You should see how high the snow is piled in the parking lot at the EDJ! (Evil Day Job) It's taking up a huge amount of space and it's towering as it is. The news also showed the places where MNDOT drops the snow they've pulled from the freeways and those lots are piled high from last weekend's storm too. And here comes another one. Sigh. We're under a winter storm warning from noon today until 6pm on Friday. Why can't these storms move out faster? Anyway, we're due for another 10-15 inches. Do you see me smiling? No? It's because I'm not! Argh!

I more or less missed out on the last storm because it hit on the weekend and I was off from the EDJ the Monday afterward, but I'm not so lucky this time. I think I said this before, but it's worth repeating--bears have the right idea. Go to sleep and wake up when winter is over. Hibernation is a good thing!

I'm still behind on everything and I didn't even attempt to answer email yesterday. Instead, I went to bed before 8pm. Oooh, the exciting life of an author! ;-) But I was so tired, I was absolutely worthless yesterday.

Speaking of author stuff, I made a copy of my galley for my mom to proof read for me. This should be interesting since it's the darkest book I've written. Oh, well, if she could proof the novella for me, she'll survive this too. :-) So far, I've discovered my name spelled wrong on the copyright page and I'm totally wondering how the publisher got the quotes they used. Well, one of them anyway. They quoted stuff from an another author on my first book, Ravyn's Flight, that I didn't excerpt on my website. I checked. In fact, to check the accuracy of the quote, I had to search the archives of one of the Yahoo Groups I belong to. Weird. The only thing I can think of is that after I asked that author for permission, I forwarded the notes to my first publisher who passed it along to the second. It's a mystery.

My galleys for In the Midnight Hour arrived yesterday. The galleys are test printing of the book that need to be proofed for accuracy. I swore to myself that I wasn't going to read them last night. I put them in my bag to take to the EDJ (Evil Day Job) and did other stuff last night. But at 9pm, when I should have been on my way to bed, I caved. I couldn't help myself.

Part of it is that this is probably my favorite stage in the process. All the hard work is done, and while proofing takes a lot of concentration, it's all left-brained stuff. Besides, this is when it really feels like a book and not just one of my stories. I wonder if other published authors feel this way or if it's just me? I'm the one who walked around with my first book for two weeks after it came out because I couldn't believe it was real.

The other part of it is that I really like this book and these characters. I love all my stories and all my heroes and heroines, of course, but Ryne and Deke just a tad more than usual right now. Maybe it's because it took me so long to sell this story and I wrote two others in the meantime. I'd look out the window at the EDJ, see the cemetery where the opening chapter takes place, and long to write this book. Of course, I've been asked which book is my favorite and my answer always is the last one that I've finished. It's fresh in my mind, and like I said earlier, the hard work is done.

Whatever the reason, though, I caved in and picked up the galleys last night. I just wanted to check out one of the quotes the publisher used on the opening page, since I'd just checked out the source and I wanted to make sure it was right. And since I had the galley out, I thought I'd check out a couple of my favorite spots. Just real quickly.

I ended up reading pretty much the entire thing. At least all the character stuff. I did skip the action scenes. My weakness is the h/h and how they interact with each other. That's my absolute favorite part of writing. And I love how Ryne and Deke do it. They're just so, well, cute together. (And I say that about all my h/h, but then they always seem to fit each other perfectly. I figure I can say that since they come in as fully formed people and I have nothing to do with it.)

So it was after midnight when I put the galley back in my tote bag and I had to get up this morning at 4am. I'm dying here and it isn't helping any to remind myself it was self-inflicted.

It also doesn't help to think that if I was going to stay up that late, there were a million other more pressing things I should have been doing. Starting with writing the WIP and ending with the billion and a half emails and MySpace messages I need to reply to and/or write. Gah! I've reached the point where I whimper when I see I have new notes because it's just overwhelming right now.

I watched the tail end of the Oscars last night. I didn't realize they were on. :-( Yes, apparently it is possible to miss all the hype if you're not paying attention and don't watch much television. In my defense, though, I thought the Academy Awards were always on in March. Am I remembering wrong?

I was getting impatient toward the end--it's like this epic performance that never ends. It was nearly 11pm and I was getting ready for bed, but since it was so close to the end, I wanted to see the award for best picture. Then I started thinking, you know, as bad as it is to watch these things at home, can you imagine sitting in the audience? I was in my jammies and sitting on the bed for the last 20 minutes, but can you imagine wearing a full-length evening gown, putting on makeup, doing your hair, wearing all that jewelry and being held prisoner in the auditorium for 4 1/2 hours? Gah!

Anyhow, The Departed won for Best Picture. I don't know anything about this movie, but I'm going to check it and the other finalists out and see if any of them are something I'd like to rent.

One of the coolest things was that screen where those tumblers or acrobats or whoever they were made silhouettes of movies. I only saw two because I came in so late, Snakes on a Plane and The Departed. As always, I thought the thank yous went on too long. I flipped away when that went on and watched snow coverage on the local news.

My favorite part of the awards is seeing all the actresses in their dresses. If I hadn't been busy writing all day (and if I'd realized the Oscars were on this weekend), I would have tuned in to watch one of the red carpet shows so I could see more of them than just what the presenters were wearing. If I finish writing early enough today (please God!), maybe I can watch the Fashion Police. Although, I must confess, they've raved about some dresses I thought were hideous.

Tomorrow it's back to the EDJ (Evil Day Job). And it's snowing--still or again, I'm not sure which. I had someone plow out my driveway for me, but my dad came over, wasn't happy with it and cleaned out the driveway some more. :-)

There isn't much else to say. I worked all day, but didn't get as much done as I'd hoped. That would be the sentence that sums up my 4 day weekend. :-( But from the beginning, I've fought for every word in this story.

Bonus post this morning!

In the Midnight Hour is up for preorder at Amazon.com now! This is really early--I didn't expect to see it for another 2 or 3 weeks. You know, this is my fifth book (sixth if you count the Crimson anthology) and I'm almost as excited about this one as I was with my first book. Maybe because ITMH was a story I was absolutely compelled to tell and I consider it the second book of my heart.

In other news, we received about 10-11 inches of snow so far according to The Weather Channel. It's difficult to tell from my window because it was so fiercely windy all day yesterday, that the snow blew around and it's drifted. In some areas I can see almost bare grass, in others, it looks as if it's up to my hips. My neighbor was out snowblowing his driveway before 8am this morning. Good thing I was up already! Snowblowers can be loud.

These pictures are of my backyard as taken from either my patio doors or my bedroom.

This is Saturday evening around 5pm or so.







This shot is about the same time on Saturday night, but taken from my bedroom window.



All these pictures are from Sunday morning. I don't know if you can see how the snow drifted in front of the evergreens or not, but it's really piled up back there.





It even drifted on the deck. It's not very deep here because the wind kept blowing it to the ground, but I thought the small drift was indicative of the larger drifting that went on.



We're not through yet! They're saying another 2-4 inches today with another inch overnight. I hope they're wrong; we've got more than enough!

This post for movie review Sunday is going to be really short. Last night's film was The Producers starring Matthew Broderick (Leo Bloom) and Nathan Lane (Max Bialystock).

Leo Bloom goes to the offices of Max Bialystock in his job as an accountant. While he's looking at the books, he makes an offhand comment about how a losing Broadway show could make more money for the producer than a hit. Although it's illegal, Max tries to talk Leo into joining him in a scheme to do just that. Leo refuses, but when he returns to his EDJ (Evil Day Job), he reconsiders. The two then set out to find the worst play ever (Springtime for Hitler), hire the worst director and cast the worst actors. There's no way their scheme could fail. Unless people love the play.

This movie is from 2005, long enough ago that if I'd heard Mel Brooks was involved in it, I'd forgotten. If I had remembered, I would have stayed away from the film. Probably. I might have given it a shot since it did so well on Broadway. Anyway, I'm not a Mel Brooks fan. I've tried. With one exception (Spaceballs), I just plain don't find him funny. Unfortunately for me, The Producers evoked a typical reaction from me when it comes to Mel Brooks: excruciating boredom.

I sat through this whole movie. I don't know why. Maybe because I kept expecting it to get better. IMO, it didn't. I wandered away from the screen several times. Toward the end, after the you-know-what hit the fan, I actually said out loud, "How much longer is this thing going to last?" That's never a positive sign. Neither is lamenting the day when movies used to be 90 minutes and not a horrible 135 minutes. :-)

If you normally enjoy Mel Brooks, you'll probably like this movie. If he's not your cup of tea, you'll be like me, bored stiff. My one consolation is that I did not pay theater ticket prices to see this on Broadway.

My rating: 1 star.

Yesterday was a hugely frustrating day. I spun my wheels until I was ready to scream. Since the scene wasn't working in Creed's POV, I switched back to Maia. This was better--for a little while--but it didn't take long until I was fighting for every word again. Finally, late in the evening, it dawned on me that the problem was that I was trying to force one of my characters to do something he or she wouldn't do.

I've mentioned here before that almost every time I get stuck like this it's because I'm trying to do things my way instead of the way my h/h want to go. They're endlessly aggravating, but they end up being right. That, of course, is even more aggravating because they're always smug. Seriously, I need to have the kind of control over the characters that other authors do. I mean some of them even get to name their hero and heroine! Mine? They tell me what their names are and all the begging and pleading in the world won't get them to change them.

Take Ryne, for example, the heroine from In the Midnight Hour. She told me her name began with an R, but wouldn't give me more than that. I started looking through the girl's sections of my baby name books. None of those R names would work for her. I found a few that seemed almost right, but would she go for one of those? Of course not. I swear I was on like my ninth baby name book when I finally found Ryne and she said, "that's it." You know why only one baby name book had Ryne listed in the girl's section? Because Ryne is predominantly a boy's name. Did that faze her? Nope. She was Ryne, period. No discussion allowed.

Or how about Conor from Through a Crimson Veil. At least his name is normal, but he insisted on spelling it with one N, and up till then, I'd only seen it spelled with two Ns. I figured that was minor since I've had characters who pronounce their names differently than everyone else would say them. Like Mika, Conor's heroine. It's not Mee-ka. She pronounces it Mike-ah. (I found out later, BTW, that Conor is an Irish spelling. I found that very interesting.)

And for a proposal I need to work on after I finish the Book From Hell, I have a heroine named Sasha. Sasha! I don't write heroines called Sasha for heaven's sake! I don't know why I wasted the energy trying to get her to change her mind. It was a futile effort and I will be revising a proposal with a blond-haired heroine who goes by Sasha.

Then there are the characters who take over a complete book. Eternal Nights was supposed to be Stacey and Alex's story, but Wyatt and Kendall showed up and it became their book and Alex and Stacey were relegated to secondary characters again. I had no say in this.

Anyway, back to the Book From Hell. So I reread what I had, figured out that while Creed doesn't waste words, he's not as straightforward as I had him acting in the scene and I cut that part. I also found a place where I cut away from the conversation between him and Maia too quickly and I went back to flesh that out. It seems to be going better, but I won't know for sure until I get this chapter finished.

I read a really interesting article this morning about solar power in the Telegraph. I'm pretty sure it's the London Telegraph, but since it doesn't specify the city, I'm erring on the side of caution. The part I found particularly fascinating was that new technology is emerging in this area so quickly, that the people interviewed believe solar power will be cheap enough within five years to compete with our current modes of energy.

Someone in the article is even quoted as saying that they don't need subsidies, that all they need is for the governments around the world to do "no harm." Which of course, got my brain swirling with potential story ideas. :-) What can I say? It's the hazard of being a writer. Anything and everything can spark the imagination.

I also saw a report on the TV about organic fruits and vegetables. I watched it on the web. (Have I mentioned I love having a high-speed connection?) This story talked about how expensive organic produce ran and what you should buy organic and what was okay to buy "regular."

There are some fruits and vegetables that have pesticide residue even after repeated washings, and according to the report, these are the "dirty dozen" that you'd be better off buying organic:

Apples, bell peppers, celery, imported grapes, peaches, nectarines, pears, potatoes, red raspberries, spinach, cherries and strawberries.

Merely buying organic for these items can cut your pesticide intake by 90%. Now, isn't that reassuring? Gah! After reading this, I shudder when I think of all the apples I've eaten.

Here's the list of produce that are the most consistently clean:

Asparagus, avocados, bananas, broccoli, cauliflower, sweet corn, kiwi, onion, pineapple, and sweet peas.

No new story ideas from this, however, I did find it interesting. Pesticides, genetic engineering, hormones, and other crap like this in the food supply worries me, but with organics so expensive, it's nice to know what I can skip spending extra on.

I think I'll quit here because the other item that interests me is the snowstorm from hell that's supposed to hit the Twin Cities today. And while I'm from Minnesota and there's nothing we love better than to talk about the weather, I know it bores people from other states. Y'all don't know what you're missing, though. :-) We can have twenty minute conversations with complete strangers and there's never an awkwardness as we search for a topic. ;-)

That weird time inversion thing is happening again this morning. Somehow it's 4:45 already and I'm just getting around to posting. Hmm. It must be time travel. Now if I could only learn to harness my super power.

I was working on a scene yesterday and it was like I'd hit a dead end. I was sputtering, trying to find a way to get the momentum back and I reached a conclusion. I needed to change point of view to my hero. I considered that for a while and decided I was right about that. Maia is shocked, stunned and not moving the scene forward anymore. The problem is that Creed barely dribbles information to me. Working with him is torture because of how reticent he is and how hard I have to push him to get anything. After the last time I was in his head, I swore I was sticking with Maia for the foreseeable future.

Last night, though, I cut the stuff in Maia's head that wasn't working, ended the scene and started a new one with Creed. And as I expected, I'm dragging it out of him. You know, he's the least communicative hero I've ever had. Ever. I'm starting to get an inkling of how frustrated women get when their husbands won't talk to them.

I'm off from the EDJ (Evil Day Job) on Friday and Monday and I plan to get a lot of hours in on the book. If the glimmer I'm getting of the next chapter pans out, I'll be in Creed's head some more. Oh, joy.

Whew! I've finally fulfilled all my judging responsibilities and I can now return to writing on my lunch hour. I wasn't sure I was going to make the deadline without a huge push, but I have almost 2 weeks to spare.

I had more garage door adventures yesterday morning. I hit the button and the door went up 6, maybe 8 inches, and stopped. I put it down again, gave the spot that had stuck before a kick--hey! it worked last time--and tried to open the door again. Nope. This time, I frantically grabbed, lifted, and shook it in three spots before trying to open it again. It finally went up. My theory is ice locked up something, maybe the hinges. It's been warm the last couple of days and the snow has been melting and refreezing at night. Because I was trapped in the garage, I ran a couple of minutes late and because of that, I got stuck by the stupid train (you can substitute an expletive for stupid--I did) and because I got stuck by the train, I was late for work. Grrr.

I was actually able to painlessly move my newsletter from Yahoo Groups to the new service. Shocked me since Yahoo tends to make nothing simple, yet this was. It took less than five minutes. The thing that's interesting is in the one day since I switched over, I acquired more new subscribers than I did in a typical month with Yahoo. Either it's the new website format where people can just put in their email address and hit enter or Yahoo was a detriment for people. I wonder which it was.

It's taken me a while, but I've finally figured it out. I time travel.

I know! It's hard to believe, but it makes complete sense. I'll look at the clock and it'll be 4:30 and a mere minute later, I'll look and it's 4:55. Clearly, I time traveled. How else can 25 minutes pass in only 1?

Sometimes I time travel in smaller increments, a matter of minutes. Other times I'll move zip forward a couple of hours. I never know how far in the future I'm going to end up!

You're probably wondering how I finally learned the truth.

It happened this morning. I was a little late getting up, but certainly not any worse than usual. I made coffee like I always do and settled down in front of the computer with a cup to make the rounds through my morning websites and read email. I looked at the clock. It was 4:30, the time I normally stop and write my blog, but I had a couple more sites left to visit. Certainly nothing that would take very long. I could look at them and still have time.

The next time I looked at the clock, it was 4:50.

I know I didn't spend 20 minutes looking at a couple of things. How did this happen? I wondered. What could account for these missing minutes? Then it dawned on me--I'd time traveled. It made perfect sense. It's why, in the blink of an eye, my mornings disappear. It's why I'm always running late and playing beat the clock. Without any conscious effort on my part, I'm transporting myself forward in time. All those mornings where two or three hours disappeared without my being aware of them. All those mornings I had to race out the door to get to the EDJ (Evil Day Job) on time. All those mornings that I thought I'd overslept. Time travel!

I have positive proof--I still had coffee in my cup!

My morning cup of coffee does not last 20 minutes if I'm there to drink it and it certainly doesn't have time to get cold. But if I time traveled and my mug didn't, then it follows that I'd still have coffee and that it would no longer be hot.

The evidence is irrefutable.

Now that I know what's happening, I need to learn how to control my super power. If I can travel forward in time, surely I can travel backward. Here's my plan: I'm going to travel to Wednesday morning, read the winning lottery numbers in the paper, then return to Tuesday. On my way home from work today, I'll buy a ticket with those numbers and act totally surprised when I win the $67 million jackpot. Then I'll quit the EDJ and write full time.

I only wish I'd figured out that I had the power to control time sooner!

It was one of those crazy weekends where every time I turned around, I had another email, message or comment I needed to answer. That's not a complaint. I love getting notes that say: I love your books! Or: Thanks for friending me, I'm going to try your books. But I seriously needed to write without distraction this weekend. I finally ended up just ignoring everything until Sunday evening. I like to be timely, but I have characters who need to torture me some more. :-) It took like an hour and a half, but I finally answered all the email about my books and I got caught up on MySpace. I think. I still have friends' emails to answer, but they're used to my slow responses. :-/

It was a busy weekend in other respects too. I had to make a decision on moving my newsletter from Yahoo Groups. (Yes, I'm moving it.) And I had to decide where to move it to. (Did that too.) I'm guessing Yahoo doesn't have a handy feature where I can transfer my list in one easy click and now I'm sorry I went with them originally.

I also looked at the countdown clock on my MySpace page and realized there's only a little over 5 months until In the Midnight Hour is released. Gah! That means I have to make time to send some more emails about what I want to do/plan to do about promotion. You know, sometimes I enjoy promotion, but sometimes I just wish that all I had to do was write. I had no clue--none--how much time promotion takes from my schedule. Most of the published authors I knew before I sold were category authors who didn't do anything for promo. In fact, none of them even had websites until recently. It left me completely unprepared for the time it takes to do bookmarks or the website or mail out copies of a book for review.

Anyway, if I could clone myself, I'd like to add a clone that did nothing but promote my (our?) books. :-) How many clones am I up to now?

Despite the craziness, I did get a good amount of writing done. Sometimes I wonder how I manage to find time to write in between the other stuff. Heck, sometimes I wonder how any author manages to write in between the other stuff.

This week's movie is Moulin Rouge! starring Nicole Kidman and Ewan McGregor. It's from 2001 and I'm sure everyone's seen it already, which is probably a good thing since I'm not sure how to review this movie.

___Warning: Spoiler Alert___

There will be spoilers, so if you haven't seen the movie and plan to, stop here.

The basic storyline is that a penniless poet, Christian (McGregor), goes to France, meets up with a group of performers and becomes their playwright. They go to the Moulin Rouge to encourage Satine (Kidman) to star in their play. Satine is a cabaret performer and a courtesan. Because of a mix-up, she believes that Christian is the duke she's supposed to have an assignation with. They fall in love. The duke is wildly jealous. They pretend it's part of a play which the duke bankrolls. He's still wildly jealous. Etc.

TBH, I'm not sure what to think of this movie or how to review it. I was mulling over what to say here from the time the disk ended. When the film started, my first thought was what the hell is this? By the time I reached the end, I'd decided I liked it and that it had charm and wit. It's not something I'd like to see again, but it was an entertaining show.

Normally, I try to give thoughtful reasons about what did and didn't work for me, but I can't really do that this time. I did like the way the music was used and that modern music was in a movie set in 1900.

I thought the duke's obsession with Satine was overblown and that her death was conveniently timed, but I'm not sure any of this mattered. I think the plot was merely there to hang the songs on and that it was kind of beside the point. And I believe this is why I have trouble coming up with a cogent review.

I'm rating this on the Netflix scale on which 3=Liked it and 4=Really liked it.

3.5 stars

I found out yesterday that Eternal Nights was nominated for a 2006 Single Titles Reviewers' Choice Award! Yea! That was a great surprise!

Second announcement. The Crimson team drew the winner of the Super-Deluxe Crimson City Action Pack Contest and the winner was Kevin T. from NC. Congrats to Kevin and thank you to everyone who entered!

Now on to my topic of the day. Last Saturday, I watched (and reviewed) Sliding Doors, a movie starring Gwyneth Paltrow. This morning, I've been thinking about it and wondering what if? about my own life. Nothing as small as missing a train, of course. There's no way to consider how different your life would be on something as minuscule as that. I've been thinking more about what if I'd made other decisions at certain turning points in my life.

What if that ad agency in Chicago had called before I accepted the job at NWA? There's no doubt I'd be making a lot more money now, probably a ton of it, and I'd be living in Chicago instead of Minneapolis, but I don't think I'd be writing. Advertising is a fast-paced and demanding profession. There'd be no energy left at the end of the day to tell stories. Would I be wearing suits to work? Would I be a creative director, meeting with clients and interacting with movers and shakers in industry? Would I miss writing or would I find a different type of fulfillment?

I can't imagine myself as a high-powered executive too easily, but while I wouldn't be writing in this situation (at least I don't think I would be), I'd still have the stories in my head. I'd live near my cousins and be able to go to Wrigley Field to watch the Cubs play whenever I wanted.

Or what if I'd stayed at the University of Minnesota at Morris instead of transferring down to the U of MN in Minneapolis? Would I be married to a farmer and living in some small town in the outstate area? Actually, the thought of wrangling children and volunteering for the PTA boggles my imagination. It was easier to picture the ad executive thing. Maybe, since I'm having trouble visualizing this scenario, it's unlikely it would have happened even if I had stayed.

What if while at the U of MN Morris I'd understood my computer science programming class? I'd started out as a computer minor, but after one quarter of being completely at sea, I dropped that idea. What if I'd pursued it instead?

What if I'd gotten more involved in extracurricular activities in high school? What if I'd realized how stupid the cliques were when I was a teenager? What if I'd quit NWA before my four month probation was up? I almost did that because I hated the job I had then so much. What if I hadn't broken my leg--twice-- when I was in grade school? What if I'd gone to college in Colorado like I'd thought about when I was fifteen?

Anyway, it goes on and on. I don't think there's a person who, if they looked at their life, couldn't come up with their own list of what ifs. I think it's kind of fun to imagine how different we might be if only for a moment or two.

But I also believe that everything happens for a reason and that we're where we're supposed to be when we're supposed to be there. I can also look back at my life and pick out the decisions that made writing an almost inevitable part of my life. I was interested in so many creative areas--not just writing--but it was as if the door was shut on them one by one. Or in some cases, my personality shut the door.

An example is art. I always wanted to draw. Always. And I have very little talent this way--or do I? What if I'd continued to draw and worked at it as hard as I worked at improving my writing? Would I still be a bad artist? Or would I have achieved some level of competence? I'll never know because I didn't feel passionately enough about drawing to accept being less than perfect while I learned. I wanted to sit down and create exactly what I wanted to create without putting in the work.

But it was never like that with writing. I worked and worked and worked at it even though it never really seemed like work, if that makes sense. I think it's because it is my passion. I could accept not producing perfect stories because I knew I'd continue to improve and I could fix them later.

I don't know, but this whole thing about destiny and fate is interesting to think about. There's a great quote from Jawaharlal Nehru:

Life is like a game of cards. The hand that is dealt you represents determinism; the way you play it is free will.

There's nothing like starting out the day by oversleeping. I know I heard the alarm, but I must have hit the off button instead of the snooze. I woke up at 4:40 and had to run. Then, as if that wasn't enough, I go to the computer in my office while I'm waiting for coffee and a spider crawls down the center of my screen! Ugh! I hate spiders!

I looked around, found something to kill him with, and squished him--or I tried to anyway. I kind of missed and then I worried that he was on me, like maybe he got on my sleeve or something. I stand up and I'm shaking out my clothes, trying to find him. Then I slid the keyboard forward on the tray and there he was. He didn't stay there long. :-)

I think I would have been more panicked if I'd been awake, but I was still pretty groggy at that point. That spider was some weird color, though, and moving pretty sluggishly. I wonder what was up with that?

This--fortunately--is only the second spider I've had to kill in my house since I moved in. Or maybe the third. They've been few and far between, though, and that's a good thing. :-) The office is one of two rooms I haven't had a chance to finish unpacking yet, but now I want to. I'm sure if everything were put away, there'd be no spiders.

BTW, I did make it to work on time--barely--and now I'm counting the minutes till I can go home again.

Now that that's out of the way, I can talk about what I'd planned to blog on this morning. My heroine, Maia, is into clothes. Sigh. I should have had an inkling from the first scene I wrote, but I didn't figure it out that fast.

Despite what Stacy and Clinton say on What Not To Wear, I firmly believe that comfort is more important than style and I've been fortunate enough to have heroines who really didn't focus on their clothes. Until now.

Maia is one of those casually elegant women, someone who could put on shorts and a T-shirt and still look as if she could attend the opera. One of my cousins is like this. When I was in my early teens, I tried to emulate her, but unfortunately, I'm one of those people who can take forever getting dressed up for some fancy do and ten minutes later look as if I'm going to a baseball game. I've learned to accept this, it's just who I am, but now I need a crash course on clothes.

Last night, I went searching online for Maia's next outfit. I need pictures! Not just of the clothes, but of someone wearing the clothes, and that's where the difficulty comes in. A lot of the websites I visited--Land's End, LL Bean, Gap, Talbot, etc--show the clothes, but most of the pictures don't have anyone wearing them. Or if they showed a model wearing an outfit, I'd click on the picture to see the whole look in a bigger .jpg and it would zero in on only the shorts. I need to see the top with the shorts, darn it!

This story takes place during a hot, humid August time frame and that's also playing into the type of clothes. I figure dressy shorts and casual tops that still manage to look dressy on her. Maia would never wear the short-shorts that so many of the sites were showing, not in front of another person, and since Creed has invaded her home, that rules that style out. Maia prefers classic styles, timeless, nothing that's a fad or too trendy. She also isn't much for bright colors, she prefers neutral, earth tones. Sigh. I like bright, so I'd see something I'd like, but she'd be unenthused.

So does anyone have any good sites to see clothes? With women wearing them? I'm sure I'll be doing more searches for outfits as I move forward and I need resources.

Last night, I think I dreamt about Ryne and Deke (the h/h from In the Midnight Hour). At least I woke up with them on my mind and there was no reason to do that unless I had been dreaming about them. The Deke in my mind when I woke up looked just like the Deke on the cover of the book. :-) The woman still doesn't look like my Ryne, but 50% isn't bad. I just wish I could see the final version of the cover. The book never feels real until I have that and can start using it for promotion.

Speaking of promotion, I've been trying to figure out how to promo this book and when everything needs to be done. I always do bookmarks and I'll probably mail out a postcard to bookstores alerting them to the release, although I'm not sure the timing on sending that, and I'm looking at doing another book trailer for it, although a more elaborate one than what I did for Eternal Nights. It's difficult to make decisions and I'm busy. :-) Seriously, how far away are we from human cloning?

Since I'm a little crabby this morning, I'm going to talk about a pet peeve of mine--authors promoing themselves on Yahoo Group loops. Especially loops that are all writers. It's bad enough that I have to hear how "excited" the author is that her tenth book received four shamrocks from St. Paddy's Book Reviews, but then I have to scroll past all the one-line congratulations messages. If it's a first book, yeah, I do believe they're excited. Everything on the first book is exciting. Tenth book? I doubt it. It's gotten to the point that on some loops, all I do is glance at the index of notes and hit delete. There are some authors that just never stop.

I just get so tired of this blatant "ME ME ME" stuff. Yeah, it's a tough out there, and yeah, writers read, but it's out of hand. I could vent for a while longer, but I won't. Y'all can post thank you comments below. :-)

Monday morning, I was running late for work. Those of you who are regular readers won't be surprised to read that since it's an everyday occurrence, but it's hard to get out of bed and move at 4am. Anyway, I hadn't been out all weekend--too busy writing--and so I hadn't pulled the SUV out of the garage since I pulled it in Friday afternoon.

To set the scene a little more, it was in the 20's here on Sunday, and with the sun high in the sky, the snow began to melt. I enjoyed looking up from the computer, looking out my patio doors and watching the crap on my deck drip down to the ground. :-) Of course, without the bright sunshine, everything froze up again overnight.

So here I am, running late. I'm yanking on my jacket, boots, hat, etc as fast as I can. I jerk open the door to the garage, hit the button to open the big garage door and turn out the light. Only the garage door isn't opening all the way. It would try to go up, not make it, go down again, try again to go up, go down again and so on and so on and so on. And I'm standing there watching this going, huh? Remember, it's only 5:30 in the morning and I'm not at my best till about 9. :-)

The first thing that had me perplexed was why the door wouldn't go up. The second thing was why didn't it just try once and give up? It was like the thing was possessed as it kept trying and trying. I hit the door button again, thinking that might stop it's wild attempts to open, but of course, that didn't help.

Eventually, though, during this noisy few minutes I figure out that the door is frozen to the ground on the right side. Great, I mutter. Okay, it might have been a slightly stronger word than that, but you get the drift. I turn on my overhead garage lights because the opener's lights are too dim, throw my bag and purse in the front seat and go to check out the situation. Sure enough, the seal is frozen in place. Since I've worked with engineers and former airplane mechanics for so long, I quickly knew how to handle the situation: Give the affected area a good swift kick.

I returned to the house, gave the button another push and the door opened. And somehow, I even made it to the EDJ on time. =8-O

When I arrived home Monday afternoon, I saw in full daylight what I'd kind of seen in the dark that morning. The rubber seal at the bottom of the garage door had been pulled loose by the opener's insistence on bringing the door up and the ice's insistence that it wasn't letting it go. It's still hooked in position by the attachments on either side of it, but it's definitely drooping in that one spot. Better yet, though, was the metal strip on the side just above the seal--it had been bent. Sigh. It was blatant in the sun.

I don't know whether to be frustrated or elated. One of the things that has been happening in the last week with the Book From Hell (TBFH) is that I'll hit a point writing that gives me trouble when the computer is on, but as soon as I boot down, I figure out how to solve the snag I've run into. I've tried writing the book itself longhand partially because of this, but once I get going, I find it limiting and frustrating. I'm much faster on the keyboard than I am with a pen and the delay frustrates me because my brain is revving the engine, waiting and waiting to move on. It also starts picking at what I'm still trying to write and I get a lot of scratch outs.

It happened again last night, the solving of a snag after turning off the computer. I'd struggled to make the turn in the scene I'm writing, but the transitions were just not working at all. Okay, I decided, if I can't transition, I'll just do a paragraph sum up kind of thing and go on. So I did and then it was late enough that I logged off to go to sleep. But as I was fixing the bed, I got it. The answer to the transition.

My laptop is over two years old now; it doesn't boot up fast. Or boot down fast for that matter. Turning it back on to write this new stuff seemed cumbersome when I wanted to sleep. Instead, I ran for a notebook and scribbled down the dialogue. I have it on paper now and it isn't a huge amount so it won't be a PITA to type into the file, and then I can adjust it.

I'm glad this happened, though, because with the transitional stuff, I can show a little something with my hero that calls into question whether or not he's using black magic.

My poor heroine is not having a good day.

I guess I'll take the answers however I can get them, but I'd rather see them while I'm actually working on the computer. Much faster and less frustrating. The other thing that I find interesting is that Maia and Creed like to work later at night too. I ran into this with my demon children, but they had the excuse of being nocturnal. I don't know what's up with this h/h because they don't have that reason.

Pitchers and catchers report to spring training today and the entire team will be in camp on Feb 20th, I think. Maybe I've got the dates wrong, but I do know it's this week. I look forward to spring training from the minute the baseball season ends in October. It gives me hope that the snow and ice will melt, that the temperatures will warm, and that I can abandon my coat, hat and boots. Plus, there's ball! :-)

My favorite way to write is with baseball on the television, sound muted. When I need to think, I look up and watch for a little bit, then go back to work. Now, I usually have QVC on because TV is a habit. Only I look up, see something cool, and have to struggle not to order it. Baseball is definitely better.

Let's see. Got a decent amount of work in this weekend on the BFH (Book From Hell). I'm still second guessing myself, but I'm trying to ignore that little voice. I need to make a turn in the scene I'm working on now and I'm debating how to do it. I fell asleep thinking about that last night, so I'll think about it some more today.

I found a copy of Sliding Doors at Best Buy for $6.99 and I think I'm going to get it. Like I said yesterday, I totally loved this movie. It's fate that there's a DVD sale on at the same time I saw it. :-)

My new scrapbooks that I ordered from QVC arrived. I love the polka dot one, the other is nice enough, but not quite my style. I'll keep it anyway. Paper was okay, but again, not my style. Lots of flowers and I'm not a flower person. I don't want flowers on my clothes, my curtains, upholstery or scrapbook paper. Of course, I'm a paper slut, so I have more than enough scrapbook paper that these sheets are really superfluous. :-) And I can always slice them up and use them for matting or something.

Sliding Doors is a movie from 1998 starring Gwyneth Paltrow, John Hannah and John Lynch. Just a warning, there very possibly will be spoilers so if you haven't seen the movie yet and think you might want to, don't read any farther.

Helen (Paltrow) leaves her live-in boyfriend (Lynch) in bed and goes to work--late. When she arrives she's fired. She leaves to return home. In one version, the doors to the tube (It's in London) close just before she gets there and she misses her train. In the second version, she just makes the train. From here on out, the movie weaves between these two alternate time lines.

In version one, Helen tries to find an alternate means home. She hails a taxi, gets mugged and has to go to the hospital for stitches. When she arrives home, her boyfriend, Gerry, is in the shower alone, and while he's acting strangely, she accepts his explanations. Helen can't find another PR job and ends up working two jobs while her worthless boyfriend claims to be writing his novel.

In version two, Helen sits on the train next to a charming man, James, (Hannah) and arrives home in time to catch Gerry in bed with his former girlfriend. Helen goes to stay with her friend, starts her own PR business and develops a relationship with James.

I think I will stop the plot summary here. The story, though, spans something like a year and the two scenarios are intertwined, showing the possibilities and how different things can be by such a simple little thing like missing the train.

I totally loved this movie. I loved it so much, I want to buy a copy so I can watch it again whenever the mood strikes. I read some reviews after I was finished that pointed out the flaws, but quite frankly, I didn't care. The story transported me and my author's brain was chugging away, going, wow, what a cool idea. I love the concept of alternate realities and parallel lives.

The critics pointed out that neither story was all that strong, but the truth was, neither story needed to stand alone. The whole concept was to weave them together. The other criticism, that Gerry was a complete louse, etc is better founded. Gerry is a complete jerk, but John Lynch manages to make him come across in such a way that we can see why Helen would be prone to believe him. The woman he's having an affair with also is a bit two-dimensional, the bitchy other woman, but that didn't matter to me either.

I cared about Helen, I adored James and was rooting for them as a couple. There were several points where the juxtaposition of the two realities were so tight to each other, I was like, wow, this is so cool! For example, in one reality, Helen is standing on a boat with James keeping pace with a boat race--sculling, right?--and cheering them on. In the other reality, Helen is walking along the river with the boat race and James is with a buddy on the pace boat. She doesn't notice him, just the racers, but makes a comment about how she knew there'd be a boat race.

That was another aspect I found interesting--the bleed through between the lives. The very end closes with this idea and intrigues me all the more with the story. How connected are we to our alternate realities? Are our deja vu moments something that's come through from one of these realities?

Good romance, a likable heroine, intriguing ideas, and a hopeful ending. (I was worried about that for a moment.) Who could ask for more? I totally, completely loved this movie.

My rating: 5 stars

Last night, I realized something. Of all the things the Book From Hell has done to me, the worst is how it's shaken my confidence. I used to trust myself and my characters when they showed me where I should start the next chapter. Even if it didn't seem abundantly clear that the scene I saw propelled the story along on multiple fronts, I wrote it anyway and darned if it didn't do more than I thought it would.

But here I am, thinking about the next scene and questioning if I shouldn't figure something else out. That's when I realized just how much my confidence in my writing and my process has been shaken by this book. And not only am I second guessing this next scene, I'm second guessing everything I've written in this story. Should I gut it again? Do I have enough conflict? Is there any sexual tension between the h/h? On and on and on it goes.

All writers are insecure (and neurotic), it's just a matter of degree, but I've never been like this before about the actual story. Sure, I've questioned the writing, if it was good enough, strong enough, etc. But not the story.

I hate this.

Somehow, I have to lose this logical, nitpicking, self-doubt side and just immerse myself in the characters and their story like I usually do. I'm just not sure how to go about it. This is new territory and no one handed me a map when I wandered into it. :-/ And even if they had, what worked for one writer might not necessarily work for another.

There's nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and open a vein.
~Red Smith

Yeah. What he said. BTW, I found this at The Web's Most Humongous Collection of Writing Quotes. There were plenty of other good ones as well.

I've decided not to go to my chapter meeting this morning. I have too much writing to do and I won't get much done today if I go.

And now for something completely different. Eternal Nights finished 4th in the Judge a Book By Its Cover Contest. It's a contest where the cover art is judged by booksellers. The Paranormal winners are here.

I love Fridays. I know most people do, but for me, I think it's the anticipation of what's possible on the weekend. I look forward and I think, wow, with two days off from work, I could maybe do this or write x number of pages or whatever.

I feel this same way as I finish a chapter. Because I'm not much for plotting ahead, after I finish a chapter, I sit down and write down scene goals for the next. The possibilities are endless. This, of course, is before my characters chirp up and tell me what they want to do, but there's this moment....

Right now, though, this scene goal list seems kind of scary to work on. Which direction is the story going to take? I'm kind of at a turning point and which way are we going? (Not the royal we, but the h/h and me we.) The WIP, which will forever be known to me as the Book From Hell, has had so many fits and starts. I've gone so many wrong directions and had to cut and rewrite and cut some more. So while I feel anticipation about what this turning point will lead to, I also feel fear. I can't take another wrong turn.

I never used to think about things like this or worry about them. Once upon a time, I only felt the anticipation, the possibilities stretched out in front of me. And I wonder if it's only this book where there's anxiousness mixed in or if I'll have it forever. Maybe most writers feel the nerves and I was just blissfully ignorant before now.

The fear is strong enough that I've begun to wonder if plotting is a bad thing. :-) I've never been a pure pantser anyway. But the idea of writing a 60 page outline leaves me shuddering in repulsion, so I'm thinking this isn't going to happen. At least not soon. :-)

I have almost no idea what happens next in the book--not yet--although I'm pretty sure it's going to be in Maia's POV. She's easier for me to write than Creed and this chapter I just finished was in his point of view. I shook her up the last time she appeared, so there are possibilities leading from that too. I'll have to get her to talk on my drive in to work--unless traffic is ugly and I need to pay attention.

So if you're a writer, do you feel the anxiety at starting a new chapter? Or do you only feel the possibilities stretched out in front of you like I used to? I'm curious about this.

Now the weekend that lies ahead has possibilities too. My chapter meets tomorrow and I'd really like to go to that. A newly published author is doing a Journey of a Novel, and she was the only one to come out to a book signing me and a couple of other chapter members did last summer, so I'd like to go and support her. And I like going to meetings anyway. I used to never go, despite having the best of intentions, but now that I know people and don't feel like such a dork, it's a nice chance to interact with other writers.

The problems about going are: 1) it's damn cold here and it's going to be damn cold this weekend too. In fact, our Tuesday warm up that the weather guys promised has been pushed back again and we're going to stay cold for another week. 2) I need to write one of the endless possibilities for the next chapter of the WIP and I don't seem to get much writing done on chapter meeting days.

Decisions, possibilities.

I canceled my order for the Cricut machine that I mentioned in yesterday's post. My former coworker who said she was going to order it, had canceled her order too after she talked to some people at her local scrapbook store. Then she mentioned the Wishblade. This is a die cutter that you can hook right up to your computer and it will cut out any true type font. Now since I'm a font whore, I have a ton of these! This sounded like the better way to go and less expensive in the long run because the fonts would be virtually unlimited and there are so many free ones available that it would be more cost effective in the long run. I did a search, found some reviews and a Yahoo group for the Wishblade. I joined that, but they have like hundreds upon hundreds of messages a day, so I'm web only--with no time to really read up on what people are saying about the product.

Tomorrow is the last day in the department for one of my tech writers. He got a management position. Of course, it's not Mr. Congeniality, AKA the coworker from hell, who's going. He, I'm certain, will be there forever. Why is it that the people we want to stay, leave and those we hope will leave, don't?

I also lost one of my engineers. I knew that was going to happen. The minute our new manager was named, he began looking. At least he's not leaving the company, only moving to a different fleet of airplanes, but again, why is it the ones you like to work with are the ones who leave?

I've had a couple of particularly boring projects at the EDJ (Evil Day Job). (I should probably put a glossary over on the right with all the acronyms I use. :-) WIP, EDJ, EN, TACV, TPOT, RF, etc.) One of them is for the 787 which is mildly interesting in theory because it's a brand new, not-even-built airplane. Unfortunately, it's just proofreading. And because I have to pay attention to the words, I can't listen to any of the workshops from RWA Atlanta. I've been doing that to keep myself entertained.

BTW, it's a hugely sad thing when a temperature of 20 looks like nirvana. We might reach that by next Tuesday. If we're lucky. Gah!

Yesterday, QVC had a couple of hours called "Scrapbook Fair" on their schedule. I should know better than to watch this--really, I should. First, I haven't had time to scrapbook in a couple of years now. Second, I still haven't unpacked anything in the spare bedroom (AKA the scrapbook room). The last thing I needed to do was order anything and add more stuff to this room. And third, scrapbooking stuff gets expensive.

But QVC is an enabler. They sent me an email over the weekend telling me that Tuesday was going to have a few hours devoted to scrapbooking. And they offered me a chance to order Tuesday's Special Value early. It happened to be an 8,000 piece scrapbooking kit complete with a really cool polka dot scrapbook. Well, I needed some more scrapbooks because I only have three and I want one for each book. Never mind that I haven't finished scrapping Ravyn's Flight from 2002 yet. I ordered two of the kits--one in blue and one in purple.

I didn't even have to turn on the television to do that. I was done shopping, I decided. Absolutely no need to actually tempt myself further. Except yesterday I was flipping through the channels right after I got home from work and there was Scrapbook Fair. I had to watch some of it. I bravely resisted the cute rub-on transfers and the embellishments. Then they showed it.

It was a Cricut machine that cuts out letters, shapes and preprogrammed sentiments. I'd heard of it before, but it's a lot of money and I told myself I could wait. Then I heard the words that struck fear into my heart: it's the last day at the introductory price. Gah!

Now, I had a decision to make. To order or not to order, that is the question. A lady I used to work with had ordered one. She'd investigated prices and said QVC was the best value because it came with two cartridges. Since she was always really good about checking out prices, I knew this had to be true. And if I didn't order on Tuesday, the QVC price would be going up.

I waffled. I didn't want to spend that money. There are other things I need more like a carpet runner and and some pieces of furniture. Then the host announced that they'd run out of the preorder allotment, but that their buyers had managed to get a promise of more from the manufacturer. When this extra number ran out, though, that would be it for a while.

I caved like a house of cards.

So now, not only do I have two scrapbook kits headed my way, I also have a Cricut machine and a tool kit. I had to order the tool kit too, right?

Yeah. Sigh.

Okay, I work in the office so I didn't actually see this firsthand, but sometimes working at the airline can be downright interesting. Check out this close encounter. I wish I could put the picture right in the blog, but it's copyrighted. It's definitely worth the click, though.

BTW, this happened yesterday morning and there were no passengers involved.

Edited to Add: The vehicle underneath the plane is a tug, what's used to tow the planes to the gate or push them back from a gate.

I did it again. Hugely overslept. Gah! This all goes back to a bad decision I made at bedtime. I always turn my heat down to 64 degrees for the night, but it's so cold here and I was freezing last night! I decided to leave the thermostat at 68 degrees instead. I know I get warmer as I sleep and I have a down blanket, but I figured if I woke up, I'd just turn down the heat then and go right back to sleep. I was half right.

About 1:15 this morning, I did wake up because I was hot. I did get up and turn down the heat. I then laid in bed trying to fall asleep for hours. I didn't hear the alarm for a really long time.

I also dreamed about a shark attack. Sigh. I used to have shark dreams all the time, but now they're rare. I wish I'd skipped this one. The only plus is that it was in kind of a past tense way, so I wasn't actually seeing the attack, just the results of it.

It was interesting to see what Super Bowl commercials received the public's votes as favorites. I was really surprised to see the Sierra Mist commercial with the beard comb over was in the top 5. I could practically hear crickets chirping when it was over, that's how lame I thought it was and a guy at work commented on how that spot bombed. I'd assumed he'd seen feedback already and I hadn't at that point. I also so bits and pieces on the local news of commercials I'd missed, like Oprah and David Letterman. That one wasn't listed on MySpace, but I did rewatch the fake dalmatian spot for Budweiser. That dog was just so cute!

Gotta run. Again.

I watched the Super Bowl yesterday, and as I've done 99% of the time throughout the football playoff season, I was rooting for the losing team. I'd even downloaded the Super Bowl Shuffle video done by the 1985 Bears team to prepare for the big game. :-) It started out so well, but went downhill before long. Sigh. At least the commercials were good this year. The last few years, I felt they were pretty lame, but not this time. Yea!

The one I liked that I remember the best is the moon office when the Fed Ex space ship came to make deliveries and pick ups. I also liked a lot of the Coke commercials. My favorite of those was when the animated guy walks around doing nice things for people and the message was something along the lines of a little love going a long way.

My least favorite commercials? I hated that one for Sales Genie or whatever it was. It embodied everything I dislike about advertising. I also didn't like the Go Daddy commercials. I was more interested in the $1.95 domain names than I was in dancing girls in the Marketing Department, so I don't know why they had to put them in except for the sex factor. It was unnecessary IMO. BTW, I checked out their site for the $1.95 domain names and the cheapest I found was $8.95 plus $.50 ICANN fee. I have a site that charges the same price without the added fee, so I'll be sticking with them.

The other thing I noticed this year that I don't remember hearing in years past was that the Super Bowl commercials are available online to replay. CBS mentioned having it on their website during the game, and when I logged into MySpace, they had them available too. Cool!

Last night, when I went to bed, I was laying there and had a story show up with characters. I already know it's one I'll never write--the heroine was a princess and the hero an army officer in her country who was protecting her without her knowledge--but it was interesting to have a "bedtime story." :-) That hasn't happened in a while, where characters I'm not working with, and likely will never work with, just show up and play their story out for me. I enjoyed it, and really, what could be better to fall asleep to than a princess and a handsome, honorable, protective officer?

It's strangely coincidental that last week's movie was A Midsummer Night's Dream and this week's movie is Shakespeare In Love. I honestly didn't plan it that way. This movie stars Joseph Fiennes as Will Shakespeare and Gwyneth Paltrow as Viola.

Will Shakespeare needs to write a play, but his muse is on vacation. He seeks a woman to inspire him. Eventually, after a misstep, he finds Viola, a woman from a wealthy family. Her father has bought her a title in the form of a penniless nobleman who she's supposed to marry in a couple of weeks.

For her part, Viola is enamored of Shakespeare's words. While everyone else in town seems to be lauding Marlowe and his works, she prefers Shakespeare. So for some reason I didn't understand (I'll confess, I was multi-tasking while watching), she dresses up as a boy and reads for the role of Romeo. Back then, only males were allowed to be on the stage. Shakespeare thinks she's perfect for the role and wants her to take off her hat. Viola runs, but goes back with a male wig, facial hair and with her breasts bound so she takes on a more male appearance.

Viola quickly falls in love with Will Shakespeare and kisses him in her guise as a boy. Her identity as a woman is revealed while he's standing there befuddled and he chases her. They fall into bed together and Viola's nurse/chaperon covers for the lovers.

Much of the rest of the movie is the rehearsal of the play, more covert kissing and fondling by Will and Viola and Will producing more brilliant scenes every day. Until the culmination with the opening performance where Viola takes the stage not as Romeo (Will has to fill that role), but as Juliet.

I know this movie won awards and stuff, but mostly I was bored with it. While there were a few moments that I enjoyed, overall, I wasn't overly impressed. Maybe I was expecting too much because I'd heard how good it was, but I found my attention wandering easily.

There were some things that made it difficult to suspend my disbelief. First, was that Viola would risk appearing on the stage. It was unheard of at that time, so why do it? I didn't feel as if her motivation was strong enough to support that. Second, how easily she fell into bed with Will. Now granted, my grasp of European history in that time period is shaky at best, but I thought women were expected to remain chaste. Even if she was the maverick that appearing on stage would suggest, it just felt wrong that she would have sex with him so fast and with so little conversation between them.

Third, I had trouble believing that someone like Shakespeare who produced so much work (and beautiful work at that) would need a muse. This is where my being a writer gives me a tough time with something most people wouldn't examine too closely. A working writer doesn't wait for the muse to show up. If we waited for the muse, I think most writers would get about 3 or 4 days of writing in a year. Nope, a working writer sits down and writes even if it's gritted out one damn painful word at a time. The real Shakespeare would have known this, I'm confident of it.

So what did I like? I loved Judi Dench as the queen! She was brilliant in the role and she was the one person/thing that stood out for me in the movie. The end, when she's at the playhouse and setting things right (or as right as they can be), is by far the best part of the entire film and a payoff for the preceding 2 hours that bored me. The queen had a sarcastic wit and a keen eye as well as a deep understanding of human nature and the way Dench portrayed this was fabulous.

Overall, maybe I was expecting too much, but I found the movie boring and the main characters of Will and Viola lacking in motivation. I never believed the romance between them or had any real interest in it, nor did I care that the ending wasn't happily ever after. (I'm trusting this doesn't spoil the movie for anyone since it's from 1998.) It wasn't a horrible way to spend a couple of hours, but the only parts I truly enjoyed were when the queen was on screen.

My Rating: 3 stars

When I had my trailer up for Eternal Nights, I went to some boards to tell people about it. At one of the boards, someone mentioned something along the lines of: it was great, but she preferred to read blurbs and excerpts. My reply was that there were the dedicated readers and the casual readers and that I did the trailer to attract the notice of people who don't read regularly. I'd never discussed my theory with anyone, and if I read it somewhere, I don't recall the post, but A Peek at Romance has a blog up about this very topic. (BTW, the video featured is mine! Yea!) It's interesting reading if you're one of the wafflers on book videos or if you're just curious about them.

I can't get to my home page on MySpace which means I can't read private messages nor can I approve friend requests. Sigh. I can login just fine. My page is still there. I've tried clearing cookies and caches and rebooting the computer. I've tried to access it on two different computers. I just plain can't get in. I can't even file an error report without getting the error. I found an email address for MySpace, which is probably not for help, but it's the only point of contact I could find. I emailed them and wait for help. It's very frustrating!

And sorry, but y'all are getting a weather report here. It's bright, sunny, looks almost beautiful outside. It's also -34 with the wind chill. Yep. MINUS. I'm not leaving the house today, that's for darn sure.

Yesterday, the PEARL Award nominees were announced. For those of you unfamiliar with this award, it comes from readers of paran