I received an email letting me know that an article I wrote for Revision 14 about Eternal Nights is up! There's also a contest going on where you can win a copy of one of my books.

To check it out, go to Revision 14

Thanks, Lindsay!

Another day, another appearance in time for lunch. Yes, I know, but I don't wake up early at conference, not since 2000 when I was a first timer and was determined to go to a workshop every hour. The luncheon speaker today was Meg Cabot. She was funny and gave us breath spray which I actually carted home. I also packed her books to mail home because she was so entertaining. I loved her story about meeting Julie Andrews and getting totally flustered!

Jodi Thomas was at our table and was very kind and gracious. I felt like an idiot later when I found out she was a RITA nominee. Blush. I would have congratulated her if I'd known. BTW, Ms Thomas won her third RITA in the same category on Saturday night and became a member of RWA's Hall of Fame. Congratulations!

After lunch, I made a run through the goody room to see if my bookmarks needed replenishing--I know, but last year all the Crimson Veil bookmarks disappeared. There were plenty of bookmarks left--probably because some very rude person put a big basket of her giveaways in front of mine. Um, excuse me? I would never do that to someone else and I found it very inconsiderate that this person did it to me. Karma, baby. What goes around, comes around. Never forget that the universe keeps track.

So I dig my watch out of my purse, look at the time and it's only a few minutes until 1pm. Wow, I think, that lunch really was short. I don't remember a speaker ever getting us out that quick. With plenty of time before I was supposed to meet one of my friends at 2pm, I strolled up to the room. It's as I'm trying to decide what to do with the next hour that I see the alarm clock in the room. It's 2pm! Yikes! Yes, I forgot to move my watch onto Eastern Time. Luckily, I was only a few minutes late.

Of course, my friend and I talked for way too long and then I ran into another Dorchester author and talked to her. I was supposed to be at the Editor of the Year reception from PASIC at 5pm and I'd heard they were going to do the awarding of the title early in the reception because people had to go elsewhere. Once again, I spent another frantic 15 or 20 minutes racing around the room to get ready.

I made it on time, ran into one of my editors, Leah, and my agent. Or maybe it would be more accurate to say they spotted me because I was standing inside the door, looking the other direction. Of course, one of the first things I told them was about Crimson Veil's win in the Booksellers' Best Awards. Ask anyone I ran into last week and they'll tell you that was something I mentioned early and often. What can I say? I was excited. I just pray I didn't have anyone thinking I was a hopeless braggert.

Anyway, it was really funny. I ended up with my agent and two of my editors vying to buy me a drink. :-) Chris won. (Or lost as the case may be since he had to give up a drink ticket.) Isn't it cool that they all wanted to celebrate with me that much? I thought it was really nice and it's great to work with such wonderful people!

After the reception, my roommate and I went to dinner and then it was on to the Daphne Awards. I think my editor and I are not going to be allowed to sit next to each other at one of these things ever again--even if we did have fun. Until I realized not only did I have to go up on stage to accept my certificate, but that if you come in first or second, you're expected to give a speech. I figured I wouldn't finish first, that my run of luck had ended the night before, and sure enough, I was right. I got an honorable mention. At least I didn't have to talk. Unfortunately, I did have to get a picture taken. Sigh. I loathe pictures and I don't understand why people insist on taking shots of me.

My roommate ducked out on me and I felt bad about that. She didn't know anyone there and I think I spent too much time talking to everyone. I ended up going to the bar with a group from Dorchester, but it was like 150 degrees up there and when sweat started running down my back and my arms (I was wearing a blazer), I called it a night. Did I mention it was HOT in Atlanta?

I didn't make it to my room, though. I ran into one of the RBLs and went into the other bar with her. That's where I met Dianna Love Snell, although in the noise of the bar, I didn't catch her name and discovered who she was when she won a RITA Saturday night. She was so nice and gracious, telling me about a book tour she went on with Sherri Kenyon. Unfortunately, I didn't run into Sherri during the conference and I'm sorry about that. She's one of the nicest women of all time and I absolutely adore her.

I didn't last too long in this bar either. It was only about 130 degrees here, but it was still bad enough to make sweat run down my body. I was fanning myself with my Daphne Honorable Mention certificate and trying not to let sweat run into my eyes.

That was the end of my night. I headed back up to the room, drank about a gallon of ice water because I was so hot, and wiped all the makeup off my face. What was left of it anyway since most of it must have melted off by then. And then I struggled with another night of insomnia. I didn't sleep more than a couple of hours any night at the conference and that was so not fun.

Again, no spell check. Sigh.

I'm not an early riser when I'm at conference, so I managed to make it out of my room at the crack of noon. I thought that was pretty good. I met a few women from my local chapter and we went across the skyway to the mall. We were supposed to have lunch, but most of us weren't hungry. Instead, I went to the convenience store and bought two large bottles of water. Did I mention it was HOT in Atlanta?

One of the ladies had a really cool mini-computer. Not a laptop, but not a PDA or an Alphasmart either. This actually looked like something I'd use and it was cheaper than the Dana that sits untouched. It also had WIFI access so internet availability! Yea! And while the device was small, the keyboard wasn't much smaller than one of my laptops. I didn't get the name of this mini gadget, but my chapter mate promised to email info when she got home.

After we finished talking, I went back to my room and met my roommate. We've been online friends for years, but we'd never met in person before. We ended up talking for a couple of hours, then I had a phone call from another friend and talked with her for a while. It was then that I realized I hadn't eaten all day and the literacy signing started at 5:30. Gah!

The three of us went to the sports bar/restaurant. As we talked and waited for our food, I'm growing antsier and antsier. I had to put in my contact lenses, put on some makeup and change clothes before the book signing and the authors were supposed to be there at 5pm. Double Gah!

The food ended up coming five minutes before I had to leave and go up to the room. I scarfed down half my tuna sandwhich, gave my roommate some money and raced back to the room.

Frazzled, frantic, running late, I raced around getting ready, grabbed my stuff and ran down to the literacy signing. As I was getting ready to enter, I hear my name and look around. It was the ReBeLs! Yea! They'd flown in from around the country to meet their favorite authors. I was so focused, though, it took me a minute to recognize them. I felt bad that they had to say they were from RBL, but I did figure it out a split second before they said it. When I'm intent on something, it takes a few seconds for my brain to change tracks.

BTW, a certain fairly big name romance writer who shall remain nameless was very snotty to a number of the RBL ladies. This would be bad enough if they were aspiring writers, but these are pure readers and dedicated ones at that. They have to be to fly in for the literacy signing. I honestly don't understand how anyone can be snotty like that to their fans. I don't care how big your name, you should be nice. And just in case you think this is isolated, I had a different author at two different conferences who literally blew me off while I was telling her how much I liked her books and she wasn't a big name. Guess who I'll never buy again? I heard my reader friends had the same reaction to Ms Big Shot.

The signing itself, though, went really well for me! I had copies of ETERNAL NIGHTS there. This was its debut since it's not supposed to be in stores until tomorrow. I sold out of the book and even had several women who all wanted the last copy. That was really a thrill!

It was also exciting that I had so many people come up and tell me how much they enjoy my books. Readers, bookstore owners, other writers. Wow! This means so much to me! It's one of the main reasons I write, so that others can enjoy my stories, but positive feedback seems so few and far between. This was like the best thing for me. It helped give me energy and excite me about writing again!

After the signing, I went to the Booksellers' Best Awards. THROUGH A CRIMSON VEIL was up for Best Paranormal Romance. I didn't expect to win. It seems like I final in contest after contest, but I'm always a bridesmaid, never a bride. Well guess what? CRIMSON VEIL WON!!! Whoo hooo!!!

When they called my name, it took me a second or two to react because I didn't expect it. I got a really cool pin, a certificate and a copy of the poster with all the winners' book covers on it. That gets sent out to a ton of bookstores so this is great publicity. For the rest of the conference, I kept showing people my pin. :-) What can I say? I was so excited that I'd won and a huge, important award too!

More about the conference later. I have to get my oil changed today and I need to try and finish a proposal for my agent.

PS: Blogger spell check is down. Please forgive my typos.

I forgot to mention this on my Tuesday post!

I unpacked a few things before I went down to register for the conference, and as I look around the room, I realize there's no hair dryer in the bathroom. I checked the closet, all the drawers, everywhere they could hide a dryer. Nothing.

I'm like OMG, the website said they had hair dryers! I mean this is like the most critical amenity ever--even beyond the in-room coffee pot! I'm panicking, thinking I'm going to have to go to the mall and buy a dryer.

I exit the room and there's a maid coming out of the room next door so I asked her if the rooms are supposed to have dryers, but she didn't understand what I was saying, and since I never took Spanish in high school, I couldn't explain. So I stopped at the concierge desk and asked and he said the room should have a dryer. I was instantly relieved. He suggested I look in the closet, so I named all the places I'd looked. He said he'd have one delivered and do you know what? That dryer was in the room before I got back there. That's one of the reasons why I loved the Marriott so much.

The reason I didn't love the Marriott so much all has to do with the maid service. I reached for a towel to dry my hands and the thing was covered in hair. Someone else's hair. Ewww!

But wait, it gets better. Wednesday morning, I climb in the shower, pull the curtain shut and someone else's dirty wash cloth was on the rod. The maid didn't find it or something. Another huge EWWWW moment!

And the room cleaning remained at this level for the entire conference. I can't even tell you about the hair balls developing on the bathroom floor after 4 days of blow drying. I've never been in a hotel where the maids didn't use that sticky thing and catch all the loose hair on the floor.

So for the rest of the hotel staff -- A+
for the housekeeping crew -- D-

I'm back from National and ready to start reporting! I didn't get on the internet at all while I was in Atlanta, but then I didn't have the time this conference like I did last year. When I had the broken foot, I had to sit down and prop it up for a while. This year, I was just going.

I arrived on Tuesday. If I thought it had been hot and humid in Minnesota, that was nothing compared to what it was like in Atlanta. I got lost in the airport--those who know me are thinking, "yeah, huge surprise." I found the shuttle and two women from my chapter were already on board so I talked to them all the way to the hotel.

The Marriott Marquis is a very friendly hotel. The staff there was outstanding and it began at check in. Not only was the woman extremely nice, but they give their guests a peach as a welcome. It was such a surprise and such a wonderful gesture, that I got all distracted and knocked my cane to the floor and sent it sailing into the woman's luggage next to me. Oops! (BTW, I brought the cane along with me just in case my foot started giving me problems. I know it's been a year, but I still get pain from time to time and I wasn't sure how it would hold up to the rigors of a conference. As it turned out, the foot did fine. Good thing.)

I checked in, drank about a gallon of water (did I mention how HOT it was?) and then went down to register. This didn't start out real promising since they couldn't find me. I thought I was going to have to run back to the room and get my confirmation slip--I always print those kinds of things out and bring them with me--but we got it all figured out and I was officially there.

Next, I picked up my tote bag and this thing was jammed with books. The woman passing them out said there were 18 in there! Wow! I hit the goody room, but there wasn't much in there yet. I went back to my room, got my bookmarks and display easel and set them up on a table, then I headed back to my room to check out my haul of books. :-)

It was a quiet evening since my roommate wasn't getting in till the next day, but I was tired so the chance to relax without having to run anywhere was a good thing. I watched the History Channel and muttered about how ridiculous it was that I was in Atlanta and there still were no Braves games on television!

I'll post about what I did Wednesday and the literacy signing next. Stay Tuned.

Barnes & Noble.com has Ravyn's Flight available now! For the last couple of weeks, I linked to my publisher because that was the only place where new copies of the book were for sale, but I had people asking me when BN.com or Amazon would have it available. What could I say? I had no idea. But now, at long last, you can order a copy of RF from BN.com.

Yesterday was a long day. I needed a display easel made up for Eternal Nights to put in the goody room at National. I figured as gorgeous as that cover model is, that his face will encourage people to take a bookmark. At least I hope that's how it goes. I just had a small easel made up, but it should be big enough.

Kinko's needed three hours to get the thing ready, so I ran over to the mall to check out the bookstore. No copies of EN yet and I thought they might have them since they're shipping at BN.com. I dropped off a stack of bookmarks, and somehow, agreed to do a book signing. =8-O I know, I shouldn't be so reticent about this kind of thing, but autographings are tough. I live in terror of spelling someone's name wrong or really sticking my foot in my mouth.

Since there was no way I could kill three hours at the bookstore, I went home and started getting things together that I wanted to take with me to Atlanta. I loathe packing. Absolutely, positively hate it. So many things to remember to take. Sigh. It used to be easier. Do you know that once upon a time, I used to attend National with nothing more than a roll-aboard suitcase? The kind that fit in the overhead compartment? Now, of course, I take the largest suitcase allowed by the airline.

It was very hot and humid here yesterday and the sky finally opened up. We had a pretty intense thunderstorm roll through and the humidity wasn't much better when it was finished. You're thinking, oh, no! She's talking about the weather again. This time, though, there is a point. I didn't want to drive to Kinko's in the downpour to pick up my easel, so I waited until it eased up.

So I get there and the parking lot is empty. I think, Great! I can run in and back out again in no time. Of course I couldn't. I stood by the sign department for easily twenty minutes and could not get anyone to even acknowledge my presence. Two guys working, a third one running in and out and I was invisible. They were far enough back from the counter that I would have had to holler for them to hear me too and I couldn't do that. No matter how irritated I was getting. Finally, a girl working on the other counter asked if I needed help and then I rang out in a couple of minutes. No gold star for Kinko's.

The one thing that truly amazes me about packing is how much crap gets piled on my dressers as I clean out my bags. Take my toiletries bag for example. I have hair spray and shampoo that I'm not taking because I have newer (and smaller) hair care products, a couple of things of makeup that I don't need, some brushes that I kept carrying around and never use to apply said makeup and other things that I don't need. Then there's all the stuff in my hard plastic folder that I drag with me to each conference. Where does all this paper come from?

Anyway, I finished packing around 11pm last night and I think I have everything. I hope. The suitcase is only filled up about 3/4 of the way and last year, I'm sure it was filled to the top. That must mean I'm forgetting something, right?

Like I mentioned here yesterday, I'm not taking the laptop with me, so I'll be blogging from National when I can, otherwise I'll share the highlights when I get home.

I leave for Atlanta tomorrow. I've decided not to bring the laptop with me because it's a pain to lug that thing, but that means I'll only be online while I'm gone if the hotel has that Web TV available like they claim. That means no daily blogs. :-(

There's a ton of things to do before I board the plane, including pack. I hate packing. I also have to get a display easel made up for the goody room to display my bookmarks. My cover is so fab, I need to use it (and the gorgeous man on it) as a selling feature. Yeah, I think I mentioned doing that this weekend. I didn't. Instead I did laundry. I've got the disk in my bag and I plan to stop by Kinko's on my way home from work, but we'll see. I have a lot of other stuff to do today.

One thing that I think is pretty funny is that my return flight on Sunday morning isn't full. I expected it to be packed to the rafters (or since it's an airplane, I should say "stringers") even though it's an 8 something in the morning departure. I know the gala is the night before and that this makes for a short night, but by leaving earlier, there are fewer chances of delays--especially weather related--and I get home early enough to collapse. I mean, unpack.

The other thing I did yesterday was work some on another story. This is one I've been tinkering with for years, but haven't had a chance to finish revising because every time I pick it up, I get revisions or galleys or something for another book. I'm happy with the prologue, chapter 1 and the first scene in chapter 2. The second scene needs to be the start of chapter 3 because 2 ends with too big a bang not to be the end of a chapter. The original chapter 3 needs a ton of work. I'm debating scrapping it and starting over completely because it's that bad. Revision might not be enough. :-)

Of course, the fact that I worked on this story again undoubtedly means that I'll be getting revisions before I can finish fixing the proposal. The universe is funny that way. I just hope I don't see anything until after I get home from National.

I was watching that CBS Sunday morning show, whatever it's called (Watch the name of it will be CBS Sunday Morning and then I'll be red-faced), and they had some woman on there talking about cubicle decor. How to spruce up your cube. One guy's cube had been redone to look like a golf course. There was green turf-like material on the walls and on one desktop, there was a little green hill made--complete with sand trap. His pens were jammed into the sand.

Next cube had the walls lined with bamboo and there was a rug put down over the industrial carpet (under this enormous filing cabinet). They also showed quick pictures of some other cubes, including one that had the felt from a craps table up on the cube wall and shiny strands of stuff hanging from the desktop down to the floor. There was even something that looked like a slot machine taking up a huge amount of space on the desktop.

I looked at all this and thought to myself, what planet does this woman come from? I'd love to see my company's reaction to decking my cube out like a Las Vegas casino. My God! The CBS interviewer person finally asked something about what the boss would think about a cube being decked out like this and the designer said something about how it would boost productivity so they should love it.

Hello? Has this woman ever worked in corporate America? As far as I can see, uniformity is the goal, not individuality. I think we even had a memo go around a number of years ago about appropriate and inappropriate items for cube walls. (I ignored it so that's why I'm so vague) My cube is festooned with cartoons, many of them Dilbert since so many of them apply to my job. I also have the covers up for my last three books and postcards up from most of the different places I've been. I ran out of room or I'd have more up.

Anyway, I found this story about cubicle decor very amusing. A Las Vegas casino. Yeah, right.

In wasp news, I checked out all my windows again yesterday, and when I opened one in my bedroom, the queen flew around. I shut it up again, ran and got wasp spray and when I was armed and dangerous, I opened the window again. The queen flew right into the Vee opening and I fired. I don't know if I scored a direct hit or not, but I'm confident I hit her with at least some of the wasp spray. I'm hoping she's dead since I haven't seen her around since, but then I thought I'd gotten rid of her before. This thing just won't give up!

Remember the good ol' days? When MTV and VH1 played music videos instead of hours upon hours of hour-long shows. When CNN Headline News actually gave you the news every half hour? Now there are hours of entertainment news and hours of these "personalities" talking about whatever, including some guy with the initials GB. His logo looks a lot like Garth Brooks' logo, and the first time I saw it, I thought they were talking about Garth Brooks.

I miss the old days. I miss being able to flip to the video stations during commericals and watching a video or two before flipping back to whichever show I was watching. I miss being able to flip over to CNN Headline News whenever it's convenient for me and getting national and international news. Now if I flip over, particularly in the evenings, there's anything but news.

Wasn't there a song about this, something like 100 channels and nothing is on? No wonder I rarely watch television except for baseball.

The reason I bring this up today is my frustration with CNN Headline News. Yesterday, I inadvertantly turned it on while they were following a police chase in Houston. Normally, this wasn't something I'd watch, but this guy was driving over golf courses and stuff and the police were having a hard time getting him. They finally put down one of those strips to deflate his tires and the pickup truck ended up in a ravine with water. There a stand off began and we could see the police getting into tactical positions. I thought this was fascinating, especially when we were getting play by play from a former police officer. This was the kind of thing that gets my writer's brain soaking up info.

But alas, the helicopter from the Houston affliate had to go back and refuel and CNN never returned to live coverage. They were passing along updates on the standoff, though--until it was time for those shows with "personalities." I did try to flip over a few times to see if one of those guys would give updates, but I never saw anything. This morning, I have CNN Headline News on again, hoping that they'll update this morning.

Okay, just saw the update. The man surrendered after about an hour.

My wasp friend was back. When I opened that one window yesterday afternoon, tons more grass was up there. This time I really saturated the entire top of the window. Let's hope that discourages her. I'm getting really tired of this.

I'm still waiting for either BN.com or Amazon to show Ravyn's Flight is available again. It's been over a week, I think, and still no sign that a new copy is available anywhere but at my publisher's website. I've had readers asking when they can get it at one of the big two online booksellers.

Today, I really need to go get a display easel made up for RWA National. I plan to use it to attract people to my bookmarks in the goody room, but I'm feeling very unmotivated to drive to Kinko's.

Yesterday, I did another wasp check. I've been running the air pretty steady since it's been so hot here and I thought I'd take one more spot check. Sure enough, there was just a little bit more grass in the original window the queen had chosen for her home. Sigh. There wasn't much, so maybe she gave up pretty quickly. Or maybe she just started there again. It doesn't matter. The wasp spray came back out and the grass was removed again. When will this thing give up?

By the time my adventures with the insect kingdom were over, the local news was on. I missed the beginning of the story, but it sounds as if our governor wants a moratorium on advertising by the drug companies. The reporter also interviewed a doctor who talked about patients coming in and demanding a certain drug, even though he hadn't diagnosed them yet and what they thought they had wasn't what was really wrong with them. The drug companies say that 37 cents out of each dollar goes to "administrative costs and marketing." Want to bet that most of the money goes to marketing?

I'm a little opinionated on this subject, but I always believed that it was dead wrong to allow drug companies to advertise prescription drugs to the consumer. From what I've heard, we're the only industrialized country that allows this.

And if you're wondering why I talk about advertising with some frequency on my blog, my college major was advertising copywriting. I have an interest this way, so I find news stories on the topic fascinating even when others don't. I also tend to critique commercials when I watch TV or listen to the radio.

The towels I'd ordered from QVC arrived yesterday. I didn't like the material of the "kitchen" towels--it almost looks like felt or something--so I probably won't use those, but the microfiber cloths seemed to pick up dust real well and I'd like to try the other two types that came in the shipment.

Okay, I guess it's time to end the post if I'm talking about towels. :-) My friends are getting used to this kind of conversation. In fact, one of them has said, I just remind myself that you're nesting. I really don't mean to go off on boring stuff, but it's interesting to me. That's the problem, I guess.

It rained yesterday, about 3/4 of an inch, and we needed it desperately. Of course, we're still hurting--the weather people say we need about 4 inches to fix our deficit--but this helps. Yes, I know. Weather again. Unfortunately, rain has become noteworthy. ;-)

In other news, BN.com has Eternal Nights shipping in 2-3 days. I nearly choked when I saw that. The book is an August 1 release and this is early. Not a surprise since BN always does this, but man! Now if they'd only get Ravyn's Flight back in stock and available. It's printed.

Yesterday was one of those crazy days at work, one where I seemed to be running from the time I got in until just minutes before I left. I had a project that was looking as if it would be impossible to do, but we finally found a way; a staff meeting--I hate those things--and then I had to hunt down some paperwork. I'm hoping for a nice, quiet day today.

I'm starting to think about my stories again. Not for long and certainly not with the intention of doing anything just yet, but I'm taking it as a sign of recovery. I've never been as exhausted in as many different ways as I was when I finished this last book.

One final thing this morning. I need a theme song for Kimi and Nic's story. Usually, I get those while I'm working on the book, but I wrote this so fast and plunged right back into my book that I never had time to consider this. Kimi is human, Nic is a demon. Anyone have any suggestions?

I just realized it's thirteen days until release day for Eternal Nights! Am I the only one who thinks this summer has gone by much too fast? I can't believe August is that close. And I don't want summer to be over. I love going barefoot and not needing a jacket.

I finished reading EN last night, picked up some stuff missed on the galleys. Sigh. I went through that thing two or three times, I asked my mom to go through it, the publisher had a proofreader go through it and we still all missed a few things. That's so frustrating! I want my book to be free of errors when it comes out and that never happens.

I realized something else as I was reading. My tendonitis has gotten a lot worse in my left arm. It really hurt to hold the book. I kept trying to switch to my right hand, but that just felt unnatural. I've always read with the book primarily on my left and used my right to turn pages. I've got some ebooks to read, so maybe I'll do that for a while, although I know I aggravated the tendonitis by all my computer time--both writing and at the day job.

Yesterday, I posted on Star-Crossed Romance about what I thought made a good hero. We're also discussing the cover art on my books and my future books, what I think about being part of a series and how long it takes me to write a story. Come on over and join the fun. If you want to post questions of your own, feel free.

There hasn't been much going on, but I'm still trying to recover from June. I don't even want to think about RWA National yet, although I leave in less than a week.

Gotta go get ready for the day job.

I'd passed on a review to my editor last week from Eternal Nights, the same one I posted here, and as we were talking, she mentioned that EN had arrived hot off the press the night before. That, of course, got me all excited because the story is real! As we were talking, I mentioned that I always reread my books when they came out because it allowed me to spend time with the characters and enjoy them since no work was involved anymore.

Do you know what she did? My wonderful, fabulous, incredibly sweet editor sent me a copy of EN!

So I spent all yesterday afternoon and evening reading. Of course, there were a hundred other things I should have been doing, but I wasn't not going to read. Wyatt and Kendall are cute together. I thought that before, but now I can really appreciate it.

Of course, this also brought on the nerves/anxiety of having a book about to be released. So far the reviews for EN have been overwhelmingly positive, but I still worry about readers' reactions to the story. I guess I'll be stressing about that until the book actually comes out and I get some feedback.

I posted my first guest blogger installment over at Star-Crossed Romance this morning. I talked about why I like futuristic romance so much. Stop on over if you have the time.

Yesterday was a lazy day for me. I have half a gazillion boxes that still need to be unpacked and a host of other things to do, but I watched baseball and worked on my blog entry. Oh, and I joined Library Thing! It's like social networking for people who love books! You can see my profile and some of the books from my collection at my Library Thing Profile. I think this page is open to the public.

There are a couple of television commercials I really like right now. One is for Levi jeans. This guy and girl are watching television and it's a live shot of a police chase. The TV news helicopter shows the guy being chased stealing some jeans off the line at the back of the house and the guy watching this on TV rushes out and tackles the bad guy to the ground. He wasn't letting anyone steal his jeans. :-)

The second commercial I really like shows a chain of love kind of thing. This man sees a child has dropped his toy on the sidewalk, bends over and picks it up and hands it back. Someone sees this and is inspired to help someone else and this is seen and that person helps someone until it comes back full circle. I've only seen this ad once, but I think it was for some kind of insurance company or investment firm. I'm sure the kind of company it was started with an "i."

I watched the Cubs look awful on national television and switched over to watch a show about modern-day pirates on The History Channel. And I think that about covers the highlights for me. Not a whole lot of excitement and now it's back to another week of fun at the day job. Sigh.

Damn, I love Buster Poindexter. :-) And this is the only reference I'm making to the weather today, so y'all can relax.

Yesterday ended up being a pretty busy day. I got my haircut. Not that it will look good at conference because every day is a bad hair day especially when you're using hard hotel water and dealing with humidity, but I'll know I tried to look presentable. I also found a travel size hair spray that isn't in a pump. Yea! Those pumps shoot out too much spray and weigh down the hair.

Then it was a shopping expedition where I picked up a few things for the trip. Nothing particularly fun so I'll skip the details, except to mention that they seriously need to turn up the air conditioning in stores. Gah!

Then it was on to Bed, Bath and Beyond. I had a coupon and there were a few things in the sale flyer I wanted to look at. I bought neither of them, however, I did find a curtain rod for my shower (one more item on my dad's To Do List) and some more dish towels.

It was after four when I got home--very thirsty and cranky from the heat and the crowds out shopping. Vegged out for an hour or so and then I popped X-Men into the DVD player. I'll give a very quick review because I'm beginning to wonder if I'm too picky about movies. I haven't loved anything I've seen yet. I'm telling myself it's because this is only my third rental from Netflix, but I'm beginning to wonder.

X-Men

Another movie based on a comic strip, and once again, there was little in the way of characterization. Come on, Hollywood, give me a reason to care! I want to root for the heroes/heroines, not indifferently watch them go through the story. The premise for those like me who live under a rock is that there's been a mutation in humans and now powers are starting to appear among some people. I love this concept, BTW, just not the execution.

So the government of the US is trying to pass legislation to force "mutants" to register. Of course, this isn't a good thing because like you'd expect, the humans without powers are afraid of those who have them. The movie opens with a scene from WWII and Jewish men and women being shuttled off to be killed including a boy watching both his parents whisked away. And I could see why the filmmakers drew this parallel for the "mutants;" I could easily see something like this happening.

This mutant teenage girl is hitchhiking ends up in some remote town in Canada, I believe, and finds Wolverine fighting in a cage match. She saves his butt, she hitches a ride, they're attacked by the bad guy's henchmen (Don't ask me how they found these two in the middle of nowhere) and then the good guys show up and rescue the pair (Don't ask me how they made it to the middle of nowhere in time to save anyone). Wolverine and Rogue end up at a school for the gifted (aka mutants). The rest of the movie is about trying to stop the bad guy from kidnapping the teenage girl, Rogue and rescue the US senator that he kidnaps.

First off, mutants don't need to register. They're the only ones who have bizarre nicknames: Wolverine, Rogue, Cyclops, Sabretooth and Magneto. (Yes, the bad guy is called Magneto. Sigh.) Humans can just pick them out by these really strange names. No need to pass legislation at all.

Second, Hugh Jackman needed a shave desperately. God, muttonchops! I felt like I was watching a movie from the 1970s.

Third, I didn't care about any of the characters and my interest in the situation waned before the climatic conclusion. I did make it to the end of the movie, but it was more because I'd watched so much of it, I wasn't going to cede defeat. :-)

Overall rating: 2.5 stars (I know, Netflix won't let me rate half stars. I didn't not like it, but I didn't like it either. I was like totally indifferent to the movie and maybe that's worse than anything since it elicited nothing from me.)

I have things to do today too. I'm guest blogging next week--starting tomorrow--at Star-Crossed Romance and I need to work on a couple of posts. I also have something to turn in for my local chapter. That's mostly written, though, and just needs a little work.

I slept really late today (hence the late blog post) and feel fab! Eleven hours! Yes! Maybe I'll actually be rested enough to survive conference.

I'm still jazzed about Ravyn's Flight being available again. I know, it shouldn't seem like that significant a thing, but it is. Maybe it's because I've fielded so many emails since The Power of Two came out asking where they could find the book. It's not available at BN.com or Amazon yet, but I heard RF is hot off the press and that in a week or so, it should be online at those places too.

Update: I passed the older man and his dog on my way to work yesterday, so I can take him off my worry over list. This is a huge relief.

And still no wasp! Yea! I'm continuing to keep my fingers crossed, but I'm hopeful now.

Today is a "get ready for National day." I have an appointment for a haircut and I really need to do some shopping. I also want to stop at Bed, Bath & Beyond and look at a couple of things, maybe even buy them. I need so many things yet for the house that it's not funny. Yesterday, my dad took the vacuum cleaner back--it was on loan. :-( I also found some dish towels on QVC along with other handy cleaning towels. They're not great--they have FLOWERS on them--but they're called "Thirsty Camels" so I figured what the heck, especially since there are 8 other towels that come with them. (Just an aside, I have nothing against flowers except that they're totally not my style.)

Notice how I'm nobly not mentioning the weather? This is really hard for a Minnesotan because we love talking about this topic. Hot, cold, in between--it doesn't matter--it's still good for a twenty minute conversation. :-) (But it's supposed to be 100 degrees here today with high humidity! (There! I got it in. I couldn't help myself.))

I'm backed up on email again and I'm still trying to recover from my two deadlines. I think this is about the worst I've ever felt after turning in a book, but then I've never had two deadlines on top of each other like this before.

I think I'm done now. Tonight or tomorrow I'll probably watch my next movie, X-Men. Let's hope this is worth it since I didn't do too good with my last comic book movie.

If you're one of the people waiting and waiting for the reprint of Ravyn's Flight, I have great news for you. The book is available--BRAND NEW--again! Yea!!! It's up on the Dorchester website. Order Ravyn's Flight.

You can read an excerpt here: RF Excerpt or on my website: pattioshea.com

Eternal Nights--out August 1--is a loosely connected spin off of Ravyn's Flight. Both books can--and do--stand alone, but I don't get into the information on the planet in EN like I did in RF. You can also meet secondary couple Alex and Stacey here and find out how much (or little) Alex has changed in three years.

Anyway, I'm all excited about this because RF has been out of print since early summer 2004. What a great way to start the weekend!

I'm a worrier by nature. I know this about myself and I try to alleviate it, but it's not always easy. Okay, most of the time it isn't easy. Right now, the list of things is growing--some more intense than others. My current worries?

There's an older man who walks his dog every morning. We always wave as I pass him on my way to the freeway. I haven't seen him in nearly 2 weeks. So now I'm wondering if something happened to him or if he decided to walk a different route or go at a different time or if he's on vacation.

I'm really stressed out about the book I just turned in. What if everyone hates it? It's darker than everything I've written before and darker than I expected. My agent emailed to let me know she has it now and I'm like Aack!

And of course, Eternal Nights is coming out in a couple of weeks so I can obsess/worry about readers' reactions to this book. So far, the reviews have been overwhelmingly positive, both from reviewers who've read Ravyn's Flight and reviewers who haven't, so I'm hoping most people like the story.

Then there's the RWA conference in Atlanta that's fast approaching. Meeting new people and dealing with crowds totally stresses me out. I'm trying not to think too much about this, but it's getting close.

I could come up with more, but I think this is enough for now. This is part of my personality as much as my impatience is and I know it's something I'm not going to overcome, certainly not easily or any time soon.

Yep, you guessed it, I didn't do much that makes an interesting blog entry and I have to run and get ready for work.

Eternal Nights received another great review yesterday! Yea! Romance Junkies gave the book 4.5 ribbons and said:

ETERNAL NIGHTS took off from page one and was an exciting, breathless race to the end! Patti O'Shea does an excellent job of showing readers Jarved Nine as it was, through Kendall's memories, and how it is now, still full of mystery, magic, and secrets. Exciting sub-plots and returning characters (from RAVYN'S FLIGHT) make this a futuristic romance I can't wait to reread!

Call me paranoid, but I continually check all the windows in my house for that wasp queen. I'm not ready to declare victory yet, but all the crank-outs are clear. Yea! Of course, I can't open my kitchen windows, but since my dad sprayed them with wasp killer from the outside, I'm reasonably confident that if she's there, she's dead. If I make it another week without seeing her again, I'll probably relax. I hate wasps. :-)

Yesterday, I started reading an article about Pompeii and discovered that I'd missed an exhibition at Chicago's Field Museum! That broke my heart. I really need to get on the museum mailing list because it's not a big deal to pop down there when a cool exhibit comes in. Right now, I have tickets for early this fall for King Tut.

I wish the museums in Minneapolis would get some cool shows like Pompeii or Tut, but we never do. The only interesting thing I remember rolling through here was an exhibit of Viking artifacts at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts.

And yeah, geekdom continued. Not only did I start reading that article on Pompeii, but I watched a show about Pirate technology on the History Channel and caught part of the show about string theory on PBS.

I didn't do much yesterday, I didn't feel like it. I did have another writer geek afternoon for a little while. I read an article in Smithsonian Magazine about genetic health issues among the Amish community and about a doctor who opened a clinic and is working to identify the issues this population is prone to. It was very interesting.

I wasn't going to link to these articles, but then I thought, what the heck. Maybe someone else is interested.

One of the genetic illnesses was GA-1, which is a protein issue. The thing that's weird is that I was talking to someone about genetic protein deficiency recently. I'd never heard of it before our conversation, now I find an article. (Susan, I hope you're enjoying Hawaii!)

There was also an article from the NY Times that I read titled Rogue Giants at Sea. I confess, I thought it was about whales or something, but the Rogue Giants actually refer to huge waves, many over 90 feet in height. The experts thought it was all a bunch of crap, like mermaids and sea monsters until the 1990s. They found one place they can predict them accurately and believe they're about 10 years away from being able to predict world wide.

The final article I read had to do with genius. It's from Wired and it talks about how there is genius that appears at a young age and a second kind of genius where the person does their best work later in life. Again, very fascinating reading. The research, believe it or not, was done by an economist. He mainly focuses on the art world, but he also cites some examples from literature.

For instance, F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby. The economist said that Gatsby was the star work, and that while Fitzgerald went on to write a couple of other books, nothing measured up to the first work--which he wrote at 29. The other type of genius, as cited in this article, happens later in life. Here he mentions Mark Twain wrote The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn when he was 50.

Then I vegged out in front of the television and watched the All Star Game. I'm a National League fan because I prefer that style of baseball over the American League. I like the strategy that comes from the pitcher having to bat, something that's sadly lacking with the designated hitter.

I stayed up later than I meant to, but I wanted to see MN Twins catcher Joe Mauer bat. I did. He struck out. I should have gone to bed earlier. Although, the National League needed me! When I quit watching, it was after the American League batted in the 8th inning. The NL was winning 2-1 and the AL hadn't had much of a threat going all night. I figured I could safely sleep without more runs being scored. Silly me. The NL ended up losing. Sigh. That makes them 0-9-1 in the last 10 years.

I'm watching baseball and in between innings I see a commercial for a movie that looks and sounds so inane, I can't believe anyone spent money to make it. And people wonder why I haven't been to the theater since Titanic. Movies like this explain a lot. The title?

Snakes on a Plane

From IMDB:
Plot Outline: On board a flight over the Pacific Ocean, an assassin, bent on killing a passenger who's a witness in protective custody, lets loose a crate full of deadly snakes.

And of course, there's an official website for the movie.

You Tube calls it the "most hotly anticipated movie of 2006" and there's a parody trailer up there, though it's not the funniest thing ever.

I don't think I'm the target market for this movie. Maybe I'm wrong and it's cinematic genius, but somehow I doubt it. Give me Airport with a mad bomber blowing a hole in the plane. Or Airplane with the blow up doll as the auto pilot. This is one movie I won't be putting in my Netflix queue.

Yesterday after work, my dad brought the leaf blower over and we went window by window, blowing out any grass the wasp had left behind. I didn't see any more signs of her, but then like I said, I can't reach the latches to unlock my kitchen windows. My dad sprayed around the outline, though, after wasps turn in for the night, so if she was there, hopefully she's dead. I loathe wasps.

That was pretty much the highlight in the day. I deleted some blogline subscriptions in order to keep my sanity. All writers are insecure and neurotic, it's just a matter of to what degree and how well they conceal it. Unfortunately, every time I start to gain some confidence in my writing, something happens to knock it out of me, so I tend to be in the more insecure category.

I did watch some of the home run derby yesterday that's associated with the All Star Game. I was hoping to see David Ortiz in the final round (he's a former Twin and a current Red Sox player), but he didn't make it. It ended up being between David Wright of the Mets and Ryan Howard of the Phillies. I went to bed before a winner could be determined, but there is one thing that floors me. All those kayakers in the river. They were jumping in the water after homerun balls. Huh? This is a big so what for me. There is absolutely no way that I'd jump into a river and battle other kayakers/swimmers for a baseball. Especially once it got dark.

And I just saw on ESPN that Ryan Howard won. He's the one I was rooting for.

I've been checking the wasp window and there's been no new grass there, but yesterday I grew suspicious. That queen gave up pretty damn quickly. Too quickly. I decided to do some more checking. I opened the window next to the original one. Clear. Then I opened the first window next to my china hutch. Pay dirt.

I grabbed my weapon--wasp spray--and saturated her grass. Then I moved on to the other window next to my china hutch. I found a little bit of grass up there. I sprayed that one too. When my mom came over and looked at it later, her first comment was I'd messed up my windows. My response was I don't care as long as the wasp goes away.

Since I had the air running--it's been hot here, though not as bad as it can be--I closed the windows up again. I also checked every other window in the house except for the ones over my kitchen sink. Damn it, I can't reach the latches to unlock them and open them. I need to be like 2 feet taller. :-( Anyway, I found one of my bedroom windows had a little grass in it too. I opened that one wide and let the breeze blow it away.

I kept getting up to check the china hutch windows and one of the times I opened it, the queen was there. Of course, I was unarmed. I'd have thought that saturating the grass would be enough. And I ran out of wasp spray!

I'm rearming myself and war will recommence. I take no wasp prisoners!

In other, non-stinging insect news, I was sorting through my computer room books, the ones I'd just jammed on the shelf without rhyme or reason, and sorting them. I have them broken up by subject and I started putting them back on the shelves. I also started going through my writing books yesterday, deciding which ones I'd long outgrown or which ones hadn't been at all helpful. So far, I've got a small box to get rid of and I'm not done yet.

As I was sorting down my books, I found my copy of The Writer's Brainstorming Kit or something like that. It comes with a deck of cards, and since I need a story for Maia, I decided to try this. I drew five cards like the book said, but the one in the 3 or 4 position just didn't work for Maia or Creed, so I reached in the deck for another card. That dislodged another card that said "loneliness" and I had an epiphany. Maia was overwhelmed by loneliness!

I knew Ryne had felt that way, it permeated her story (the one I turned in at the end of June), but I didn't realize Maia shared that sense of aloneness and that was stupid. She's every bit as alone as Ryne was, maybe even more so since Maia ceded her powers and is closed off from her people in a way that Ryne isn't. They also grew up with the same parents and Maia didn't have anyone there for her the way she took care of Ryne.

I couldn't believe I didn't realize this. Talk about totally being blind, but I get it now. Of course, this still doesn't give me a story, but it does give me some insight into my heroine-to-be. I've already had some important glimpses into Creed while I wrote Ryne and Deke's story, so I think I'm good on the characters.

Yesterday afternoon, I spent a couple of hours on the 2006 movie, Tristan & Isolde. I realized as I watched that I'd forgotten a lot of the details from the story that I read in high school and I couldn't tell when the movie strayed from that version. I'm guessing my faulty memory is a good thing, although I'm really tempted to go digging in my file cabinets and see if I kept my class notes from that HS class. I did several big purges, but I loved this particular class so much, I'm hoping I kept them. But I digress--as usual.

The movie opens with Tristan as a child. His father is trying to unite the tribes of Briton to stand against a ruthless Irish king. The Romans have pulled out and the country is in chaos as they try to fill the power gap. Of course, the Irish attack while the men are meeting and Tristan escapes death only because Lord Marke steps in to save him, losing a hand in the process. We see Isolde as a child as well, burying her mother, then back to Tristan. Lord Marke has brought him home to raise him as his own and we see that even as a child, Tristan excels in warfare.

Then we fast forward 9 years. Isolde has been betrothed to her father's top general as a reward for service, something she is unhappy about. Tristan is a leader of men, and when the Irish attack again, he kills the Irish general, but is wounded himself and believed dead. His people, following their burial custom, put him on a boat and his body is sent out to sea.

Isolde finds him on the beach near her home--injured and unconscious, but very much alive--hides him from her people and nurses him back to health. The two of them fall in love along the way, though she gives him her maid's name and doesn't admit to being the king's daughter.

After Tristan is home again, word comes that the Irish king will give over his daughter in marriage--as well as her dowry--to the man who wins her in some kind of fighting tournament. Tristan convinces Lord Marke to make deals with the other barons to unite the country behind him and share the dowry if they throw their fights and allow Tristan to win (he's fighting in Lord Marke's name). Tristan doesn't discover who Isolde really is until it's far too late.

I'll leave the description of the movie there, although anyone who's read the story knows what happens.

I thought the prologue scenes of the movie with Tristan and Isolde as children were unnecessary. It does help explain why Tristan loves and honors Lord Marke so much, but beyond that, it serves no real purpose and I believe these feelings could have been shown within the story rather than wasting so much time on the opening. Same thing with the fact that the Irish don't want the Britons to unite and that Tristan's father's plan to do just that brought on the attack.

The battle scenes were violent, but seemed realistic enough. I spent a lot of time looking away when they fought so I'm sure they did a good job with this. :-)

Tristan and Isolde falling in love--well, that wasn't quite so good. I felt like I blinked and missed it happening. I should probably rewatch this part of the movie to see if it occurred as quick as it felt or if I wasn't paying strict attention, but I doubt that I will. In any case, their relationship didn't seem heart-deep to me and I was disappointed in this aspect of the movie.

There was intrigue going on--a power struggle between Lord Marke and this one particular baron--and this was the catalyst for some of the events in the story. There was also the very sexy Melot. Yummmm! Henry Cavill is the actor's name and he is absolutely gorgeous. I lived for the moments he was on screen so I could drool. :-)

Edited to add: The end of the movie left me with some unanswered questions. I won't go into them since I don't want to spoil anything for someone who wants to watch the movie, but damn it, I hate loose ends!

Overall, the movie was a pleasant enough way to pass some time, but I wouldn't put it in the must-see category. My rating is 3 stars, which means I liked it.

You Are Teal Green

You are a one of a kind, original person. There's no one even close to being like you. Expressive and creative, you have a knack for making the impossible possible. While you are a bit offbeat, you don't scare people away with your quirks. Your warm personality nicely counteracts and strange habits you may have.

What Color Green Are You?

Not tech related, this is pure writer geek. ;-)

At work, someone brought in their old magazines, including several issues of The Smithsonian, and I browsed through them. I started out by skimming through the article on Edvard Munch, the painter who did The Scream, but I was more interested in looking at the pictures of his other works of art than I was in his life.

The next article that I looked at, though, really drew me in. It was titled In John They Trust and it was about a cargo cult in Vanuatu. They wait for the return of John Frum who will come with cargo from America. The article suggests that John Frum may never have existed, but had been used as a way to get the missionaries off the island in the 1930s. This wasn't the main thrust of the piece, though.

From there, I went on to an article about how coyotes have moved from the American West into nearly every city in the country, including Chicago, New York and Washington D.C. I knew we had coyotes around the Twin Cities, but I didn't realize exactly how that had happened.

I'm not ready to subscribe to the magazine, but my geeky writer side was in heaven. Then it just kept going!

On the drive home from work, I was flipping through radio stations and stumbled over NPR's Science Friday. They were talking about the mass extinction of amphibians that's going on right now. I was like, wow, I didn't even know that was happening! It has to do with some fungus that is suddenly on the upsurge. Even the call-in questions from listeners were fascinating. I actually sat in the garage and listened until the show ended.

Next up in my geeky day were online articles. I found links to these stories in the Most Popular section of some social tagging sites like Del.icio.us and Furl. The first was from a NY Times columnist who talks about a story she was working on about training exotic animals and how she put those techniques to work on her husband. It's titled "What Shamu Taught Me About a Happy Marriage." You need to register to view the NY Times articles, just an FYI if you're thinking of clicking over. As I'm reading this, I could see how this not only would be interesting to use with a heroine in a story, but that it might be interesting to try it out on people besides SOs. :-)

Then I read an article from Yahoo News titled "Roots of the Human Family Tree Are Shallow." Also fascinating about how everyone who lives on Earth now is descended from someone who may have lived around the time of King Tut.

My last foray for the night was an article on picking and remembering passwords. Since my day job requires that we pick a new password every 90 days, and since I'm running out of clever and memorable letter/number combinations, I figured this might be a good read. The author laid out some interesting ideas, but in the comments section, others suggested that her method would make it easier for hackers who came up with one password to come up with them all. There's supposed to be a follow-up story and I'm going to try to remember to watch for it so I can make a decision on the password situation.

Did you notice how these topics are all over the spectrum? This is why I had 240 credits when I graduated from college (180 were necessary) and I didn't have a minor or a second major. :-) I find the damnedest things spellbinding and happily go off reading or watching or listening to whatever.

I think, though, that wide-ranging interests is a trait a lot of writers share. After all, you never know when something might be the piece that brings a book to life for you. I've told this story before, but it had to be 8-10 years ago when I was fascinated by nanotechnology and the possibilities for the future and that ended up coming back to inspire me on The Power of Two. The whole story was born around the idea of Quantum Brain Nanotechnology.

Today, I'm hoping to get to my writing chapter's meeting, so I need to logoff and try to get moving.

My next Net Flix movie arrived yesterday--Tristan and Isolde. My plan for the weekend is to watch it. I also have a meeting on Saturday morning for my local writing chapter. I'm planning on going, though I doubt I'll make it for the pre-meeting thing. I'll be lucky to wake up and move fast enough to make it to the meeting. :-) The program after the meeting, however, is someone I'd like to hear. Something about public speaking for introverts. Along those lines anyway.

The wasp doesn't appear to have returned. Of course, I'll have to keep watch on that window for a while and might have to spray the window again, but so far so good. I don't like any bug, but I really hate those things.

Right now, my quest is to find space saver bags. I only need the size for clothes, not the large and extra large sizes, but most of them seem to be sold in assortment sizes, without giving the option of only buying the size needed. Another quest. :-) The question is why does this even have to be a quest? It seems like the manufacturers would figure out they might sell more if they offered the option of buying only the size needed. Yes, my life is exciting. Sigh.

I checked into art classes, though. Do you know how hard it is to find anything? I want to take Beginning Drawing for People With Zero Artistic Talent, but community ed is offering nothing over the summer and the spring classes seem to be geared toward pottery and basket making--neither of which I have much interest in. There is one place that kind of offers something I might be interested in taking--I turned them up in an online search--but I don't think I'd ever find their building. I'm directionally challenged. So where does someone find reasonably priced art classes for adults? They have to be out there somewhere.

It was kind of a boring day yesterday. I had so many things I wanted to get done, but I made the mistake of sitting down to read email and that took care of any ambition I had. :-/ I haven't slept well all week, though, so it wasn't surprising. The only amazing thing was that I didn't fall asleep sitting up again.

Off for another day of fun and frolic at the day job.

Last year, I believe it was sometime in May, I dealt with wasp queens flying around the house. I think there were four or five of them, and since my fear of wasps knows few boundaries, some of the stories I posted here about my attempts to kill these things were probably pretty funny. But I have my new house now and I was hugely relieved that I wouldn't have to deal with wasps again.

Guess what?

They're baaack.

Not inside the house, though, thank goodness! It all started Tuesday. The temperature and humidity finally dropped enough that I could open up my windows again. I'm not sure how long I had the air conditioning running--probably less than a week--but as I opened the window, all these blades of grass fell on the other side of the screen. I look up and there's all kinds of grass blades wedged between my window top and the frame.

Now I didn't realize wasps used grass to build nests. I always thought their nests looked kind of papery or something. So I'm looking up at this mess going, what the hell is this? Of course, this necessitated a visit from my dad. He's the one who used the dreaded wasp word. Shudder. He knocked down the grass collection with a piece of wood and that was that. Or so I thought.

Yesterday after work, I open that same window, and not only is there more grass up there, the queen bitch herself is on top of the window, hanging on to a long blade of grass. Of course, I don't have any wasp spray. By the time my dad arrives with the insecticide, the queen is long gone. We sprayed the window up really good, though, and now I have rivulets of wasp spray running down my glass. I don't care as long as these things stay away from me! I'm beginning to wonder if I'm cursed.

I know this story isn't all that funny, but I wasn't feeling particularly scared, not with a screen between me and the thing. Of course, this window is right next to my new deck, so I'm not enthusiastic about actually sitting out there anymore. I wonder how long that wasp will persist in trying to build her nest in my window? I mean, how many times can it be knocked down or sprayed, how many hours can she spend rebuilding it before she decides to cut her losses and move on?--hopefully not to another one of my windows.

The thing is, if this was one of my kitchen windows, I'd never know because I don't open them. I can't reach the latches to unlock them so I just don't bother. Gah! Now I'm going to be running around my house, opening every window just in case.

There isn't much else going on. Thankfully. :-) Next up for movie watching is Tristan and Isolde. I'm really looking forward to this one. I've seen some mixed reviews and I'm a little leery because I read the actual story in a high school English class, but I'm thinking I've forgotten enough where that shouldn't interfere. That's my plan for the weekend.

I have to be brief this morning. It's late and I have to logoff and get ready for work soon. Today was my day to blog over at 2 B Read and that always presses me for time in the morning.

Anyway, yesterday I did not make it to Ikea, like I suspected would happen. Instead I vegged out most of the day and felt like a slug. Finally, in the afternoon, I took a notebook and started making notes on the spin off book to the one I just finished. I have characters, but no story yet, so I was kind of hoping something would come to me. Nope, still brain dead. Sigh. I decided it's too early yet to be pushing to come up with stuff so I started making notes about what to blog about at TBR. Not sure I was hit with anything too great, but at least it's written and posted.

It was beautiful here yesterday, the perfect day out on the deck. My dad and I took down the thing the builder had blocking the patio door and I dragged a lawn chair out there. I wish I could have slept in this morning and wandered out there with coffee later on. Ah well, off to the day job.

Happy Fourth of July!

I'm not feeling too energetic this morning. I did want to go to Ikea, but I know I'm not going to make it. I just want to veg out. I might see about doing that out on my deck. It's a fabulous day here with a nice breeze. The only issue is I have a piece of metal screwed into the runner of the patio door so that no one would inadvertently wander out when there wasn't a deck there. My dad hasn't taken that down yet. I'll have to ask him about that. How great would it be to nap on the deck? :-) If I didn't get sunburned.

I'm probably going to ramble now--thinking out loud kind of stuff--so be warned. Okay, rambling worse than usual. ;-) It really hit home for me with the reviews I've been getting for Eternal Nights. Over and over again reviewers refer to me and/or my stories as "unique," mention how they don't "fit the mold," and have said my stories are "different." My editor for EN said something along the lines of how there was nothing else like it out there. I got similar comments about how unique my first three books were too.

The thing that's so weird is that I never think anything I write is that different. I used to be a voracious romance reader--before I dedicated myself to writing, I used to read a book a day--and I never felt like I was wandering that far off the beaten path.

Yet 95% of the rejections I had on one of my proposals all had editors citing one of the paranormal elements and saying they couldn't wrap their mind around it. That left me confused because while it's different, it's not that different. Or least I didn't think so. Yeah, the beginning of this book really straddles the genres of fantasy and romance (urban fantasy? I'm not familiar enough with the different kinds of fantasy out there to label it with accuracy), but it was necessary to introduce the hero later in order to do the world building and set up the premise.

BTW, you'll be able to judge whether or not this story is so different yourself in 2007. This is the book I just turned in last week.

Before I was asked to be part of the Crimson City series, I had this really cool idea for a story about two half demons. I talked about it with my agent at the RWA conference in Dallas and she said it would be a really hard sell as a romance, but it would go as fantasy. But romance is such a vital part of my stories, that I don't think I could write straight fantasy. You see, my favorite part about writing isn't creating the worlds. Yes, I'm interested in how the world impacts my characters and their development, but my primary interest in writing is watching my hero and heroine grow to a point that they can have a forever relationship with each other. That's why I write.

And when I talked to my editor for the Crimson series, he originally had a different story in mind for me, one with a mech hero and/or heroine. That seemed pretty cool too, but it ended up that story was taken and I had to come up with something else. I pitched my two half demons. I really wanted to write that story. :-)

The response has been interesting to say the least. I lost count of how many people told me Mika was "one of the best heroines they've ever read." There were other readers who didn't like her, though, they never said exactly why.

So when I hear over and over and over again about how different my stories are from person after person, I have to wonder if I'm wrong and my stories really are that far outside the norm. Now granted, I don't want to sound/be like everyone else. Unique is good and I'm not going to pull my punches to fit into some mold. (Oh, boy, am I not pulling my punches in the book I just turned it. I'm half afraid to hear my new editor's reaction and my agent's reaction as well.) But how can I perceive my work so differently than others?

I thought The Power of Two was totally a romance and heard comments about how it wasn't a romance from some readers and about how far I straddled the genres from others. I thought Through a Crimson Veil was less of a romance than TPOT despite all the hot sex/almost sex scenes and I hear comments about how it's mostly a romance. On EN, I'm hearing from reviewers about how it would be Military SF if I didn't have the reincarnation plot line. I've never read Military SF.

Now I know I'm not the best judge of how my stories turn out, but I'd think that I could at least judge what kind of ratio I have between romance and action, yes? Or that I would know when I've colored really, really far outside the lines. I'm still grappling with this, trying to reconcile what I