Atlanta, here I come!

It's official, I'm going to the Romance Writers of America National Conference in Atlanta this July. Woohoo! I know what you're thinking, "But Lisa, you said you were going to the Romantic Times conference in May, but you're not. How can I believe it when you'll say you're going to this one?"

Why must you nag me all the time? Just joking :-) I love it when you nag.

There are a few reasons why I'm definitely going to this conference:
1) It's about half the cost of the RT conference. About $350 for a hotel and about $350 for the registration. I'm hoping to use a free airline ticket to Birmingham to catch a ride with someone to Atlanta. Stupid Southwest doesn't fly to Atlanta.

2) I have a kick-ass roommate, Elisabeth Naughton. We're in the same RWA chapter. I know we'll have a great time, and she's been to one before so I can milk her for good info :-)

3) It's about time I meet some of these people I've been talking to online for months.

4) It gives me a definitive deadline to have a polished version of my MS ready, in case I happen to meet any agents or editors.

5) Which leads me to: agent/editor appointments!

This will be great. Who else is going?

E-publishing

I've decided to try submitting to e-publishing. I understand the readership is probably smaller than most print runs, but the experience of going through some sort of an editing process, having deadlines, doing self-promotion, etc, would be invaluable.

At this point I'm going to try writing some short stories or novellas and submitting them - romance to the softest side of erotica. I think writing shorter bits will help me concentrate on character development at a quicker rate.

The idea hadn't occurred to me until I recently saw an opportunity to send in a writing sample for an opportunity to publish a couple of short stories. Although I wasn't accepted in the end, I sent in one sample and they asked for more before turning me down. That's one step right? Not a flat out rejection.

We'll see how it goes. I wrote a short story (not any bit of editing though) a few months back that could be fun to submit. I'll try polishing it up and see where it takes me. At this point I'm trying to find e-publishers that accept less-than-novel length romance fiction.

This revelation brought on the internal debate of pseudonym or no pseudonym. If I write any form of erotica, will it hurt any potential romance readership if I get published? Or does it work best to build awarness of one name, no matter the genre (unless it's YA or inspirational)? So many things to ponder while I procrastinate on writing.

URL comment problem fixed

I finally got help to fix the problem of URL's not appearing when someone leaves their Web site link with their comments on a post. Thankfully it's fixed so anyone who leaves a Web site with their comment will become a link. Woohoo! I'm sorry that none of you have been linked, but they're up there now. Off to play with the puppy... :-)

It's my birthday and I'll cry if I want to

Well, today I celebrate the date of my birth. Once I left middle school, birthdays weren't a big deal to me. The best part of them is that people are forced to be extra nice. Oh the power.

But today, I've decided to make a birthday wish list. If any of you can grant these wishes, I will love you forever. Purely platonic of course, I'm married.

1) A trip to Scotland and England, or Greece and Italy. Hell, a Eurail pass and airfare would do ;-) Side note: Those Eurail passes aren't as cheap as they seem. The pass is one price then you got to pay a bunch more for a freaking reservation! You can't just hop on and off like the movies say, or at least that's what I gathered from their Web site. Okay, back to business.

2) A magic machine that pulls the remaining manuscript pages from my head, in full draft form the way I want to write them anyway - no editing required

3) An agent, a good one, ready to sign me with my newly completed MS. I'm not greedy, I can work for the editing contract and NYT Bestseller list ;-)

4) Lose 40 pounds overnight with no hangy skin issuse, yikes. Again, I'm not greedy. I can lose what's after the 40 on my own

5) Housebreak my dog, again, overnight

6) Cash - always a good thing. Lots of it would be nice, see wishes 1-5

I depart on this special day with a song. Gold stars to anyone who can name where it's from and who sang it. I couldn't find an audio clip to post.

Lisa, it's your birthday.
God bless you this day.
You gave me the gift of a little sister,
And I'm proud of you today.

Lisa, it's your birthday.
Happy birthday, Lisa.
Lisa, it's your birthday.
Happy birthday, Lisa.

I wish you love and good will.
I wish you peace and joy.

I wish you better than your heart desires.

And your first kiss from a boy.

Lisa, it's your birthday.
Happy birthday, Lisa.
Lisa, it's your birthday.
Happy birthday, Lisa.

New schedule

It's time to set some order in my life. My writing and weight-losing just ain't gettin' done. I've devised a new plan for my day. I will probably be on the verge of jumping off a bridge in two weeks, but we'll see.

5:30 a.m. (yeah, I know.) - Grumble that my alarm is going off and hiss at the dog for waking me up 30 minutes earlier by licking my forehead and biting my ear. Jump out of bed before Roxy pees on it or wakes the hubby up. I usually wake up at 7:15, so this will be an adjustment to say the least. Play with the dog, set up her kennel and have my heart broken at her whining please to stay with me and not be locked away.

6 a.m. - Grudgingly leave Roxy and my hubby and head to the town I work in.

6:30 a.m. - Meet three of my coworkers for some pain-filled cardio hell. Did I say hell? I meant fun. Thank goodness for iPods and books, or I would go C-R-A-Z-Y.

7:15 a.m. - Shower at the gym. Talk about low water pressure. At least it's nice and hot.

8 a.m. - Go to work.

Lunchtime - Read or work on my book. Or take a nap in the creepy room attached to the women's bathroom that has a chaise lounge.

5 p.m. - Go home.

5:30 p.m. - Walk through my front door, trying my hardest not to shower my Roxy with kisses. I have to lessen the impact of my departures and arrivals, so it's simply, "Hi, Roxy." Then after five minutes we play :-) Cook dinner, take Roxy on a walk and beg her to do her dirty work outside for once.

6:30 p.m. - Take a nap. You'll see why in a minute.

7:30ish... p.m. - Write and watch TV while I wait for the hubby to return home sometime over the next few hours. The nap allows me to stay up later and get up at the butt crack of dawn, with low ill effects. Hopefully. Hang out with Roxy and the hubby, then go to bed to repeat it all over again.

Now that I've written it out - mind you this exercise was for my own sick amusement - I don't have much time in there for writing. Dammit! Time to reevaluate. I may have to cut out the nap. Ouch. I'm a 7-8 hours of sleep person, not 4-5. No. Way. Jose.

And, I didn't meet my goal of having my first draft of "Cursed to Hate, Bound to Love" completed by my b-day tomorrow. Dang nabbit.

New puppy!

I got a puppy! Her name is Roxy and she is an adorable lhasa apso - three and a half months old. Half the time she's a total snugglebug, unhappy unless I'm holding her. The other half she's a bloodthirsty brat who's only content on biting the shit out of me. :-)

Waiting...

So I may have found a dog to adopt. Yay!!!! Except, I'm waiting for the woman to e-mail me back so I can go look at her. Argh! Why don't people sit on e-mail like I do? I mean jeez! :-) She's a lhasa apso, seven months old so she's already crate and potty trained. And she's already used to being in a crate during the workday. Whew. Fingers crossed it comes through - especially before I'm done with my vacation...

New puppy?

I might be getting a puppy! Happy dance! My lovely, adorable, fantastical hubby gave the go ahead :-) So, I'm jumping on the opportunity before he changes his mind. But damn is it hard to pick out a breed. There are several things I want in a dog, and when I think I found a breed to fit it, I read that it doesn't. But then I read that it's not always about the breed, it's about how they're trained.

I need a dog that can live in a multi-unit building; can be left alone for chunks of time (I work outside of the home, but may be able to keep the dog with someone near work to check on it a few times a day); isn't a big barker; small (preferably 10 pounds or smaller); doesn't need daily eye and ear cleaning preferably. Does anyone have any suggestions?

I'm looking at shih tzus, lhasa apsos primarily, but open to any other ideas. :-) Yay for pupppy!

Awwww, how sweet!

I was channel surfing and saw "Harlequin's Diamond Girl." Of course I had to watch it, or what was left of it. A category turned movie? Uh yeah, no way to resist. Honestly, it was pretty decent. And the ending was such an "awwww, how sweet" moment. Keep an eye out on the Lifetime Movie Network, quasi motivating for writing because you can follow the book conflict pretty well. I think it's based off a book by Diana Palmer or something like that.

I'm at 15k with my WIP. The problem is that 12k is the beginning of the book and the most recent 3k and counting is the end of the book. I knew how I wanted to start it and I knew what I wanted to happen when the climax started. But, uh, the middle, well, I dunno. So I figure once I have the beginning and last part I'll know how many words I need for the part I'm unsure of. We'll see how that goes... Does anyone else write like that? Or am I the only loon?

I'm getting some useful feedback on my five pages at Romance Divas. Comments have been that my voice is very strong, which I'm pleased about. I figure I can improve characters and plot, but voice seems more of a natural thing. Or at least that's what I'll tell myself to feel warm and fuzzy inside :-)

Has anyone seen that Nextel commercial where the two guys are dancing while a third is manning a boombox playing some 90s freak dance song? Then a guy walks in and starts barking out demands for information. The guy shuts off the boombox, the other two get on their nextel phones and find the info in like two seconds - then the dude turns the music back on and they can dance. I LOVE that commercial. No particular reason. And not sure why I blogged about it, but I love it. In times of hate, grief and sadness, that commercial brings me joy. :-)

Guess what? 44 hours until my nine days of vacation. Woo woo! 45.5 hours until the Fall Out Boy/All-American Rejects/Hawthorne Heights concert. Woo woo!

Vaca - ooooooooh yeah

What I'll refer to as BAWC, a.k.a. Big Ass Work Crisis, came to an end today. Which means...da dum de da...I can take vacation next week! Friday, April 7 at 5 p.m. to Monday, April 17 at 8 a.m. That's a lot of free time - exactly 231 hours.

You know what I can do in 231 hours? Pump out about 70k of my novel. You laugh. You scoff. You doubt. I know, I know. You think I'm crazy. Alas, I am not crazy. I am going to make the most of my week of freedom, thus just about finishing the first draft. By no means will it be a readable draft. It will be a starting point to begin the Edit from Hell.

My ultimate goal is to have the first draft finished by April 21 - my birthday. Then I can par-tay like there ain't no tomorrow. Ooooooh yeah. I can already taste my special concoction: orange juice, pineapple juice, granadine and everclear. Yup, everclear. I'm no lightweight my friend. A couple of those and I'm relaxed enough to dance and it saves me $ at the bars :-)

I encourage you all to stop in at Romance Divas and check out the Diva Workshop forum. A couple dozen folks submitted 1k of their WIP and you can post your comments. It's a great way for those of us who submitted to hear some feedback with immediate gratification and no damage to the pocketbook. There's also kick booty prizes for those who judge the entries - so sign up!