The last of the flower bulbs has been planted! Hallelujah! If I wasn't so tired, I'd post the dancing Hobbes because I've never been so glad to have anything over in my life. Never again will I ever order this many bulbs at the same time--so help me God.

Of course, the damn yard work isn't exactly done yet, but I feel as if the worst is over. It'll all be worth it next spring and summer--that's what I keep telling myself.

Amusing story. A few months ago I ordered a garden tool from QVC. I know, huge shock that I bought it online from them. Anyway, it's an 8 in 1 tool and I liked it for weeding, but it proved itself invaluable during this bulb planting marathon. My dad picked it up on Saturday to use because the other tools (which all belong to him) weren't handy. It's funny how my garden tool ended up in his hand continually the rest of that day and next three days, as well. And last night, when he packed up his tools and took them home, he loaded up my handy dandy gadget, too. Something tells me I'm not getting it back. Fortunately, they're still available (though on clearance) and I ordered a new one for myself.

The USB wireless connector thing arrived yesterday and I hooked up the old laptop to it. The thing worked slick as spit and I was able to get everything updated in a couple of hours rather than days (or weeks) on dial up. Now this was definitely worth the investment for non-wireless capable computers.

Now that the copy edits are on their way to NYC and the planting is done, maybe I can get some writing done again.

First off, I bundled up the copy edited manuscript last night for IN TWILIGHT'S SHADOW and I'll Fed Ex it today on lunch. I was done with it on Friday night, but I spent all weekend working outside and never had time to actually pack it up. I hate to spend my lunch hour running an errand--the coworker from hell is off and it's a shame to waste the quiet when I could be writing--but the temperatures are going to plummet on Wednesday and I don't want to run around in the cold. Yes, I know I live in Minnesota.

The second item on my report of the day is the flower update. My dad had removed the tiger lilies from the tree ring by the time I got home from the EDJ, but he was still digging up roots when I joined him. Neither one of us expected moving these particular flowers to be difficult; after all, he just transplanted them from his yard like in June, and at the time he moved them, none of them had much root. Both of us figured it would be the same thing and we'd just shift them and all would be well. We were wrong.

As it turned out, the tiger lilies had roots everywhere and that is no exaggeration. Literally every millimeter of ground was loaded with a rat's nest of root structure. For more than two hours my dad and I were digging up soil and pulling out more tiger lily roots. Just when we thought we had it all, we'd find more. At one point, my dad suggested just leaving them, but I was concerned that the new bulbs wouldn't have any room to grow with all that other stuff in there.

When I saw how invasive this particular type of lily was, I said to my dad, instead of bunching them together in the tree ring, I think we better take them out of here all together. If we don't, they're going to take over completely and push out my other flowers. So after a brief discussion, we decided to plant them in the space next to my evergreens. Let them fight it out with the trees for root space. :-)

So the list of things that has to be done this afternoon is daunting. Not only do we have to plant the new bulbs, but we have to plant the tiger lily bulbs, put down weedkiller over both gardens, mulch the new garden and half the tree ring. We also need to mulch the tree peony and cover it for the winter. The other half of the tree ring has to wait until after the plants turn brown, then I'll have to cut them down and mulch them as well. Also on the list is yanking the flowers out of the deck and porch planters and getting rid of that dirt. We did have a hard freeze so most of the flowers are dead.

I can't believe how much work needs to be done before winter!

On the bright side, Mercury is almost out of retrograde. Yea!

Another day of planting bulbs in the new garden, another trip to Home Depot for dirt, and yet another day of planting when I get home from the Evil Day Job (EDJ) this afternoon. Yep, it's true, we didn't finish on Sunday. We did, however, finish planting in the new garden. Now we need to mulch it and then there's the tree ring. For that one, we need to take down the chicken wire, get the leafs out of there, move the tiger lilies, and weed before the remaining 13 bulbs can go in. I'm exhausted just thinking about it. Hell, I'm exhausted, period.

Did anyone watch the Lost Book of Nostradamus on History Channel last night? Boy was that depressing, but unfortunately, it was also interesting and kept me up later than I meant to stay up--especially after working outside all weekend.

I think that's all I have to day today. I know, I'm as shocked as you are. ;-)

I had plans for this weekend. First was to finish copy edits on Friday, which I did. Yea me! Second was to plant all my bulbs on Saturday. That didn't happen. My dad and I only managed to put about 60 bulbs in. That's a rough estimate. It didn't help that we had a late start to the day and then had to make a run to Home Depot to pick up dirt and more cedar mulch.

The other plan that needed some adjustment on the fly was the map I'd drawn of the new garden and where I planned to put everything. It turns out that some of these flowers needed more distance between the bulbs than my map allowed for. The silver lilies actually needed 18" to 24"! That totally hosed everything up.

We started at the back of the garden with the giant aliums. These are the only flowers that came without planting instructions printed on the bag and the general information I found said big bulbs should be planted at 6 inches down. So we started doing six inches, but I managed to find a booklet in among the bulbs as I unpacked one of the boxes, and when I paged through it, I found that the bulbs needed to go 8 inches down. More digging.

The second mistake of the day was because I glanced too quickly at one of the bags. It had 6 bulbs in there (which was printed at the top) and they were supposed to be planted 3 inches down. You can probably guess what happened. I saw the 6, we dug down that far and put in 7 of the 12 bulbs before I glanced again and went: Oops! We dug up the first three bulbs and replanted them, but when we tried to dig up the 4th, we couldn't find it. My dad and I were pinching dirt clumps, trying to see if one of them was the bulb. We never did find it and we can only hope it's still buried in the ground. We opted to leave the other bulbs alone. They're really going to have to fight their way to the surface next spring. :-)

Today it's back out to plant the bulbs again. We've got to finish; failure is not an option. Not only do I want this over and done, but it dropped below freezing last night and the ground is frost-covered. It's still only 31 degrees right now. The challenge is that there are about 90 bulbs to go and I have to hope I don't run out of room in the garden! I thought I'd have more than enough space--I even have pages turned down in a catalog for bulbs I want to buy next spring--but some of these distances between plants is really hosing me up.

Then there's the tree ring. I want to put some of the bulbs in there and make room for the peonies. My mom has some gorgeous flowers and she needs to thin her plants, so I was going to take some of them. I was counting on having room in the tree ring for them, but that doesn't look as if it's going to happen at the rate I'm going. Plus, I have more toad lilies coming next spring. Oy! I'm already trying to figure out where I can put another garden.

Needless to say that since I'm going to be outside all day today, my plan to spend the day writing is shot to hell.

Yesterday was the first day my knee felt almost normal since I torqued it last Saturday. It still went out a few times when I forgot to baby it, but I could mostly get around without pain. Huge improvement. So, of course, tomorrow I have to plant more than 100 bulbs in the garden. :-( Why do I have a feeling I'll be moaning and groaning again? It'll pay off next spring when the flowers bloom, I know that, but it's going to be tough to appreciate that when I'm hobbling again. Sigh.

I ordered a USB wireless thingy on Thursday. Yes, I'm sure that's the technical term. :-) I have a laptop without wireless capability, so I can plug it in, connect to my network, and update the thing. There were two offered on Woot yesterday (they were having a Woot-off), but both times it sold out before I could buy one, damn it. I checked eBay, but the fact that so many of the sellers were in Hong Kong made me a little uneasy. I decided to order from Best Buy instead and they had free shipping which always makes me happy. I loathe paying for shipping. :-)

A couple of DVDs that I ordered for research arrived, but I've been reading through copy edits (I'm on manuscript page 241 now) and haven't had the time to watch and pay attention to them. I have a few more on order. I also have a library book I need to read for research on another project. I'm not quite sure when I'm going to squeeze that in.

And last, but certainly not least, my dad patched the door seal today and there were no bugs on my foyer floor! Hurrah!

The other day, I'm sitting on the couch, working on copy edits and I heard this clicking sound. I know what that means--either a box elder bug or an Asian beetle is hitting the light bulb in my recessed lighting. I look up and tilt my head back, and sure enough, there he is. Of course, with the vaulted ceilings, there was no way I could reach him, so I returned to work and tried to ignore that irritating clicking.

It was later, as I was gathering things together to put into my tote bag for work the next day that I spotted the little bugger (um, no pun intended) sitting on the frame to my front door. I changed course, grabbed a paper towel from the kitchen, and went to slay the intruder. I got him easily, but as I looked down, I saw it. The box elder bug graveyard is directly inside my front door!

I was not thrilled.

There had to be somewhere between 8 and 12 of the damn things. Most of them were dead and the rest were dying. I hastened on the end for them.

Now this isn't the first time I've found a dead box elder bug in my foyer, but the other times (yes, plural) I just figured they'd stuck to me as I'd come inside the house and didn't think anything more of it. But I hadn't opened my front door that day and I know they hadn't been there that morning. That meant only one thing--there's a gap in the seal of my front door and the damn things were crawling in.

Yesterday, my dad took a look, but said he couldn't see anything. I took a look myself and I did see it. There's a small gap--less than a quarter inch--but apparently big enough for box elders to crawl through in their death throes. This is going to be a pain until my dad can fix that for me. I so totally hate bugs.

Yesterday morning my connectivity woes continued. I was able to access my high speed on my desktop, but when I went to my laptop, nothing. It offered me the choice of 4 wireless networks--none of which were mine. Some of those networks were so far away, there was hardly any green on the status bars, but it couldn't pick up the router 30 feet away.

Since I want all my email on my laptop computer, I had to use dial up to get it. Big sigh. At least I was able to do everything else on the desktop, but it was so frustrating. I rebooted the desktop before I left for work and hoped it would all work when I got home--just like it did on Monday--and sure enough, it did. This morning--so far so good.

It has to be that damn Mercury being in retrograde. I've never had this problem before, but shortly after this Mercury thing starts, it happens two days in a row? Normally, I don't have big retrograde issues and never anything with the computer--until now.

I finished copy edits. I think. The CE suggested I maybe add a thought to the end of the book. I tried that, but the problem is that I run on and don't know when to quit, and once I start explaining, I can go on forever. So I decided I better stick with what I have, although I'll keep it in mind and see if an epiphany doesn't strike before I have to mail it back. Anyway, I'm going to read through one more time and try to watch for repeated words. I have a little problem with that and I honestly don't see them no matter how closely I watch.

Monday I received my first magazine from the garden club I joined and one of the ads was for a red amaryllis. It looked so cool, much better than a poinsettia. Maybe that's because my mom always had at least one every year and so I think those plants are common and boring. But a red amaryllis.... Sigh. I'm so tempted, but it's a sissy flower and I'd have to keep it inside.

Sunday night the Red Sox won the American League pennant. That means that from the time the playoffs started (and I'm counting Colorado's one game play off with San Diego to see who would get the wild card slot) every team I've wanted to win has won--with the exception of my beloved Chicago Cubs. I don't know why they were immune from my mojo, but if we exclude them, I'm absolutely 100% dead on. :-)

Those of you who want to fly off to Vegas and bet on the World Series are undoubtedly dying to know who I'm rooting for next. I think it's Colorado. I'm like 95% sure. The only uncertainty comes from the fact that I cheer on the Sox because they're the Yankees arch enemy and I hate the damn Yankees. (Sorry Yankee fans.) So I've rooted for Boston for a few years and there's a slight possibility that I might not be able to root against them. I don't think it's going to happen, but you never know.

In writing news, I'm nearly finished with my copy edits. I just have two more questions to think about--both in the epilogue--then I'll do one more read through, and send it back. I've really had great copy edits on my books, and I've particularly enjoyed this most recent set because there have been scattered comments throughout--all nice stuff. It's great to get that kind of feedback in addition to having my boo boos caught.

My cable internet was down on Monday morning! Talk about your Mercury retrograde issue. I recycled the router and the desktop computer like three times a piece, but I came to the conclusion it had to be cable even though I had television. All systems were go on the router with the exception of the net. I had to plug in the phone and--GASP--use dial up again! OMG, am I spoiled! It was painfully slow. Luckily, everything was working when I got home yesterday afternoon, but man, it makes me wonder how I managed with dial up for all those years.

Or an alternate title for this blog: Adventures in Yard Work. Take your pick.

I had a lot of things I wanted to do on Saturday, but I got a really late start. First, I headed over to my parents' house and helped my dad take the window air conditioner down. Then my dad and mom came over to my house. My mom resumed her attempt to balance my checkbook and my dad and I headed into the yard. Mission number one: Plant the burning bushes that the bulb company sent me as my "gift."

After we got all the equipment together, we tried to decide where to put the bushes. My ideal location was out of the question because of the underground power cables in that space, so I had to pick alternates.

The instructions said that the hole should be twice the depth of the roots and twice the width. For plant 1, that meant 18 inches. My dad started the digging, before we switched to the plant auger. It's a long thing that fits into a drill like a bit. I can't remember what my dad headed off to get, but he left me alone with the shovel. The hole was nearly a foot deep then and the shovel was all the way in the hole. I stepped on the top with my toes and twisted my knee. I tested it, though, and it felt okay. I decided to leave the shoveling for my dad.

After putting the first plant in, I watered it per the instructions, but the water wasn't sinking into the ground--probably because we've had so much rain the last two months that the earth is saturated. We decided to leave that and move on.

But before planting bush two, my dad decided to find the places in the yard where the rocks were on the surface, dig them out, and fill the open space with the grass that was taken out of the spot where the bush went. This really started what ended up being big trouble. I dug one small rock out, smaller than my fist, and then I found another one. This one was big, I could tell because I had trouble finding the edges of the stone to pry it up. I figured it must be about the size of a brick, maybe a little larger.

My dad ran into the same problem and we decided to plant the second bush and then return to the stone. The original choice for location on this one didn't work--we ran into roots from the tree--and we shifted our location another twenty feet or so. We ran into more tree roots, but my dad said these were from a tree the builder took down and since he was pulling pieces out easily enough, I figured he was right since they were rotted.

There was a really big root, though, that he needed me to yank on while he used the shovel as leverage. I pulled with all my strength, but too much of the root was still in the earth. I pulled harder, the root snapped, I lost my balance, and my knee took the brunt of it--and my back since I was tugging while bent over. Now I was starting to hurt, but it wasn't that bad. We got the bush in and watered.

Now it was time to tackle the stone.

It turned out there was the big stone and another smaller broken stone right against its side. My dad was trying to pull the broken rock out, but I could tell that he wasn't jiggling it the right way. I took over. It took a little more force than I expected, but I got it out. We turned our focus to the bigger rock.

Rock might be a misnomer. Perhaps boulder would be a more accurate word. It turned out that like an ice berg, 90% of this behemoth was beneath the surface of the smaller, flattened top. My dad had the shovel in alongside the stone when I saw it--cables. "Don't dig!" I shouted. "Don't move! Cables!" He looks down and says, "That's from that old green carpet. I thought we got all of those." He bent down and tugged the fibers out. He went back to using the shovel to try to lever the stone out of the earth.

At one point, I tried to roll the stone out of the hole using both arms. Stupid mistake. Not only did I not move the boulder a centimeter, I finished torquing my knee and my back. The stone remains where it was found, a project for machinery rather than humans.

While we were working all day, the box elder bugs and Asian beetles were in attack mode. We were constantly fighting them off. As the afternoon grew later, though, the mosquitoes came out, and after all the rain we had, these things were mutantly huge.

As we reached the stairs leading from my yard to the deck, a large one flew toward me, and gardening tool in hand, I slashed at it--and put a nice, deep gash in my arm just above the wrist. It wasn't as bad as the time I sliced my other arm with the box cutter, but I decided dispassionately, this one was deep enough were it was borderline whether or not I'd need stitches. Or rather a stitch. It wasn't a very long cut. I opted to forgo the trip to urgent care for this.

It wasn't bleeding much, but enough so that my dad sent me into the house to get patched up. He took down the deck furniture by himself. Good thing I only bought cheap, plastic stuff, yes?

It was after I got the wound washed out and bandaged that my knee really, really started to hurt. I ended up sitting with the heating pad on it, but I figured it would be okay by the time I woke up Sunday morning--and it seemed to be. It was my back that was really bothering me. About 1:30, though, it was like someone flipped a switch. I could hardly walk. I don't know what happened, but between my back and my knee, yesterday was not the most enjoyable day ever.

So I spent Sunday hobbling, taking Advil, and running a heating pad for my back. I was having some fun, let me tell you. Then about 4, with the same suddenness that it came on, my knee felt better. Not 100%, but not excruciating. I keep wondering if it'll stay this way or switch again. Anyway, I learned my lesson. No more tugging at rocks or roots. Gah!

While I was hobbled yesterday, though, I got a lot done on my edits. I'm through chapter 22. Yea!

During a discussion with some other authors, one of them admitted that she couldn't remember the names of all her heroes and heroines. That kind of shocked me because I couldn't imagine anyone forgetting characters that they'd spent months working with. In fairness to this author, she's written probably 5 times the amount of books that I have--maybe even more. But I was curious, so I made a list of all my completed books starting with Ravyn's Flight. I figure my earlier three books don't count because those were practice books as I learned out to write. :-) Without hesitation, I ran through all my h/h's easily.

Then I decided to list the bad guys and the secondary characters. Now this is where I did run into some trouble. I couldn't remember anyone in RF beyond the h/h and the secondary h/h. In Power of Two, I came up with the villain and three of the names of Jake's teammates, but I couldn't remember the name of the other quandem (oh! Tony, something or other de Luca? Something like that. It just came to me. The woman remains a mystery.), and the remainder of Jake's team is a cipher to me as is the name of the general.

I leapt to Through a Crimson Veil next. It took me a good long while to remember Marc and hours to come up with his last name. Eternal Nights was easier, but then I was working on three more books with Wyatt's teammates as heroes and it's a more recent story. Easiest of them all was the anthology since there were really only three characters--my h/h and the bad guy.

In the Midnight Hour took some thinking because of the sheer number of secondary characters, but I did--eventually--come up with everyone. I think. I didn't attempt this for In Twilight's Shadow, the book I'm working on copy edits for right now, but I think I could come up with them, too, given some thinking time.

My next attempt was to name all the heroes and heroines in the projects I have in progress right now. The numbers are daunting because I have a lot of proposals in the works and most of them have stories that can spin off with more h/h's. Naming the heroes was easy. :-) I spewed those right out, although I only remembered Ethan's last name and not his first name until I checked in some sent emails. For the life of me, though, I could not come up with his heroine's name! It took hours before I remembered.

On the one hand, I just learned her name recently and she hasn't been talking to me. On the other hand, I can't believe I didn't remember when I was working on that just days ago!

Anyway, this exercise was an eyeopener and it makes me think I should create a list of characters and file it in the front of each books folder for easy reference.

I spent yesterday cleaning when I got home from work. On the plus side, it'll save me from having to clean this weekend. On the minus side, that's all I got done. No time to go through edits or work on anything else. Of course, I still have my edits strewn across the couch, so the house isn't perfect, but I'm not moving them for the vent sucker guys. It's bad enough that I had to put away all the other stuff I had set up for a project I was working on pre-edits.

Oh! Speaking of other projects, I think my Maori hero has a name. Actually, we've been dancing around this name for like two weeks, but I didn't like it. So when I started writing yesterday, I was convinced to use it just "temporarily" until I learned his "real" name. Damn man. I think he fooled me. I think this name is going to stick. I suppose I should stop complaining. At least he has a name--even if I don't like it. My heroine still won't share. We came close--I think--but that wasn't quite right and nothing else in the same area of the alphabet worked. I guess she'll continue to remain unnamed.

I stayed up too late last night watching baseball and I'm paying the price this morning. The coworker from hell didn't do much resembling work yesterday. Instead, he yapped all day, disturbing others, and even intruded into other people's conversations so he wouldn't actually have to do what he's being paid to do. The intern who sits next to me went home sick--hope he wasn't contagious. And it's still raining here. This is like 36 hours now or something. I need water wings.

I don't think I have anything else to say, which should tell you how exciting things were on Thursday.

When I got home from work yesterday, I spotted the package on my doorstep. It wasn't the last order of bulbs I have coming. Nope, it was copy edits. I'm back to work again with a deadline. Sigh. I started writing my Polynesian couple's story during lunch today and now I have to stop!

Anyway, I'm through the first 128 pages and it's been pretty light so far, but page 129 has a query I'm not sure how to fix. So I'll mull for a while and then go back and get it later. The copy editor gave me a smiley on one of the pages and a compliment. I really like that. :-)

In other news, my garden wall is done. Yea! It finally stopped raining long enough on Wednesday for the guy to finish it. He did another beautiful job.

Here's the new garden from a distance. You can see how close it is to the tree ring.



This is just the new garden.




And finally, here's a shot of both the tree ring and the new garden from another angle. Because heaven knows if one shot is good, more is better. :-)




While I was out checking the new addition, I also took a look at the plants in the tree ring. Believe it or not, my toad lilies have buds on them! I know, it's October and they didn't bloom all summer. We have another week of warm weather according to the TV guys, so let's hope it's enough time for the flowers to appear.

Toad lily with flower buds



It started raining last night and it's supposed to pour all day today. Once again, I need to worry about the freeway being flooded. And to think, in July we were all concerned about a drought. Now someone better dust the plans off for the ark.

The project I've been working on is a futuristic (or SFR if you prefer). My characters have been minimally cooperative and I have very little information about them or their story. I want more. So--of course--my Polynesian couple unloaded with a boatload of details today. Do I have to tell you that they're not in the futuristic? I didn't think so.

I still don't have their names or where the story takes place, but I know what their jobs are, I know how they meet, and I know they both have tattoos. Deciding to go with the flow, I researched yesterday during my lunch hour instead of reading and then I did more research when I got home. The tattoo situation for him is going to be interesting. The Maori consider ta moko important to their culture and do not like it when people who aren't Maori take their designs. My hero is half Maori, but grew up in the US and I'm not quite sure what the rules are in relation to him. That was one of the items I was trying to figure out Tuesday. I might end up having to email someone who's Maori to ask. I hate contacting strangers out of the blue--even if their email addresses are associated with websites--and asking questions. I've done it before, but.... It's that shyness thing again.

Anyway, he's pretty damn hot. IMO, of course. He's also been through an ordeal and is still trying to heal from it. More research upcoming on that front. The book opens in his Point of View with a prologue--at least in my head it does. I try to stay away from prologues, but I haven't been altogether successful with that. I figure I'll write this story the way it's coming in and worry about whether or not I need a prologue later.

The other thing I'm not 100% certain of is the suspense element and what's driving the plot. That I'm not too worried about yet. It's early yet in this story's development and I usually get the characters first, everything else later.

So here I am, trying to focus on one world and hearing characters from another story. Do you want to bet that when I try to focus on my Polynesian couple that they go silent?

BTW, in case you wondered, the title of this blog post is Reo ma'ohi for "hello." (That's the Tahitian language according to a quick online search.)

What do you think of the title? Pretty bad, huh? If you don't think so, keep on reading and groan along with me.

Sunday night, while I was trying to sleep, Hope finally started talking to me. That's the good news. The bad news is that by the time I woke up on Monday morning, I'd totally forgotten everything she said. Heck, I'd forgotten she'd talked to me at all until Monday night when I was looking for her picture and she piped up again. "You're going to be surprised," she tells me. By what? I ask. Of course, that brings me no response. Is it any wonder why I enjoy torturing these people so much when I write?

I never did find her picture and I wanted to go to bed early, so I quit looking. I'll pick it up again today when I get home from the EDJ--if I don't get busy with something else. (Of course, I didn't get to bed early. Sigh.)

I finished plugging the first round of holes that my writing buddy found in my latest project. I thought it would take a lot longer than it did. Of course, round two might be just around the corner, so I guess I shouldn't feel too relaxed about it just yet.

So now the big question is what do I do today during lunch at the EDJ? I'd like to work on my Polynesian couple, but I prefer to work on one project at a time and I'm on the Hope/Ethan thing right now, and besides, I don't have names or a good grasp on their story just yet. Makes it hard to write. Maybe I'll slip a book in my bag and read--now that would be a change of pace. :-)

I had a totally great weekend over at Romance Divas doing that Science Fiction Romance workshop. So much fun that I got nothing else accomplished all weekend. It's a darn good thing I'm not on deadline, but I do have a project that I wanted to work on and I didn't touch it yesterday. I printed it out and will take it to the EDJ today to work on during lunch.

The guy building my retaining wall did come on Saturday--really late in the day--but he did get a lot accomplished and he came back yesterday. It's nearly finished now, just a few more stones to put in place, some cap stones and then it needs to be filled with dirt. This guy does such nice work and he's so reasonable--I love it! I'll take pictures when it's done, of course, and subject y'all to them. He said he wants to finish on Tuesday, but it's supposed to rain all day today, tonight, and into Tuesday, so I guess we'll see.

The other highlight coming up in my week is the guy coming to suck out my vents. Sigh. I should have been cleaning this weekend so the house looked good when they came, but see paragraph one about how much fun I was having online and you won't be surprised to learn that the only thing I got accomplished was replying to posts. :-) That gives me four evenings now to clean the entire house. It seems like so much time, but I guarantee I'll be procrastinating.

And the Rockies won again last night. One more game and they'll have swept the Diamondbacks--which is what I'm hoping for. Sorry Arizona fans, but the DBs must feel the pain they inflicted on the Cubs and that means sweep, sweep, sweep! Not that I'm vengeful or anything.

I wanted to go to my chapter meeting today, I'd planned on it, but I didn't wake up in time to get ready. Actually, I'm enjoying having a veg out morning. I hopped over to the Romance Diva's Workshop on SFR and answered a few questions, then I visited a readers' board that's doing a discussion of In the Midnight Hour and answered their questions, now I'm contemplating what I'm going to do next.

The guy building the retaining wall for my new garden didn't work yesterday and he's not here yet today either. I don't know if he's planning to come or not. This is our last nice day for about a week according to the weather people, so I really hope he does show up and get a lot done. Hey, I have bulbs to plant!

I suppose I should do one of the million things on my list since it's almost noon, huh?

I meant to post this in the morning, but I ran out of time. I did, however, get my website updated with the information. :-)



Writing Out of this World Romance with Some of The Hottest Authors in the Science Fiction and Futuristic Genres

October 12th, 13th, and 14th at Romance Divas

Featuring:

Patti O’Shea

Susan Grant

Linnea Sinclair

Robin D. Owens

Gena Showalter


Want to know how to write out of this world romance? Romance Divas is hosting a 3-day workshop with some of the hottest names in the Science Fiction and Futuristic genres. It will take place at the Romance Diva Forum. All are welcome. To get access to the forum you will need to register.

While I'm waiting for feedback on my current project, I decided it was a good time to work on a title. I totally, completely suck at them and I hate coming up with them, but I've always believed you need a title that sells the story to the editor even if it never gets used on the final book. Unfortunately, there have been some books where I haven't even come up with that much. :-( It's just hard to be clever.

I searched online at lunch yesterday to see if anyone else had any good suggestions, and I found one of my own tricks listed, so that was no help. Then I found one I hadn't thought of. I tried using that, but nothing turned up that made me go, oooh, that's it!

The best one I could come up with was pretty boring. I've brainstormed with every word I can think of, used the thesaurus, searched online. How do some people do it? How do they come up with clever titles? Oh, I used to be able to do it. Back when I was in college, I came up with brilliant titles for my papers, not just for me, but for the other kids on my dorm floor. Did I use them all up or something?

And now for something completely different. Fire drill yesterday at the Evil Day Job (EDJ). They couldn't do it last week when it was warm--nope, we have to traipse outside in 40 degree weather. Of course, I got made fun of for wearing a hat along with my winter jacket. Someone asked where my gloves were, so I pulled my mittens out of my pockets. Hah! Bet he thought I didn't have those with me.

I wanted to stay up last night and watch the National League playoff game, but I was so tired, I couldn't make it. I ended up going to bed by 8:30. How sad is that? But Colorado won (yea!) and I'm rooting for them to sweep the series. Arizona beat my beloved Chicago Cubs and therefore they must lose. :-)

Yesterday I come home from the EDJ (Evil Day Job) and I find a bag. Confused, since I didn't remember ordering anything that would come shipped that way, I studied the return address label and discovered some more of my flower bulbs have arrived. These are the alliums and they grow to 50" in height according to what I read with flowers almost as big as an adult's head. How cool is that? I open the package and there are my six bulbs. These things are huge! They're smaller than a baseball, but not by that much. Pretty incredible.

Then I spot the stems and look closer. Along with my allium bulbs are two bare root plants--of some sort. Now I'm really confused because I know I didn't order them. I don't even know what they are for heaven's sake. I look for a packing list. Nothing. I go online and check my email confirmation, and sure enough, all I ordered was the alliums--nothing else.

I go back to the package, look some more, and finally I think to flip the package with the bare root plants over. There it was stamped on the plastic: Burning Bush. I know I didn't order that.

Back to the email confirmation, only this time I spot the line that says "Free gift earned." Um, I guess the two burning bushes are my free gift. This just seems odd to me that any nursery would just send a bush that will grow to be 6 feet tall and 4-6 feet wide without asking first if the customer is interested. How many people throw these poor plants away, killing them without thought? I, of course, can't do that, so now I'll have two bushes in my yard.

I'd actually considered ordering them, believe it or not, but decided not to because they have berries and I didn't want those things falling all over my yard. Looks like I'm going to have even more birds stopping by when those things grow.

So now this weekend, after my writing chapter meeting, I'll be planting two burning bushes--somewhere. I just need to figure out where to put them.

Remember when Logan put me through all kinds of trouble to come up with his surname? Remember how I said I was never complaining again about a character telling me his/her name because it made everything so much easier? Well, I'm being forced to go through this hell again--Hope won't share her last name. Grr. Okay, granted, I'm not doing anything right now that makes it needed and the important part was her first name, but I want to know. Besides, name does play a role in personality and she's a big enigma to me.

What's even more frustrating is that I read through what I wrote yesterday and it all pretty much sucks. Considering the sleep thing, and how the nap messed things up, it's not a huge surprise, but I was hoping that I wouldn't need to rewrite it all.

My other cross to bear is my Polynesian couple who still have no names, but who've started sharing scenarios. They're all similar, so I'm thinking the premise of the story is going to stick. I guess it'll just be a matter of what form it takes. The stories I'm seeing so far, though, aren't really workable as a book, but this is percolation stage and that's okay.

The stones were delivered for my new garden's retaining wall yesterday. It's amazing how much that stuff costs, but it'll look so nice when it's done. Of course, there'll be pictures. :-) I'm sure y'all have been sad for months without flower/garden shots posted here.

And because I can't resist whining about the weather....It was summer in Minnesota this last weekend. Temps were in the mid-80s and I was running around in short sleeves and still thinking it was hot. Tuesday it got cold. Way cold. I seriously wished I was wearing my winter jacket when I left work yesterday afternoon. It's 35 degrees with the wind chill and I think I'll be putting it on this morning when I leave the house. Brr! I even had to put socks on which I totally hate.

Argh! I was so tired Monday afternoon that I decided to take a quick nap. Two and a half hours later... I post that a lot when I nap, I realized and I think it just might be a sign that I don't get enough sleep. Sigh. Of course, this screwed up my sleeping schedule and I was up far too late last night. Twenty minutes--good. Two and a half hours--not so good.

I transcribed all my notes from Saturday's workshop. Not on the workshop itself, but on my story arc. I think I mentioned that we had writing stints for five, ten, even fifteen minutes and that I focused on brainstorming rather than writing. It was good to get it all organized, but I was disappointed with how much was repetitive and how much wasn't as brilliant as I thought it was at the time. Still, it's more than I had before and there are possibilities here.

Oh, I almost forgot. Ethan's heroine finally shared her name! I got it during the fourth writing stint on Saturday. She's Hope. No last name yet, but that's not nearly as important as the first name.

In other news, I also think I'm getting the storyline for my Polynesian couple. Maybe. We'll have to see how that pans out when I have more time to think about it, but that started coming in Sunday, so I'm hopeful. It looks like it's going to be a paranormal romance. I don't have the conflict yet, but if this idea holds together, I have the premise. That would be cool. This couple has been bugging me for about a year and a half.

First up, I guest blogged today at Fresh Fiction so please head on over to take a look and maybe ask a question/leave a comment. I talk about some behind the scenes stuff for In the Midnight Hour.

Okay, now I'm sure you're all anxiously waiting for the report on how Saturday went. The workshop was tremendous! I picked up some good information, got a reminder about things I used to do but stopped doing, and had some things I still do reaffirmed. Eric Maisel is a creativity coach and now I understand why so many writers have been raving about him. Great workshop and if you have an opportunity to attend one of his presentations, I say go!

In addition to the great information, Eric made us write--five times. First for five minutes, then for ten and fifteen. The last time got a little long, but by then I was tired, it was after lunch and the book signing was looming. But I got more work done on my story arc on Saturday and those short writing stints than I managed all of last week, so big yea!

At the hotel, our workshop ended up next door to some really loud and large group that had the other three sections of the ballroom for their event. We heard music and the murmur of hundreds of conversations. I wondered if it was some kind of dating thing or something, but apparently not. Their social hour ended and then it got really loud. I have no clue what this group was and their signage didn't say enough to help me, but I am curious because it was just so different. Fortunately, our organizers got us moved into another room after lunch and we were able to have a lot more quiet.

Now for the part I'm sure you're all dying to hear about--the book signing. The night before, I'd printed out the scene I was going to read, rehearsed it, discovered it was far too long, cut it to a good starting point, rehearsed it again, discovered it was still too long, trimmed out a sentence here and a paragraph there, and got it down to just over five minutes. Then I really practiced. I even did voices for my characters--nothing too out there, but like the professional readers do for audio books. I was prepared, but dreading every minute.

So the workshop ended, I drove over to the Evil Day Job to change clothes and do my makeup (the hotel bathroom was way too small and far too busy), then went over to the Mall of America. I managed to find a parking spot near Macy's (We were signing in the Macy's Court), but I was supposed to meet my group at Barnes & Noble and that store was on the exact opposite side of the mall.

I don't know if any of you have been to the Mall of America (MOA), but that place is huge! For a moment, I considered staying at the Macy's Court, but then I thought, well, what if they're doing something at the bookstore that we need to know ahead of time? Or taking a head count before carting books all the way over? So I hied it across the vast expanse of retail establishments only to discover our group was gone. Back to Macy's Court. In new shoes. Gah!

Memorable moments: All I saw was my backlist being unpacked and I was afraid that In the Midnight Hour hadn't been ordered. They found it, though, in another stack of boxes. My name sign had my name spelled Pati, and of course, I got a little crap about that. Last year I signed one book, this year I signed a lot more than that, but I still ended up with a lot of books to sign for stock. The BN guy was really sweet (and optimistic) and ordered a lot of books. I had four titles there, including the Crimson anthology.

But you want to know how the reading went, don't you? Ha! I pleaded to go last, hoping they'd run out of time and I wouldn't have to do it at all, but another author had already claimed last place. I argued that we should do it on a shyness scale and I'm a 10, so I should go last. I got settled in at my position, pens and bookmarks ready, and then word came--we weren't going to read after all! Yea!

All in all, it ended up being a good day, albeit a long one.

It is going to be an exceptionally LONG day today. My RWA chapter has a workshop today that starts at 9am and goes until 4pm, and since our speaker is creativity coach Eric Maisel, I signed up. I've heard really, really good things about him and anything that gets--and keeps--the creativity flowing is a good thing.
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So the workshop ends at 4pm and then I have to meet the authors participating in the book signing at 5pm. The Mall of America isn't far from the hotel at all, but that isn't going to give me much time to put on makeup and get ready--something I'll probably end up doing in a public restroom at the hotel. Sigh. It's just too far for me to drive home and back in the time allotted.

I can't even tell you how much I am not looking forward to the signing. We're expected to READ ALOUD from our books for 5 minutes. I printed out the scene I plan to use last night and read it. I discovered it was much longer than 5 minutes, so I looked for a good place to cut and read it again while timing it. Still well over five minutes. I began trimming it in the middle--a sentence here, a paragraph there. It's like slightly over 5 minutes, but I figure as nervous as I'll be, I'll probably be reading so fast, I'll finish in less time than at home. :-)

Someone please stop me from volunteering to do this next time, okay?

Got the estimate yesterday for the new garden retaining wall and the final price on what cleaning out my vents will cost. Talk about sticker shock! Yikes. And to think, I thought $400 was bad for the vent thing. The final damage will be much worse. :-( I'm going to do it because I have allergies, but this one is going to hurt.

Then there's the new garden. Sigh. It's going to cost a couple hundred more than what I set as my top "do it" figure. Now I have to decide if I do it anyway, or if I wait. The only pro to doing it later is having a chance to save some money.

The pros to doing it now: 1) I won't have to dig up all the bulbs and replant them like I would have to if I waited till later. 2) my dad won't be out there hand digging the garden because he refuses to use a roto-tiller, so it saves him stress. 3) the built up wall will help keep the bulbs safe from burrowing rodents since I can't find crushed shells anywhere.

I have to make a decision this morning and I just can't reach one. I'm hoping for an epiphany. I hear those happen sometimes.

I'm still worried about the project I'm working on, but that didn't stop me from adding to it yesterday. I don't know why.

And I'm trying to remind myself that it's a miracle the Cubs even made the playoffs. That I never should have counted on them doing anything--like winning. Every other team I'm rooting for is winning, why not my Cubs?

In weather news, it's been raining since like 1:45 and I'm hoping the freeway isn't flooded.

This is like paradise, nirvana, and utopia all rolled in to one for me. All day baseball. Bliss! I started out with the 2pm game (MN Time), then we rolled right into the 5pm game and then my beloved Chicago Cubs. Today's another day of heaven for baseball fans. Is there anything better than the playoffs? My only complaint is why are the Cubs games on so darn late??? 9pm on Wednesday and 9pm today, too. That doesn't work for me, not with a 4am wake up call.

BTW, it's not easy being a Cubs fan and not just because of a couple of late night games. They lost last night. As many times as I tell myself not to hope, to remember how painful it is when they lose, I can't seem to help myself.

I did get more work done yesterday on the newest project. I think it sucks and it's boring and I don't know what I was thinking of to ever believe I could pull together an idea like this. Neither Ethan nor Rafferty are talking to me and neither of their heroines have ever said a word, let alone given me their names. I particularly need Rafferty's heroine to talk because she's the only one who can tell me about her world. Let me find a wall so I can bang my head against it.

In other news, my dad decided that I should get my vents in the house cleaned out--he's probably right since they did a half-assed job cleaning them out before I closed on the house--but I just about choked on the price. Over $300. Yikes!

I've got a book signing coming up this weekend at the Mall of America with a whole bunch of other authors. If you're in Minnesota and interested in coming out, I have all the details on My Website.

I actually got a little sleep last night--not as much as I needed, but hey, I'm just happy I got some. That made it easier to get out of bed this morning, and so I didn't hit the snooze as many times as usual. Cool, I thought, I'll be able to blog from home this morning instead of the EDJ (Evil Day Job) or at least be able to answer comments.

Instead, I spent all the "extra" time I had trying to get my laptop to pick up the wireless signal from the router. This included several boot-ups of the laptop, one boot-up of the desktop, and unplugging the router for a minute and plugging it back in. One of the last two steps worked. :-) Since did both simultaneously, I'm not sure which one it was.

This has become a frustration for me since this weekend when the power went out for a minute or two. There wasn't lightning so I don't know what happened, but that seemed to have knocked the router out on Saturday morning. Computers--you gotta love them--or something. ;-)

I stopped by my parents house on the way home from work yesterday. The first thing my mom asks is: "Did you stop and get gas?" Um, no, why? Apparently, I was late. I looked at the clock and it's 3pm. Not that late. Besides, it was raining yesterday and Minnesotans can't drive in rain. But gee, how close is she paying attention to my schedule? I rarely stop off on my way home so the timing isn't something she could be accustomed to.

The other parent event of the day involves my dad. I saw him digging out the space for my garden on Monday when I got home from the EDJ and it was a lot of work. It just seemed smarter to get the wall put around the garden this fall rather than having him dig it out, pile dirt in, and then get the retaining wall put up next spring. So we talked about hiring the guy who did my tree ring and my dad said he'd call him and see when he could come out and give an estimate.

Now here's the funny dad part. I drive home and the phone's ringing as I walk in the door. Of course, I didn't reach it in time. I had my purse, my tote bag, a couple of bags full of stuff my mom had given me and my shoes were wet from the rain. I wasn't traipsing through the house with those on.

After missing the phone, I put down my bags, took off my shoes, and the phone rings again, so jacket still on, I rush to the computer room. It's my dad. I just had to shake my head. Does he think I can beam myself home like Star Trek? And when I didn't answer the first time, he didn't wait very long to call the second time. I guess he was pretty impatient to talk to me. :-) Anyway, the tree-ring guy is coming out to give my dad an estimate tomorrow morning.

And I got some semi-decent work in on my latest project yesterday--both on lunch and in the evening. If I hadn't been so darn tired, I could have done more. I love it when things actually go well!

Baseball playoffs start today. Unfortunately, the Cubs/Diamondbacks game is on at 9pm MN time which means I won't be able to watch much of it.

I had some geeky fun yesterday. :-) I bought a label maker and spent some time in the afternoon labeling my files. :-) Hey, it was way cool! I have some 2" hanging files and I labeled one "Projects," then I pulled out my really cool bright-colored file folders and labeled each one of those with the stories I'm working on or have worked on.

I tend to make notes on lined paper as I work and then it all starts piling up. I had notes in my great room, on the kitchen island counter, in the spare bedroom, and accumulating in my office. They were making me nuts and had to go somewhere. Now everything is neatly labeled, so I'll be able to find it when I need it, and when I sell one of the projects, I can move its file from "Projects" to its very own hanging folder.

Speaking of needing to organize, I found the electronic version of something I needed for the current project. It's not the hard copy--I looked everywhere for that darn thing and I still can't find it--but the e-copy is good enough. I'll just print it out again and add it to my collection of papers. And yes, I do have a file labeled for this project, but while I'm working on something, I drag every scrap of paper with me to the EDJ so I can work on it during lunch.

BTW, my insomnia is back, so forgive me if this post wasn't quite as coherent as it should be. I thought I was bad yesterday, that's nothing compared to how I feel today.

My password expired at the EDJ (Evil Day Job) this morning and I had to pick a new one. I absolutely hate having to go through this every 3 months. We're not allowed to repeat anything we've used before, and we can't even start with something similar to what we've used before. Oh, yeah, and it has to be letters and numbers. Just to add an extra layer of difficulty, we're only allowed 8 characters and none of them can be symbols. I've gone through everything that would be easy to remember and now I'm having to invent stuff. I hate it.

Anyone with an IS background is thinking well, it's good to be secure, so quit your complaining. I maintain that there is less danger of someone hacking into the EDJ computer and using the name of one of the castaways from Gilligan's Island to hack my account than there is of someone walking into the building and checking for where I wrote down my now-impossible-to-remember password. :-)

Today, my first option was rejected by the system without explanation. I don't know why since it fit the parameters for passwords. My only guess is that maybe it didn't like that it was 6 characters instead of 8.

But not to worry, I came up with an even-more-difficult-to-remember alternative which was 8 characters and that was accepted. I carefully wrote it down across my calendar so that any thief off the street can come in and access whatever he or she wants. ;-)