to waste half a day of vacation to go out and meet with him. And make decisions on cabinets on zero sleep.

Then, I get to go to work for half a day. Oh, joy.

Third item on the agenda is getting gas because it's supposed to SNOW tomorrow--4-6 inches. I truly live in hell.

Finally, I get to go out and pick out the appliances that I was supposed to pick out on Friday, but couldn't because I was sick. More decisions on zero sleep.

Edited to add: People keep asking me, aren't you excited? Because I'm making choices for the house. And I'm telling them, No, I have too much to do, I don't have time for this. But of course, I have to make the time. I'd be much more excited if I could afford the time.

After all this, I get to come home. At last. Do you think I'll get any writing done today? I don't and I'm pretty sure I'm going to 22 chapters. Sigh.

The Movie Of Your Life Is An Indie Flick

You do things your own way - and it's made for colorful times. Your life hasn't turned out how anyone expected, thank goodness! Your best movie matches: Clerks, Garden State, Napoleon Dynamite

If Your Life Was a Movie, What Genre Would It Be?

I think I did okay yesterday. My brain kind of went to mush once I was introduced, and I circled around what I wanted to say a couple of times so that it took a while to actually get there, but overall I think I didn't embarrass myself as I spoke to my local chapter about Through a Crimson Veil. There were a bunch of people there, hurrah! And they asked questions, double hurrah! Several people said I was interesting, so I can only hope that they were being truthful and not just nice.

After that was the business meeting and then we had our program on using Tarot with writing presented by Stephanie Lynch. That was really interesting, and she's giving a class in December that I'd like to take. She also brought some really cool tarot decks, and while I swear I don't want to collect them, I have somewhere around half a dozen different decks--maybe more. But different decks feel better on different days. Yesterday I grabbed the dragon tarot deck, and it was the wrong one. I knew that, but I was running late and didn't have time to go through my pouches to see what other deck I wanted to use. I also have some other cards that aren't tarot, and I worried if I just grabbed a pack, I'd get one of those. Anyway, some fun and interesting spreads and definitely a tool to use when stuck.

After the meeting was a published author lunch/meeting. I didn't even recognize about half the people there, so I don't know if it's because I don't go to meetings often or they don't go to meetings often or both. They're saying that they want to get me involved with stuff, and I'm like, OMG, I'm already drowning just trying to work full time and write. I can't handle anymore on top of that. I'm a slow writer. Too slow.

By the time I got home, it was getting close to 3pm and I was just exhausted. Still, determined to write, I pulled up the file--and stared at it for 4 hours without getting a single word written. I didn't even have a clue which direction to turn. I think I had reached my limit after being so sick on Friday. So I went to bed somewhere around 9pm and slept for another 12 hours. This morning I had coffee! Coffee is the sign of wellness. If I don't want coffee, I'm definitely sick. If I'm craving coffee again, I'm on the mend. Yes, I have a small little addiction here, but I only drink one cup a day.

Now that I'm back on the caffeine, hopefully I'll get some major writing done today. I need to. I should have been done with the first draft already, but getting sick twice in slightly over a month really hosed me up.

Your Brain's Pattern

Your mind is a firestorm - full of intensity and drama. Your thoughts may seem scattered to you most of the time... But they often seem strong and passionate to those around you. You are a natural influencer. The thoughts you share are very powerful and persuading.

What Pattern Is Your Brain?

Yesterday when I posted, I was feeling a little unwell. It didn't take long after that before a little unwell became violently sick. So I stayed home from work and spent my entire day either sleeping or praying to the porcelain god. Gah! The one good thing about the stomach flu, however, is that it only lasts about 24 hours and I'm feeling much better now.

Today, I do Journey of a Novel for Through a Crimson Veil at my local writing chapter. I kind of have a loose outline and some things printed out, so hopefully it will go well. And hopefully more than 2 people will show up. This is my first public speaking thing too, so I hope I don't mess up or embarrass myself too much.

I don't think I have anything else to say, which is unusual for me. :-)

Right now, I have a bunch of choices to make. Do I put the cooktop on the island or the dishwasher? There isn't enough room on the counter for both. I have to choose all my appliances--today--so that the electrician and cabinet maker can do their job. I'm meeting with the cabinet guy on Monday and that's out in Timbuktu, and then I'll have to make decisions on that too. And I'm not feeling good, so my final dilemma is do I call in to work or try to tough it out. I'm leaning toward calling in, but I hate to do it.

The timing is bad since I have to do my presentation at my local chapter meeting tomorrow, although on the plus side, this is probably some 24 hour thing. Miserable while I have it, but nothing that will hang around long.

It's much more exciting to think about appliances. :-)

If you want to see what the house I'm building looked like last Saturday, you can go to the House Gallery page. If there's a picture you want to see larger, just click on the thumbnail.

The builder has gotten a lot farther along in just a week. It's amazing! Today they poured the basement floor. I haven't been over there today, but they should start on the roof tomorrow, I think.

Edited to update links.

I don't know if I'm doing too much walking (probably) or if it's just too soon to be out of the boot, but my foot was really hurting last night. Of course, I'm sure it didn't help that I did the walk through with the electrician last night--poor man. I kept asking him, well, what do you think? Because I had no clue what I wanted to do on a lot of it. I just know that I want a lot of light, and a lot of sockets.

They have the windows in already, and the shower in the master bath as well as the tub/shower combo in the other bathroom. I don't think I like the shower they put in the master bath. It's wider than my current shower, but looks narrow. But there's no room to put in anything else, so I guess I'll live with it.

I finally downloaded the pictures I took last Saturday. I tried to put them up on one of my websites, but my ISP appears to be having a lot of trouble with their members' personal web pages. If that ever starts working again, I'll post a link so y'all can oooh and ahhh.

Ooops, I wandered off. Anyway, my foot hurt badly enough yesterday that I'm debating whether or not to wear the boot today. Maybe I should while I get used to walking again. The doctor had me restricted on the amount I was allowed to do until the boot came off, so maybe I'm just not used to it.

I received an email from an editorial assistant at my publisher asking for information so they can start working on the cover for Temple of Dreams, so I spent last night trying to pull that together and not writing. It took a lot of time. I have two things I need to add this morning before I email it.

Also, I need to dig out a good luck card for a friend at work who is leaving NWA. (Lucky woman!) If the guys I work with got her a card or sent an envelope around, they did it while I was off and no one thought to pass it to me when I got back to work on Tuesday. I swear, these guys think that because I'm a woman, that I should be the one to buy a card and pass it around and organize the going away party. Grrr. Gee, guys, what part of I'm on deadline don't you understand? I don't have time to take care of my own life, let alone organize the going away deal. Men.

Yesterday, I found out Ravyn's Flight is scheduled to be reprinted in August 2006, the same month Temple of Dreams is released. TOD is a spin off from RF, so that makes sense. I've posted the news all over my website, so I hope people stop spending $8, $9, even $13 for a copy of the book. The copies available on Amazon as of last night (and there were only two), were going for $17 and $59.99. I can't believe people are charging so much!

I also had a fabulous review for Through a Crimson Veil! I wish I could quote the entire review, but I'll settle for my favorite part, and link to the full thing. This is from Romance Reader at Heart:

If you liked the first two books you will love the spin Patti O'Shea puts on this paranormal keeper. It's exciting, fun, dangerous, and sexy! Two strong characters dominate the scene and their romance is as hot as it gets.

TACV received the site's Top Pick rating!

I also discovered that the Internet Writing Journal named my blog one of the Best Author Blogs. Their criteria? Frequently updated. Check. And interesting. Wow. I figured that second category would eliminate me completely.

On the house front, the plumbing was roughed in on Tuesday, and I saw the front steps and they look cool! Okay, so maybe it's just plain cool that I'll be able to get in the house without climbing on a bench first. That was a big step up. :-) I still plan on putting the pictures up that I took last Saturday if I ever have enough time.

I do a walk through with the electrician this afternoon, the windows are here too, so they'll start putting those in soon, and they'll begin roofing on Thursday. I am getting a little excited now.

The one snag in my day cost me all the work I'd done during lunch yesterday. I've been writing on one laptop at work, saving everything to a jump drive, then bringing it home to the good laptop. Tuesday, in my half out of it state, I accidentally saved the old file over the new file. I tried to recreate what I lost, but it's not as good as it was. :-( You can bet I'll be more careful from now on.

I'm actually happy to be going back to work today. I know, very hard to believe. Actually, I'd be happier if I weren't awake at 4am, but I like getting off early too much to start later.

I got a lot of writing done, which is a good thing, but only managed about 10 or 11 pages yesterday. After a couple days of 20 pages, this was low production. (And it's still more than my usual all day output!) Anyway, my brain turned itself off about 6pm last night, so I packed it in for the day. I reread what I'd written a few hours later and it's rough. Ouch! Thought of a couple of things I need to add to one scene, and decided what to do with one character who's in my way in the next scene. Now I just have to find the brain power to write/revise.

They poured the concrete for the garage yesterday. Or so I'm told. I never left the computer.

I've been writing, and writing, and writing this weekend. I finished three chapters in three days which is a lot of writing for me. I'm very slow. My goal is to write another chapter today. Then, with a little luck, I'll have one more chapter and the epilogue left to write. If I'm not lucky, it'll be 2 more chapters. I'm worried about wrapping everything up according to the outline I made last week.

I haven't answered email all weekend. I'll start catching up on that tomorrow. And aside from meeting with the builder on Saturday, I pretty much haven't been away from my computer in 3 days. Today will be day 4, then tomorrow it's back to the day job.

All the chapters I've produced this weekend are rougher than I'd like, but they're down on paper and ready to be revised. That's what counts at this point. My goal is to have all the first draft down and done by the end of the day on Nov 13th. Then I'll be revising like a mad woman.

Today was the second time I obsessed about my Amazon reviews, and for the second time, I get a three star (which really messes up my GPA) review complaining about too much romance. This reader even claimed it was like a "historical" romance. Yeah, sure.

Anyway, universe, I get the message. I will no longer obsess about this because I don't want any more low marks. I hate lessons.

I know this. But does this stop me? Of course not.

What am I obsessing about now? Something really stupid, of course. Those darn Amazon reviews again. The last time I obsessed, I got the review from the woman who thought my romance novel had too much romance in it. She gave me a mediocre star rating and messed up my GPA. So I'm trying hard not to wish for more reviews, but I'm really getting a complex. TACV has 6, just 6 reviews. CC has 19. ATOC has 26. And now ADC, which just came out, has 4 and will probably pass me up in mere days. Are my books unexciting? Engender no strong emotion? My book in the 2176 series got the least number of reviews too.

Like I said, this is such a stupid thing to waste energy on. Why am I worrying about this? I have no clue, and that's the truth. The nearest thing I can figure out is that I'm viewing it as some kind of judgment on my work. Lots of reviews = enthusiasm. Few reviews = Yawn.

The only positive note is that I won't be able to waste too much time on this. I have a ton of writing to do, and lucky me, my builder told me yesterday that I have to meet with the electrician, the cabinet maker and make some other decisions this week. Can you hear me screaming? I need this week to write, not run all over creation making decisions I'll have to live with for years.

The house does look interesting. It's hard for me to envision it with walls and windows and such, so I think I'm less excited about it than I could be. I took lots of pictures, but don't have time to download them from the camera. As soon as I do, I'll post them. Probably the house will be mostly done by then and I can do a whole process kind of post.

I did finish 2 chapters in 2 days. I have to reread what I wrote yesterday--particularly what I produced between about 7pm and 10pm--and fine tune it and/or flesh it out. I know I really got sketchy toward the end, but I wanted to finish the chapter before I went to bed.

Now, I'm going to finish my coffee and get to work.

I took my birthday holidays off from work, one of those if I don't take them now, I might lose them in bankruptcy court things. I figured to get a lot of writing done and it started out that way. I whizzed through the second scene in the chapter I was working on, and started the third. I decided to take a lunch break, though, and that's when disaster struck. The power went out!!!

One of the neighbors complained about how often this has been happening lately and he's exactly right. We've gone down a lot and without a storm or other triggering factor. But when everyone else's lights came on, the house was still dark.

I called my dad. The main circuit breaker had popped, but he couldn't get it to stay to the on position. He called the energy company and the guy told him some things to try. He never could get it to stick, so then he called a friend of his who has experience with electrical stuff, but the guy had to meet someone so he wouldn't be able to come over right away. He finally arrived just before 4pm and had the lights on in seconds. Hurrah!

But this little episode cost me 3 hours of writing time. That's how long the house was dark. I finished the chapter I was working on and started the next, but I could have been a lot further along if I'd had those three hours. :-(

Today, lucky me, I have to take time off from writing to meet with the builder and make a critical decision on where this wall goes. Sigh. I'm hoping to lose no more than an hour. I'm bringing the digital camera too so I can take pictures and bore people with them here. :-)

My local RWA chapter, Midwest Fiction Writers, has a program they call Journey of a Novel or JoaN for short. A published author from the chapter will come in and talk about her book, either from conception to publication or a particular writing challenge they dealt with while writing it.

A few months ago, the chapter VP asked me to do it. Me! She'd said she'd received requests from members. After I picked my jaw up off the floor, I agreed to do it even though I haven't done any public speaking since college. I'll be talking about Through a Crimson Veil.

So earlier this week, the woman who takes care of the newsletter needed to talk to me so she could write a blurb for the November Muse, and she suggested I talk about being part of a continuity series since they never had anyone talk about that at a JoaN before. I said I'd be happy to address it if people has specific questions, but I wasn't sure that I could do a whole 45 minutes on it. Besides, the part that I, personally, find interesting is how the idea came in and how it changed between conception and writing the proposal.

This started me thinking about what I could speak about on working as part of a continuity series. I decided I can say that there's a lot of discussion to make sure points match and work among all the books. That sometimes you don't get things exactly the way you wanted (I wanted more demons hunting my h/h) and that it's not always easy fitting your vision inside the vision of the series.

What else can I say about working on a continuity series? What kinds of questions are writers interested in knowing about the process?

In October, my writing buddies and I did Book in a Month. Would you believe I have no clue how I did? I somehow lost track of how much I've written since Oct 1. I was thinking about this last night, wondering about how far I'd come and realized I don't know. I could probably figure it out, but I don't have time.

Speaking of time, I have 2 birthday holidays I can take from the day job. We're allowed to take them 60 days either side of our birthday. And I'm worried that if I don't take them soon, I'll lose them, which hardly seems fair just because I was born at the end of the year. I was planning to take them next week to give myself a 4 day weekend, but as I was watching the news last night, I saw the flight attendants and maybe the pilots had reached tentative agreements, so now I'm worrying that we might too. I'm thinking I'll be taking the days off around this weekend instead.

On the subject of airlines, if you have a high speed internet connection, this is hilarious! It's a short 2 minute 35 second movie. I think it's a foreign commercial, but I don't have speakers on my computer at work. This Airplane Short came from my manager.

It's still weird walking without the boot.

My day started off bad. The heating element on my hair dryer went out, and I was forced to blow dry my hair with cool air. Okay, add buying a new hair dryer to the To Do List.

I managed to get out of the house a couple of minutes early. My normal route to the freeway was shut down over the weekend, so I tried an alternate route on Tuesday that I really liked, and I planned to take it again today. As I'm heading down the road, I see a sign that says, "Road Closed Ahead." Sure enough, without giving any warning the day before, they'd shut down the road to my alternate entrance ramp. I made a U-ie and tried alternate route number two. This little escapade made me late for work. Grrr.

The good news comes in at my doctor's appointment. I'm officially released from the boot!!! Hurrah! And I was called his star patient. Yes, I am an overachiever. ;-)

It's been really odd, though, walking without the fashionable cam boot. I've had it on for 4 months and it just feels wrong to walk without it. And stairs? Wow. Talk about a weird sensation. I think I'm going to need a little transitional period here.

So here I am, Carolyn Jewel, guest blogging on Patti's blog, hoping like heck I can be interesting. A Darker Crimson is book 4 in the Crimson City series, and as I'm sure Patti's readers know, Patti wrote book 3, Through a Crimson Veil. My previous books have been historical romances, so when I signed on for Book 4, there were a lot of people saying "Carolyn Who?" Not to mention people wondering whether someone who wrote historicals could pull off a paranormal. Can she? More importantly, did she? Romantic Times gave A Darker Crimson 4 1/2 stars and Top Pick, so I think I did.

Now, in a perfect world, I would be writing comedy. Funny, sparkling books that make people laugh, but every time I try that, by the second paragraph something dark and angsty happens. Suddenly, my characters have tragic skeletons in their closets, they're driven by their demons and hey, speaking of demons, there's a lot of them in A Darker Crimson. (Note the fabulous segue! Don't try this at home. I'm a professional writer and trained to handle these sorts of complex transitions. LOL.)

The biggest challenge of A Darker Crimson was setting. It's one thing to have a demon or two in the Overworld. They're out of place and out-numbered. But in their own territory? The powers demons have in the Overworld had the potential of completely overwhelming my non-demon hero and heroine. That meant that some of the powers of demons had to be limited. My book would otherwise have been short indeed. "They got to Orcus and the demons killed them. The End." So, Patti and I emailed back and forth a lot. She worries she drove me crazy, but I didn't have to worry about driving her crazy. I know I did because I overthink everything. Patti's too nice to say so, but she'd ask me a simple question and get back a dissertation on medieval politics or something. And yet she still talks to me!

Lucky for me, Patti came up with dark demons. Wow. That was so cool I had to use them. Lots of them. Their physical appearance in the natural state is mine (except the too-pale eyes, that was Patti's) their evil darkness is Patti's, but I amplified that in interesting ways. Oh, I just loved writing dark demons. Talk about complexity. What fun!

What else did I steal from Patti? Let's see, the rauthima summons. What a great reason for a demon to have a HUGE grudge against the Overworld! A rauthima summons is used to call a demon into the Overworld for the sole purpose of having sex-- against the demon's will, I might add. And when the demon is done, back he goes. Unless, of course, the summoner makes a mistake or calls a demon who's stronger than he can handle. That happened to one of my demons just prior to the start of my story. He was pretty pissed off about that, and the consequences resonate throughout A Darker Crimson. And the vishtau, I stole that, too, and gave a human-hating dark demon a vishtau bond with my human heroine. For a while I was stealing the auric assassin thing, too, but then it turned out my bad boy dark-demon almost-the-hero was quite bad enough all by himself.

Are all demons bad? Maybe. Maybe not. One of my favorite things to do in a story is play with notions of good and bad. Context changes everything. Demons have a very different view of world, is it wrong just because it's not the Overworld view? Demons are evil, right? Sure, if you're not a demon. But they have some legitimate gripes against the Overworld. That theme occurs throughout the Crimson City series, and I can't want to see what Jade Lee and Liz Maverick do in books 5 and 6.

OK, I confess, I've heard hints. Jade's Seduced by Crimson Chapter 1 is in the back of A Darker Crimson and now I'm upset I have to wait to find out what happens. And Liz has dropped some maddening hints about Crimson Rogue Grrr. I don't want to wait!

Carolyn Jewel

Okay, now I can post what I wanted to say this morning.

First, I want to thank Joely Sue Burkhart for the great review of Through a Crimson Veil on her blog! I loved reading her insights about the characters and the story. It's so cool when, as a writer, you read someone talking about your work, and they get it.

My favorite part is about Conor, the hero, and why he hates demons:

His mother was raped by his demon father. He's held this knowledge inside him,grown up with it, and struggled against his own male demon urges his entire life. To loose his demon side is to turn into the very thing that raped his mother.

The second thing I wanted to post this morning is that I'll be having a guest blogger tonight.

Carolyn Jewel is the author of A Darker Crimson, the fourth book in the Crimson City series. Carolyn and I emailed each other all the time to collaborate on demons and the demon world, and I think I probably made her crazy since I would send a note, then decide to cut what I'd just told her I was going to do, and then send another message to let her know. Clearly, she has the patience of a saint.

Carolyn's story features a human heroine, Claudia Donovan, who needs to go into Orcus to rescue her daughter. She doesn't trust vampires, but to get out of the underworld, she's going to need to do just that. Carolyn wrote a great story, you don't want to miss it! Plus, you get to see more demons and find out what the Dark Ones are up to now.

Thanks, Carolyn, for coming over here to talk about A Darker Crimson!

Darn it! I'm running late this morning, and I had stuff I wanted to say! I hate when this happens. I'll have to post some more later today.

The walls are going up on the house. I mean solid walls, not just boards. Gulp. It's actually starting to look like something. My dad is still taking pictures for me.

Realized last night that I'd started the third scene in the chapter I'm working on in the wrong place, so I cut everything I wrote in it. It had to go since the time jump a few paragraphs into the scene was pointless and unnecessary. All I had to do was make the jump before the scene started.

Yesterday morning, while I was dawdling, I suddenly remembered that the area where I leave the neighborhood to get on the freeway was closed. Needless to say, this adds extra time on to my commute and is one of the reasons why I'm so rushed this morning. I'm going to try merging on the freeway in a new place this morning. This one has better sight lines than my usual entrance because of all the cement construction barriers, so hopefully, I won't have to clasp the steering wheel and pray no one's in the right hand lane.

More later. The good stuff takes thinking time to write. :-)