Overslept this morning. Argh!

Yesterday had kind of a weird thing happen. When I was leaving work and on the on ramp to the freeway, someone starts honking and honking at me. I didn't stop because you never know who's in the other car, but it freaked me out. I kept thinking something was wrong with my SUV, but nothing felt wrong, and I thought for someone to notice it from their vehicle, it to be a visible thing, like a flat or something.

So when I got home, the first thing I did was go around to the back end of the truck to take a look. You'll never guess what I saw.

A cell phone.

I have a little ledge on my bumper and sitting there undisturbed was my dad's cell phone in its case. I drove to work with it on there. I drove home from work with it still there and I drive fast!

My dad must have put it down on my bumper when we were over at my new house and forgotten about it. He is so lucky that he put it down somewhere that the phone was protected from wind friction. And since I drive around 75mph, there would have been plenty of that.

I nearly opened my back hatch when I left work yesterday too! I took 3 boxes home from work and was going to toss them in the way back, but decided to just stick them in the back seat instead.

I'd bought my dad and mom a new cell phone for Christmas (10 days ago (blush)), but I hadn't set it up for him yet. I did that yesterday afternoon. Let's hope he can keep better track of his new phone than he did of his old one.

In house news, I got a 4th roll of window film to complete my pattern and finished my bathroom window last night. It doesn't look as pretty as it would if someone with more practice had done it, but it looked okay. If I can remember to bring a camera with me, I'll take a picture to post here. From a distance, it looks good. :-/

Not much else going on, although Ryne is talking to me again (the heroine from the WIP) and I'm glad to have her. It should be easier to pull my head out of Eternal Nights now that I'm hearing the characters from the new book more clearly.

I always get stuff after the close of the book. Sometimes a lot, sometimes just a little, but there's always something. I like having these little scenes pop into my head. My favorite part about writing is the characters and it's always nice to see what's going on with them in the future. This is a very limited feature given that I only have three books published with a fourth coming in August.

WARNING: There might be spoilers. I'll try to avoid them, but I can't promise, so if you're someone who doesn't like to know anything ahead of time, stop reading here. (Not just spoilers for Ravyn's Flight, but possible spoilers for Eternal Nights as well.)

Ravyn's Flight was my first published novel and far different for me than any book I've written before or since because of how it dominated me. For more than 18 months, I rarely had a thought that didn't involve this book. I fell asleep thinking of scenes in their story, and woke up thinking about scenes. I was consumed by it, which is why I refer to RF as the book of my heart.

In a way, I miss being so tied up by a book that nothing else occupies my thoughts. On the other hand, that kind of obsession can't be normal and when Ravyn and Damon left, it was like my best friends had moved across the country. I could still keep in touch with them, but it would never be the same as being roommates. :-) It works, I guess, because I have so many new characters who come in and take center stage. It would drive me insane if the old characters didn't bow out when their time was finished. I miss them like crazy for a while, but with the new couple to focus on, I get over it.

So what happened to Ravyn and Damon after the close of RF?

TBH, I've forgotten a lot of the details now. It was 2002 when they left me, and while they showed up for the spin off, Eternal Nights, they weren't talking to me the way they did when I wrote their book.

I can tell you that Ravyn and Damon have three boys. Ravyn is very comfortable around males, especially the intense variety like her husband, brother and her oldest son, so being the only female in her household never fazed her. She actually feels rather lost when she babysits her niece because she totally doesn't get all the girly stuff. Ravyn was a tomboy growing up.

Damon does get out of the army--eventually. He still hasn't been allowed to resign his commission at the time EN takes place. They settle on Earth and he does get his foundation for wounded veterans up and running. He never does become all that close to his family because they just are too different, but he does maintain a relationship with them.

That's about all I remember.

Michele Hauf is doing an expose on writer's offices over on her blog. She's shown her own office and Connie Brockway's office. I've sent her a couple of pictures, and I'll link to them when they're up, but I took four shots.

While I wish I could claim my office only looks like this because a) I'm in the process of moving and b) I just finished revisions to Eternal Nights, it wouldn't be exactly true. While I am moving and I did just finish revisions, my office usually looks like this.

Now, here are the pictures of my office that I did not send to Michele.


These are bookcases to the right of my desk. Mostly reference books, but there is shelf of fiction there.


These are the books behind my desk and yes, the calendar is out of date. The boxes piled on top of my books are copies of the galley for Through a Crimson Veil. There's also stuff I need to scrapbook there.

Pretty scary, huh? If you want to see the actual desk where I don't work often, you'll have to wait. If Michele posts them, I'll link. If she doesn't use them, then I'll put them up here.

Saturday was a day devoted to the new house. And despite the early start and all the hours, it still seems as if hardly anything was accomplished.

I was at Menards before 9:30. I managed to find a mail box. Of course, this is Minnesota and it's February, so the box is in the garage of my house waiting until the ground thaws out enough to sink a post into the ground. I also picked up some rug gripper (which turned out to be a PITA, but that's a later story), and some Swifter duster and rug things.

As I was leaving, I spotted a Hirshfields in the same strip mall. I'd forgotten it was there, so I headed over there to look at blinds. The amount of choices was totally overwhelming. I did find out that the Hunter Douglas Luminettes that I love so much are extremely expensive. Just covering the patio doors would take half of what I was hoping to spend. I'm probably going to have to forget about them. :-(

I did see some other stuff that I liked, but there really was a lot of choices, and when you add on fabrics and colors, my head started spinning. Hirshfields, however, has an At Home service, so I'm going to do that. A designer will come out to the house with their sample books and we'll go window by window and decide on what I'm doing. Right now, they have free installation, so this will probably work out well, and then I'll be done.

Next came Home Depot. I picked up another roll of window film for the bathroom because with the bamboo pattern, two wasn't going to work. (I found out three didn't work either, but that's a later story). I also found some EZ Move things for furniture. Since I'm not 100% sure what I want where, this should make it easier to switch around. There were other things I picked up too, but the only thing I remember is the bar lock for the patio door.

My mom and I went over to the house to put up the window film. What seemed to be an easy job, wasn't. Getting the first piece of window film on wasn't horrible. Not easy, but doable. Then came the second piece. This one had to be cut to fit the window. Of course, nothing I had handy did a great job cutting through the stuff. Finally, manage to get it trimmed, then hanging it became a chore.

I had to line up the pattern of the two pieces and the bottom part was off, as if one piece was a quarter of an inch longer than the other. I ended up having to rewet the first piece and stretching it longer, but I finally got it to match. But as I tried to work out the bubbles with a squeegee, it kept pulling away from the first piece.

After I thought I had it set, my mom and I decided to take a break from the window and put the rug gripper on the underside of my runner. This turned out to be worse than the window. The gripper didn't want to adhere to the rug. Pulling off the tape from the stuff was even worse because it pulled it right off the rug. Once we had it laid down in the hall, the rug gripper stuck to the floor, but came right off the runner. We left it as is, but I'm returning the rolls I bought for the big rug. This stuff turned out to be pretty useless.

I did some clean up with my new Swifter things since dust had begun to settle, then we decided to finish the window. This was when the real nightmare began. The piece cut easily enough, but it would not line up. If I had it matching on the left, it would not match on the right. It was as if this piece were somehow wider than the first. After at least half an hour of trying my best, I decided there was nothing else I could do.

But there was still one section of window uncovered--5 1/2 inches by 17 1/4 inches. And despite the fact that I have a huge piece of window film left over from the other 5 1/2 inch bottom section, I can't use it because the pattern does not repeat within a sheet and there is NO WAY to match a different section with the piece above it and to the side. The only thing I can think to do is to spend another $20 and only use a tiny piece. As of last night, it remained uncovered. My easy solution to covering my bathroom window ended up being neither easy nor inexpensive and the situation remains unresolved. Sigh.

Anyway, by then I was tired and crabby. We called it a day. I need to go back over today and tackle a few things, but I just feel like dawdling. I have laundry to do and some other things, but I want to veg out and do nothing.

I did get my hair cut yesterday and I feel much better on that score.

I heard from my editor yesterday. Eternal Nights is finished! Yea! That means I don't have to hold the characters in my head any longer and can fully embrace Deke and Ryne from the WIP. It'll make things much easier for me.

Speaking of characters, I've been wondering if anyone is interested in an "after the book" kind of thing? I get snippets on the characters after the happily ever after. The only people who ever get to hear about it is my writing buddies, but I started thinking maybe readers would be interested as well. Or maybe not. Then there's the timing issue. When is something information versus a spoiler? Anyway, I've been mulling this over since I had a nice mini-scene of Wyatt and Kendall in the future.

My dad finished putting together the first bookcase while I was at work yesterday and we worked on the second one last night. It's finished too. The only thing left to do is anchor both cases to the wall so they're stable. The kit actually includes a strap to do this, so it's necessary. Plus, I'll feel more comfortable if I know a bookcase isn't going to fall on me or my computer. :-)

I have some window film for my master bathroom window, a really cute bamboo pattern, but I need another roll. I thought two would be enough, but because of the pattern it won't be. After I get my haircut, I'm going to swing by Home Depot and pick up another roll and some other stuff I need.

My dad and I started putting together one of the bookcases I bought at Ikea. It's definitely a two-person job because of the length of some of the pieces and the fact that someone needs to hold them into position while the top and bottom are screwed in. The thing that was kind of funny was the unit came in two boxes and I wasn't sure we were going to have enough space to work in the computer room--it took up that much floor space.

Actually, my dad and I didn't do badly at all, which was a huge surprise. I was expecting to have a couple of Laurel and Hardy build bookcases moments to share here. Didn't happen. The biggest miscue was that we forgot to put the dowels on the bottom of the bookcase. My dad just unscrewed the piece, we put them on and then rescrewed the base to the sides.

In our defense, the directions were all pictures--no words--and some of these little pieces were hard to spot when there are so many things to notice. The other problem we ran into is that each of the little shelf holder things appears to need a screw to hold the shelf. But there were 40 little shelf holder things and only 24 screws. According to the instructions, all we needed was 24, but none of the pictures made it clear which of the shelves received screws and which didn't. It also didn't explain why you wouldn't want a screw in each of the 40 things. Frustrating.

My dad had already put in 20 of the 24 screws before we realized we weren't going to have enough. After a little discussion, we called it quits and decided to bring more screws and put one in each of the plastic shelf holder things. Since the carpenters building my house dropped like 4 million of them and since my dad picked them up, the hardware won't be an issue.

The first couple of steps went quickly and easily, but attaching the plastic shelf things, while not difficult, did end up being time consuming because there were so many of them. The shelving unit is cute and should be able to hold a fair amount of weight per shelf, but I didn't realize what a pain this part of assembly would be. I think--once we have the extra screws--that we should be able to get both units put together this weekend. That should really help with the move since it'll empty out a lot of stuff from my current computer room.

The other project I was hoping to accomplish last night was getting some window film up on the bathroom window. I found a really cool bamboo pattern that I wanted to use there and my dad had picked it up for me. But when we opened the package and started reading the instructions, we realized we needed to bring over more equipment to do this. Like a squeegee, etc. Looks like another weekend project.

Stayed up to watch ice skating at the Olympics last night. I'm dead tired since I ended up with less than 4 hours of sleep, but as I told one of my friends, how can I miss it? When I was 5 or 6 I dreamed of being an Olympic figure skater. After breaking my leg once at 6 and a second time at 9 while I was pursuing this dream, I was forced to admit it wasn't going to happen. But once every 4 years when the Olympics are on, I can be a 5-year-old again and imagine/dream about what if. :-)

I'm a big believer in pursuing dreams. I did it with ice skating and wound up with two casts. I did it with writing and succeeded. Life is short and who wants regrets? If you've got a dream, you have to go for it!

I woke up this morning to find out I was nominated for two Hughie Awards! Yea!!! This is really exciting because these are nominated by dedicated romance readers over at RBL Romance. I love this board! It's positive and upbeat and everyone there is supportive of each other. It's kind of an oasis in the online landscape.

Anyway, Through a Crimson Veil was nominated as Best Futuristic/Other World Paranormal and I was nominated as Best New-To-You Author. How cool is this???

Speaking of cool stuff, Crimson Veil was one of the featured books in a local area newspaper. It was the February 5th edition, but I didn't find out until a woman at work rushed over with a copy of the newspaper. The headline involved a meth bust, and I was like, huh? But on the bottom half of the front page, the article about hot books by MN authors began and that's why she'd brought it over.

I guess she thought I'd see the masthead of the newspaper and know immediately why she'd come over with it, except that I'd done the interview last fall about the same time that Crimson Veil was first hitting stores and I wasn't sure when the story was going to appear.

The thing that makes this story extra interesting to me is that this woman said she almost never reads the community newspaper, and that she'd had several issues lying around that she decided to go through before recycling them. If she hadn't, I never would have seen the article because I don't live in that section of town and the paper doesn't have a website. I looked. I wanted to link to the article here for y'all, but no luck.

I found out that we do get Geraldo At Large here, however, it's on like at 10pm. If I'm up that late, it will only be because I got sucked into women's figure skating at the Olympics. And I'm really hoping that doesn't happen. I'm tired and really want to sleep. Last night, I got hooked watching speed skating, and instead of going to bed early as I'd planned, it was after 9:30 when I turned out the light.

Rumor has it that Liz Maverick, head Crimson City chick, will be on Geraldo tomorrow to discuss erotic romance. Check your listings and report in. I'm not sure if we get Geraldo in Minneapolis.

I heard about a new website today that sounds like a really interesting idea. It's called Romance Wiki. The idea is to create a resource for the genre. I'll paste in the purpose from the main page of the website since they explain it so well.

RomanceWiki is creating an ongoing history of the market-leading romance genre. Never before has there been a single resource to combine the various elements of the genre: authors, books, publishers, awards, reviews, influences, and connections. In addition to building the history of romance novels, RomanceWiki provides resources for journalists, authors, and readers.

The RomanceWiki will be a collaborative effort. Every member of the romance community has something to offer, and we encourage you to add your stories and insights to RomanceWiki.

I haven't done Wiki before, but this could end up being a great resource since there are so many readers out there that know so much about books.

My dining room table still hasn't been delivered. A call gave a new delivery date of around March 12th--a full month after it was promised. This creeping delay is exactly what I was afraid would happen. The thing is I haven't seen another table that I like even a fraction as much and I've still been kind of looking.

I finally made an appointment for a haircut. My stylist is squeezing me in at 8:15 Saturday morning. Gulp. Well, so much for sleeping in, but this will probably work out. I'll be up and moving early and still have plenty of day left to pack things up and cart them to the house. I'm such a horrible dawdler in the morning.

And I heard from my editor yesterday. She has my revisions and is trying to insert them all. It's a daunting task, no doubt about that. At first, she couldn't see the markups in the compare/review document I sent. Which had me scrambling over lunch to look for the smaller changes. Some were only a word or even a letter in the case of a typo. I had a note from her in the afternoon, though, that when she reopened the document, the redline markups appeared.

Believe it or not, yesterday I had a list of interesting things that I thought I'd mention here this morning. The only one I remembered was the table--which proves that interesting is relative. ;-)

I did open the file on the WIP and did a little editing as I read through it. I'm hesitating about leaping into this mentally in case I have more revisions for Eternal Nights to work on. This limbo land is hard for me because I've always had difficulty switching my head between stories. No one, BTW, had any good tips on how to do this other than rereading the story, or listening to music that evokes the mood. Maybe today I'll work on the promo piece I was asked to write about EN.

I brought more boxes over to the house yesterday. This move is daunting. I need a how-to manual or something on the process. How To Move 5000+ Books and Everything Else for Dummies. The problem--as I'm seeing it--is this. Before I can move my bookcases and furniture, I have to empty said items. Now where the hell do I put all these boxes in the meantime? The garage is going to fill up fast at the rate I'm going with the books and I'm not thrilled about leaving anything out there to begin with, you know?

Once upon a time, I used to be anally organized. (And some people will argue that I still am--at least on some things.) But I feel woefully at sea on the best way to make the move.

To add to the issue, I still don't have the windows covered except for temporary, don't-fit-the-windows-real-well curtains. This limits how much stuff I want to bring over to the house. And while all this is going on, I work full time, have a deadline a little over four months away (and we all know how long I write), and have other things that need to be done. Like watch the Olympics and attend chats. :-) (Carolyn, I'm now stuck on level 25 of Gridlock.)

Enough whining, I guess. Maybe.

There isn't much else to report. I was right about my editor having Presidents' Day off, so I didn't hear anything about my revisions--not that I really expected to this quickly anyway. I didn't accomplish anything writing related on the new book because my head is still firmly entrenched in the old one.

Oh, the chat I went to last night was with a book buyer for one of the chains. It was interesting, but kind of depressing in a way because the things that make a difference on sales all seem to be tied to stuff that most writers have no control over like the cover of their book. She said sexy covers are selling books. I didn't think of it last night, but I woke up this morning wondering how is "sexy cover" defined? Is it a clinch? A hot guy? Bare skin? Wish I'd thought of this last night so I could have asked.

Pitchers and catchers report to spring training!!!

Whoo hoo!!!! This is the first sign of spring! The first preseason game is less than 2 weeks away. Happy dog dancing in MN.

Tired. I emailed my revisions in shortly before 10pm last night, and before I could logoff and go to bed, ice dancing started at the Olympics. I had to watch ice dancing, right?

Let me grump about NBC's coverage of the Olympics. This happens once every four years, so what did they show Sunday afternoon? Some car race. I know I'm in the minority, but I've always found car racing to be pointless. They're driving in a circle. Geez, I might as well watch paint dry. But CNBC and MSNBC were supposed to have coverage. Yeah, hockey, which I had no real interest in watching and curling. Is curling really a sport? That's even more boring than car racing. Ugh!

My other beef is they have a time difference in Italy. Why couldn't they show the final group of ice dancers before 10pm last night? Anyway, it just seems like Olympic coverage gets worse and worse every time they air it.

On to writing. My friend had some changes she thought I should make to the chapters she read. Most were very minor, a few a bit more work than that, but nothing hideous. So with everything ready to go, I started trying to get everything ready to email. It ended up being a lesson in logistics that left me scratching my head. In some chapters, particularly the early ones, I did so much cutting, that the page numbers changed a lot. Trying to figure out which pages I needed to send left me scratching my head. I blame it on revisions wearing out my brain. ;-) I hope I sent the pages I needed to, but I guess I'll find out.

I also hauled some boxes over to the house on Sunday. Four boxes for the bathroom and 10 boxes of books. I have to confess that it sure seemed like I brought over A LOT of books, but when they were piled in the garage, it looked pathetic. This book moving is going to be worse than I imagined.

The stuff for the bathroom is put away, although some of it needs reorganization. I didn't even come close to filling my cabinet which is way cool! I'm actually going to have a bathroom where I can put everything away and out of sight. WOW! Before this, all my shelves were open, so things were in plain view, and I didn't have enough room, so some of it was piled on the top of a bookcase.

Very tired this morning. I think I had less than 4 hours of sleep. First, ice dancing, then I my head and jaw were tight from when I worked on revisions and even with advil, it took a while to relax, then I had dreams that kept waking me up. Since I don't have to haul a hard copy of my monster manuscript to work today, I can bring my MP3 player again. I plan to put on my noise canceling headphones and ignore Mr. Congeniality who'll probably ask something about my moving again. Let me know if you can hear my shriek where you're at. ;-)

I'm having a lazy morning so far, although I do need to get moving soon. I pretty much am finished with the revising part of my revisions, now I just have to work on preparing it so that it can be emailed back to my editor. This will be very time consuming and extra icky because my ed wants a sum up of what changed. I haven't kept track of anything, but I'll just do a document comparison and it'll show everything.

Yesterday's trip to Target got long. I don't do crowds well and it was very crowded by 10:30 when I left. However, to my stash of stuff I added a gorgeous bright pink vase. It's very tall and I bought it to go on the floor in the great room. I brought it over there already and it looks fab! Now all I need is some kind of tall, bright and colorful flower to pop in there. Maybe I'll surf over to Michael's and see what they have.

Other finds include a shredder, some 3M hooks for the walls, a welcome mat, a shower caddy, and I finally bought my parents a Christmas present. I know, I know. I was so bad this year--oops, I guess that would be last year. I bought them a new Trac Phone. That's one of those prepaid deals. They already have one, but it doesn't work and this phone is an upgrade. It's small, cute and it has a color screen. Now I just need to set it up for them and they'll be good to go. My dad couldn't call my mom from a few miles away with the old phone so this will be a big improvement.

Once I email these changes to my editor, I get to focus on moving. The logistics are scary. Just my books alone are going to require a substantial investment of time and energy. Makes me wish I'd bought a few less. Or at least picked up fewer free books at conferences. The rest of it? Well, I don't want to think about it.

Revisions have been going darn well. :-) I'm almost done, although I do have to go back and do a little adding. I have a lot of notes that start with the phrase: Go Back. So I'll finish one this run through the chapters and then do another quick fly through to address the things I missed. Barring unforeseen complications, I should finish today as I'd planned and have all day tomorrow to do the organization stuff that it'll take to email the pages I changed back to my editor.

My plan for the day starts off with a quick trip to Target. I have a list of things I need for the house, although I don't know if I'll get them all today or not. Then I'll come home, check email, and head over to the new house to finish revisions. This time I'm bringing a CD player and some music over too so that it's not so blasted quiet in there. I'm thinking soundtracks without words, like Braveheart. :-)

My glasses did arrive yesterday. It's nice to be have my current prescription because I was able to work for hours without getting a headache from my old out-of-date glasses, or dry eyes from my contacts. These glasses are even smaller than my previous (broken) pair, which after a week using the Harry Carey glasses, I'm thrilled about.

I'm already starting to plan out everything I need to do after I email my revisions. With another book due June 30th, I'm going to have to move into the new house (and set things up) fast. I also am in desperate need of a haircut. People are starting to ask me if I'm growing it out. I have to keep saying that I've just been too busy to get it cut. I also want to hit the thrift stores looking for a few things. I need a coffee table for the great room, but I haven't seen anything I love yet.

Weather is still icky. It's -12 degrees here, but fortunately, the winds have died down so it's only -26 with the wind chill.

It's -11 here with a wind chill of -37. Talk about brutal. The only good thing is that I don't live farther north--they're in the -60s for wind chill. Why do I live here?

I have this space above my kitchen cabinets and something should go there, right? I don't want to put plants up there--silk or live--because it would be too big a pain to water them or to get the dust off the fake ones. I have some silk flowers, and even with that spray stuff to de-dust them, it's a huge pain to keep them clean. I thought about putting some glass vases up there or different shaped glass bottles or pieces or something, but I realized I run into the same dust issue.

Of course, everything is going to run into the dust issue.

My inclination is to put nothing up there so I can dust quickly and easily with one of those extension handle dust things. (That must be the technical term for them. ;-) My mom is pretty insistent that I put something up there, and I guess she's right since I should take advantage of the vaulted ceilings.

Here's my question. What is the easiest thing to put up there that would require the least amount of work on my part to keep clean?

BLOGGER

Blogger was down this morning when I tried to post originally. It's been down a lot lately. I suppose I can't complain since it's free and there are a lot of bloggers out there to weigh down the system, but I get frustrated with the frequent outages. I've considered moving the blog to my website, but I really don't want to. It's just easier over here.

WRITING/REVISIONS

Revisions went along fairly well yesterday, although I did run into something that stopped me cold for a while. I finally discussed it with one of my writing buddies and came to a conclusion of sorts, so I expect to tool along today. I also plan to lock myself in the new house again on Saturday, only this time, I think I'm bringing along a CD player and some instrumental music. It was so empty and quiet in the house that I think that made it hard to work. Hopefully, music will alleviate that. Goal is to finish revisions on Saturday and spend Sunday organizing everything to return it to my editor.

MISC. STUFF

I'm supposed to call today and see if my new glasses have arrived yet. Keep your fingers crossed, y'all. I can't wear my contacts all the time and the Harry Carey glasses are driving me nuts! I might have to get a backup pair of glasses later on so that I never have to go through this again.

Our snow storm totally fizzled. Hurrah! We maybe got a dusting in the metro area, but it's frigid right now. This morning, it was 2 degrees with a wind chill in the minus 20 range. You knew I couldn't skip reporting the weather when it's this brutal.

The friend I'm rooming with at RWA National in Atlanta booked our hotel room last night, so now I need to get moving and actually register for the conference. It's hard to get motivated when that's not till July. I'm still not registered for the RT Booklovers' conference in May down in Daytona Beach! I'll get around to it.

Yesterday the new manager for my department was announced. He's someone I don't know, but reports are that he's nice. He'll be transitioning over the next 2-3 weeks, so I guess I'll be finding out firsthand shortly.

Your Career Type: Artistic

You are expressive, original, and independent. Your talents lie in your artistic abilities: creative writing, drama, crafts, music, or art. You would make an excellent: Actor - Art Teacher - Book Editor Clothes Designer - Comedian - Composer Dancer - DJ - Graphic Designer Illustrator - Musician - Sculptor The worst career options for your are conventional careers, like bank teller or secretary.

What's Your Ideal Career?

After two days of working on it, I believe I have the stuff about the selenite crystal edited so that it works. This involved something like 5 chapters, or maybe it was 4 (I can't remember right now), and seemed to take forever. I really didn't think it would take up this much time to get this in there and smoothed out.

I'm about half way now. I've been carting the entire 460 pages plus notes back and forth to work with me, but last night I decided there was no point to it when I really only have time to work on one chapter during my lunch. It's amazing how heavy my tote bag gets with the mss in it, and since I'm carting boxes home from work so I can pack things for my move, it will be really nice to have the lighter weight. Editors must be stronger than they look. ;-)

My laser printer arrived yesterday! It's my very first laser and I'm all excited about hooking it up, which I figure I won't do until I move. It really doesn't make sense to unpack it, hook it up, then unhook it, repack it and move it, but I want to play with my new toy. This will be so nice! I spent the extra money for the 500 sheet paper tray, which I know I'm going to love when I have to print out a 460 page manuscript. :-) No more having to constantly reload paper. I can just hit print and walk away. Oooh, I can't wait till I finish my next book so I can do this!

From heavy revision to heavy manuscripts to heavy computer equipment (okay, so I don't know if it's heavy or not. The boxes are bulky, though) to close with heavy weather. Snow today. Not much for the Twin Cities from what the weather folks say (thank you!), but to our south, they're supposed to get about a foot. They were saying on the news last night that we have not had one storm since 2000 that deposited a foot or more of snow in the Twin Cities which almost had me happy dog dancing. :-)

One of my writing buddies sent back some tweaks to one of the 3 chapters I sent her last night, and I'm going to fiddle a little bit before I have to logoff.

After months of waiting, the next installment from the Crimson City Series is nearly in the stores! Barnes & Noble.com shows Seduced By Crimson as shipping in 2-3 days. This story adds Druids to the mix of demons, vampires, werewolves and humans. You can check out some excerpts from Patrick Lewis's Journal (he's the hero) over at the Crimson City Blog.

I posted yesterday that I ran into a problem with my revisions and I had to mull over how to handle what I needed to add. I figured it out and worked on it yesterday. I need a little smoothing. I'm adding some stuff about gems/crystals and I needed one associated with water. Only my book's index didn't have water as an option. I had to do a lot of digging, but I found gypsum which is formed from highly salinated water. Sounds good, right? Except one of my writing buddies pointed out that salt water isn't drinkable. I knew that, but I was hoping the loose association with water would be enough. Now I need to mull some more.

I also can't seem to get enough sleep right now. So, okay, maybe 6 hours of sleep isn't a huge amount, but usually I'm doing much worse than this. But I can't wake up in the mornings and laying there, hitting the snooze is putting time pressure on me for getting to work. I seriously need to start playing the lottery--that's the only way to win, right?

There's been a discussion on one of my loops recently about the kind of remarks published authors receive. People who think they could write a book themselves if they just had a few free hours, and they'll tell writers that. There was some other assorted, but similarly ignorant, comments made by people who were supposed to be friends. And as I was reading these notes, I'm thinking, wow, I'm glad I've never had that happen to me.

And then it did. Who says the universe doesn't have a sense of the ironic?

Mr. Congeniality (who's irritating anyway because of his constant noise) comes over and says, "so did you get all moved in this weekend?"

I looked at him like huh? I told him at least three times last week that I wasn't moving until I had my revisions finished and curtains over all the windows. So I said something along the lines of, "no, I've been a little busy with my revisions."

His response. "No busier than anyone else."

Excuse me? Writing is at least a full time job, probably more since it takes so much energy and time, but apparently I should not only be able to bang out revisions to one of my little books over the weekend, but I also should be able to move all my worldly possessions as well.

No busier than anyone else. Right.

While he's out riding his bicycle in the summer, I'm inside writing. While he's out hunting in the fall and winter, I'm inside writing. While he's going out to dinner with his friends, I'm inside writing. I've given up every other interest I have to write. My choice. But I refuse to allow anyone to trivialize what I do. Other writers know how much time it takes, and I think a lot of serious readers do as well, it's the people who rarely read who don't get it. I'm still angry over his comment.

Anyway, revisions were going along well until I hit a problem. One of the changes I'm making needs build up. I thought I had plenty of room to do it, but I hit the chapter where it needs to happen a lot earlier than I remembered putting that scene. I basically only have five chapters to do it in and I wish I had more.

So I debated and considered and mulled how to handle it. I think I might have it figured out, but I'll have to work on it before I know for sure. (I figured it out too late last night to do anything with it.) I wish I didn't have to go to the day job and could just stay home and revise. (Or barring that, I wish I could knock out revisions faster.)

When I received my copy edits, I didn't get the full manuscript. There were 66 pages missing, and I got them later. I finally read through them today, and my editor cut another haircut exchange. Since she and I both have the same kind of smart aleck type humor, I'm going to ask her what she has against haircuts. :-)

This scene is near the end of the book. Kendall and Wyatt, the hero and heroine, have sent Wyatt's men to backup Wyatt's commanding officer. He's staying with Kendall, though, to keep her safe. Wyatt calls Kendall, Bug.

"Bug, you want to sit down? You're walking in front of those dang windows over and over and it's making me nuts."

Reluctantly, she plopped onto the sofa. "Did you notice the haircuts?" she asked. "I think this is the first time I've seen Flare's ears in the entire time he's been on J Nine."

"I noticed." Wyatt smirked. "I'd give them crap, but something tells me they'd shave my head if I said anything, so I'm keeping my mouth shut. They wouldn't shear you, though."

Kendall couldn't help but laugh. "I'm not taking any chances. I'd look terrible with my hair short." Her humor fled quickly, though, and her thoughts turned serious.

This exchange I won't miss the way I still miss my Wyatt/Flare deletion, so it's not really a big deal. I just thought it was vaguely amusing that I'm losing so much of my haircut stuff.

I've been eyeing laser printers since last May, I think. It's been a long time. I researched. I read reviews, both professional and customer. And I picked the printer I wanted. Last night, I ordered it. It was 10% off, I got free 2 day shipping and I had a $10 off coupon. Maybe if I'd waited longer, I could have gotten a better deal, but I took the plunge anyway.

It's an HP, the same model we use at work only without the duplex feature and without networking. I have duplexing on my inkjet and I've never used it even once in 3 years. I also ordered the 500 sheet paper tray. Expensive, but perfect for a manuscript. Even I haven't gone over a ream of paper yet on one of my books. :-)

Of course, there's no point in unpacking it until I move into the new house, which I can't do until I have the windows covered and I can't look for curtains/shades/etc until my revisions are finished.

As to that, continued to make decent progress, but it was surprisingly difficult to work in the new house. The only thing I can think of is that it was so empty over there, that it was a distraction in a weird way. Plus, I'm used to having the television on with the sound muted as I write. I have nothing over there. So I'm not sure what I'm going to do this week--If I'm going to continue to go to the new house or just work from home. I guess we'll see what I feel like doing this afternoon.

Locking myself in my new house with no distractions around was a good idea. I accomplished more in four hours yesterday than I had previously. I was antsy, though, and because the chair I hauled over there was uncomfortable, I was up a lot and walking around. There just wasn't anything to keep myself occupied with except writing.

I did find out a few things about the house that I hadn't realized before. First, there is no switch for the interior garage lights inside the garage. The only switch is in my laundry room. This is not convenient since I have to use my keys to lock the door from inside the garage.

Second, I discovered that there's a switch in the kitchen that I can't figure out. I flipped it, and my dishwasher lit up. That doesn't make sense that the power to the dishwasher is controlled by a light switch, so I'm still scratching my head over that one.

And I woke up this morning with the theme song to Hong Kong Phooey running through my head. This is a cartoon where a dog is a super hero who's called Hong Kong Phooey, but it's really the sidekick cat that handles everything. The dog is more like Maxwell Smart of "Get Smart." I have no clue where this came from since I haven't seen Hong Kong Phooey in years!

One of the chapters I revised had the exchange between Wyatt, my hero, and his chief warrant officer that was deleted and I'm still mourning it's loss. I also still agree with my editor that we don't need it, but I like it. Then I figured, well, why not share it on the blog?

So here's the set up. Chief "Flare" Cantore has told Wyatt that he's heard half the Special Operations teams are being rotated back to Earth. He knows Wyatt doesn't want to go home, not with Kendall (the heroine) on Jarved Nine. This exchange is Flare's suggestion.

"I know." Flare paused, and when he continued, it was clear he was attempting to break the somber mood. "We can't go home yet. I haven't made it to the ocean here or caught any waves." He studied Wyatt. "Maybe you should try to stay on The Chill's good side. Might make him more amenable to keeping us around."

"What do you have in mind?" He figured it was a lost cause; this was the kind of decision made at command level, not field level. Yet on the off chance the lieutenant colonel was the one making the call, Wyatt was willing to entertain ideas.

"Sullivan was tossing out pointed comments about the length of your hair before we headed outside the walls. When he sees you now, he's gonna think you want to start a heavy metal band. You need to get a regulation cut before morning."

His hair wasn't that bad. Okay, the front had grown out enough to fall over his eyes, but the back and sides weren't too long. Still... Wyatt was actually considering rousting the barber when he caught the flash of a grin. He should have guessed he was getting shit. "That's a good idea," he said, straight-faced. "Only I think the whole team needs to look spit-shined. We'll all get haircuts tonight." As he'd expected, his warrant officer lost his smirk in a hurry. Cantore's blond mane looked shaggier than Wyatt's did and the chief liked it that way.

"Now, Captain, let's not be hasty. If we--"

A laugh escaped at the note of panic in his second-in-command's voice. "I can't believe a man who fought in the Third Oceanic War is getting this het up about a haircut."

"Very funny, Montgomery," he groused.

"Who started it?"

"And I had you going too." The grin was back.

He flipped off his XO and ignored the chuckle. Leaning back in his chair, Wyatt looked out on the Old City. If the team was sent back to Earth, he'd have to deal with it, come up with some new strategy to win Kendall. No way was he starting over at square one with her, not after everything he'd already done.

The first and the last paragraph are staying in the book. I included them because they anchor the part that's cut.

Any day that starts out with 3 hours of sleep is not going to be a fun one. Then the universe decided to add a few other issues just to make my day extra challenging.

I'll leave out the driving parts--Twin Cities drivers are rude and far worse than Chicago drivers-- and I'll omit the work stuff since that would take too much explanation to make sense and isn't all that interesting anyway. Let's just say that the drive in and what I found on my desk when I arrived didn't signal that it was going to be a stellar day.

Here's where I wrote off the entire day. I logged in to my computer, went into the break room to get some water and as I'm waiting, I decide to clean my glasses. As I'm rubbing the lens, they snap in two--the break happened right in the center of the nose bridge thing. Fortunately, I had a pair of contacts in my desk. Because I was so tired, I wasn't sure how I was going to get them in or how well my eyes would like them, but there were no other viable options. What else was I going to do? Wrap scotch tape around the nose piece?

Of course, I can't just order a new pair of glasses. I haven't had an eye exam in probably 3 years, maybe a little longer, so I had to make an appointment for one of those. Fortunately, the optometrist was willing to squeeze me in at 3pm and I have new glasses on order--they'll take about a week with a rush on them.

I went to Sears who had a $99 sale on. Only because I wanted the ultra light lenses, and decided to try the antiglare coating because of the time I spend on the computer writing, I ended up spending 2 1/2 times that amount. The only plus is that my health insurance actually covered the eye exam so I only was responsible for a copay.

So I had to dig out my old glasses when I got home. Um, I'd forgotten just how bad these things are. Since I rarely wore glasses, my previous pair is probably from the mid to late 1990s. Whenever the last time those really BIG lenses were in style. I put them on and about shrieked in horror. I looked like Harry Carey! (The late Harry Carey was a broadcaster for the Chicago Cubs.) There is even a caricature of Harry with those huge glasses at or near Wrigley Field. Gah! I'll have to make sure never to go out of the house without my contact lenses in.

The day wasn't too bad from the time I got home on, except because of the three hours of sleep and all the running around I had to do after work, I had no energy or brain power left for revisions. As soon as I get off here, shower and dress, I'm driving over to the new house with my laptop and all my other paraphernalia to work.

Then, just as I'm logging off the internet to go to bed, I look down at the heating pad and notice I can see bare electrical stuff on the cord. Because of how I sit and work on the laptop, my back usually tightens up, and I use the heating pad a lot. Now I'm without a heating pad and that's not good.

It was an absolute relief to turn out the light and crawl under the covers.

I've been awake since about 1:30 this morning, my head jumping between the house and my revisions to Eternal Nights. And here I thought I was going to avoid the sleeplessness. Sigh.

The closing went great yesterday. It didn't take very long and I had my house keys and the controls for the garage door opener. I brought some of my scrapbook stuff over to the new house to relieve congestion in the computer room and my dad donated a card table. I will be locking myself in the house this weekend to do revisions. I also brought over the runner for the hallway because the area rug was too heavy to move and I wanted to see what the pattern looked like in person.

While I'd been out in the back of beyond closing on the house, the cabinet guy had been there to install the pull outs in the cabinet and the job supervisor guy plugged in the garage door opener so I was able to use my remote. Cool!

So while we were there, my parents and I removed all the packing from the appliances (and there was a lot of it) and they volunteered to come over today while I'm at work and put up some temporary curtains. Also cool! I don't like uncovered windows, especially when it's dark outside. It was about 12:40 or so, when I noticed it was snowing pretty hard. My mom needed to go to the grocery store, so it was decided I'd drive her and my dad would wait for the shower door guy to come.

My mom wanted to go to Super Target, so while she was shopping for groceries, I ran over to housewares. They had a lamp on sale that I thought would look good in my new bedroom, and I wanted to check it out. I decided to get it, but while I was wandering around, looking for the lamps, I spotted some colorful bathroom accessories. (If you've seen my house pictures, you know I like colorful!) I popped over there to look at them, and they were all on clearance!

They were made of some kind of heavy acrylic-type material. I found a small garbage can (way too small, but too cute to pass up), a soap dish, a toothbrush holder, a lotion pump (which I think I'm going to return since I really don't need it), a thing with three tiny boxes stacked on top of each other (I'm guessing it holds Q-Tips and like that) and a cotton ball holder box (which I noticed was broken when I got home, so that's going back too). Of course, I had no cart with me, so I had to load everything in the garbage can and tote it to the front of the store. If I only could have found a matching cup, everything would have been perfect!

Now the idea was to get to work on my revisions--only I wanted to play with my new house. I wanted to pack things up and take them over. I wanted to start setting things up. What I did not want to do was write.

And I didn't. Instead, I shopped online at a few places, looking for house stuff.

Now here I am, with a grand total of about 3 hours sleep, thinking about facing the day--and not much liking the idea. One good thing did come out of laying in bed for hours while I tried to sleep. I came up with how I'm going to handle one piece of my revisions. This was something that had been nagging at me, and I couldn't figure out a good way to do it. I think this will work.

My idea about locking myself in the new house, well, I might wait till the weekend. I want a nap so bad already. I don't know how I'm going to stay awake at the day job today. I'm already had the jumbo cup of coffee and taken some a Vitamin B complex for energy--too bad neither one of them is working.

I close on the house this morning. It seems hard to believe that this day is here. In some ways, it seemed to take a long, long time. In other ways, I'm like: whoa! I'm kind of excited, but I just want everything to go smoothly so that I can just have a stress-free experience.

Of course, there are still things that haven't been done. As far as I know, the cabinet guy has yet to make an appearance to put in the pull outs. Although it is possible that my dad (my own personal construction supervisor) just didn't tell me about it. The guy who was supposed to install the shower door rescheduled for this afternoon--after the closing. Everything else, though, should be done. I had a list. :-)

I received the first 394 pages of my copy-edited manuscript of Eternal Nights. For some reason, the remaining 66 pages didn't get included, but those are being sent out. I read through the part I did have, and aside from one exchange between my hero and his chief warrant officer, nothing was cut or changed that was an issue for me. (And while I mourn the loss of the 4 or 5 paragraphs of joking dialogue, my editor was right; I didn't need them.)

I was able to keep pretty much all the places I used f**k and c**k, so that elated me. (I think I lost one f**king temple reference, but that's it.) I'd gotten those words in when I wrote Crimson Veil, but I wasn't sure if I'd be able to do it in a non-series book. There really isn't much swearing in the book, just a little every now and then. I also kept something I put in the love scene that I thought might be cut out. I almost did a happy dog dance when I saw that survived. :-)

I still have a lot of work to do on revisions and I'm still having difficulty focusing. I'm seriously considering locking myself in the house after I close and working there. I'd have room to spread all my papers out on the island and no distractions. Of course, I'd have to pack up some kind of table to haul over and my laptop, but there isn't much to mess around with over there.

I didn't have time to post again before leaving for work. Sigh. I'm having such a hard time getting up in the mornings.

I'm making progress on my revisions, but I'm still having a hard time focusing on them the way I should. Why are writers so easily distracted? Last night, I tuned into PBS. I saw part three of "Guns, Germs and Steel" and realized I'd missed part two. I'm not sure it mattered. I wasn't nearly as fascinated with this third part as I was with the first. After giving it some thought, I decided it was because in part one, the theory he was putting forth--that geography decided who developed technology faster--was new. Part three seemed to be saying the same thing as part one and I didn't see any new ground broken.

I should have flipped away immediately after that show was over, but I didn't and I found myself hooked on what followed. It was a documentary--some of it taped with a hidden camera--about the trafficking of women from Moldova and other former Soviet areas for prostitution.

It was absolutely appalling. They said that a lot of these girls have no idea that the ad they're answering isn't legitimate and many times, it's someone who knows the girl who sells them to a pimp!

Women who'd escaped were interviewed and they told horrifying stories. One of the women mentioned another woman who escaped, went to the Turkish authorities and was returned to her pimp. Apparently, Turkey is a big, big port in human trafficking because they're so lax about paperwork for people crossing their borders. The police are also complicit with these pimps. One man had his wife sold into the sex trade by a friend of the family for $1,000! This friend had offered to take her to Turkey so she could buy goods for her mother's stall more cheaply, and instead, he betrayed her. The woman's husband was trying to get her back. He made the mistake of going to the Turkish police and someone tipped off the pimp. Eventually, at the end of the hour long show, she'd made it out, but it was only because the husband refused to give up. It made me wonder about the girls who didn't have someone willing to go to the lengths this man went to in order to free his wife.

This show was scary. They said that some of these girls are in the US as well, probably in the tens of thousands, but that most of them are in Europe--Germany, Amsterdam and Spain were mentioned. They said that when these girls are arrested, instead of going after the pimps and traffickers, the women are deported as illegal immigrants! Excuse me? We're talking about first world, western European countries and they can't do better than this?

The man who sold the man's wife? He received five years of probation! The man, and the woman who'd been sold were livid. They'd been told the bastard would be sent to prison for 8-15 years.

The police in, I believe, Moldova were told about a woman who is extremely active in trafficking other women, and they've ignored her.

I can't even say how appalled I am by what I saw last night. I don't know what we can do to stop it, but something has to be done. This is the twenty-first century and by God, no human being should ever be enslaved to another for any reason!

To find out more: PBS has a Wide Angle article up on their website. You can also check out the Frontline page about last night's show.

Does anyone have any tips on how to focus on revisions when I'd rather be doing stuff on the house?

I've never had difficulty concentrating on my writing before. I've always been able to lose myself in the story and get done what I needed to get done. Well, almost always. I had a little problem when I broke my foot, but pain, surgery, and pain meds are extenuating circumstances. This is all mental.

I close on the house Thursday. I want to buy lovely things for my house, like a mailbox and curtains. I want to pack stuff into boxes and be ready to move. I've got plenty of time to get my things into the new house, but I want to start NOW.

I'll be working on revisions, and right in the middle of them, I'll think of something else I need. Like a storm door. Or that the garage door opener isn't hooked to the garage door yet and where are my remotes? There are hundreds and hundreds of little details popping into my head and interfering with my writing.

The universe has perfect timing--allegedly. I should trust that revisions landing at the exact same time I'm closing on my house is a good thing. Right?

Anyway, I am getting things done, but it's slow because I'm so mentally scattered.

They put the screens on the windows yesterday. The pull outs for my cabinets are supposed to go in today, and the guy who's installing the shower door should come today too. Or tomorrow. I'm hoping for today. And then I think we're about done.

In other news, I stumbled across a review for Through a Crimson Veil yesterday that I didn't know about and posted a snippet on my website. If you're interested, you can check it out on the Crimson Veil Reviews page.

I think I might be a little stressed right now. Last night, I dreamt I was moving. I dreamt about the fake wood floor. I dreamt about tile. Obviously, the house is very much on my mind and none of these dreams were particularly restful. I feel so tired right now, I may as well have really moved overnight. :-0

I have lists. Several lists. I like to write things down when I feel overwhelmed. I managed to cross a couple of items off. Like my dad and I checked the oven and the reason it isn't working is they have the circuit breaker off. Oven worked just fine once that was tripped. Same with the stove top. I can check this off.

Still no pull out cabinet drawers for the island. This is very annoying since I clearly stated what I want, but men apparently don't listen when women talk about construction things--even cabinets. Grrr. This is just one example out of several.

I have my bookcases for the computer room--acquired at great personal cost to me since it required a trip to the only Ikea store for hundreds and hundreds of miles on a Saturday. We won't even talk about the credit card. Ouch!

But there are some items on my list that I won't be able to check off for a long time. That's going to bug me. A lot.

Still have a ton to do on revisions. Since the house closing is first, probably this has to wait till after Thursday to invade my dreams. :-( On the plus side, though. Once I close on the house, I can lock myself inside with the laptop and work without interruption. No phone means no internet which means no email or blogs which means nothing to do except write. Especially since the house is empty. My choices would be to put together the bookcases or revise. :-)

I made a trip over to the house today. I close on Thursday so everything is just about done now. I have a few pictures up at House Gallery Eight if you're interested in checking it out.

After I posted about my trip to Ikea yesterday, I did take a nap. For two hours. Sigh. By the time I woke up, most of the day was gone, so I worked on getting caught up on small things that had to be done--like paying bills.

I drove the bookcases I bought over to the new house and they're stored in the computer room, waiting for assembly. The builder said I could start bringing things over if I wanted. I haven't, but those boxes were heavy so it made more sense to put them in the new house than load them up again later.

Slept another 9 hours last night and I finally feel recovered. Did I mention I'll be going out of my way to avoid Ikea on Saturday for a long time to come? Anyway, I'm wishing now that I'd bought that table for the spare bedroom because now it means I'm going to have to make another trip over there to get it. On a weekday!

The RWA website still won't let me login, although I've seen it posted in several places now that the problem is supposed to be fixed. So I don't know if it's just me or if the announcement of things working was premature.

I've been mulling over how to handle the issues raised in my revision letter for EN. I think I have a few ideas, but man, I wish the copy edited manuscript had arrived on Friday. It could make a difference.

Sorry about being late and relatively uninteresting today. My mind is off in twenty different directions and I'm having a hard time focusing. :-(

Have I been diligently working on revisions this morning? Nope. I went to Ikea. I needed a bookcase for the computer room and I've heard such good things about them. I figured get there first thing when they open on Saturday morning, whiz through the place to take a look at the bookcase and see what else they have, then get the hell out of there. The whole Mall of America area is nuts--especially on weekends.

We arrived at 10:02 and found a lot of other people decided to arrive right when they opened. The parking ramp was huge and it was pretty darn full already. This didn't bode well.

And of course, I was right. The store was packed already and it was pretty difficult to get around and look at things because there were always people in the way. I don't do crowds well and this was a mob scene. I'll confess, the one thing I can't figure out is why do people bring children to a furniture store? Now, Ikea provides a place for kids to play with supervision. The parents check them in and have to check them back out again so it looked pretty safe to me. But so many parents dragged their poor kids through the store, and they were not happy to be furniture shopping. Even the teenagers were whiney.

I started getting a little whiney myself. My foot began hurting, my socks were rubbing my feet wrong and the store was warm. I did find some really cool stuff, though.

The bookcase decision was difficult. I did end up with a pair of the bookcases I saw online because the inner divider let them hold more weight than the long-shelved bookcases and some of my reference books are very heavy.

I also found a really cool table for scrapbooking. It's fairly long and deep. And it was cheap! I didn't buy it today, but it's marked on my sheet.

I also found a cheap bureau that I could put in my master bedroom closet. I have two dressers already, but they're absolutely jammed and I need some extra room. I didn't buy this either since the only thing that was a must buy was the bookcases.

They came in 2 boxes for one set so I had 4 to load into the SUV. They were long and they were heavy. Ikea, though, provides help. Had to tie the tailgate down though because the things just missed fitting by a few inches. Since I didn't want to go on the freeway with boxes hanging out the back end, I took the long way home.

Anyway, I'm exhausted! I have laundry to do. I have revisions to work on. I have like half a gazillion email to read and I've only opened two of them. I don't have enough energy to care about anything. I'm contemplating a nap. :-)

Maneuvering through all those people, dodging all those children, handling the parking ramp. Gah! It'll be a long, long time before I go to Ikea on a Saturday again.

I close on the house in five days.

I have revisions due Feb 16th.

I have to pack things up.

I need to shop for some stuff for the house, including window treatments.

I'm tired!

I came home from work yesterday, completely exhausted. By 7pm, I was unable to keep my eyes open. I figured I'd take a short nap, then get up and look at revisions. Three hours later.... Sigh.

Do authors who get to write full time truly appreciate the wondrous gift of time they have? Or do they take it for granted? I've been juggling writing deadlines with a full time job for more than 3 years now, and I'd sure love to find out firsthand the answers to those questions.

The woman the builder uses to clean the houses is coming over to do mine today. I want to get over there after she's finished and take some pictures with everything gleaming. Most of the shots up on my House Galleries have everything covered in cardboard, dust or both. The thing is that I don't think I can afford the time to run over there. I have a lot of work to do on my book and only two weeks to get it done.

I had this feeling that my house closing would end up smack dab in the middle of revisions, but I was really hoping I'd be wrong about that. I wasn't. :-( The only good thing is that I can wait until I finish revisions before I worry about packing or moving stuff. First item on the list, immediately after EN revisions go off, is getting those windows covered in the house. I'm not living anywhere that people can peep in. :-)

I'm finding it remarkably difficult to focus on anything except the new house right now. My conversation slides that direction no matter what I'm talking about.

I'll try to discuss the writing process article from RWR today, but this might be an idea that I have to jettison. Revisions come before the blog.

Edited to add: My copy edited mss did not arrive yesterday, and I sure hope it comes today. If not, I won't see it till Monday. Eek!