Yesterday, I found out that I'll be closing on the house a week from Friday.

My first reaction was OMG! Now I knew the target date was February 10th, but that seemed so far away. It still seems far away. It's not. It's next week. OMG!

I've always lived with the idea that if I ever wanted to, I could just take off and move somewhere else. Since I've been in MN my entire life, the odds were low I'd just take off for another state. Heck, my personality doesn't handle spur of the moment vacations real well, and the chances of a spur of the moment relocation ever happening are minuscule, but I could have done it if I'd wanted to. Before the house.

Now I'm going to have a yard that'll need mowing, upkeep, repair. Gah! I'll have to spend all kinds of money on window treatments. I'll have to arrange to move my stuff. I'll have to shop at Home Depot.

I actually bought a welcome mat. Me. That's such a boring thing, but here I was all excited that it came with a boot scraper so that I wouldn't have mud tracked into the house. I also bought curtain rod brackets that you don't use nails.

So I laid awake in bed last night, trying to relax enough to sleep. I don't know how long it took, all I know is my muscles are still rigid this morning, and every time I think about being a home owner, I can't seem to draw a deep breath.

I found a few new fun games.

Gridlock. The idea is simple--move the dark blue rectangle out the right hand exit. The trick? There are obstacles in the way and they only move certain ways.

Brewster Jennings Protects America. This is like Where In the World is Carmen San Diego, but with Google maps. It's a timed game and I had problems with the maps loading fast enough on dial up. It sounds promising, but I didn't get too far.

My Planet. You better be fast with the arrow keys or your spaceship will crash and burn. I did a lot of crashing.

Spaced Penguin. Kevin the Penguin is lost in space. Use the GPS (Giant Penguin Slingshot) to get him back to his ship.

A Dog for All Seasons. Use your spacebar to make the dogs jump over the red balls. Not as easy as it sounds.

The Amazing Dare Dozen. Try to use your mouse button to jump your egg upward using the baskets. I don't have the patience for this one.

Hangman. Play hangman online.

Infocom Games. These are very old text based games. Includes "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" and "Leather Goddesses of Phobos." Warning, these games are long.

Fishy. I'm horrible at this game! You're a fish. Try to eat the smaller fish, but don't let the bigger fish eat you. It uses arrow keys to move.

Sugar Crash. You're Mr. Sugar Cube. Keep the baby up in the air on his sugar high, but make sure to get him on the nap pad before his blood sugar is gone. I'm a little too wild on the mouse pad for this game.

This morning I posted how it's hard for me to read about how other authors do things because I always feel as if I'm doing it wrong. So here we are, about 12 hours later, and I'm about to ask for input. :-) What can I say? This is something I've struggled with for years and I've yet to find anything that really works for me.

My problem? Switching between stories. This has always been difficult for me, but I've struggled through it. But if I'm going to be getting my revisions for Eternal Nights in chunks, I'm going to have to bounce back and forth more than one time. I finished the revisions for the first 4 chapters on Friday night. Today, I spent my lunch hour staring at the WIP, trying to get my head back in it--and not getting very far.

I can't afford to spend days each time trying to get my head back into the story in question, so does anyone have some good suggestions on how I can pop back and forth between two books repeatedly?

I like reading other writers' blogs. They're generally entertaining, and since I write myself, I can usually relate at least somewhat to the posts. But I hate it when other writers discuss their process.

I know why. I don't write the way they do and even after all this time, I still feel like I must be doing something wrong. This stems all the way back to the time I was in junior high school and had decided I wanted to be a writer. I checked out all kinds of how to books from the library--all of which were written by plotters and all of which (at least in my 8th grade mind) implied that the only way to be a successful writer was to follow their method. I still shudder at the sight of 3x5 index cards. After all the joy of writing was sucked out of me, I finally decided I'd do it my way and at least have fun even if I'd never be a success like these writers who'd written the how to manuals.

Years later, I'd read posts online about writing and paralyze myself. I wouldn't be able to write for days because I didn't write the way these other writers did. And they were published so they must know more than me.

Some of this has faded--well, at least I don't freeze up anymore--but my first reaction to reading another writer's method is OMG, I must be doing it wrong. So when a writer posts to her blog about how she writes, I know I should just skip that day. But I don't. I read every word. I can't seem to help myself.

I don't know how much I talk about process here. In my mind, it's not often since I try not to analyze what I do or how I do it. My usual answer to people when they ask me a question is: I don't know, I just sit down and write. But maybe things slip in that I don't even recognize.

Do other writers like to read about another writer's process? Do readers like to read about how a writer writes? I honestly have no clue.

I think I did okay yesterday while I made my author appearance. I mostly didn't embarrass myself, although there certainly were moments I came close. I was scheduled to be signing books from 1pm to 3pm, but I ran out before 2pm. For the next hour and ten minutes--or thereabouts--I sat there, trying not to look stupid. I did manage to pass out a few bookmarks and talk about Through a Crimson Veil so I guess that's a good thing. It also helped that I had fun people in the booth with me. It made it much easier and helped pass the time once the books were gone.

After my stint in the booth was over, I high-tailed it across the aisle. I'd heard about these glass nail files that last forever, but hadn't seen them in the store. (Of course, since I rarely shop, and when I am out, I try to pick up stuff on my list and get out, it's entirely possible that I just missed them.) Anyway, I tried it out, and it's as fabulous as I'd heard. These files are never supposed to wear out like regular emery boards, and it did a great job on my nails. So of course, I bought one. When I got home and did a little online search, I found out that I'd way overpaid. Sigh. On the other hand, the website I found selling the nail files misspelled "check out," so probably I wouldn't have ordered from them anyway, and then I wouldn't have my really cool file.

By the time I got home, I was totally exhausted. Public appearances take a lot of energy from me, probably because I'm an introvert and I really have to work to do anything beyond stand (sit) there like a deer caught in the headlights. So I totally vegged out the rest of the evening.

Since I finished the revisions I had for the first 4 chapters of Eternal Nights, I'm going to write some more in my paranormal. I hope my head can do the bopping between books.

That's D as in Dread.

I wonder if other authors dread public appearances as much as I do? I know it's because I'm so shy and putting myself outside my comfort zone is never easy for me. That's part of the reason why I keep doing it. Pushing beyond the fear is good and it becomes a little easier each time. There's a book out there titled Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway. I've never read it and I have no idea if it's any good or not, but the title makes for a perfect motto. I'm really trying not to let my shyness get in the way. I have to confess, though, I feel about the same level of excitement right now as I felt before I went in for surgery on my foot. The funny thing is that once I'm there and in the energy, I'll have a good time. Then I'll spend the rest of the day wondering why I was dreading this so much. :-)

The post today over at Romancing the Blog had a sentence or two in there that got me thinking. The blogger, though, went off in a different direction, but I'd rather explore the part about hearing voices in one's head and never being bored because there are always stories playing up there. Maybe because I've always had the voices.

I don't know when the voices started--they might have always been there--but I thought everyone had stories and characters for those stories in their head. It never occurred to me that others didn't. I do remember playing Barbies with my friends, and thinking their storylines were short and unexciting. I always had such involved and long scenarios. Sometimes they'd be done with theirs and be watching me. Finally, I'd start making suggestions to them. "Why don't you ___?"

It still didn't dawn on me that they didn't hear the same conversations in their head as I did. But at the same time, I never, ever told anyone I had people in my head. Maybe even at that tender age, I knew better than to sound like a raving lunatic. :-)

My parents dragged my brother and I everywhere with them. Most of the things we got stuck at were boring, and because my parents were so much older than most parents were, there usually weren't other kids to play with. If we visited my parents' friends, their kids would be full grown. I was never bored, though. I had my people. I made it through a ton of church services and events by daydreaming.

I never wrote anything down, never even thought about it. Until I was 14. I've told this story often, so I'll just sum up. A friend in my 8th grade class was writing a story and I decided to write my own. It was the beginning for me. The first step on my journey to becoming a published author. What makes this whole thing even cooler is I can see the people who nudged me back on the path when I wandered away. I consider them human angels.

Today, the world (at least the part of the world that read my books) can see the stories that I have playing. This week, I've been working on revisions to Eternal Nights and Kendall and Wyatt have been strongly present. Now that I'm not pressing hard to finish the book, I can enjoy them and remember how much I like them.

Anyway, I suppose I should get moving since I only have about two hours till I have to leave for the expo. Before I post this, though, I want to mention that I have the cover for Crimson Rogue by Liz Maverick up on my website now! It's only a small image and I'd love to post a bigger one here, but I don't have a big image. If you want to see the cover (or the complete set of covers for the Crimson City series) you can visit my Through a Crimson Veil page.

I went over to the house today and took a few pictures. Probably there won't be many more shots for a while because there isn't much left for them to do. At least I didn't see anything much.

The oven and microwave are installed. There's a bit of glare on the appliances from the sun coming in the room.


The cooktop is installed! They finally got the hole big enough to get it in. They have it covered in cardboard with weights on top of it so this is the best shot I could get.


I opened the guest closet and discovered the floor was uncovered there. This is what the entire floor in the great room/dining room/kitchen/foyer looks like.


Here's the carpet as it looks in the spare bedroom.


This is the master bedroom with carpet.


Next week is the refrigerator, the washer/dryer and the shower door. I don't know how much they have left to do after that, but I think we're getting close.

Earlier this week, I received an email to let me know that King Tut tickets for the Chicago showing are now on sale. After a couple of days debating whether it was an advantage to join the special "Royal Tut Membership" at the museum, my tickets are now ordered. Hurrah!

There was one thing, though, that ticked me off. I knew there'd be a handling fee on the tickets--there always is--and this was no exception. I hated paying an extra $3 per ticket, but that's the way it goes. The part that got me mad was when they tacked on another $3 handling fee at the end of the checkout process for mailing the tickets to me. Excuse me? Isn't that covered in the already high per ticket handling fee? Apparently not. I looked at my options, thinking maybe will call would be free. Nope. $3 handling for that as well. I briefly considered canceling the order and calling the museum, but then I figured I'd be facing the same thing over the phone.

The exhibit runs May 26 (I think) through Jan 1, 2007 so probably by the time I go to see it, I won't be irked any more, but I'm glad now I didn't buy the museum membership on top of the ticket charges. Man! Of course, this is cheaper than a trip to Egypt. I guess I could look at it that way.

Sorry to be late posting this morning. Blogger was down for maintenance when I logged on before work this morning.

I finished the revisions that my editor sent me. They only encompass the first four chapters, but it's nice to have them done. I'm doing one more read through today to make sure it flows smoothly--I did a fair amount of cutting in two different chapters--and to watch for repetitive words, but except for a few tweaks here and there, I think it's good to go.

Except for one eensy little problem.

I need to foreshadow something in the story. The hero knows about it from the start, so the reader has to at least have hints that he's aware of this before they get the information. My editor found the hints confusing, which means I need to work on them. The big question is how to hint at this without giving too much away too early and without leaving the reader confused. So far, I haven't had any epiphanies, but I'm still thinking about it.

The house continues to move along at light speed. They're putting in the carpeting today, and finishing the insulation in the basement. Back in October, February 10th seemed so far away, now it's nearly here. And they might be done early. Wow. It seems so hard to believe. (And I heard they actually got the stove top to fit in the island!) ;-)

Today's Romancing the Blog entry was interesting. Kara Lennox talks about her revision letter from her new editor and basically supports what I said here last Saturday--that it's good to have editors who really look at your work and make the author think about her writing.

I wrote about how the best part about being a published author is to be edited. :-) Critique partners are great, and catch all kinds of stuff, but editors find more. My goal is to make my work the best I'm capable of making it, and I'll work as hard as I need to achieve this. I feel like my editor is my partner in this. Of course, that doesn't mean there haven't been some discussions about the changes. This absolutely shocked me the first time I did it. I'm shy. And at that time, I tended not to speak up about stuff, but when it came to protecting my characters, I discovered it was a different story. Now, as I've gained some confidence, I speak up a little more.

Sometimes I amaze myself. :-)

HGTV is evil. My floors are in, it's way too late, but I just saw the coolest idea for flooring ever! It's all made from recycled glass and poured in so there are no seams or grout involved. I saw it and immediately began an online search for this company and their products. Considering I haven't even moved into my house yet, how long do you think I have to wait to have new floors put in? I'm thinking bathrooms here. It can be made into patterns or not. The epoxy background can be any color so the floor can be totally unique. Sigh. I really want that. :-/

I was tagged by Candice for another meme about a week and a half ago. I'm finally getting around to doing it.

What were you doing 10 years ago?

I can't remember what I did last week. Ten years ago? Forget about it.

What were you doing one year ago?

See answer to question one. Wait! I know I was on deadline for Through a Crimson Veil so I was writing, and writing, and writing.

Five snacks you enjoy?
Apples
oranges
grapes
cantaloupe
yogurt

Five songs to which you know all the lyrics?

Gah! Um, if the song is playing on the radio, lots of them. If I have to sing without help, well that's iffier.

Never Tear Us Apart - INXS
Friends In Low Places - Garth Brooks
Pleasant Valley Sunday - The Monkees
I Don't Like Mondays - Boomtown Rats
Celebrity - Brad Paisley

Five things you would do if you were a millionaire?

IMO, millionaire means more than just one million dollars. :-)

Pay off the new house and look for something a little bigger
Quit the day job and write full time
Have my new house professionally decorated
Have my new house professionally landscaped
Outfit my writing room until it's the office space of my dreams

Five bad habits:

Procrastination
Procrastination
Procrastination
Procrastination
Spending too much time on the computer (or procrastination)

Five things you like doing:

Sleeping
Writing
Designing and updating my website
Reading
Learning new things

Five things you would never wear or buy again:

Oooh, this is tough and the choices are legion. Half my closet falls into this category.

Platform shoes
Really high heel shoes
Turtlenecks
Velour anything
Barrettes with feathers attached

Five favorite toys:

The laptop
The desktop
The digital camera
I can't think of anything else

Five people I'm tagging:

Whoever is visiting here and wants to do it

So far, most of my revisions consist of cutting. I'm pretty good about doing this. I write long, and I'm used to it. There hasn't been a book I've written yet where I haven't cut a fair amount of pages out of it. Last night, though, I made a cut that had a little whimper escape.

I'd already gone through chapter one, saw it, knew it was unnecessary, but I liked it. A lot. I decided I'd leave it in. After all, I'd already cut 10% of the chapter, surely I could keep a few paragraphs just for me?

I guess not since one of my critique partners got back to me immediately and said my changes were good, but I should cut this one section. :-( I knew she was right, but I still fought the need to do it. I worked on chapter 2, cut one of the scenes there up pretty good. Had no trouble doing that at all, although I'm not sure if I cut enough. I need to reread it.

Finally, last night, I opened chapter 1, scrolled to that spot, highlighted it and hit the delete key. I smoothed the transition between the dialogue, and what I cut won't be missed at all. Except by me. I still like it. But it isn't really necessary. And it does slow down the scene with needless internal monologue. So it's gone. I know there's one spot a couple of chapters later that ties into the phrasing of something Kendall thinks in that scene, so I'll have to adjust that, but that's about the only impact its absence has.

Writing is not for sissies. ;-)

I went over to the house today at my dad's urging. He wanted me to see the closet shelves and the rods that go with them. Plus the mirrors had been installed in the bathrooms. I noticed a few other things too. The trim is in around the floors now, the shelves are in all the cabinets, and all the cabinets have handles on them now. This was another one of those small decisions I had to make, and I love them! They look completely fabulous on these cabinets.

The one choice that gave me insomnia was the bisque cooktop against the countertop, but it looks good too! At least I think so. The cooktop isn't quite in because they didn't cut the hole big enough, but it's semi-installed. :-)

If you want to see all this and more, check out the latest House Gallery.

Sorry to anyone who received a security sign in message here. Oops! I moved all my house pictures to a new website, and yesterday evening, I set something up wrong over there, so every time the pictures tried to pull up, it would ask for a password. I have it turned off now. I did this same thing when I first put up my author website, but I can't remember how I fixed it.

When my wonderful 80s station was replaced with some radio version of the ipod shuffle, I switched to this smooth jazz station for the alarm clock. I'm not a huge jazz fan, but it seemed a nice medium between soft, gentle music which would not wake me up, and harder music which would irritate the hell out of me and have me cussing (more than I already do) as I slap around for the snooze button. :-) I mean the 80s station used to drive me nuts when they played Guns 'N Roses at 4am. Of course, this meant the Jazz station wasn't long for this world. :-) And it was replaced with a talk radio format a couple of weeks ago. That's more aggravating than Axl Rose. ;-) After winging through the radio dial a few times, I went back to country music for the wake up.

I did this once before and this is how I got hooked on country music in the early 90s. I'd hear Garth Brooks' "Friends in Low Places," and though I had no clue who he was, I knew I liked that song. I started listening to the country station during the day, found out who Garth Brooks was, and started buying CDs. Everything was good until my country station was bought out by a company that owned the other country station in town and they changed the music they played. (Do y'all see a pattern here? If I like a station, their format will be changed.) I didn't care much for the other station, and while I listened occasionally, I slipped away from country. Then my 80s station came on the air and that was it.

So a couple of mornings now, as I've been trying to find some interest in getting out of bed, I've been hearing this song that I really like. I'll actually delay hitting the snooze until after it's over. I'm terrible at identifying who a certain singer is, I always have been. I still can't tell who's singing what part in the Garth Brooks/Chris LaDoux duet "Whatcha Gonna Do With a Cowboy." My friends laugh at me, but my ear just isn't good enough. The song I like came on again this morning and I finally did a search. I just had to laugh when I discovered that Garth Brooks sings "Good ride, Cowboy." I didn't even know he had a new CD out, and that man is going to drag me back into country music. LOL!

Anyway, I've been working on revisions, did a fair amount of cutting and plan to do more today. This is the really unglamorous part of writing, not that any of the process is easy or necessarily fun, but this is the part that's probably my least favorite. It's hard work, and fairly left-brained activity. At least I have my cover to look at for encouragement. :-)

I've been watching a lot of HGTV the past few months. I know why--it's because I'm building a house--but there are some interesting shows on there. I just wish I was half as talented as some of these people. Give them a staple gun and some fabric, and they can create a throne. Me? Well, let's just say a staple gun would probably mean a trip to the ER. I was born craft-challenged.

Okay, I was born an impatient perfectionist. I want to do the project professionally the first time around, and I know it takes practice. I'm just not willing to put it in.

I have no interest in the outdoor shows on HGTV. My whole motto for the outside is "Maintenance Free." Or at least as free as it can get. I actively loathe yard work, which is probably a direct result of growing up with gardens big enough to feed a small third world country. Do you know how much time it takes to weed something that large??? Now when I'm outside, I prefer a lounge chair and a book.

HGTV, though, has plenty to keep me interested. I like House Hunters (title is self-explanatory) and Designed to Sell. This last show, they redo the house on a $2000 budget to help sell the house fast and for more money. Oh, and Double Take, where they make over a room in someone's house to look just like a picture of a designer room in a magazine. The only thing that's annoying about this show is they have this design magazine woman and this design guy saying the same basic stuff each episode: they'll never pull it off and if they fail the home owner is going to be so disappointed. Things like this. Otherwise, it's cool to see how they can duplicate the general look for so much less money.

None of these shows, though, have addressed the design problem I'm facing in my new house--the corner behind the kitchen sink.

It's dead space. The kitchen sink is set in on an angle so there's this triangle of space between it and the kitchen windows. Not only is it kind of a useless space, it's amplified by the fact that I can't even reach all the way back there. Here's the corner I'm talking about:



So what do I put in that deep corner? I'm totally open to suggestions.

The revision letter I have for the first 4 chapters of Eternal Nights isn't bad at all. Mostly tightening stuff up or clarification. I was talking with my editor on Friday when she mentioned one of the things she thought I should get rid of. I explained why it was there. She gave her point of view, and it was like a light bulb illuminated.

This is one of the reasons why I love working with an editor. I think writers tend to see things from one perspective and can't see the forest for the trees. A good editor, though, sees this stuff and points it out. After she explained her reasoning to me, I was like, yeah. And it's a little embarrassing that I couldn't see it for myself.

The scene in question serves two purposes. It sets up the ticking clock in the book--this is pivotal--and it lets the hero find the heroine, which is also vital to the story. It just seemed so abrupt to end the scene after both goals were accomplished, and I added another brief topic of discussion.

My editor's point was that conversation is unnecessary to the story, and she was 100% right. I mentioned my not wanting the conversation to end so abruptly and she said, why wouldn't Wyatt end it abruptly? He wants to find his woman. I could have slapped my forehead and said, duh! She was exactly right. Wyatt would be in a rush to find Kendall and since the discussion is with this Chief, the man isn't going to be offended or anything.

What makes it worse is that I couldn't see it even after she mentioned it was unneeded, not until she said the part about Wyatt wanting to find Kendall. Gah! I'm glad, though, that it clicked then. Sometimes it doesn't click for me until much later. That's even more embarrassing. :-/

There won't be any floor pictures coming any time soon. After putting it down, the installer covered pretty much every inch of it with cardboard and fastened it down. I can't complain about this since protecting the floor is key, but I wish I could have gotten a few shots. I'm worrying now that it might be too dark--maybe I should have gone with one of the boring oak colors the builder brought over first. The darn thing is that I won't know until I can look at the whole room, which means after everything is finished and cleaned. And this was one of the decisions I haven't been sweating over. Guess I should have been.

Check out the latest pictures of the house construction over at House Gallery Six. This is the light and plumbing fixtures set. :-)

Today, they're putting in my fake wood flooring, so you know there'll be more pictures to come.

Edited to update links.

I showed like half a gazillion people my cover yesterday. What can I say? I'm still new enough that I get all excited about these things, plus it's a beautiful cover with a hot guy on it. BTW, that was what most of the women I showed it to commented on--Mr. Gorgeous. :-) The longer I look at the picture, the sexier he gets too. Needless to say, work went fairly fast on Friday since I had a show and tell day.

When I got home, I grabbed the camera and went over to the new house. The light fixtures are in now and the plumbing fixtures, although neither work. The light over the dining room table needs to be raised. The guy said he could do six inches or twelve, but no other choices. I'm going with six inches. I think a full foot higher would be too much.

I also found a two cracks in the glass in the computer room ceiling light. One of them is big too so I can't believe the electrician didn't see it. Why would you install a light with a two inch crack? It's the first thing I saw when I tipped my head back to look at the fixture. All he's going to have to do now is take it down and replace it anyway. Why make extra work for himself?

The lights are cool though and I'm very happy with the choices--mostly. I don't know what I think about the one in the master bedroom. It's--big. I'm also missing a light at the landing on my basement stairs. I don't know where it went or what they did with it. It's on the order slip from the lighting store. Thank God my dad is taking care of this stuff for me. I don't have the patience to deal with the thousands of details.

It was also cool to see all the plumbing fixtures in. The tub in the master bathroom is very nice. But the thing that absolutely floored me was the utility tub in the laundry room. All the utility tubs I've ever seen have been that gray plastic. Not too attractive, but they serve their purpose. Mine is bisque and gorgeous. I just kept looking at it going, OMG, I can't believe this is my utility tub. :-)

I have pictures of everything, but haven't had an opportunity to do anything with them yet. When I get them up, I'll post a link here.

When I got back home, I found out my editor had called. It was nearly 5pm in NYC, so it was a bit of a surprise, but she called back and we talked for a little bit. She's read through the first 4 chapters of Eternal Nights and I have some revisions to start on. I've never worked on a book in sections before, so this will be a learning experience for me. So y'all know what I'll be doing this weekend. :-)

Yesterday started out crappy as all heck. I was determined, though, that it wasn't going to be a bad day. I wanted a good day. And I ended up having a pretty darn good one!

First, I found out that Through a Crimson Veil was bought by a French publisher! My friend who used to live in France told me that it's one of the giants and that my book will probably end up in supermarkets all across the country. How cool is this?

Then my editor sent me the cover for Eternal Nights! The model is gorgeous, and he gets sexier the longer I stare at him. The colors and the background images are cool too, it just took me a little while to see them. :-) What do you think about the cover?

I've been spoiled. My ISP has had this fabulous spam filter in place. It almost never made a mistake, so all my legitimate email made it through, and all the spam was trapped. Because of a bad experience with my old ISP trapping good email, I'm pretty diligent about checking the spam folder, but I could trust my new provider, and all was good.

Until about 10 days ago. The spammers must have figured a way around the filter because I've been hit by an explosion of spam--relatively speaking. At first, I was just deleting it off the server without opening it. Then I started reporting it to the ISP with the hope that they'd retrain the filter. Yesterday, I'd had enough and set up one of my accounts--the one receiving the most crap--to only allow people in my address book through. All other mail would be held in a suspect mail folder. This isn't my primary email account so I was getting more spam on it than real email.

Ah, relief. For all of one day. This morning, the evil spammers have picked up the pace on my main email account. I don't like it. And I'm back to reporting each note to my ISP. I'm going to get their damn filter trained yet--I'll just be irritated while doing it.

The writing went well yesterday for the first time since I started this book. Hurrah! I managed to write a couple of pages during lunch, but it really helped that my two exceedingly loud neighbors were gone for most of that time frame. Wow, was the silence ever nice. I didn't have to wear the big, heavy headset that the ramp guys wear. :-) Now I'm hoping that the conference room is open during lunch today.

I made a trip over to the house I'm having built today and took a lot of pictures. If you're interested in seeing what things look like now, visit House Gallery Five.

Now some of the plumbing is in, some of the floors, and the countertops. Also the painting is completed and they're starting to put in lights. Yea!

Edited to update links.

Yesterday the conference room was occupied at lunch time. According to the calendar, it shouldn't have been, but for the second day in a row, the meeting scheduled in there right before must have run over. That meant I had to write at my desk with Loud Vendor Guy to my right, and Mr. Congeniality to my left. The two tag teamed me.

Despite wearing foam ear plugs and the exact same set of ear muffs the ramp guys wear as they guide jet airplanes into the gate, I could hear both men clearly. First one would talk, then he'd finally go quiet, I'd try to write, and then the other would pick up his phone. It was as if they'd choreographed how they were going to disrupt almost my entire lunch hour. Since I'm already struggling to write these characters, these conversations pulled me right out of the story. I seriously need The Cone of Silence like in those old Get Smart reruns. The one point to keep in mind is that BOTH men are loud enough to be heard through ear coverings that muffle jet engines.

Other than the fact that these two left me with a splitting headache, Tuesday was a good day. The house is now progressing with lightning speed. Check out yesterday's blog entry for pictures of my countertops. They also put in the vinyl flooring in the laundry room and the two bathrooms. Some of the rooms are finished being painted too. I admit it, after not being very excited about the house, I am now. Maybe because it's actually starting to look like something. I'm eager for the lights to go in. :-)

Today my dad gets interviewed for a documentary. I'm not quite sure who's making it, but it's about the old Sears building on Lake Street in Minneapolis. My dad used to work there eons ago. He's all excited. Sunday, he went looking for old pictures of himself because they asked for shots of what he looked like back then. He also has some old catalogs he's going to bring along. I think. I'm not quite sure the film crew knows quite what they're going to be facing. My dad loves to talk. They might very well run out of film before he finishes. :-) After all this, hopefully they'll use more than thirty seconds.

I have pictures of the countertops in the new house. My dad took the pictures, so of course, he didn't take enough. Here is the best of what he shot.

First up, the top of the vanity in the master bathroom. I was supposed to have a one piece marble-looking vanity/sink, but because of the angle in the woodwork, they couldn't do it. I had to go with a laminate, but chose a faux marble.

These next four pictures are all of the kitchen countertops. It's very difficult to see the pattern in the shots, and I can't wait to get to the house and check things out for myself. This first shot is where the sink will go.

These next three are of the center island from different angles. Here's a head-on view.

Here's a view on a bit of an angle. The hole in the Formica is where the stove top will go.

And here's a shot from the side so you can see the snack bar. Now all I need is some stools so people can sit there.


They're putting in the flooring in the bathrooms and laundry room, and they're finishing the paint in some of the rooms, so it'll really be a fun trip the next time I go to the house. Lots of new stuff to stare at. :-) I have a feeling there will be another house gallery coming up.

I've been struggling with the WIP, I think I've mentioned that a few times already, but I've been writing anyway, getting it down one agonizing sentence at a time. Yesterday, though, I felt as if I made some progress during lunch. But as I'm booting down the computer, Ryne informs me that she would never act the way I have her behaving. This would be the character that's been noticeably absent and hasn't offered me any help at all. Since I write by "listening" to the hero and heroine, her silence has been a major reason why I'm having trouble. I told Ryne if she had any complaints, maybe she'd like to get her butt over here and help. :-) If she wasn't going to participate, we were doing things my way.

I'm guessing things should go a little bit smoother now because when I was rewriting yesterday evening what I'd done at lunch, she was offering some guidance. The connection still isn't as tight as I'd like, but it's better than what I had before, which was nada.

I finished judging my GH entries. All I have left to do is record the scores (I wrote them on the front page of the entry) and fax it back to RWA. I'm going to try to take care of that this afternoon when I get home from the day job.

Lots of news about the house going on right now. Yesterday, it looked like a party as I drove by. The brick guy came and put up the outside stone--including a really cool engraved address stone that the builder got for me. Cool! The painters were there, and so was the guy who laid the tile in the master bath. And then there were the guys putting down the countertops.

It's a darn good thing my dad was there to keep an eye on these guys. He pointed out the garbage in the center island--if you read Sunday's blog entry, you'll remember there were pop bottles, a can, masking tape, a protective face mask and assorted other things dropped behind the island in a place completely inaccessible from the front.

So my dad asked the guy to take the garbage out. He removed the pop bottles and can only. Left the rest of the junk. When my dad mentioned it, the guy's response was, "That don't hurt nothing." He wasn't going to remove the other stuff. My dad said he went home, got the kitchen tongs, and went back over to dig the stuff out. He was having a heck of a time, but the younger of the countertop guys finally helped him.

I can't even believe they were going to leave garbage back there. Can you imagine if my dad hadn't checked on them? I bet they would have left the pop bottles too--some with a little pop still in it--then later on, I could be wondering what that smell was, or maybe I'd be wondering why I had such a problem with ants in the new house. Shudder.

Anyway, my dad said he'd head over today with my digital camera and take pictures, so hopefully I'll have some to share. I'm really curious how the countertops look since the only two house decisions that have left me second guessing has been the kitchen counters and the bathroom vanity top.

Someone outside the romance community blogged about the Crimson City Residents' blog last night. Either he totally didn't get that it's characters from the fictional world posting or he's playing dumb. It drove a small amount of traffic to the site, though, and maybe someone will be intrigued enough to check out the books, which certainly isn't a bad thing.

I read online that NWA and the IAM (my union) reached a tentative contract agreement over the weekend. They're hammering out final language, and then we'll get to vote on it. I can hardly wait to see how bad it is. Of course, the pilots union is the one that can shut down the airline, and I haven't heard anything about them reaching any kind of deal with the company, so I'll be carting home the things I don't want to lose. I guess that includes the POC laptop. :-/

Last night, for some reason I haven't figured out, I felt compelled to skim through Eternal Nights. It's amazing how much perspective a month away from a story can bring. Mostly, it's okay, although I hope I get revisions early enough so I can go through the entire story and clean up phrasing and stuff like that. I'd like to think that the urge to open up the file for EN means I'll be getting revisions this week, but unfortunately, I doubt it. More likely, it's just my obsessive/compulsive behavior.

I'm making an author appearance this month. I'm kind of wishing now that I hadn't signed up for it, but I did. Guess I should update my website to reflect it, yes? I'm going to be at the Minneapolis Convention Center for the Women's Expo on January 28th at the Midwest Fiction Writers' booth. Every year the published authors sign books in exchange for a donation to a literacy charity. The name of it escapes me at the moment, but it is 4:30 in the morning. ;-)

No doubt this is another one of those things that I'll enjoy after it's over. Because of my shyness, events like this take a lot of psyching up for me. They also leave me tired afterward. When I throw in driving to downtown Minneapolis and parking in one of those huge ramps, it's hard to be too enthusiastic. Maybe someday I'll be more outgoing; I have made strides so that at least I don't feel like a deer in the headlights at the few book signings I do, but it's still not easy for me.

I need to logoff and get going on the first day of another week full of fun and frolic at the day job. Big, huge, enormous sigh.

I went over to the house and took some pictures. I thought they were supposed to paint on Saturday, but apparently they ran out of time or something because nothing appeared to have been done. They did tape up around the woodwork, though, and we all know how time consuming that is. IMO, taping is the worst part of painting. Since the only thing I have to show is the color of the stain, I just took a couple of shots.

Here's shot one of the banister where it attaches to the wall

Here's the second banister shot.

And here's the center island and kitchen cabinets all stained. The color of the cabinets in the background is the same as the island in the foreground. The difference in color is because of the camera and the flash.

As a compare/contrast shot, this is what the kitchen looked like before it was stained.

Some disappointing stuff in the house too. They slammed something into a corner in the hallway enough to do some serious damage to the sheet rock. I took a picture of that just in case.

There's also all kinds of bottles and other trash dropped down inside the center island which better be out before they put the countertop on because there is no access to that area from the front.

I also discovered that I do not have pullouts in the one lower cabinet that I have. I distinctly told the guy at the cabinet place that I wanted pullout shelves everywhere. Why don't men listen to women about stuff like this? I can understand them not putting the pullout shelves in the really high cabinets, although that really sucks too, but the one lower cabinet that doesn't have plumbing or venting below it should have pullouts. This guy also told me I'd be getting a silverware drawer insert thing built in to one of the drawers and that wasn't there either. The cabinets themselves are attractive, I'm especially impressed with the china cabinet, but the little details with these things are making me nuts.

Yeah, I'm a little crabby about this. And I have a horrible headache from all the fumes trapped in the house from the stain and varnish. I took some Ibruprophen, (did I spell that right?) and I'm hoping it goes away shortly.

I made it to my local writing chapter's meeting. Yea! This makes me one for one in 2006. I also volunteered to help with the chapter website. I'm not quite sure why I did this since time is at such a premium for me, but I did it anyway. Eek!

After the business meeting, I had to take off and pick up my parents to head down to the countertop store. I told them I'd be there by noon, and I was, but was anyone ready to go? Of course not. Which wouldn't have been irritating except that my dad was so concerned about my going to the writers meeting. He kept saying, "the store is only open to 2pm." And I kept assuring him, I'd be ready to leave for Burnsville at noon. Then, after all that, he's the one holding things up. Sigh.

I'm sweating the countertop choice I made for the bathroom. Out of all the decisions I've made for the house, the only two things that have had me second-guessing myself were the counters in the kitchen, and now the master bath. I knew I wanted something neutral. I knew I didn't want anything too gray, too brown, too reddish, or too plain. I went through hundreds and hundreds of samples, but the ones I liked were not neutral. There was this really cool purple one, and another that was green. But after only a slight hesitation, I put them away. I narrowed it down to four choices, and ended up going with a faux marble-looking laminate. The saleswoman said that my choice was a bold neutral. She also said that I definitely know what I like and what I don't like. True. :-)

I arrived home to find my area rug and runner sitting on the front stoop. Or should I say drooping off the front stoop. This was unexpected since I thought they'd been sent UPS and they don't deliver on Saturday. Turned out they'd been sent Fed Ex. The packaging around the big area rug was open, the end of the carpet mere inches away from hanging out, and I was concerned there'd been dirt or damage during shipping. Of course, because the rug is so big, there is no way I can open it and take a look until I move it over to the new house. I just have to trust that nothing happened to it that I can't see.

I think they're done staining at the house, and they might be done painting. If I can get myself organized, I think I might take a run over with my camera. I haven't taken pics since Christmas, but then they haven't done much till this last week since Xmas either.

Oh, yeah, and I need to write. :-) I'm thinking of retyping my whole proposal to get my head back into the story and the characters. Several writers have suggested it now.

I had a good laugh yesterday over my engineers. Our secretary left NWA for a higher paying job with a more stable company, and since then, we've been on our own. This resulted in Friday's Quest for Toner.

In December, I saw one of the engineers putting our last toner cartridge into the printer as I went down the hall. I said, "Don't forget to tell the person who's doing our supply ordering that we need another toner." He made appropriate noises that he'd do so, and I continued on my way.

Let me preface the next part of the story by saying that this printer starts flashing messages when the toner begins to run low. At 900, 600, 300, 100 pages remaining, etc. Let me also preface this by saying I rarely use the printer and haven't since December, so I didn't know how dangerously low we were.

Okay, fast forward to Thursday afternoon. I get a phone call from our director's secretary. She'd been asked to order toner, and because I sat on the floor, she was going to have it sent to me. Could I please let her know when it arrived? You bet. But no toner showed up on Thursday.

Friday morning, my maintenance specialist came over. "Do you have the toner?" Um, no, I don't. Which he should be able to see since I don't have anything under my desk except power cords. I promised to bring the toner over the instant it arrived and let him know.

Later that morning, the secretary calls and asks if I have the toner yet.

Still no toner at lunch. Just before 2pm, one of my systems engineers comes over. "Do you have the toner? The secretary said she was having it sent to you." No, no toner. And I told him the same thing I told the maint spec; as soon as I get it, I'll bring it over. The engineer informs me that the director's secretary is tracking the package down.

Not three minutes later, my maint spec shows up again. "Do you have the toner?" The answer is still no. "I better call the secretary and have her find out what happened to it." I told him an engineer already had her tracing it.

Fifteen minutes later, an avionics engineers shows up at my cube. This would be the same engineer who put the last cartridge of toner in the printer and was supposed to let someone know to order a new one. "Do you have the toner?"

By this point, I was ready to make a sign that said, "No, I don't have any toner!" Of course, I would have needed to hand letter it.

Why? Because our printer wasn't working. It was completely out of toner. Eight adults use that printer regularly--EIGHT--and not one of them could order toner. It warned them when the cartridge had less than 900 pages. It warned them when they dropped below 600 pages, and 300 pages and 100 pages, but none of them could pick up the phone or send an email asking the director's secretary to order a new cartridge of toner. Not until the printer was completely out. Then, of course, they all have things they need to print and can't do it.

I found this hysterically funny. Of course, I know all the personalities involved too. :-) I was laughing when I left work yesterday. And as of 2:30 yesterday afternoon, there was still NO TONER.

Last night, I had a cool dream. (I promise to keep this short.) I was in the basement of my new house and there was an opening to crawl through to reach storage space, but it was cover with wood. Someone told me I had to go in there, but I couldn't because the opening to crawl through was small, and made me claustrophobic. Finally, I pulled the wood away, and discovered it wasn't as small as it looked so I crawled through and found a windowless room full of junk. And it wasn't mine. I knew I didn't want to keep other people's crap and that I wanted to get rid of all of it.

Normally, I'm horrible at dream interpretation because it's all so symbolic, but this one made total sense. I'm storing other people's junk inside myself, (labels people have given me, their expectations of what I can and can't accomplish, the limitations they burdened me with. All stuff that I took on and never should have). It was time to throw this crap away. So I did. I cleared out that whole room. It feels damn good!

Today, I want to go to my local writing chapter meeting. Every year I vow to make it to more meetings, and I did do much better in 2005. The only problem is that when I'm pressing on a deadline, or feel like I need to press, I need Saturday to write. Then there are the days when I just want to veg out, or the mornings I dawdle so long, I can't make the meeting.

I won't be able to stay for the program, though. Right after the meeting, I need to head for the countertop store and pick out the laminate for the master bathroom. The place closes at 2pm, but I should be able to pick out something before then. Plus this is the store that had the cool window treatments. I didn't write down the name/style of the ones I liked, so I'll do it this time and then look for the best price on them.

This should totally shoot the day, but I've been struggling with the writing anyway. I'm having a hard time getting my head back in this story and the characters. This isn't unexpected--it happens every time I switch between stories--but it's frustrating anyway.

It's been a while since I posted a quiz, so here's a new one.

The Picto-Personality Test You are a person who is very calm and kind. You go out of your way to help people who need your help. When alone, you appreciate being able to do nothing if you want to, and setting your own pace for things. You are romantic, and when you are with your partner you like to woo them with your imagination. In the future you will be happy and live richly.

Take this Test at QuizGalaxy.com

I can't believe I forgot to mention this when I blogged this morning! This was the coolest part of the day yesterday and it completely slipped my mind. Yikes!

My dad was over at the new house--he's kind of been watching over everything and checking up on what's going on--and he mentioned my writing to the two guys doing the staining. Now it never would have occurred to me to talk about romance novels with the stainers, but apparently my dad talks to everyone about my writing. Here's the cool part. One of the guys says, oh, yeah, my mom reads Patti O'Shea.

How cool is that?

I also forgot that today is Friday the 13th. I always have fantastic days on Friday the 13th, so I expect to have a great day. Some skeptics will point out that it's a self-fulfilling prophecy thing, but whatever. As long as the day is good, I don't care if I'm creating that or not.

Rumors flying at work. Apparently, they have been for a while, but I've been joyfully oblivious to them. I think they are all just rumors at this point, though, and that no one is really going to know what happens until Tuesday when the judge makes a decision on the contracts. I've been pretty relaxed about the whole thing, so I'll trust that things will just work out. Shrug.

I forgot my jump drive yesterday, so I didn't get to write during lunch. I've never, ever forgotten that before and this really messed up my plans. I'm still trying to reacquaint myself with the characters, and progress is still agonizingly slow, but it'll come.

Then I had a call from the woman at the place where I picked out my countertops and carpeting. Because my vanity in the master bathroom angles, they can't go with the marble-looking thing I chose; it needs to be a laminate. Which means I get to drive back to the store and look through a gazillion samples again. This decision won't be quick or easy, at least I don't think it will be. The plan for Saturday is to go to my local writer's chapter meeting in the morning and then go to pick out another countertop. Just when I thought all my work was done.

Despite these things, yesterday was a fairly nice day. My noise canceling headphones arrived. I did a short little test and I think they're going to help. Of course, the true test will happen at work.

I've been taking a look at the blogs I like to read, and probably 90% of them are writers blogs. I think part of this interest is that they're generally well written. I did a surf around the blogosphere shortly after I started this one up and found so many horrendous ones, that it kept me from doing that again. Misspelled words, abbreviated words until I thought I was reading an incredibly long Prince song title, and entries full of profanity that were of little interest to me. Don't get me wrong. I'm not averse to swearing or hard language. You should have heard me yesterday on the commute home--especially when I had to brake after I'd been cut off for the third time on the freeway. It's just that these blogs had no substance behind the words. It seemed to be done merely for shock value and nothing else.

Writers blogs are also interesting to me because I like to see how other writers work. This sometimes leaves me thinking, OMG, I must be doing something wrong, but then I remind myself that every author works differently. That's one of the reasons why I don't talk much about how I write. I don't want anyone else thinking OMG, I must be doing it wrong.

Back when I was in junior high, and first decided I wanted to be a writer, I went to the library and checked out half a gazillion books on it. I don't know if it was just my lucky day or what, but every book was written by some plotter-type writer. They were talking about 3x5 index cards and bulletin boards and moving the cards around until the story fit, and a host of other (IMO) anal things that must be done before writing. I tried. I still have the pack of damn index cards that I bought. And it took all the joy out of writing away from me. I actually hated something I once loved, but these books all said (or at least implied) that the only way to be a successful writer was to follow their method.

Fortunately, I had an epiphany. I realized that I would never write again if I was required to do all this plotting crap. So I threw the index cards in a drawer and decided (probably at the ripe age of fifteen) that I was going to do it my way and have fun. That if I had to do the plotting stuff to get published and this meant it would never happen, well, so be it.

So after my horrendous experience that nearly stopped me from writing, I tend not to talk about how I work because I never want to drive another writer to the point I was at. Besides, since I'm largely a seat of the pants writer with a little framework around me, my process tends to be summed up with: "I just sit down and write." :-)

I do know that I'm very character driven. One of my writing buddies and I were talking about how stories come to us. She gets a plot idea first and then finds characters that would be the most impacted by that story. Me? Characters come in and start talking to me. I have no clue who they are or what their general story is until they start talking to me. Sometimes I don't know anything that's going to happen in the book at all beyond the setup scene.

Like when Ryne (heroine in the WIP) came in. She talked and talked about her people. (She's from a society of magic users.) I didn't know anything about her, not even her name, that came later. I didn't know her story either--not at first. My fun comes not so much from the actual writing, but from unfolding the story and the characters, watching them change and grow, and then make it to their HEA.

There are probably writers everywhere shuddering over my method. Fair enough. Just remember to do whatever works and ignore anyone who says their way is the "right" way.

Well, "know" is kind of a strong word. How about just when you think you have a fair idea of the character instead?

The first three chapters of the WIP are all in the heroine's POV, so I feel comfortable that I have a handle on Ryne. She's edgy, tough, determined, and intense among other things. But I thought I had a fair idea of the hero too even though I'd only done a couple of paragraphs in his POV. (I wrote about half a page in chapter 4 while I was writing the proposal because I saw the scene and didn't want to come back to the story cold later. Turned out to be one of the best decisions I ever made. Let's hope I remember this and learn from it.)

Now, granted, a few paragraphs aren't enough to really know a character, but they talk to me. Seriously. I get stuff from them that happened before the book opens. After I finish a book, they show me things that happen much later, long after the close of the story. So I really did think I had a fair idea of what Deke was like. He's a smart ass--easygoing on the surface, intense below.

But I didn't have a good idea of just how terrible he really is until I began working with him. OMG, Ryne is going to kill him! He's pushing her buttons like crazy and loving the hell out of it. Actually, I was loving the hell out of it too. Writing this has been fun!

Every book is different because the heroes and heroines are different. Different personalities, different responses. And while I love each and every one of my characters, some books end up being more fun to work on than others. Through a Crimson Veil was an enormous amount of fun to write because Mika was so entertaining and I honestly had no idea what she was going to say next until about the time I was typing it. Right now, it's looking as if the WIP is going to be at least that much fun--maybe more. Deke is as outrageous as Mika was, but in a different way. Mika was more of a tease. Deke is, like a said, a smart ass.

The stainers were working on the wood in the new house yesterday. They had a crew of 3 or 4 guys at it. It's the first activity I've seen over there since before Christmas, although I know someone showed up since then and put another closet door up. :-)

And the website went down yesterday evening for a while. I was right in the middle of doing an update when it happened. I wasn't able to load the pages until this morning. I don't know how long it was down--I went to bed--but I checked out a few other sites I knew were hosted by the same company and about half were down, so I figured they knew about the problem so there was no need for me to report it. :-) Just when someone had asked about hosting and I was going to post that my place was great and had only had one outage in nearly 4 years (that I knew about). Timing, as they say, is everything.

Oh, I almost forgot! A friend of mine has a great quote in her signature line! It's too good not to share.

"The problem with writing is that there's not much money in it." ~Cheryl Tiegs upon being paid a $75,000 advance for a book.

I did a search to check on this quote, and it's cited in a number of places. It just amazes me how out of touch some people get from the real world. I long for the day that I can say something like that without bursting into laughter.

I've been a little spoiled by the weather so far this winter. We've been far warmer than usual, but not this morning. Brrr. It's 8 degrees with the wind chill. BTW, blog entry title is courtesy of a Dean Martin song I listened to many times around Christmas.

Dean Martin was my first celebrity crush. I was nine, my leg in a cast because I'd broken my ankle, and late one night, "Artists and Models" came on. I think Jerry Lewis might have been in it too, but my eyes were glued to Dino. It wasn't until much, much later that I found out how old that movie was, and how much older he was than me. It didn't stop me, though, from having a soft spot for him the rest of my life. I still regret that I never was able to see him perform live.

Lately, I've been thinking that the old days were far more glamorous, at least as far as Hollywood and celebrities go, than they are now. I'm not someone who lives in the past, I don't even care for historical romance with very few exceptions, but somehow, the era of the Rat Pack just seems so much cooler than what we have now. Back then they had Movie Stars--capital M, capital S. Now we just have movie stars.

What makes my wondering this even weirder is that I'm not much into the celebrity stuff. Occasionally, I'll flip to Entertainment Tonight, and no one can live in this society without seeing stuff on the regular news about celebrities, but there just doesn't seem to be the cache to these people that say Dean Martin or Cary Grant had. Part of it is no doubt the way the press covers things today as opposed to years ago, but still...

I'm not quite sure why I went off on this tangent, or even why I've been thinking about this off and on for the past few weeks. Sometimes the mind can be a scary place. :-)

I love airplanes. I think they're one of the coolest things, and being able to work around them is kind of cool too. (It was cooler before NWA filed bankruptcy, but that's another story.) Anyway, Boeing has a website up for the 747-800. It's not up on their corporate site so that the public can see it.

It's worth a click. The wings curve in a way that's unusual and I'll be interested to see it in person once it's actually built. 747-800.