Lisa Pulliam

MySpace and Facebook

2008-09-16T13:19:00.000-07:00

Tonight I'm talking to the lovely Mid-Willamette Valley RWA chapter about MySpace and Facebook - the lingo, how to promote and network, and how not to get too bogged down by it all.

I use them as the lazy way to keep in touch with friends (for some reason it seems much easier to leave a comment on their page than send an e-mail). I have a seperate writing profile on MySpace, but I never use it anymore. It got much too overwhelming. Most of my friends on that profile are other authors and I get a constant flow of bulletin entries and comments announcing new releases, guest blogs, online chats, etc. Plus all the surveys people fill out. It might not be as overwhelming to someone who has a mix of personal friends, writers, musicians, etc.

When I get home I'll be frantically reading more of The Dream-Hunter by Sherrilyn Kenyon. I got a couple books from this series through a book club I was in, a couple of years ago. But they sat and sat on my shelves, I never felt inspired to pick them up. I tend to lean toward lighter, humerous books and judging by the cover and cover copy - I got the feeling that these books were on the darker side of the spectrum.

A fellow writer gave me a couple of them to borrow, insisting that they were fabulous. We liked a lot of the same paranormal books, so I told myself I'd give it a try. I had those for a while, but never picked them up. Then another friend gave me a third book from the series that she had just read. She said it was ok, but that it was tough to follow the world - but that the Greek mythology was interesting. Her and I both love Greek mythology. I eventually picked up one of the books when I was desperate for something to read. It was too late at night to go to the store to buy a new book, and I'd either read everything else or had no desire to read it. So I picked up a Dark Hunter book.

Holy cow it was incredible.

I devoured it that night, reading into the wee hours of the morning. I slept for a few hours, then picked up the next one. I couldn't believe these books had been sitting on my shelves for so long! I was so upset with myself. I had about half of the series already, between books I owned and ones I had borrowed. I read them all within a week. I also hit up bookstores buying the ones I didn't have (and could find).

I enjoy the Dark Hunter stories a bit more than the Dream Hunters, the "species" just appeals to me a bit more. But Sherrilyn Kenyon is amazing. Now I understand the fanatic response at RWA book signings, the huge lines.

Her books combine history, paranormal elements and pop culture so well. It's amazing. I've read all but 1 or 2 I think. I read Acheron already, it was fabulous. I was just missing The Dream-Hunter, so I'm reading that one now. I'm only about 60 pages in, but I love how the hero and heroine meet. It's going to be a great book, I got the feelin'.

Once I pull myself from the book I'm going to get back to crafting. I worked on my necklaces last night. Hopefully I'll have a big batch done by the end of the week to put on my new Etsy shop. I'm still experimenting with the right finish to use, when is the best time to put in the holes for the jump rings, etc. But once I get it down, the process will be much smoother.

Long enough break

2008-09-12T10:36:00.000-07:00

Well it's been over a year since I posted last. I think that's a long enough break, don't you? I have been completely away from the world 'o blogs except for blogging on the fabulous Mid-Willamette Valley RWA blog. And I lurk on a couple of other blogs, but haven't been much of a commenter.

It's about time to change that. So here I am, a spiffy redesign courtesy of blogger templates and some pink infusion. One of these days when I actually finish designing my Web sites, I'll do a "real" blogger redesign.

This past year has been pretty crazy, but in a fabulous way. I started taking classes in anthropology last fall, to earn another bachelor's degree. I'm hoping that grad school in bioarchaeology is in my future :) I will be talking lots more about anthropology on the blog, especially once classes start back up in a few weeks. I spent July in southern Italy participating in a bioarchaeology field school, excavating Roman burials.

It. Was. Awesome. I'm sure I'll be talking more about that as I fall into mini-depressions wishing I were still there, haha!

I'm excited about my job. I've worked here for a few years, but one of my best friends got promoted to the director of the department. I'm so thrilled for her! And she's going to do wonderful things. We also moved to the cutest building on campus and my office is amazing. And we're getting somewhat caught up on 21st Century technology, which will make my job much more interesting and rewarding.

I adopted a Soft-Coated Wheaten Terrier last summer, Rufus. He is the most amazing dog. He's loving, affectionate, kind, and polite! It may seem odd to say those qualities about a dog, but if you knew him, you'd understand. Yes, he really is polite. It's sort of weird, but cute!

My most recent venture is another dip into the world of crafts. I'm always trying to find my "thing." I think I may have found it this time, making cool jewelry and keychains. I'm still trying out techniques, but I've opened up an Etsy shop to see how it goes.

I'm working on a book that I'm excited about. Still working through the kinks and redoing some of the hero's story - but I'm taking an online workshop for Discovering Story Magic and it's been such a help. The one-on-one responses have been beyond beneficial to me. It's daunting to realize I'm going to nearly have to start over with this book, but at least it will be more solid.

I'm going to finish up some things at work so I can head out to Jo-Ann's and Michaels for some shopping! Woooo!

Rated R - naughty me

2007-07-09T13:40:00.000-07:00

Stole the link from the lovely Michelle Rowen (go check out her new release, Fanged & Fabulous!!!!)

I know I haven't been blogging, well, at all. I have just run low (or out) of things to chat about. I'm going to the RWA convention this week, hopefully that will give me plenty of things (and photos teehee) to blab about for weeks to come.

Tell me how you are!

Obsessive is the way to go

2007-04-05T10:18:00.000-07:00

I'm trying to turn a new leaf in everything. Write more. Keep my house in good shape. Be more organized. Be healthier. Etc. So far, so good. My house is starting to look pretty nice, I actually like spending time there now. I've worked on my book a bit. And I've been eating healthy and working out.

Something I've learned is that healthy eating is a struggle for me. It's not like I go get fast food everyday, or eat two pounds of pasta, my bad habit is eating processed foods because they are easy, cheap and quick. I hate to cook. I also struggle in trying to figure out what to eat, so I get frustrated and just grab a box of something.

Well I ain't gonna get healthy doing that. So, I put on my worn-out and overused obsessive hat and went to work. I have typed up menu pages with meal options for breakfast, lunch, dinner and a snack. Listing calories and such so I can quickly glance at options. I have also wrtiten out a daily plan listing the food I'll eat and my work-out. The food is broken down into things like 11 almonds, a tablespoon of salad dressing, 2/3 cup of cottage cheese, etc. I'm really crackin' down, folks.

But this is the piece de resistance (I have no idea how that's spelled, forgive me), I measured out ALL of my food. The other night I labeled ziplock bags to "hamburger," "turkey breast," "chicken," and "turkey sausage." The meats found in my daily food plan. They are all very, very lean cuts.

Then, I saw that the hamburger recipe called for 4 ounces, the turkey breast for 3.5 ounces, etc. So I grabbed my handy food scale and measured all the meat into those increments and put them in the labeled ziplocks for immediate freezer action. So my freezer is full of about 50 or 60 labeled ziplocks.

But it doesn't stop there. I have these mini tupperware containers that I have filled with tiny amounts of fat free mayo, sugar free jelly, unsalted peanut butter, whole almonds - some of the other things found in the meals.

And some meals call for two cups of salad, so I have measured that out into ziplock bags as well. And to prevent overdoing it on the salad dressing, I bought those new bottles of spray salad dressing in italian and balsamic vinigarette varieties. Both are rather good and only one calorie per squirt!

Have you imagined what my fridge looks like at this point? You may ask yourself why in the hell I would go through all that trouble. Well, I finally know myself well enough to confidently claim that if my food is not prepackaged, measured and ready to go, I won't go through the trouble of doing it when I'm hungry. Now it only takes me a couple minutes to grab the food and head to work.

You also may be thinking to yourself, "that's no way to live! Where's the freedom in the food?" First of all, I'm a super duper uper picky eater and only eat certain things anyway. Second, by eating so strict most days, I can afford a little splurge if I go to dinner with friends or something.

After only a couple of days, I feel so much better. It's amazing how much processed foods can make a person feel like crap without knowing it. I had no idea how crappy I felt until I started eating mostly fresh foods.

Anyone else as crazy as me and ever try something like this? We'll see if I keep it up, but I have some motivation to keep me going this time.

And the point of blogging this today was not to scare you or make you think I'm crazier than you already do, it's now out in the public and when I'm on the verge of quitting (as I'm sure will happen once or twice), I'll force myself to read it all over again.

Do you have any tips that got you healthier? Be it weight loss, lower cholesterol, more energy, etc.

Now if only I could start enjoying exercise...

Did you miss me?

2007-03-30T09:27:00.000-07:00

Ok, let's pretend that my last post was not three months ago, that it was in fact three days ago. Can we all do that? I like pretend. It's a fun game. I'll give you a quick and dirty of how things are, well mostly good stuff anyway. The bad stuff has passed and I am now resuming life as normal (i.e. all of you lovely people in the blogosphere that I have missed like crazy).

I warn you, this will sound an awful lot like random stream of consciousness. Oh, and by the way check out my other blog post at our fantastic chapter blog (two posts in one day!?!)

But first! HUGE news people. I'm so flipping excited about this.

...drumrolling...

...letting the anticipation build a bit more...

Okay - Eli, or more formally the darling Elisabeth Naughton is a Golden Heart Finalist for her fan-freaking-tastic book Make Me Believe. I looooooooooooooooooove this book. And I'm not just blowing rose scented smoke up your bums. I tease her that she stalked me when she wrote this book (we didn't know each other at the time) because it has elements of so many of my personal passions and favorite things/subject matters. And the hero is based off of a somewhat obscure person who I have been in love with since the 5th grade. And the writing is stellar. The only reason I talk to her so much is so I can read her WIPs. (kidding, of course, well mostly) :P

I bought airfare to Dallas for RWA Nationals. I'm rooming with Eli and Alice like I did last year. We had a ball and I can't wait to do it over again. I need to finish my WIP so I have something to pitch, and for the sense of accomplishment and all that. I have curbed my Puzzle Pirates addiction, I'm so proud. Although my TeamSpeak addiction will not go away, however it's much easier to chat on a microphone and write than play a game and write. In fact it helps a bit. It puts me in a good mood, which helps with my writing. I've learned of some great new bands and I'm loving the music I'm listening too. I have written out an eating and exercise plan and I think it will work. So far so good. By the fall I should be close to my goal weight. Hmmm...what else...I'm running out of things to say. A momentous time in history folks.

Watch this video, you have to.

On a sadder note, my doggie died. My baby girl Roxy. Things are ok, me and my family are ok, but it's hard as many of you know I'm sure. So here is a picture of the cutest baby girl ever.

Ok, updates! How are all of you? Tell me all the juicy details!!! And I'm going to be getting caught up on some blog reading this weekend :)

Holy accents, Batman!

2007-01-17T13:29:00.000-08:00

Have you heard of TeamSpeak? Wow. It's the coolest invention ever. You download the free program, get a free server and can talk to anyone in the world with a microphone. It's awesome. I've been talking to some online friends (coughs Puzzle Pirate friends coughs) and it's a hoot. Several of them are from England, so, I get to feed my UK accent addiction daily.

One of them from England has a deep voice. It's lovely. I could listen all day. And a couple of the girls are from the Netherlands and have adorable Dutch accents. Now if I could just get one of the Scottish folks to download TeamSpeak, I'd be set.

You should give this program a try to eliminate long distance calling, it's wonderful.

On the writing front I've been trying to outline the first book in a series that's been percolating for a few months. I've got an idea of the series, but need to get the book nailed down. It's going ok so far. I've never been so jazzed about an idea before, so we'll see how it goes.

It's a paranormal romance, but the research load will be horrendous and I've never written action scenes before. It will be a stretch for me as a writer, but well worth it.

How's your writing? Life in general?

I'm off to drool some more over the accents...

2007 To Do List

2007-01-10T09:20:00.000-08:00

1. Finish this damn book.
2. Edit this damn book.
3. Submit this wonderful book (by the time I edit it won't be damned anymore).
4. Get healthy.
5. Write a second book.
6. Get my dog to listen to me so she a) stops peeing and pooping off the pee pad, b) doesn't eat her poop ever again, c) obeys when I call her or tell her to stay, d) cleans the house while I'm at work.
7. Travel to Scotland.
8. Get a passport (would make #7 much easier).
9. Buy and consume large amounts of Catto Whiskey.
10. Go to Canada (#8 is important still).
11. Get an agent.
12. Find a way to make chocolate help in weight loss.
13. Clean my house.
14. Keep my house clean.
15. Finish knitting the Baby Blanket To End All Baby Blankets.
16. Make a large dent in my debt.
17. Begin to enjoy eating vegetables (relates to #4).
18. Learn to at least tolerate exercise (again, to #4).
19. Get my hair to the length I want (may roll over into the 2008 To Do List).
20. Go to Scotland. Did I mention that one already? Well it's a biggie.

What's on your To Do List for this year?

A humorous post for you kilt aficionados

2007-01-08T08:30:00.000-08:00

I thought this was hilarious. Posted by The Scottish Teabag Society on MySpace. Was on of his blog entries. Enjoy!

Crikey woman! Get your drunken hands out from under my kilt!
Current mood: Hoping for warm hands.
Category: Hoping for warm hands.

I'm sure you have also been a victim my friends. There you are, minding your own business and WHOSH! a sudden gush of cold air up your kilt and some drunken woman is trying to make her way thru the pleats in your kilt. I for one can't figure out how they get lost trying to get thru, but somehow they do. It would seem as easy enough task, you are one side of the kilt, my bare arse is on the other. You take a straight line thru and BINGO you get to grope me buns. But no, somehow there is some sign that a poor drunken girl follows that says "turn here", or "no, no, go this way" and they become hopelessly mired.

Now, it's one thing for an intoxicated woman to come up to you and ask if she can look under your kilt. You look for the police officer not to be in the immediate proximity, or the boyfriend to be of smaller stature than yourself, and you gracefully smile and tell her "well of course my dear". But after two or three minutes of hopeless groping your good humor is at an end. Especially when you are trying to maintain the conversation the women interrupted with your lady friend or potential lady friend. It breaks the rhythm if you know what I mean.

Being a gentleman, it is unacceptable to scold the woman. The only chivilous thing to do is help her of course! The easiest method as all kilt inspectors will tell you, is to take her hand and guide it up the side of your leg and quickly maneuver her hand around to the back before she can get her sharp, drunken claws into the front of you. Dangerous? Of course! But you knew the risk when you put your kilt on lad, there is nothing for it but to be bold, and quick!

As a seconary method, it is acceptable to lift the kilt for the woman. This has distinct advantages and disadvantages. If the woman appears to be very agressive, you may lose your ass if she is allowed to go in alone. And on the other hand, she may be faking her drunkeness and is just lulling you into a false sense of security you'll still lose your ass. So, save your ass and lift it for her.

I have had hundreds of women approach me. But my favorite groping from a woman was one that didn't say a word. She was walking behind me, raised my kilt, gave me arese the most loving little stroke and then continued walking on, with out even a "thank you very much". Ahhh, but the beauty and grace of her move was most excellently played.

So watch your ass out there mates and enjoy yourselves.

Shitty day...cont'd

2006-12-20T10:48:00.000-08:00

UPDATE: My water was turned on at 11:17 a.m. Finally. I'm clean, no more stinky Lisa. Yay!

So it's 10:48 a.m. I'm still at home. The water company didn't turn on my water yesterday as promised. So I called when their office opened at 8 a.m. The woman's response: "oh yeah, your water was supposed to be turned on yesterday." No shit? Really? Thanks a lot. So she says she'll contact the driver and have me the first stop. Uh huh. I'm still here and it's almost 11. I called back and she said she'd call the driver. That was 30 minutes ago. I have 3 faucets on so I can hear when it's ready for me. Then I have to take a quick shower, no long, glorious shower as I'd hoped. I have to get to work for our Christmas party at noon. Ugh.

Per a short story I need to write. We have a title folks. The Curse of the Brussel Sprouts: Foul Wind. He he. It will have pirates, vampires, cursed brussel sprouts and romance. Speaking of romance. Nice segway, eh? Last night I asked our crew captain if there were any single, Scotsmen in our crew. Over the age of 18. Don't worry. She said there was. He's even a year older than me. She's quite the matchmaker. And I gushed over my achilles heel of Scottish and British accents.

I sign on a few minutes ago and he happens to be on, usually very, very quiet. But I get greeted with "ahoy there ye wee lass ye." So she obviously went to work in the past 10 hours since we talked. Oh dear. Keep your fingers crossed, I may have a Scottish pirate boyfriend. Hey, a girl can dream right? It's research folks, RESEARCH. Ok yeah, "wee lass" made me giggle uncontrolably. I admitted it, now back off.

Shitty day update

2006-12-19T20:45:00.000-08:00

Water is STILL off. Municipal fuckers. Paid the bill TWICE. Still no water. Ugh. When I calm, I'll read comments. Thanks for your cheer-ups :) I'll use them soon.

Warning: Loads of whining ahead

2006-12-19T12:01:00.000-08:00

Disclaimer: Don't read on if you a) hate complaining, b) want to maintain your cheery disposition today, c) dislike profanity, d) don't like whining unrelated to war, world peace, poverty, etc. This isn't about any of those.

Last chance...

Ok, this has been a really shitty day. It started last night actually. I got home from work and there was an orange piece of paper hanging from my fence. A piece of paper letting me know that my water had been disconnected for non-payment. But I had made an online payment two days before on their "fancy new payment system." Bullshit. I called this morning when they opened and they said that the online payments take 72 hours to process (it didn't say that anywhere online, I looked before I paid.) And that if I wanted my water back on I needed to bring in another payment. I also must add I didn't know my water was close to disconnection, I made a payment 4 weeks ago....

I then learn I am out of checks and can't find another checkbook. But, I had a couple checks from my old account with the ex-dh. So I shamefully used one of those to pay the water bill. Thanks babe. If he reads this before I talk to him...oops. I then leave for work (unshowered but I used parfume, don't worry I don't smell) and my gas tank is almost empty. I just learned that my bank account is empty too. Go figure? I have a check to deposit though, so I'll make it till next payday. I go to the nearest gas station, but turns out they only take debit. WTF? Mine is declined since I haven't made the deposit (don't worry, not overdrawn - just at zero since there are a couple pending charges). They won't take a check since the address is Gresham, a whole HOUR away. Luckily, ex-dh came to the rescue again. I had my old wallet with me which had the debit card for our joint account (he still uses it, I don't). Thanks again babe. Don't worry, this only put you out $40 total :) You're the best.

I get to work, plotting money stuff in my head on how to fix it all (it's fixable, I just overreact easy). I sit down at my work computer and suddenly my profile is gone. Meaning my files, programs, settings, etc. Everything vanished. Isn't this just the king of all fucking days here? It's a good thing I'm smart because I figured out how to fix it. The day is slightly looking up but I'm still pist.

Update: Just talked to the ex-dh so it's all good.

Switching topics. People have relationships on Puzzle Pirates. I don't know if I've made that clear. So, you know, hoping to snag a PP Scottish boyfriend. Maybe he'd adore me so much he'd come to Oregon. Could happen, right? Well, I snagged an admirer. But, he's a bit younger than me and American. Careful what you wish for folks.

I feel better already just complaining. I'd just erase the post since it served it's purpose, but then I may get out of the habit of posting again so you're just going to have to deal with my bitching right now.

P.S. A PP friend told me a joke to cheer me up. What do you get when you cross a snowman with a vampire? Frostbite. Hahahahahahaha!

Bite the bullet

2006-12-14T09:36:00.000-08:00

I know, it's been a reaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaalllly long time since I posted. Work related things have been all-consuming. Ok, that's not the whole truth. The past week or so hasn't been that bad. But you know when something has built and built and it becomes overwhelming? That was blogs for me. It had been so long since I've written or read one that it was daunting.

How would I catch up on all these great people's posts? I'm such a terrible person for not reading them. I get frustrated when blogs I read aren't updated at least weekly and here I am doing it. I suck!

Okay, I was beating myself up too much. But neurotic people tend to do that. After several frantic and concerned e-mails from people and the endearing "come back" comments on this blog that were popping through my e-mail, I decided to bite the bullet.

It feels good to blog again. I know, I'm acting like I was away for a year but it damn near feels like it! I posted on our chapter blog yesterday about PR for writers.

I didn't realize how much I had come to rely on blogs, both reading and writing them. Writing is an isolating profession and blogs allow me to keep in touch and see how others are doing. And writing a blog keeps me writing and my sense of humor going even in the dark times in my life.

So I hope you'll forgive me for my absence. I hope to never go that long without reading or writing blogs again. It gives me chills to think about it.

In lighter news. My puppy got a haircut so when I get home tonight I'm taking pictures of her in a Santa suit for my Christmas card. I'll post the pic, it will be adorable I'm sure. She's been a hellion lately. She destroyed almost all of my pink ornaments one day. I heard your gasp, I know. Blasphemy. You're probably surprised I kept her. I am too some days. I started crating her again while I'm at work and within a few days she began eating her poop again. Ugh! Always something.

Today my Christmas gift from the ex-dh should come in the mail. He was sweet enough to buy me a fancy widescreen monitor. The reason this is uber fantastic is because I can have two Microsoft Word documents open side-by-side. Outline and book. Woohoo! I'm so excited I can hardly contain myself.

I have to admit I have still been playing Puzzle Pirates, but I have cut back the time a lot. But, before you start saying "Lisa, writing is more important. That time should be spent writing." I have rationale to playing the game. Several good reasons really. 1) Most of my crew is from England and Scotland. As many of you know I am highly fond of those areas of the world. I am researching language and culture via the game which will help me in an upcoming book. It's true! Stop giving me that look. 2) I may write a pirate book. Hey, you never know! 3) The most important reason is it furthers me in my quest to find a hunky Scotsman. My exposure when from 0 to like 20 guys. Unfortunately most of them are minors and I don't condone illegal acts in that regard. But, I'm willing to be patient.

What have you been up to? Exciting plans for the holidays?

What is the Internet?

2006-11-27T11:35:00.001-08:00

So I haven't been online in a week. How crazy is that? I didn't think I could go without internet for that long. It's been interesting. I did a lot of knitting.

Last night when I returned home from my luxurious weekend of nothingness, I open my computer and e-mail. There were e-mails in my outbox. Work related e-mails of sending off info or projects before the holiday. Some personal ones of sending off info before the holidays. IN MY OUTBOX! For what? Six days? God I'm stupid. I have to keep changing the e-mail server settings between work and home and I must not have changed them back. So sorry to anyone who thinks I'm ignoring them!

I went to bed in a pissy mood because of that. Then I woke up, got ready for work, made it out to my car and noticed there was snow in my yard. That made me a bit happier because I got to stay home a couple more hours and wait for it to melt away before I drove.

Tonight I'm hoping to write and edit. Yes Michelle, I will make 30,000 by the end of the month. It's game time. I'm going to put on my writing outfit. Pink velour sweats, a feathered pink hat, my pink chenille scarf, pink University of Oregon sweatshirt, pink slippers, pink....just kidding :-) Sort of.

Lastly, I must publicly congratulate the Oregon State University Beavers for their Civil War win. Well done. God, where's the bathroom. I think I'm going to puke...

I'm a slacker

2006-11-20T10:12:00.000-08:00

Yup, I know it. It's been what, a week since I posted? Yikes. I guess I just ran out of things to say for a bit. Scary, I know. Things have been pretty busy for me lately, lots of day job stuff and freelancing gigs. I haven't written anything since the beach retreat two weekends ago...

I'm looking forward to Thanksgiving. It's one of only two times (Christmas, too) that I enjoy cooking. I also enjoy the five day weekend. Unfortunately, this year is the first ever that I don't have any money for Black Friday shopping. Usually I save up and do all my Christmas shopping that day. But not this year. Luckily the University of Oregon vs. Oregon State "Civil War" game is on that day to distract me from my woes. Although I'm probably going to buy a wireless router for my parents house. No food till the end of the month is less important than internet at their houses :) I kid, I kid. Kinda...

It also looks like NaNoWriMo is a bust for me this year. Oh well. I know I can finish a book, I was just hoping to have finished this one by the end of the month.

So, what's going on in your lives? Any Turkey Day plans?

Puzzle Pirates

2006-11-14T21:36:00.000-08:00

Often lately when I'm chatting with Elisabeth online, she'll say, "what are you doing?" I'll admit, most of the time I'm tempted to lie and say, "writing like crazy!" Or, "I've written 20 pages!" Or, "patiently waiting to see your next chapter."

But the truth is, it's usually, "I'm playing Puzzle Pirates." The game is absolutely addicting. You make a piracte character and spend the first several sessions practicing puzzles. When ye are comfortably enough you can be a jobber on a pilly with other real live people and battle against bots.

You earn gold and can buy new clothes, weapons, houses, furnishings, shops and other establishments. You can also join a crew. I love the crew I joined. They're fantabulous. Very welcoming.

If you like interactive games that are long term, you should check this out. Yarrr!

Glossary:
Ye - "you"
Jobber - "worker on a pirate ship - not a crew member of that ship"
Pilly - "pillage - situation where you would job for a ship or pillage with your crew to get gold"
Bots - "computerized pirates - they are the characters with two word names"
Yarrr - "yarrr"

I'm baaaaaaaaaaaaaack

2006-11-12T21:20:00.000-08:00

I made it home from the beach today, incident free. The weather was beautiful. Much less scary than when we went last February. Back then the windows were shaking from storms. This time we were tempted to close blinds because it was so bright.

I wrote a little over 5,000 words. I was hoping to write about double that, but it's 5k more than I had. In order to complete NaNo, I'll need to write 2,500 words a day. YIKES!

We had a great time. Lots of chatting, writing, chatting, writing, chatting, chatting, writing, etc. These are such a great group of women to know!

Anyway, off to bed. I'm tired and it will be a long week at work.

Oh! Before I publish post I'd like to inform the "masses" that AC/DC is supposed to go on one last tour. AC/DC!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Holy crap that's big news!

Away for the weekend

2006-11-09T20:17:00.000-08:00

This weekend, several of us from our writing chapter are going to the beach for a weekend of distraction free writing. Being that I haven't written anything in a week...I'm hoping to make some major headway this weekend.

In my absence, I'd like you to talk amongst yourselves. I'll give you a topic: The Holy Roman Empire was neither Holy nor Roman nor an empire. Discuss.

Confession

2006-11-07T19:44:00.000-08:00

Elton John/Kiki Dee - Don't Go Breaking My Heart

It's confession time. I confess that I've secretly fantasized about singing this song as a duet with, well, several gorgeous men (but in the fantasy I can sing well).

What's your confession?

A special birthday today

2006-11-03T11:03:00.000-08:00

Today is Elisabeth's birthday! Go over to our chapter blog (where I posted more in-depth birthday wishes) and say happy birthday!

Thursday Thirteen

2006-11-02T10:38:00.000-08:00

Thirteen Things about Lisa Pulliam

13 urban legends in honor of Halloween (copied from here)

1. Two dormmates in college were in the same science class. The teacher had just reminded them about the midterm the next day when one dormmate — let's call her Juli — got asked to this big bash by the hottest guy in school. The other dormmate, Meg, had pretty much no interest in going and, being a diligent student, she took notes on what the midterm was about. After the entire period of flirting with her date, Juli was totally unprepared for her test, while Meg was completely prepared for a major study date with her books.

At the end of the day, Juli spent hours getting ready for the party while Meg started studying. Juli tried to get Meg to go, but she was insistent that she would study and pass the test. The girls were rather close and Juli didn't like leaving Meg alone to be bored while she was out having a blast. Juli finally gave up, using the excuse that she would cram in homeroom the next day.

Juli went to the party and had the time of her life with her date. She headed back to the dorm around 2 a.m. and decided not to wake Meg. She went to bed nervous about the midterm and decided she would wake up early to ask Meg for help.

She woke up and went to wake Meg. Meg was lying on her stomach, apparently sound asleep. Juli rolled Meg over to reveal Meg's terrified face. Juli, concerned, turned on the desk lamp. Meg's study stuff was still open and had blood all over it. Meg had been slaughtered. Juli, in horror, fell to the floor and looked up to see, written on the wall in Meg's blood: "Aren't you glad you didn't turn on the lights!"

2. A girl and her boyfriend are making out in his car. They had parked in the woods so no one would see them. When they were done, the boy got out to pee and the girl waited for him in the safety of the car.

After waiting five minutes, the girl got out of the car to look for her boyfriend. Suddenly, she sees a man in the shadows. Scared, she gets back in the car to drive away, when she hears a very faint squeak... squeak... squeak...

This continued a few seconds until the girl decided she had no choice but to drive off. She hit the gas as hard as possible but couldn't go anywhere, because someone had tied a rope from the bumper of the car to a nearby tree.

Well, the girl slams on the gas again and then hears a loud scream. She gets out of the car and realizes that her boyfriend is hanging from the tree. The squeaky noises were his shoes slightly scraping across the top of the car!!!

3. My mother swears this is true: My great-great grandmother, ill for quite some time, finally passed away after laying in a coma for several days. My great-great grandfather was devastated beyond belief, as she was his one true love and they had been married over 50 years. They were married so long it seemed as if they knew each other's innermost thoughts.

After the doctor pronounced her dead, my great-great grandfather insisted that she was not. They had to literally pry him away from his wife's body so they could ready her for burial.

Now, back in those days they had backyard burial plots and did not drain the body of its fluids. They simply prepared a proper coffin and committed the body (in its coffin) to its permanent resting place. Throughout this process, my great-great grandfather protested so fiercely that he had to be sedated and put to bed. His wife was buried and that was that.

That night he woke to a horrific vision of his wife hysterically trying to scratch her way out of the coffin. He phoned the doctor immediately and begged to have his wife's body exhumed. The doctor refused, but my great-great grandfather had this nightmare every night for a week, each time frantically begging to have his wife removed from the grave.

Finally the doctor gave in and, together with local authorities, exhumed the body. The coffin was pried open and to everyone's horror and amazement, my great-great grandmother's nails were bent back and there were obvious scratches on the inside of the coffin.

Comments: It is a fact that once upon a time, before modern embalming techniques were in widespread use, people were found on rare occasions to have been buried alive. It's most likely, however, that 18th and 19th century horror stories involving premature burial were inspired by the medical discovery that victims of suffocation and drowning could be resuscitated — that, though they appeared dead, they really weren't. To say the least, this was a frightening realization for many people.

In any case, so strong was the fear of "precipitate interment" during the 19th century that some of the wealthier folk were known to stipulate in their wills that their coffins be outfitted with signaling devices ... just in case.

4. A woman goes to buy a large cactus from a nursery, and brings it home. Later that day she notices something very odd. The cactus appears to be breathing! She calls the nursery she purchased the cactus from and says, "I know this sounds crazy, but I think my cactus is breathing."

The woman she is speaking to tells her to immediately get out of the house, and that she (the nursery woman) is going to call the bomb squad. The bomb squad comes to the house and loads the cactus into a van. Just as they get it into the van, the cactus explodes and out come thousands of scorpions!

It seems that several scorpions had laid their eggs in the cactus, and they all hatched at once.

5. A very stylish teenage girl grew tired of spending hours carefully "ratting" (teasing) and spraying her hair to attain an extreme beehive do. She washed her hair in sugar-water, allowing it to harden in the style she wanted. At night, she carefully wrapped a towel around it and slept on a special half-pillow designed not to disturb the hair.

One morning she failed to come down for breakfast. Her mother went to her room only to find her dead in bed. When the towel was removed from her head, it was discovered that she had been gnawed to death by rats (or bugs — I've heard both versions).

6. A teenage boy drove his date to a dark and deserted Lovers' Lane for a make-out session. After turning on the radio for mood music, he leaned over and began kissing the girl.

A short while later, the music suddenly stopped and an announcer's voice came on, warning in an urgent tone that a convicted murderer had just escaped from the state insane asylum — which happened to be located not far from Lovers' Lane — and that anyone who noticed a strange man lurking about with a hook in place of his right hand should immediately report his whereabouts to the police.

The girl became frightened and asked to be taken home. The boy, feeling bold, locked all the doors instead and, assuring his date they would be safe, attempted to kiss her again. She became frantic and pushed him away, insisting that they leave. Relenting, the boy peevishly jerked the car into gear and spun its wheels as he pulled out of the parking space.

When they arrived at the girl's house she got out of the car, and, reaching to close the door, began to scream uncontrollably. The boy ran to her side to see what was wrong and there, dangling from the door handle, was a bloody hook.

7. A young lady is alone in her apartment. She goes to bed with her dog on the floor beside her. In the middle of the night, she is woken up by a strange sound. She is alarmed, but reaches down to the dog, who licks her hand. She is reassured and goes back to sleep. In the morning, she finds the dog hung in the shower. Where the dog slept, she picks up a note which reads "Humans can lick, too."

8. I wish to warn you about a new crime ring that is targeting business travelers. This ring is well organized, well funded, has very skilled personnel, and is currently in most major cities and recently very active in New Orleans.

The crime begins when a business traveler goes to a lounge for a drink at the end of the work day. A person in the bar walks up as they sit alone and offers to buy them a drink. The last thing the traveler remembers until they wake up in a hotel room bath tub, their body submerged to their neck in ice, is sipping that drink. There is a note taped to the wall instructing them not to move and to call 911. A phone is on a small table next to the bathtub for them to call.

The business traveler calls 911 who have become quite familiar with this crime. The business traveler is instructed by the 911 operator to very slowly and carefully reach behind them and feel if there is a tube protruding from their lower back. The business traveler finds the tube and answers, "Yes." The 911 operator tells them to remain still, having already sent paramedics to help. The operator knows that both of the business traveler's kidneys have been harvested.

9. One night a woman went out for drinks with her girlfriends. She left the bar fairly late at night, got in her car and onto the deserted highway. She noticed a lone pair of headlights in her rear-view mirror, approaching at a pace just slightly quicker than hers. As the car pulled up behind her she glanced and saw the turn signal on — the car was going to pass — when suddenly it swerved back behind her, pulled up dangerously close to her tailgate and the brights flashed.

Now she was getting nervous. The lights dimmed for a moment and then the brights came back on and the car behind her surged forward. The frightened woman struggled to keep her eyes on the road and fought the urge to look at the car behind her.

Finally, her exit approached but the car continued to follow, flashing the brights periodically.
Through every stoplight and turn, it followed her until she pulled into her driveway. She figured her only hope was to make a mad dash into the house and call the police. As she flew from the car, so did the driver of the car behind her — and he screamed, "Lock the door and call the police! Call 911!"

When the police arrived the horrible truth was finally revealed to the woman. The man in the car had been trying to save her. As he pulled up behind her and his headlights illuminated her car, he saw the silhouette of a man with a butcher knife rising up from the back seat to stab her, so he flashed his brights and the figure crouched back down.

10. There were two roommates (yes, I know, another college story), Sarah and Megan. Sarah was the theatrical type and loved acting. She was in all the town's plays. Megan was more of a book person, she loved to read and her studies were her first priority.

Anyway, there was a huge play called "Oh, Susannah" that Sarah was in, and it was coming up on Saturday... so every chance that Sarah got, she would practice in the park (that's where she got her inspiration) for hours. Every time, she would beg Megan to go with her, but Megan would stay in the dorm and read.

Well, on Saturday Sarah was a hit. Being the star, she was detained after the play, and got home really late. As she entered, she heard her roommate's rocking chair squeaking in the corner, but couldn't see it, not all the lights were on. Must be waiting for me, Sarah thought. Putting her stuff away, she went back into the main room.

From the corner came a voice. It sounded rather husky, but that wasn't what agitated Sarah.

"Oh, Susannah, don't you cry for me..." came the voice.

"Stop it Megan! Don't give me that crap, okay?" said Sarah.

"Oh, Susannah, don't you cry for me..."

"Stop it! I mean it, Meg!"

"Oh, Susannah, don't you cry for me..."

"Stop!!!!! That's it!!!!" Sarah screamed as she flicked on the room's lights.

Sarah gawked in horror at the sight. Her roommate's body was in the rocking chair, but her head wasn't, her head was on the wall, kept there by a butcher knife. From behind the rocking chair she could hear laughter – maniacal laughter.

"Who's there? Who are you????"

From behind the rocking chair jumped a man, later found out to be the butcher that escaped from the sanitarium in the next town. All the time he was cutting Sarah, he was singing, over and over, "Oh, Susannah, don't you cry for me... I come from Alabama with a banjo on my knee."

Pinning Sarah to the wall next to her roommate's head, he screamed, "Now, Susannah, don't you cry for me!!!!"

11. Be careful the next time you go to a cinema. These people could be anywhere!! An experience of a friend of my brother's wife left me speechless. Please do send this out to everyone you know. This incident occurred in Bombay's Metro cinema (Among the best in town). They were a group of 6-7 College girls & they went to the theater to see a movie. During the show one of the girls felt a slight pinprick but did not pay much attention to it.

After sometime that place began to itch. So she scratched herself and then saw a bit of blood on her hands. She assumed that she had caused it. At the end of the show, her friend noticed a sticker on her dress and read the caption. It read "Welcome to the world of AIDS". She tried to pass it off as a practical joke but when she went for a blood test a couple of weeks later (just to be sure), she found herself HIV Positive.

When she complained to the cops, they mentioned that her story was one of the many such cases they had received. It seems the operator uses a syringe to transfer a bit of his/her infected blood to the person sitting ahead of him/her. A horrible experience for the victim as also the family & friends. The WORST bit is that the person who does it gains NOTHING where as the victim loses EVERYTHING.

12. A couple was invited to a swanky masked Halloween Party. She got a terrible headache and told her husband to go to the party alone. He, being a devoted husband, protested, but she argued and said she was going to take some aspirin and go to bed and there was no need of his good time being spoiled by not going. So he took his costume and away he went.

The wife, after sleeping soundly for one hour, awakened without pain, and as it was still early, she decided to go to the party. In as much as her husband did not know what her costume was, she thought she would have some fun by watching her husband to see how he acted when she was not with him. She joined the party and soon spotted her husband cavorting around on the dance floor, dancing with every nice chick he could and copping a little feel here and a little kiss there.

His wife went up to him and being a rather seductive babe herself, he left his partner high and dry and devoted his time to the new stuff that had just arrived. She let him go as far as he wished; naturally, since he was her husband. Finally he whispered a little proposition in her ear and she agreed, so off they went to one of the cars and had a little bang.

Just before unmasking at midnight, she slipped away and went home and put the costume away and got into bed, wondering what kind of explanation he would make for his behavior.

She was sitting up reading when he came in and asked what kind of a time he had had. He said, "Oh the same old thing. You know I never have a good time when you're not there."

Then she asked, "Did you dance much?"

He replied, "I'll tell you, I never even danced one dance. When I got there, I met Pete, Bill Brown and some other guys, so we went into the den and played poker all evening. But I'll tell you... The guy I loaned my costume to sure had a real good time!"

13. This was in the "Washington Post"... the title of the article was "Best Comeback Line Ever." This is pretty damn good. Drunk and horny, he still came up with this!

Police arrested Patrick Lawrence, a 22-year-old white male, resident of Dacula, GA, in a pumpkin patch at 11:38 p.m. Friday. Lawrence will be charged with lewd and lascivious behavior, public indecency, and public intoxication at the Gwinnett County courthouse on Monday.

The suspect allegedly stated that as he was passing a pumpkin patch, he decided to stop. "You know, a pumpkin is soft and squishy inside, and there was no one around here for miles. At least I thought there wasn't," he stated in a phone interview from the jail.

Lawrence went on to state that he pulled over to the side of the road, picked out a pumpkin that he felt was appropriate to his purposes, cut a hole in it, and proceeded to satisfy his alleged "need." "I guess I was just really into it, you know?" he commented with evident embarrassment.

In the process, Lawrence apparently failed to notice the Gwinnett County police car approaching and was unaware of his audience until officer Brenda Taylor approached him. "It was an unusual situation, that's for sure," said officer Taylor. "I walked up to (Lawrence) and he's...just working away at this pumpkin."

Taylor went on to describe what happened when she approached Lawrence. "I just went up and said, 'Excuse me sir, but do you realize that you are screwing a pumpkin?' He got real surprised, as you'd expect, and then looked me straight in the face and said, "A pumpkin? Damn...is it midnight already?"

Links to other Thursday Thirteens!1. (leave your link in comments, I’ll add you here!) Diana Peterfreund; Tracie

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Tag, I'm it!

2006-11-02T10:12:00.000-08:00

S. William Shaw (he's awesome, go check out his blog) has tagged me to provide my darling readers with five interesting things about myself. This is a difficult task.

1. I'm interested in vampires, obviously for those of you who know me. But you may not know that the first dream I remember having involved me being chased by a gorgeous vampire through a garden maze at a castle. How old was I when I had this dream? About five I think. I used to pretend that the vampire and I were getting married and I'd walk down the slope of our backyard in a processional. The first movie I remember watching is The Lost Boys. These are the things that started me down a slippery slope, folks.

2. I love video games, particularly old school Nintendo. But I also enjoy X-Box and computer games. My favorite computer games are the Age of Empires/Age of Mythology series.

3. In high school I was part of the first members of our StRUT program (Students Recycling Used Technology) and the only girl in the program. I loved hanging out with those guys. Those were some of the best classtimes in school.

4. I have an odd fascination with the psychology of serial killers. I've always wanted to study what makes a person become a serial killers - nature/nurture stuff. In another life maybe I'll pursue criminal psychology, or at least write about it in a book. On a related note, I just learned a couple of years ago that a distant cousin of mine on my dad's side is in the Oregon State Pen for serial killings. Eerie.

5. My maiden name is Catto, which is of Aberdeen, Scotland. An ancestor, James Catto, invented one of Scotland's first whiskies - Catto Whisky. I collect anything to do with Catto Whisky (bar mirrors, shot glasses, ash trays, pitchers, etc.). Ebay has been a gem in this habit. The odd thing is, I've never tasted the stuff. They don't sell it in the U.S. I've been told by the distillery company that it is sold in Canada so I'm planning a trip in the spring. The best way to have me love you forever - give me Catto Whiskey stuff :-)

Wednesday round-up

2006-11-01T08:58:00.000-08:00

1. The winner of 4 lies and a fib is....Erin! I have been married, but I have no clue how to write calligraphy. My hand writing looks like a 3-year-old boys. Way to go Erin!

And I'd like to say something about your answers (Bethany, Eli, Piper and Paty) - why is it none of you picked #5? Do you all readily believe and not question the idea of me peeing my pants? Not cool, people. Not cool.

2. My dog was adorable in her princess dress last night. As you can see in the second pic, she's a licker.

3. NaNoWriMo has begun! I'm proud to say I already have half today's word count done. Woohoo! My plan is to write 2,000 - 2,500 words during the week so I can spend the weekend editing.

4. You HAVE to read this post by Lit Agent X if you are on the agent search. It seems so many writers expect personalized rejections or don't realize how special it is when they receive one. Think about how busy an agent is. Read the post to remind yourself that they struggle too.

Halloween, aaaaaaaah!

2006-10-31T14:25:00.000-08:00

Happy Halloween!

What do you have going on for Halloween tonight? I'm looking forward to reading some chapters for Elisabeth, watching scary movies, eating candy, scaring trick or treaters and dressing my puppy up in her princess dress costume (payback for eating my books).

I'm also hoping to get to some of my own editing if the mood strikes. Tomorrow is day one of NaNoWriMo. I'm panicking quite a bit, but once I get in the groove things will go ok. Especially since my writing chapter has a weekend writing retreat. Hopefully I'll pump out a lot of words next weekend.

Well I'm going to go shake my booty to Time Warp and the rest of the Rocky Horror Picture Show soundtrack. "It's just a jump to the left..."

Happy Halloween!

Weed out the fib

2006-10-31T10:53:00.000-08:00

I've been tagged by Erin! :-)

Among the 5 items listed below, one is a lie. You get to try to determine which it is, and post your answer in the comments.

1. I once worked at Walt Disney World
2. I have a large collection of yellow things with smiley faces on them
3. I've never been out of the country even though I live only 6 hours from the Canadian border
4. I did calligraphy on my own wedding invitations
5. When I was about 7 years old I laughed so hard I peed my pants

I tag Elisabeth, Piper, Paty, Bethany, Lillian, S William and Princess in Golashes. Muhahahaha!

Ass Flasher R-Us

2006-10-30T10:57:00.000-08:00

The weekend was fun. I'll tell the story with pictures.

Saturday morning I headed south to Eugene for the Duck game. There was an accident on I-5 so we sat in traffic for a while. Luckily we were surrounded by Duck fans, and some poor Beaver fans who were going to miss Kick-Off because of the traffic (their game was 3.5 hours earlier than ours).

This guy has a great get-up on his car. As you can see, on the left of the bumper hangs a Beaver and a Husky hangs from the right. Boy, I love college football!

After the game, we stopped at my house so I could get ready for the Halloween party. I went everywhere the night before to try and find a black short-hair wig, but I only found a pink one. You may be surprised to know I didn't want to wear the pink one. I thought black would have completed the costume better and toned it down a bit. Oh well.

I would like to report that my push-up bra was a success. My mom took a picture of my cleavage on her camera phone and began sending it around. At that point I had had a good amount of everclear, so I didn't stop her.

The party was a lot of fun. I was happy to two of my favorite men, Chris and Adam (in pics below Chris has the Harley rag and Adam is giving a solid impression of Zoolander's Blue Steel look).

Unfortunately they didn't have the Everclear jungle juice I had hoped for. So I drank a half dozen Smirnoff Black Cherry drinks before I thought I'd die of over-sweetness. I took a couple swigs of a keg tap filled with Pabst Blue Ribbon, but I went back to Smirnoff. PBR is disgusting. And I should mentioned that there wasn't a keg at the party, a guy showed up in a keg costume and his hat was filled with beer and it had a tap on it. I failed to take a picture. Dammit.

I tried to do a little swing dancing, but I kept yanking my dress down to avoid any Ass Flashing incidents. But in the inebriated state I was in, I yanked much too hard and made numerous tears in my costume (not to mention a couple of incidents of ass flashing when I was swung too hard dancing - thank God for the black tights). When I returned to my parent's house after my dad picking me up (he's so awesome, he drove me so I could drink), my mom said "you look like someone threw you in a haystack and molested you." I should have taken an after-picture with all the holes. It was a sight to see. Hopefully I can patch them up and sell the costume on ebay next year.

My dad drove me back to Salem yesterday (isn't that cute with Roxy sitting in his lap?) and he worked on fixing one side of my fence so my dog can't get between the front and back yard. I want to keep her in the backyard when I'm in the house, otherwise she barks like crazy at the passing cars in the front.

He patched the gap with chicken wire, but Houdini still almost made it through, as you can see. He had to make it like a prison fence, with wire tilting at an angle to prevent climbing.

While he was working on that, Roxy drug a branch bigger than her and played in my pile of leaves.

And I'll leave you with this photo that I find beautiful - an Oregon autumn. It's hard to tell, but each of those trees have leaves of different colors. Red, orange and yellow-orange from left to right. Bea-uuuuu-ti-ful.

All in all it was a great weekend. How was your weekend?

Wardrobe malfunction

2006-10-27T11:21:00.000-07:00

A couple months ago I posted about being excited for my first ever costume Halloween party (my friends in college were anti-costume). And it's already arrived, the schindig is tomorrow night. I bought the pink fairy costume. It's really cute and it's PINK! Yeah, baby.

So I tried it on. The black part around the middle is an over skirt. The pink tulle crap below the black is an under skirt. The over and under skirts are NOT connected. Meaning - the underskirt is see-through since it's tulle, and doesn't start until 4 inches below the bottom of my butt, which is barely covered by the black.

Let me tell you why this is a problem. If I were to sit down or be shakin' my booty (it is a dance party, after all) enough for the black part to shimmy up it's fullness (yeah, I got a ghetto booty) - then my ass is on display. Elisabeth has dubbed me the Ass Flasher.

So I must find a way to cover my bum from any potential ass-flashiness. Particularly since I will be enjoying a healthy amount of jungle juice. Which, by the way, I will spiking my cup with my flask of Everclear because the boys who make this jungle juice are softies and make it weak. They use one bottle of Everclear for an entire Coleman cooler of juice. That's like 1/10 of an ounce per plastic cup. But the fact I could drink those boys under the table is neither here nor there.

I found a pair of knee high boots for $3.25 at a second hand store. Hoorah! I really wanted to wear fishnet stockings. I never have and why not whore it up a little? It's Halloween. But, if the Ass Flashing happens then the fishnets will do nothing to cover. So I may have to get black tights. LAME-O. Ugh. At least if my bum escapes the black pleather while I'm dancing and I'm too inebriated to notice, I won't blind the other party-goers.

But now I have to find tights. Double ugh. And the black and pink wig I got for the costume ain't cuttin' it so I have to try and scour the remaining Halloween costume items in stores, elbow grabby moms in my way and trip annoying kids running around my ankles, to find a solid black wig. Triple ugh. I need to remember to fill my pink 6 oz. flask with Everclear. I better make a list!

And the Duck football game tomorrow (Go Ducks!) got moved from 12:30 to 4pm start time (that games are usually 4 hours). The game is an hour south of me (with football traffic on top of that) and the party is an hour north of me (start time of 9pm). Hopefully I can sleep in the car after the game on the way back to my house then hall balls trying to get ready.

I totally forgot the point of this post because I rambled and whined. Oh well. It's Friday. What do you have going on this weekend? Are you dressing up for Halloween or going to any parties?

And if I don't look like a giant, pink freak - I'll post a picture of me in my get-up.

Thursday Thirteen

2006-10-26T09:44:00.000-07:00

I already posted today, but I forgot it's Thursday Thirteen. So I'm posting twice.

Thirteen Things about Lisa Pulliam

13 men on my "list" (you know, the ones who don't count as cheating if you're in a relationship)

1. Johnny Depp (there are no words to describe this man)
2. Gerard Butler (if feels really warm in my office all of a sudden)
3. Howie Dorough (of the Backstreet Boys, he's been on my list since before I knew what sex was)
4. Ethan Embry (the only blonde on my list)
5. Jake Gyllenhaal (he stole my heart in Bubble Boy and has kept it ever since)
6. David Burns (he was in Real World: Seattle - too bad the red eye doesn't show you he has two different colored eyes)
7. Rufus Sewell (he makes such a great bad guy)
8. Criss Angel (his eyes, oh his eyes)
9. Stuart Townsend (he played a good Vampire Lestat, but I loved him as Dorian Gray)
10. Jesse Bradford (he's the inspiration for my WIP hero)
11. Jeffrey Dean Morgan (so scruffy and adorable like a big teddy bear)
12. Zsadist (ok, I know he's in a book but if he were real he'd be this guy)
13. Joaquin Phoenix (I love his lip scar)

I have 69 years left

2006-10-26T09:02:00.000-07:00

According to three sites that predict your day of death, I have 69 years left. That puts me at 93 years old when I die. That's a long ass time to live. Each site predicted my death within a couple months of each other in the summer of 2075. I've always disliked the summer, it makes sense I would die during one.

That seems like such a long ways away, but yet it creeps up fast. I remember my 13th birthday party like it was last year.

Speaking of birthday parties and traditions. An odd thing happened to me when I was 11 years old (men, stop reading - this story is about a woman's monthly visitor). It was the fall of when I was 11, my 12th birthday was the next spring, in April.

I remember my mom asking me about my birthday party, just idle chit chat to amuse a kid. I told her "mommy, my period is going to start on my birthday." Of course, she thought I was silly. I was only 11! And predicting the Day of Doom? No way.

Well, guess what happened on my 12th birthday party? Yup, the Bleeding Beast arrived. You can ask my mom, she was freaked out. It was fun being the only fifth grader on my period.

What's your death prediction? Gotta be spooky for Halloween :-)

My personal Hell

2006-10-25T15:41:00.000-07:00

I've seen this on a couple blogs lately, so I decided to join in the fun. Welcome to my Hell.

OSU Beaver fans
Circle I Limbo

General asshats
Circle II Whirling in a Dark & Stormy Wind

Parents who bring squalling brats to R-rated movies
Circle III Mud, Rain, Cold, Hail & Snow

Drivers who go 55 in a 55, but 60 in a 50
Circle IV Rolling Weights

Militant Vegans
Circle V Stuck in Mud, Mangled

River Styx

DMV Employees
Circle VI Buried for Eternity

River Phlegyas

People on motocycles who drive in the shoulder during traffic jams
Circle VII Burning Sands

Osama bin Laden
Circle IIX Immersed in Excrement

Saddam Hussein
Circle IX Frozen in Ice

Design your own hell

What would you add? I may steal your ideas and make a new one.

2006-10-24T12:24:00.000-07:00

Tiffany - I Think We're Alone Now (Music Video)

Last, but no least. I guess this song speaks to the romantic in me ;-)

The one thing I just realized is that I must really be a child of the 80s. Yikes.

What are your all-time favorite songs?

2006-10-24T12:23:00.000-07:00

Escape Club - Wild Wild West

My dad and I used to rock it in the car when this song came on. Isn't the arm/leg thing rad?

2006-10-24T12:21:00.000-07:00

Take On Me

My all-time favorite song. How can you not love this?

Video day

2006-10-24T12:18:00.000-07:00

I'm blogging at the Mid-Willamette Valley RWA chapter blog today - stop by and say hi. But before you go, I'm going to be sharing my three favorite songs in the whole wide world. Thank GOD for youtube because up until now I've only had these videos in my head.

And honestly, I play these songs in my head. They're kind of the soundtrack to my life. Do I scare you? I think the youtube stuff comes up as seperate posts, sorry for that in advance.

Huge pink pen!

2006-10-23T10:42:00.000-07:00

One of my co-workers gave me a gift today. She fully supports my pink habit and I love her for it.

As you can see by looking at my normal-sized hand, this is a giant, pink pen. I think I may write my next novel longhand.

Link

2006-10-23T09:46:00.000-07:00

I have some links to brighten up your Monday.

First, courtesy of Michelle Rowen please check out the Cleaning Hunk. I got dibs on Jason in the cowboy hat!

Second, Piper Lee sent me a link to a wonderful video about the smartest dog in the world. I need to get Skidboot to spend some time with my dog...

Third, my dear friend Kelli Matthews sent me a link on 50 Strategies for Making Yourself Work. She's trying to stop the insanity of my watching Laguna Beach. Thank you, Kelli. Thank you.

You'll be happy to know that I redeemed my Laguna Beach watching with a couple hours of Scrubs thanks to my new best friend, scrubsfan26 on YouTube. He has a lot of Scrubs episodes on his site for our viewing pleasure.

Avoidance behavior

2006-10-21T15:05:00.000-07:00

As you all know, I'm in editing mode right now. I'm struggling to know at what point I've edited enough. It seems so subjective.

So I've got the day off, all by myself, my parents are taking my dog for a couple of days so I can focus. What am I doing? I watched season 3 of Laguna Beach on MTV. Laguna Beach people! That is a new low for avoidance behavior.

I always thought that show was sooooooooo stupid. So what do I do? Watch 10 episodes of it on my day off. Good lord.

I need to get to work.

P.S. Kyndra and Cami are not nice people. Cameron is so not hot. Alex doesn't know what he's missing with Raquel and Tessa is a doll.

Love story of my generation

2006-10-20T11:30:00.000-07:00

Romeo and Juliet. Darcy and Elizabeth. Rhett and Scarlet.

Jim and Pam.

Yes, that's Jim and Pam from NBC's The Office - remake of the British comedy. They love each other. They laugh together. But they can't seem to simply get together.

Pam, o Pam. Don't you see how wonderful Jim is? He's the perfect man! He's kind, sweet, cute, funny. And he really knows how to pull pranks on Dwight.

Jim, don't give up on her. You need to be patient because she just got out of a bad relationship. If you love her, give her time. You deserve the best and she's great for you.

Sigh. We all need a Jim.

Thursday Thirteen

2006-10-19T09:27:00.000-07:00

Thirteen Things about Lisa Pulliam

13 places I'd like to visit that I've never been before (in no particular order except for #1)

1. Scotland - all of it. The castles, the Highlands, everything. I'd love to drink a bottle of Catto Whisky (made in Scotland, in my ancestrage) while planting my butt in the middle of Aberdeen (where my family is from).

2. England - lots of places; London, Bath, Stonehenge, Oxford, Whitby (where Bram Stoker wrote most of Dracula) and more.

3. Mutter Museum in Philadelphia. All sorts of cool creepy human body stuff.

4. Transylvania. They're building a Dracula theme park. A DRACULA THEME PARK. How can I not go?

5. Some really cool museum I saw on the travel channel (in Germany or England) with creepy cool stuff in it.

6. Neuschwanstein Castle in Germany

7. Greece. ALL OF IT. All of the ruins.

8. Rome and Venice, Italy

9. British Columbia, Canada

10. Salem, Mass

11. Hershey, PA. Mmmmm, chocolate everywhere.

12. New Orleans

13. Gold Hill, Oregon to the house with the cool magnetic stuff going on.

More editing

2006-10-18T10:39:00.000-07:00

I feel like I've been posting a lot about editing lately. But it has been my main focus so I guess it makes sense.

I'm trying to put together a master checklist for revisions, things I need to remember to look for and fix while I'm editing. Most of this relates to language use and the actual writing mechanics, not the storytelling.

Here is what I have so far:

Senses (seeing, hearing, touching, smelling, tasting)
Showing vs. telling
Active vs. passive voice
Tighten sentences
Eliminate redundancies
Info dump/too much backstory
Emotion
Body language and nonverbal communication
Consistent details (hair and eye color, etc)
Varied sentence structure (does every sentence in a paragraph start with "he said"?)
Word repetition - I downloaded ywriter which gives you a list of the words you used and how often
Setting
Description
Too many "ly," "ing" or adverbs
Eliminate most dialogue tags
Mixing tenses

Do you have anything to add?

Dogs rule part 2

2006-10-17T09:12:00.000-07:00

A more in depth version of yesterday's story.

ELKHART LAKE, Wis. (AP) - After a disabled woman's cat started a house fire, her specially trained dog came to the rescue, then died trying to help the cat still in the house. Jamie Hanson said the 13-yearold dog named Jesse brought the phone so she could call 911 and also brought her artificial leg.
"She got me outside and then she heard the cat upstairs and she went up there to get the cat and she wouldn't come back to me," Hanson, 49, said at a news conference Monday at Aurora Sheboygan Memorial Medical Center where she was being treated for her injuries.
She received third-degree burns to an arm in the fire Sunday night at her home in the town of Rhine south of Elkhart Lake, the Sheboygan County Sheriff's Department said, adding that both
Hanson, who lost a leg in a car accident three years ago, said she was on the couch watching television when the cat ran over the back of the couch.
"And he jumped onto a table that had a candle on it and tipped it over and lighted the artificial plants on fire," she said. Hanson said she fell off the couch and was unable to get her artificial leg from the table, "so my dog got my leg for me and went and got the phone and brought the phone to me so I could call 911."
She said she tried to put the prosthetic leg on, but it was too hot, and the dog, a golden retriever-German shepherd mix, came to her aid again before going back inside for the cat. When rescuers arrived, the house was fully engulfed in flames, the sheriff's department said.
Hanson was in the doorway and was assisted by a deputy.
She was no longer being treated at the hospital when The Associated Press called Monday evening for further comment.

Did you see that people, the dog DIED while trying to save the CAT. I rest my case. Loyal to the death. I know I've mentioned this before, but I read somewhere that if you died in your house, a cat would eventually turn on you for food, while a dog stands loyally by your side until it too died. Lastly, a good dog/cat joke. Now I rest my case (unless I find something else).

I jest, I like cats. I do. I just LOVE dogs.

Dogs rule

2006-10-16T14:32:00.000-07:00

Yet another reason why I am a dog person:

RHINE, Wis. (AP) - After a disabled woman's cat started a house fire, her specially trained dog rescued her by bringing a phone to call for help. Jamie Hanson, 49, received third-degree burns on her arm in the fire that killed both of her pets, Sheboygan County Sheriff's officials said Monday.
The fire started Sunday night when Hanson's cat knocked a candle onto a chair. Hanson's dog then brought her a phone, allowing her to call for help.
Hanson, who lost a leg in a car accident, told the dispatcher she was disabled but would try to leave the house, Lt. Chad Broeren said. Firefighters found her standing in the doorway as flames engulfed the home, he said.

She was taken to Sheboygan Memorial Hospital. Her injuries are not life threatening, Broeren said.

I bet the cat started the fire on purpose (not for suicide, for homicide).

Moving on. I had a pretty good weekend of revisions. I did a lot of color-coded highlighting. Man, that really helps. I recommend that you give Margie Lawson's EDITS system a try. It really helps you see where you have too much internal thinking or description, and where you need more emotion.

How was your weekend?

Stupid utility company

2006-10-13T12:08:00.000-07:00

It's noon on a Friday. I should be at work. Am I? No. I'm sitting in my house waiting for the local gas company to come and light my furnace.

The other day I filled out an online form to request service. I filled out all of the required fields marked by an asterisk, not filling out the unrequired ones. I chose an available service date of Wednesday (I filled out the form on Tuesday).

On Wednesday I got a call from said gas company requesting I complete the application. I guess the non-asterisk fields were actually required. Silly me for not being a psychic. Then she informed me that they couldn't come until Friday. Well why do they have a calendar that allows you to choose your service date?

I requested a time window of their visit, as every other utility company I've dealt with will give. She said they don't do that, it will be somewhere between 8 a.m. and midnight. Wow. Thanks. She said since I work, I should just leave a key somewhere for them.

Excuse me? Am I super paranoid or is it odd that it's completely acceptable for a stranger to have free access to my house for 9 hours? I told her that was unacceptable. And I have a dog. She told me I should leave my sweet, 12 pound Angel outside while at work. Umm, no. It's cold outside. She convulses with cold when I make her go to the bathroom outside in the mornings.

So, here I am waiting for the gas company to come. Not able to leave my house in case they come just because I didn't want to leave a key for them. Bastards.

On a brighter note. I just got a MySpace bulletin from the show Dexter. They have posted their second episode online for free! Woohoo! I don't have Showtime so I rely on the kindness of them. Here is a link for the first two episodes, but I'm not sure if you need a MySpace account.

A brief rundown of the show is it's based off a book. The main character is a serial killer who works for a police department studying blood spatter. He only kills other serial killers. Is that a cool concept or what? I'm off to watch episode 2.

Editing

2006-10-12T10:58:00.000-07:00

This is how I feel right now. I'm editing. Da Da DA (with menacing music in the background.) I have yet to figure out the editing process that works for me, but I think I'm close to that point.

I really like the deep editing EDITS system. But I only feel that is beneficial once my draft is somewhat clean (i.e. all the plot stuff is fine and I'm just making it sound pretty). Getting from my horrid first draft to the point where I can use the EDITS system is what makes me want to rip my hair out.

I feel overwhelmed, like I don't know where to begin. But I've read what a lot of other people do and thought about what works best for me and I think I've figure out something that may work.

Lisa's Ten Steps of Editing Hell©

Step one: Make sure there are no places where I left a comment to myself of "add more description" or things like that. I need to be working from a complete draft for a good edit.

Step two: Make sure each scene has in it what it should. I refer to the list I make for each scene during the plotting proces, which has things like a piece of backstory or moving along the heroine's character arc, or adding another twist to the plot.

Step three: Go through and highlight various components a certain color. That way I can just focus on dialogue or setting on a read-through.

Step four: Try and leave the book alone for at least a week. If you can, don't think about it either. Start thinking about your next book. That way when you return you are looking at it with a fresher mind and sharper eye.

Step five: Read the manuscript line by line, making sure each one is in top shape.

Step six: Read and analyze each paragraph, making sure you are packing a punch with each one.

Step seven: Analyze each page, making sure I get the most from the spacing, etc.

Step eight: Read each chapter, making sure it has everything you want in it and makes you want to continue reading to the next one.

Step nine: Read through the whole book and look for grammar, punctuation, typos, etc. It's best to wait until you're basically done changing text around.

Step ten: Save the book as a new file and format it to print like an actual book. When reading it like it would be in a paperback, you may catch things you didn't before and see spacing problems that you otherwise wouldn't have seen until the copyedits stage. Here is how to print it like a paperback: Open up the page setup menu in Microsoft Word (under the file menu). In the margins tab, make it 0.39" all around. The gutter should be 0.16" and gutter position as "left." Under the paper tab, select "custom" as the paper size and manually put in 4.25" x 6.89". Under the layout tab have the section start at "odd page." Select the box that says "different odd and even." Make the header and footer each 0.2". Click ok.

What is your editing process?

NaNoWriMo time already? Holy crapoly batman

2006-10-11T14:08:00.000-07:00

There's no way that it's almost November. No effing way. I don't know that I'm 100% ready for NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month for those unfamiliar). But is anyone really ready to buckle down and write at least 50,000 words in a month?

The thing about it is you are supposed to write 50k on a brand new book. Not adding 50k to a current manuscript. But, I don't really care about that. If you are 20k into a single title book and doing NaNoWriMo and suffering through it with millions of people is the only way to get that book done by New Year's - then DO IT!

So what you don't "technically" win. You still have 50k and you were able to take advantage of the forums and other tools made available during that month. The point of this is to buckle down and write. Don't let the "must be a new project" convince you of not joining in the madne...er, fun.

Since I live alone and don't have any children, or hell, a lot of social activities outside of my writing chapters - I think I am going to revise the book I'm working on while starting up a kick booty paranormal idea I've got brewing. If I get stuck on writing, I can switch over to revising. Then back to writing again. On average during the week I think I could devote at least 3 hours to writing, and more on the weekends. I need to get my house in order so I can leave it be for a month :-)

I am issuing a challenge to my blog readers. I challenge each of you to participate in NaNoWriMo. If you are up to the challenge, please leave a comment. I'll contact each of you for an e-mail address, maybe even a snail mail address and I'll send you things to keep you motivated. We can do eeeeet! (could you hear Rob Schneider there?)

You don't have to finish. Hell, if you can't keep going after 20,000 words. So what? You're 20k closer to the end than you were before. Who's with me? (maybe I should give half-time pep talks at football games).

Romance is NOT porn

2006-10-10T18:59:00.000-07:00

When I started blogging, I told myself I wouldn't talk about politics. It's nothing but a way to divide friendships. But I've found something that pushed me over the edge.

Fred Head, candidate for State Comptroller in Texas, is running against a woman who had a romance novel published in 1990. Read the story here. You can click the "back" button at the top to read more about Fred.

Can you believe this guy? I mean, I can. But jeez louise that's an uneducated assumption. I encourage all Texas writers to spend your free time campaigning against this guy.

Emerald City recap

2006-10-10T10:05:00.000-07:00

I'm very happy I went to the Emerald City conference. I had a great time, met some wonderful people and got to see some lovely people I'd met before. If it wasn't almost 4 hours from me, I'd sure as hell be joining that chapter too. The people are wonderful!

Friday
I had a fun drive up with Jenna, a fellow Romance Diva and NaNoWriMoer. Let me tell you this woman is a brainstorming GENIUS! We got to the hotel just before 2 p.m. Since we were early enough we grabbed some free books off the goodie table. Gotta love free books. I talked a bit to my roomies (I don't know Betty's Web site).

From 2-3 there was a tea with Cherry Adair. I sat down by myself to look through the workshop list. She approached with disapproval in her eyes, grabbed my scone and water and instructed me to follow her. She plopped me down at a table with three women I had never met. I'm very shy, very very shy and terrible at small talk. But these women were great! Super sweet and they were fun to talk to. I'm very glad Cherry forced my comfort zone to expand (more on the reasons why Cherry Adair is a fantastic person to come).

During dinner we heard from Stella Cameron. She was a hoot! I'll definitely be adding her to my TBR pile.

That evening I went to a pitching workshop where I practiced my pitch. Then to a workshop with agent Nephele Tempest of the Knight Agency. I had an appointment to pitch to her on Saturday (which I was uber happy about). I was highly nervous as I had never pitched a book before. But her workshop calmed me down some. She shared that she hated pitches as much as we did because our writing is what's important (woot! woot!). I really like her style from what she shared in the workshop.

Saturday
My first pitch was with Nephele Tempest (she is not a Mr. or known as Neph). I was nervous as a whore in church. No valid reason, I just was. But she was so personable and friendly, I was instantly at ease. My second pitch was with Kate Seaver of Berkely. She was very friendly too and the editor of Katie MacAlister's first book. Why was I so scared of these people? They are people like me. I know better now. I guess there are just some things that defy logic.

The speaker during lunch was Vicki Lewis Thompson with the nerd series. I just bought some of those a couple of weeks ago and I'm even more excited to read them after hearing her hilarious talk.

I also met Katie MacAlister. A very exciting moment indeed! She was very nice, even in the presence of a psycho happy fan (moi).

Paty and I went to karaoke for a while. That was fun. The guy running the show had some saucy leather pants.

Sunday
During lunch I sat with the Romance Divas. Sha-Shana Crichton of Crichton & Associates was at our table as well. That woman had us in stitches! She was a HOOT! We were laughing so hard that one of the speakers reading names of volunteers looked at us and said "did I mess up her name?" Blushing followed, then more laughing.

Cherry Adair was the speaker for the closing session. Last year she was as well and had everyone in the room write the date they will have their book finished by. She had them put it in a sealed envelope and give them back to her. Cherry kept these envelopes all year long. She brought them back and had everyone who met that goal come up to the front and get a certificate.

She then had them write their names on a post-it note and drew three names. Those women won a trip to the Emerald City conference next year, hotel and registration fee. Out of her own pocket! Then she was going to draw a name for an all-expenses paid trip to Dallas next year for RWA Nationals. Registration, hotel and airfare out of her own pocket. At our table we all had our fingers crossed for Shelli to win. She deserved it so much, working her tail off all weekend for the conference. Not to mention she is such a sweet, kind and giving person. Well, guess whose name Cherry pulled? We all started crying. Cherry started crying. Other people in the room started crying. It was a good cry.

Talk about giving back to the romance writing community. Cherry Adair, you are a gem! And she stayed after the conference to teach us all her plotting method. Which I will blog about soon.

I'm also happy I got to see several of the Romance Divas, women from the Rose City Romance Writers and some wonderful ladies I had met in Atlanta. I with I would have taken pictures with them. Stupid me.

Check out this blog

2006-10-09T14:45:00.000-07:00

My local chapter, the Mid-Willamette Valley Romance Writers of America now has a blog! Check out our first post today, by the lovely and talented Elisabeth Naughton. We'll be talking about writing tips and things we've learned, have guest bloggers and more.

I'll post a recap of the Emerald City conference later.

Spiders. Not cool.

2006-10-04T15:07:00.000-07:00

Ok, second post today. Sorry. But when I opened my Yahoo homepage, I was greeted by this:

I have a debilatating fear of spiders and did not need to see that on my yahoo homepage. But, for anyone interested in reading about the Brown Widow (cousing of the Black Widow) taking over the world, here 'tis. Bastard spiders. Yeah, yeah. I know they eat other bugs. But that doesn't make them less creepy. My insect vacuum is my secret weapon.

Pitches, bitches

2006-10-04T14:07:00.000-07:00

I'm working on my pitch for the Emerald City conference this weekend. Ick. I should be better at pitches, I write them a lot for my day job. I also give them a lot for my day job. But that doesn't make it any easier.

The best guidance I've found for in-person pitches is Diana Peterfreund's "Pitch and Roll" workshop at Romance Divas forums. You can find it in the "AOTM" section of the forums. She breaks down the necessary components that a pitch should have.

It's hard as hell writing one. When someone asks me what I'm writing, I usually respond with a much too long and convoluded response including a lot of "this happens and then this happens and then..." I feel like I'm in that scene from "Dude Where's My Car." (A link for those who think I'm crazy: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yPjhPLrvUKg)

Anyhoo. I'm trying to find descriptive tags for my characters and it seems that all descriptive words have left my brain. I'm also trying to narrow down the conflict to something interesting and believable. Proving to be difficult as well. But, I'll git 'er done.

Why am I pitching instead of letter querying anyway?

Bring back Jeff!

2006-10-02T19:56:00.000-07:00

There is a hole in my heart. The hole can only be filled by Jeffrey Dean Morgan. To some, he's known as Denny on Grey's Anatomy. To others he's known as John (the dad) in Supernatural.

Why, oh why must he be killed off every television show? Why must this rugged, Seattle-born manly man be deprived of his God-given right to grace the fairer sex with his raspy voice? Why can't we still enjoy the kind, positive spirit of Denny or the protective nature of John?

I curse you screenwriters. I curse you for depriving me of my weekly enjoyment. The only thing that will keep me going are the five movies he will appear in during 2007 and 2008.

Thank you Jeffrey. Thank you for providing millions of television watchers with the enjoyment of your alluring smile, your kind eyes, and your endearing dimples.

R.I.P. Denny and John. May you forever be in our fanta...thoughts.

P.S. His birthday is the day after mine. Fate? Yes, I'd like to think so.

Emerald City, here I come

2006-10-02T11:16:00.000-07:00

Four days until the Emerald City Writer's Conference in Bellevue, Washington. I'm really excited to attend this. I wanted to last year but wasn't able to. I am fully and completely aware that this is a writer's conference. I'm a writer, I get it.

But I'll tell you a secret. My biggest point of excitement for it is to get to meet Katie MacAlister. As you've probably heard, or read, me say this dozens of times. Her book "A Girl's Guide to Vampires" is what catapulted me into this crazy romance dimension. Thank God it did! I'm so unbelievably happy in what I'm doing it makes my cheeks hurt from smiling so much.

Writer's are readers first. And I know I'm going to go totally fan girl when I have a book signed by KatieMac. I still remember the moment when it all clicked for me. When I read that book and realized, this is what I want to write. Not what hadn't been working for me over the previous few years. But funny, romantic books. It was the light bulb moment to end all light bulb moments.

I'm also really excited to see a lot of people I met in Atlanta this summer, and meet new people. It will be great to get to know the Pacific Northwest writers.

I'm also nervous. In Atlanta it was more carefree for me because I wasn't there for a lot of pitching. I was there to learn and meet other writers. But now I have something to pitch and it scares the piss out of me!

I also get nervous in social situations and I'm really bad at remembering people's names. I'm good with faces and all things visual, but names generally elude me. Don't be offended if you catch me eyeing your name tag. I don't expect you to remember my name.

All in all this will be a great weekend. Social fears and fan-girl moments aside, I hope to learn a lot and meet some great people. And on my way there or home I hope to stop by Pike Place and grab a ginormous boquet of gorgeous fresh flowers. And maybe buy out the Yankee Candle store. I wonder if they still sell the gardenia, pineapple and plumeria scents...

So - are you going to Emerald City? I hope to see you there!

And so it begins

2006-10-01T12:21:00.000-07:00

My favorite time of year is upon us. October 1 is a great day. It signifies that the weather is cooling to the crisp, red-nosed, sweater-bearing temperatures that I prefer. The leaves are changing colors and falling in a way that makes Oregon absolutely beautiful.

Only 30 days until Halloween! Then Thanksgiving is right around the corner and Christmas is just a hop, skip and jump from that. I love, Love, LOVE the holidays. December 26 is the most depressing day of the world to me (not including the 50% off Christmas decorations). I've never cared about or really celebrated New Years so the holidays end at Christmas for me.

I guess I should have my furnace lit so I have heat in my house. It's starting to get pretty cold at night and in the morning. Other than cleaning today, I'll be making Halloween decorations. Boy do I love this time of year. I should hide my keys from myself so I'm not tempted to go see School for Scoundrels. Two hours I can't afford to waste :-)

I'm off to dig out my sweaters. Then make pumpkin streamers, lollipop ghosts and egg carton spiders. Oh happy day!

Jokes to enhance your Saturday

2006-09-30T11:00:00.000-07:00

A lesson to be learned from typing the wrong email address:

A Minneapolis couple decided to go to Florida to thaw out during aparticularly icy winter. They planned to stay at the same hotel wherethey spent their honeymoon 20 years before. But, because of hectic schedules, it was difficult to coordinate their travel schedules. So, the husband left Minneapolis and flew to Florida on Thursday, with his wife flying down the following day.

The husband checked into the hotel, and unlike years ago, there was a computer in his room, so he decided to send an email to his wife. However, he accidentally left out one letter in her email address, and without noticing his error, sent the email.

Meanwhile...somewhere in Houston, a widow had just returned home from her husband's funeral. He was a minister who was called home to glory after suffering a heart attack. The widow decided to check her email, expecting messages ofcondolence. After reading the first message, she screamed and fainted. The widow's son rushed into the room, found his mother on the floor, and they glanced up and saw the computer screen which read:

To: My Loving Wife
Date: Thursday, April 13, 2006
Subject: I Have Arrived!

To My Dearest Love:
I know you are surprised to hear from me. They have computers here now,and you are allowed to send emails to your loved ones. I have just arrived and have been checked in. I see that everything has been prepared for your arrival tomorrow, and look forward to seeing you then. Hope your journey is as uneventful as mine was. PS... Sure is hot down here!

------

A man and woman were having dinner in a fine restaurant. Their waitress, taking another order at a table a few steps away, suddenly noticed that the man was slowly sliding down his chair and under the table, but the woman acted unconcerned.

The waitress watched as the man slid all the way down his chair and out of sight under the table. Still, the woman appeared calm and unruffled, apparently unaware that her dining companion had disappeared.

The waitress went over to the table and said to the woman, "Pardon me, ma'am, but I think your husband just slid under the table." The woman calmly looked up at her and said, "No he didn't. He just walked in the door."

------

(warning, this one is a bit naughty)

TREE HUGGER

While walking through the Boulder Colorado woods a man came upon another man hugging a tree with his ear firmly against the tree. Seeing this he inquired, "Just out of curiosity, what the heck are you doing?"

"I'm listening to the music of the tree," the other man replied.

"You gotta be kiddin me."

"No, would you like to give it a try?"

Understandably curious, the man says, "Well, OK..."

So he wrapped his arms around the tree and pressed his ear up against it. With this the other guy slapped a pair of handcuffs on him, took his wallet, jewelry, car keys, then stripped him naked and left.

Two hours later another nature lover strolled by, saw this guy handcuffed to the tree stark naked, and asked, "What the hell happened to you?"

He told the guy the whole terrible story about how he got there. When he finished telling his story, the other guy shook his head in sympathy, walked around behind him, kissed him gently behind the ear and said, "Man, this just ain't your day, Cupcake."

------

Two old ladies are outside their nursing home, having a drink and a smoke, when it starts to rain. One of the old ladies pulls out a condom, cuts off the end, puts it over her cigarette, and continues smoking.

Maude: What in the hell is that?

Mabel: A condom. This way my cigarette doesn't get wet.

Maude: Where did you get it?

Mabel: You can get them at any drugstore.

The next day, Maude hobbles herself into the local drugstore and announces to the pharmacist that she wants a box of condoms. The pharmacist, obviously embarrassed, looks at her kind of strangely (she is after all, over 80 years of age), but very delicately asks what brand of condom she prefers.

"Doesn't matter Sonny, as long as it fits on a Camel." The pharmacist fainted.

Research

2006-09-28T22:52:00.000-07:00

Research is a fascinating part of the writing process. Sometimes it's the driving force for a story. Sometimes it's the quickest killer of a difficult to research or poorly researched novel. And sometimes it's the best form of procrastination.

I believe that when an author is published and has strict deadlines to meet, they'll have to consider the amount of research required for the book before they decide to write it.

Research is a big part of the stage I'm in with my book. I've got a lot of the plot together, but there are little threads about the book location and emotional stuff about the career of my characters that I need to work out. So, since this topic is on my mind I've decided to procrastinate a bit on my writing today and develop a list of pros and cons for book research:

Pros
- Sometimes researching can give you book ideas or plot development ideas for your current story. It can be an additional source of inspiration. This can be particularly true in historicals because specific events that have happened can spark ideas for your book.

- It's fun. If I were writing a romantic suspense with a serial killer, I could justify spending hours and hours and hours rereading my collection of true crime books.

- It gives you a reason to investigate places you've always wanted to visit. I worked on a book last year that took place in Edinburgh, Scotland. I had a ball Googling all sorts of stuff about the town such as history, shopping, attractions, dialect, phrases, maps, etc.

- Two special words: tax deductions. As a writer pursuing publishing you can write off a good amount of stuff, including work related travel. Talk about a good excuse to make that trip to Europe, eh? I'm doing this very thing in December (hopefully) because I'm going to drag my first draft with me to Vegas and spend several days traveling the city to find cool locales for my scenes to take place.

- You may meet some great people. Take a few minutes to flip through the acknowledgements on some books, most authors recognize the people who helped them. If you're writing a contemporary about a cop, you may want a cop to read it for proper language use and believability. Talk to people who live in the town your book takes place, or people in the career you're writing about. You never know what could come out of it. Another book idea? A new friend? A job opportunity? Someone to visit on vacation?

Cons
- Distraction! Distraction! Distraction! I can't count how many times I've come across a little stupid thing like not having the technical term for something. Instead of leaving myself a note to fix it later in revisions, I HAVE to figure out what it is. I know many others are like this too. :-) Last night a dear friend wanted another word for "buttocks." I went on a Google quest and found some useful stuff on Wikipedia. We both had to know synonyms, instead of leaving a note to fix it later. On the bright side I have broadened my bum vocabulary and made up a few new phrases. Turd pinching cushions. No? Not sexy? Okay.

- If you're on a deadline, be it personal or publisher-given, research may hinder your progress. Let's say I have six months to write a book and two ideas. One takes place in the state I live in and am familiar with while the other takes place in Botswana. I may like the Botswana idea more, but it would take tons of time to verse myself enough with local culture and the town to make it believable that I may miss deadline. Or the quality of the book may suffer because I've taken up writing and revision time with research time.

- Burn-out could happen when writing a research-heavy book. You may have a wonderful idea for a regency, but by the time you're half way through you could be pulling out your hair trying to understand the culture back then. You could get so frustrated that you drop the project and may even stop writing for a while.

Don't let a lot of research discourage you. Really think about whether it's the best for you, your time and your career. This is your business and you need to make smart decisions. Right now I've got a killer idea for a series, or at least I think so. It's going to take oodles and oodles of research. But you know what? These could be the books that get me sold. So hell yeah the research would be worth it. There's also a very good chance that I feel overwhelmed and get burnt-out on it. Or I could end up taking a year to write the book when I want to have it done in six months.

Well, I'm off to Google maps of Las Vegas to try and figure out where in the hell people who live there would actually live and spend their free time.

Devil Dog

2006-09-27T21:21:00.000-07:00

Over the last few days my dog has taken up a habit of EATING MY BOOKS! Not okay. She pulls them off the shelf while I'm at work. It was okay because I had my least favorite books on the bottom shelves.

Until she got to my FAVORITE BOOK OF ALL TIME. I didn't realize it was mixed in with the books on the bottom. She ate the binding off it. I've had that book for as long as I can remember. It's called Arm in Arm by Remy Chelip.

Can I borrow $30k?

2006-09-27T09:45:00.000-07:00

I've started a collection for a new car . This is of vital importance to my well-being and my creativity as a budding writer. I'm in desperate need of $30,000. Take one look at this and try to tell me no.

Sweet inspiration

2006-09-26T13:37:00.000-07:00

One of my favorite parts of writing is finding inspiration for the characters. I envision scenes better when I can actually look at the person I'm writing about. So, last night I decided on the hero and heroine for my current WIP: Jesse Bradford (Bring It On, Happy Ending) and Emmy Rossum (Phantom of the Opera).

Hero help

2006-09-25T09:39:00.000-07:00

I love Alpha heroes. They're tough, strong, take-charge and great lovers (at least in romance novels).

When I was working on my vampire paranormal series, an alpha hero was all I would consider. It just fits well with paranormal, or at least the ones I like. But now that I'm working on a contemporary, I'm struggling with the type of hero.

I know his archetype, characteristics and his character arc. But I'm having a hard time imagining how to make him alpha with this book and plot. I have scenes with his alpha tendencies, but throughout the book he doesn't fit what an alpha male is in my mind.

I did a bit of research about the three main hero types: alpha, beta and gamma. Through my googling (that word has to be in Webster's soon) I found some great definitions on Annie Dean's blog:

Alpha - He has to be successful- a man of achievement. Independent. A ruler – a man of power. Strong, handsome, vigorous. A leader. In human societies, the signs of success are wealth and power – and so the Alpha hero has to have the outward trappings – those visible signs of success that the world values – money, houses, cars, businesses...

Beta - These romances have kinder, gentler heroes, the kind of men who will change your flat tire, open doors for you, help your kid with his homework, and bring you soup when you are sick. They are the anti-thesis of the testosterone-filled chest beaters found in the earlier bodice-ripper romances. These are the guys we all want to find in real life.

Gamma - One who doesn't fit the image of the macho Alpha male, or the easygoing Beta either. He's a combination--a mutation?--of both types of man, and makes a hero to die for.

I think my hero is a gamma. I like that definition. My guy isn't pushy or take-charge all the time. He's like that when he needs to be, but also tender when he needs to be. That's what draws the heroine in. She's 100% convinced he's a baboon ass, then he doesn't something so amazingly sweet that she second guesses her conclusion.

So, which would you most like to read about? What are the characteristics of your favorite fiction heroes? What bothers you about heroes you've read?

Grey's Anatomy

2006-09-21T21:14:00.000-07:00

Okay, I'm watching it live now. So this blog post is open during the hour and I'm typing my thoughts as they come through while watching the show. My memory is poor and I wouldn't remember everything after the show.

1) I thought that the summer was enough time to mourn the loss of Denny. Nope. As soon as I saw Izzy lying on the bathroom floor, I started bawling like a baby. Thank goodness for the WB's Supernatural so I can still get my fix of the actor.

2) I hope that Addison kicks the shit out of Meredith. I can't stand Meredith. The other characters are why I watch the show. I can't wait to see what she does with the panties (although I already have an idea thanks to stupid radio commercials).

3) I love how they let bits of Alex's good character leak in. When he picked up the baby and took it from the ER to keep it from the flu, I could have kissed him. But, I still have a crush on him from the Wedding Planner.

4) I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE Christina. "He's acting all McGuilty and he asks what this means." McGuilty? I love it!

5) Not that I watch ER, but from commercials I know that it's a crisis driven show. Let me amend that to unbelievable, ridiculous crisis happening unbelievably often. Well, the whole plague thing has a bit of EResque to it.

6) The scene where Derek kicked Addison out was super dramatic. I don't know who to be madder at. Addison for starting it, or Derek for continuing it after he said he wouldn't. Meredith isn't a prize people. Addison is a hot redhead. I'd pick Addison. Meredith is neurotic and needy. WTF?

7) Oh my God! Christina going totally fangirl over Burke while he was hitting on the chick. Hahaha!

8) McDreamy is in love with Meredith? Dude. He needs some psychological help. "When I had a choice to make, I chose wrong." Dude, Addison is awesome.

9) Hahaha, panties on the Lost and Found. LOVE IT! Way to go Addison.

10) Oh, now I'm crying again. Christina, why did you have to break down? I hate crying. HATE IT.

11) After crying and spending 24 hours in a prom dress - how can Izzy still look so gorgeous?

12) This show completes me.

Celebrity look-alikes

2006-09-20T10:25:00.000-07:00

I saw this neato thing on Michelle Rowen's blog today. I decided to try two recent photos of myself to see which celebrity's I supposedly "look like." I honestly thought I'd get Monica Lewinsky as my #1 match.

Ummmm...what's with all the blondes?

Ok, I'll confess. When you select either gender, Eminem came up as the next choice after these pics. I don't know it that's bad for him, or me.

I prefer the first batch.

45 Master Characters

2006-09-19T15:09:00.000-07:00

One of the things I am focusing on heavily in my writing right now is character building. I've realized that when I think of an idea, it's always plot related, not character related. To me, that's not the best way to go in romance writing.

It's time to nip that in the bud so I ordered a few character building how-to books to spark some ideas and help me craft three dimensional characters. Last night I began looking through "45 Master Characters, Mythic Models for Creating Original Characters" by Victoria Lynn Schmidt. I ordered it because it explains character archetypes on a level that I understand - Greek mythological figures as the archetypes basis. Perfect!!!

I highly recommend this book if you're trying to pin down some generalities and great examples of how a certain type of person may react, their fears, goals, etc. I know once I write more and more I won't need help like this, but it's always good to reach out to other types of characters that you haven't used before.

One of the best parts of this book is it gives TV, movie and historical/literature examples of each character type. For example, when talking about a "seductive muse" character (Aphrodite), it gives Samantha from Sex and the City as an example. Ok, I get it. I've seen the show, that explains to me who an Aphrodite archetype is.

I found the archetype that matches the generalities I had in mind for my heroine. It fits her to a T and helped me with her motivations. I love, love, love this book! Now I'm on the hunt for a hero. Did I mention it tells you which archetypes of the opposite sex would best help you achieve a character arc? See, told'ya this book is awesome.

Random round-up

2006-09-18T14:42:00.000-07:00

Yup, another of my random posts. Or maybe I shall call is potpourri day? Isn't that the term on game shows for random shit?

Item #1: Kick booty workshop
On Saturday, one of the two RWA chapters I belong to hosted a workshop by Cherry Adair on layering the novel. She was fantastic - full of great info and hilarious. I'm definitely going to pick up her books.

She had some interesting points to make on career plans. First, the way to tell what's going to be big in two years is to see the flavor of what's in non-fiction hardcover now. For example, a couple years before Dan Brown's books came out there were a lot of religious non-fiction as well as after-life experience stuff.

Second, if you've been working on your book for longer than nine months then it's not the right book for you. You can't get a strong career going by taking that much time for books. She has a great point there.

Okay, gear shift. I'm reading a book right now that I can't put down. I started it last night way too close to my bed time (10ish). I was devouring it until midnight when I realized I should go to bed. I tried to sleep, but couldn't so I grabbed my flashlight and read a few more pages. This went on until 2:30 or so when I remembered everything I have going on today and that sleep is vital.

Is curiosity killing you over what book it is?

Pink's a pretty color. Don't you think?

Strawberries are delicious. I wish they grew all year. The same with corn. I love corn.

Still wanna know?

Mmmmmm...Diet Coke...fountain Diet Coke to be specific.

Okay, I'll tell you. I'm not good at keeping secrets from those I love. It's "Bet Me" by Jennifer Crusie. It's the first book I've read of hers. Man, I can't put it down. I keep sneaking a few pages at work here and there.

The dialogue and the banter between the hero and heroine is irresistable. I'm addicted. It's a great book so far. Not sure how it ends, but a gut feeling tells me it's a happy ending.

Let's see, what else? I just got a few character books I ordered from Amazon in the mail. I'll let you know what I think of them as I look through them this week.

Happy Monday everyone.

It's gone

2006-09-15T14:16:00.000-07:00

My office smells of smoke. Any guesses as to why? I fried my brain. Yup, it's gone. There were some sizzles, a few pops and the disappointing sound of deflation.

There are many reasons as to why this happened:

Overstimulation: Too many ideas, too many books I'm reading, too many blog entries I'm catching up on.
Lack of chocolate: My "eating plan" doesn't allow for chocolate. It's seriously hurting my mood and creative juices.
horrendous to-do list: Between cleaning my house, writing a couple of chapters, finishing some contest judging, I feel overwhelmed.

Guess which one I'm planning to fix?

The Chocolate Threesome, by Lisa Pulliam

Me: Oh Hershey, my long lost love. Where have you been?

Hershey: I've been waiting for you sweetheart. Patiently waiting your return to me, I knew it would come someday. I'm just glad you left that Atkins fellow. He just wasn't right for you.

Me: I've missed you so much, you have no idea. I've been lost without you! I need you to feel whole again.

Hershey pulls me into an embrace. I take in his scent and let myself relax. I was so relaxed I didn't hear the door open.

Nestle: How could you do this to me? How could you choose Hershey over me? He spat out the name as though it burned.

Me: Nestle, we were in a harmless embrace. Please don't be jealous. I do still love you. I pulled away from Hershey and went to Nestle.

Hershey: Wait, don't go to him. I want you. Please say you'll be mine.

I looked between Hershey and Nestle. It was the decision of my life. Who to choose?

Me: Can I have you both?

Hershey and Nestle looked at each other, then me with hunger in their eyes.

Me: This will be a night to remember.

In other news, I can't wait for fall and winter! My favorite seasons! I busted out some sweaters and sweatshirts last night. I'm going to go buy a fresh stash of Lipton hot tea and spend an evening enjoying the thunder rolling through town and the chilly weather. I love this time of year. Screw the heat. Screw the sun. I've had enough for a while.

I put my office in the garage of the place I'm living now. I figured the sub-zero temperatures and ball-freezing will encourage me to write faster so I can return to the heat of my house.

Multiple WIPs

2006-09-12T12:15:00.000-07:00

Let me start by saying that Montana is brown. Very brown. I'm specifically speaking to the Billings area where I just spent the last almost-week. It reminded me of Reno in that you're driving along then, BAM, it dips down and there's a city.

Also, the beef is very different there from what I'm used to. It's much more condensed and has a different flavor.

On to writing things. I was reading a post by Karmela Johnson about having multiple works in progress at once. I've been thinking about that a lot lately too. Things are going good with my current WIP, but I keep getting the crap kicked out of me by the idea fairy. As of right now there's a contemporary (which I'm working on), two paranormal series (one I really, really, really feel excited about) and a contemporary YA idea that are hounding me non-stop.

I'm making notes as I think about them so when the time has come to work on the next one I'll have a place to start.

BUT (a big, hairy, but),

One of the paranormal series ideas won't leave me alone, even when I write down ideas. Writing something down just spurs more thoughts and needs for research. It's crowding me so much that I'm thinking about it more than the contemporary that I'm working on. Not good.

I can't just switch WIPs again. I won't write a bunch of unfinished books. That's the fast track to Nowheresville in the desolate Non Existant Career region, complete with a map and guided tour.

So now I'm in a bit of a pickle. I refuse to stop working on the contemporary, but I feel the need to work on the paranormal series idea before I lose all hope and inspiration.

Could it be possible to work on two books at once? I multi-task like there's no tomorrow. Most evenings I chat on messenger, watch TV, read a book and play a computer game at once. And keep my third eye on my naughty dog.

But that's not working on two books, not even close.

On the other hand, maybe it will help keep things fresh during the first draft of each. When I'm stuck on one I can turn to the other, and visa versa. Then when revision time comes I can solely focus on one. Doing a thorough polishing, go to the other and give the first time to sit. And keep going like that.

Maybe it could work and it sure as heck would boost my productivity.

What's the saying? You never know unless you try. Well, I'll give it a try. Worse case scenario: I just keep plugging away on my contemporary if it doesn't work. And that's fine with me.

Page 103

2006-09-05T20:02:00.000-07:00

It's 7:59 p.m. and I'm on page 103 of Lover Awakened (thank you Salem Borders!). I am having a multitude of emotions. Part of me can't read it fast enough. I'm prepared to stay up all night to finish it, and at this rate it will probably take that long.

On the other hand I have been so excited for this book, I don't want it to be over. You can never recreate the emotions of reading a wonderful book for the first time. So I feel like I should take it slow.

Kind of like your wedding. The big day can't come fast enough, but once it's here you want to savor it.

Right now I'm leaning toward savoring. But i have to see Zsadist open up! Arrrgghhh!

Am I a fool for falling under the spell of great fiction? I leave that to you to decide.

Mrs. Ward, I bow to you. You are the master.

D-Day

2006-09-05T08:33:00.000-07:00

UPDATE: The Border's who said the books will be in transit for another day or two were fortunately mistaken. They have them! Lots of them! Countown is three hours until I have one in my grubby hands.

It's September 5 folks. Do you know what that means? Yes, the highly anticipated and long awaited release of Lover Awakened by J.R. Ward, book three of the Black Dagger Brotherhood series.

Right now it's 8:30 a.m. local time. I've been at work since 7 (crazy, I know). Before I arrived at work I had visited four stores looking for the book: Wal-Mart, Rite Aid, Safeway and Hi-School Pharmacy. Roth's wasn't open yet. NONE of them had the book. Do they not care that people have lost sleep awaiting the book? That some barely slept last night because they were so excited to read about some hot Zsadist action and the taming of the beast?

No, they don't.

Buttmonkeys.

I can hear you already - "But dear, sweet, simple-minded Lisa. I'm sure that even Salem, Oregon, has a chain bookstore. Couldn't you wait through your workday and hit that this evening?"

First of all, I'm not simple-minded you baboonass (today my obsession is primates and tushes). Second, I've called the local Borders several times over the last week hoping they would put them out early or at least have them opening day. But no, the damn books are STILL in transit. Third, I want to start the book during my lunch break! Sheesh. Duh.

What does this mean for me?

A trip to Portland in my immediate future.

I LOVE this book

2006-08-31T14:23:00.000-07:00

Last night I started reading "He Loves Lucy" by Susan Donovan and I just finished it at lunch. I LOVE, LOVE, LOVED IT! It's one of those books that I connected with at this time of my life.

The heroine, Lucy, is overweight (what she weighed in the beginning of the book is about what I weight right now - hence why I connected with it). She snagged a health club as a client for the marketing firm she works for. She had an idea to find an overweight person and give them a year to lose weight, chronicling it all the way. It turned out that she was the person to do it. She falls for her hunky trainer, Theo, who is way more than a pretty face and tight ass.

Here's what I loved about it:

The character development - Lucy getting over the Taco Bowl incident and learning to trust the opposite sex and love herself (you gotta read it to find out what the Taco Bowl incident is); and Theo allowing himself to open up and give his heart to someone else after he'd been hurt before
Everything about the weight loss - it really inspired me, even more, to get out there and do it. I wonder if I could lose 100 pounds in a year. I probably could if I worked my ass off. And this book really helped me want to do it. I realize it's fiction, but the way Lucy changed as she lost weight would give anyone hope.
The menus - each chapter shows a day log of what Lucy ate, I may try eating that. I work better losing weight if I follow a strict plan, like written menus instead of figuring it out myself. So I'm going to try the Theo and Lucy diet.
The fat chick scored the hunk. Who wouldn't love that?

I wholeheartedly recommend this book. I'm going to read it everytime I get down in the dumps about weight loss.

I end with these final words: You Rock Donovan! (you gotta read the book to get it)

2005 was a good year

2006-08-31T09:30:00.000-07:00

UPDATE: I found the Web site for the Italian hearthrob brothers of the 2005 calendar - their names, are you ready? are Mirco/Marco (depends on English or Italian) and Mauro (he's mine) Bergamasco. Don't you just love it?

And my lovely coworker who speaks French translated the title of the book/calendar for me - Gods of the Stadium. Daaaaaaamn right.

This morning, while perusing the Romance Divas board per my morning ritual, I came across a post directing me to Heaven. (Thank you Kristen!)

How had I missed this phenomenon? The French rugby team poses nude? Do other rugby teams do this? Where do I sign up? I'm sure they need an extra make-up person.

I have found inspiration for my next book - I was thinking of doing a Greek mythological paranormal. And BAM. Okay, they're Italian, but don't these guys look like they were the models for ancient Greek and Roman statues? Fan me, please!

I don't know their names, if someone could help me out in that department, I'd be very appreciative. They deserve a thorough Google image search.

With no further ado (I call dibs on the dark-haired brother - had to get that out of the way),

13 days! Really?

2006-08-30T09:06:00.000-07:00

I can't believe it's been 13 days since I last blogged. This alarms me because it feels like it was just two days ago. So I began reflecting on what has happened in the past 13 days to make it feel like it was flying by.

A wedding.

My brother in law got married last Saturday. I was a bridesmaid and I had planned the bachelorette party for the weekend before. Oh how I had fun with that. Penis shaped ice cubes, cookies, jello shots and blow ups. Not to mention a male blow-up doll I made the bride carry around with her. But some asshole at the bar we went to was jealous of him and bit the top of his head, so he deflated. It was a shame, we were the life of the bar with our blow-up doll. I took a flowered Hawaiian triangle top and rearranged it as underwear for the doll. You should have seen it, priceless I tell you.

You know the worst part? I was the only one who threw up out of all the girls and boys for both parties, as far as I know. I didn't drink at the male review (I won't go into details about that...) or the bar. But before we had gone out I drank some champagne, which I never drink. And we rode in a small bus - the driver drove like he was dodging bullets. Or at least that's how it felt to me. So by the time we met up with the bachelor party at Shari's after the bars closed, I was incredibly queesy. I was convinced to throw up, against my will. I have a big phobia of that, it was only the second time I had committed the act in about 10 years. But I just couldn't stand how awful I felt, so I did it. And it hurt like a motherfucker. I hadn't eaten for hours and hours, so just a little liquid. Too much detail? Sorry.

That's the tale of the sober girl puking at the bachelorette party. L-A-M-E.

Now to the wedding - that was my first time being a bridesmaid. It was fun. There were eight bridesmaids and eight groomsmen. Big wedding. The reception was fun, I drank about a dozen daquiris (with vodka, just how I like'em), several glasses of champagne, multiple swigs of wine from a bottle we passed around and a couple pulls of Southern Comfort and Kentucky whiskey from groomsmen flasks.

Did I mention I can hold my alcohol? I wasn't drunk, just tipsy enough to have fun dancing. There must not have been much vodka in those daquiris.

Now that the wedding has passed, I can dive back into my book. It's going well. I keep running into things I need to figure out like my hero's motivation, what's preventing the relationship through the book from his point of view, etc.

My RWA chapter gave me some great ideas to rework the opening and I've been incorporating those. I still plan to hit my target of finishing a first draft by October 6.

In other news, I'm determined to shed my abundance of fat. I ordered Winsor Pilates and wrote down my work out plan at the gym. And I have a treadmill in my garage. So there's no escaping it, I've gotta finish losing the weight. I've lost about 40 or so in the past year and a half, but I'd like to lose a lot more.

By the end of the year I'll be a whole new woman - a finished book and many pounds thinner.

Too early for Halloween costume shopping?

2006-08-17T16:03:00.000-07:00

Today I got invited to a Halloween party. Let me state that it was more casual, of "sorry I missed your last party, when's the next one. Oh, Halloween, great!" The reason I'm excited is I've never been to a COSTUME Halloween party. All the ones I've been to have been regular clothes, or most people just chicken out of wearing costumes.

I love costumes. I love to wear costumes at Halloween. But I haven't been able to for years, so I'm very, very, very excited this year. That gives me two months to figure out what I want to be.

The reason I'm particularly excited for this Halloween party, is this group of friends started throwing a party every few months this year with a theme. And EVERYONE dresses up. First it was 70s, then 80s, then 90s, and the last one was a toga party (which I missed because I was at RWA Nationals). It would have been my first ever toga party because no one would wear togas to my 21st birthday party (asshats). But I digress.

I already did some searching online and here are some preliminary costumes I like.

A Regal princes (I love dresses like this)

Medusa (I love Greek mythology)

Athena (Why? Let's say it together "because Lisa loves Greek mythology", good class)

Pink fairy (duh, because it's pink!)

50s starlet (I think it would make my boobs look bigger, priorities people)

A socket - but I'd need to find a plug (Where's Gerard Butler when you need him?)

Oh the memories

2006-08-16T21:00:00.000-07:00

Today during my lunch break I drove near the city park near where I work. I had a flashback, if you will, to last summer when I was reading the first three Dark Ones books by Katie MacAlister - my very first romance novels.

I was 100% enthralled. The stories, the men, the sex, the love, the vampireness. It was perfect, what I always wanted to read but didn't know existed. I would park at work then go in a few minutes late just so I could read a couple more pages.

During lunch I would sit in my car at the park with the windows down, reading as fast as my eyes would go. I would sneak my book out of my desk once or twice during the day just to read a couple of pages to finish a scene.

It's fun being that into a book. Especially in the summertime. Random post, I know. It just kind of stuck with me today and I wished I could go back and reexperience the introduction to a whole new world of books.

Stumbling upon those books has been one of the best things to ever happen to me. Because of those books, I began to read romance. I realized that my struggles in novel writing were because general fiction/horror wasn't working. Romance was what I was missing.

I dove head first into the world, trying to learn as much as fast as I could. I've read amazing books, learned of incredible authors and made lifetime friends.

What a year it's been. I hope to always feel that joy I've felt since last year of becoming a part of a new world with new characters that grip me and force me to read at stoplights. Me love books - ugh *chest pounding*

Great reads

2006-08-15T14:04:00.000-07:00

Since nationals I've read several great books that I wanted to share.

1) English as a Second Language by Megan Crane
Reading this book came at a funny time for me because I've been looking into master's programs in the U.K. a bit, tossing the idea around of jumping across the pond. Then I read this, where the heroine does exactly that. It made me want to go even more! I really enjoyed the characters, especially Cristina. She was a hoot and gave it straight. Megan put her characters in really funny situations and the drunken dialogue was hilarious!

The story seems realistic to me - what I imagine life would be like if I were to move to England and study literature. And the characters are believable. I love Alex's relationships in the story, I like the non-personal snarky conversations with the guys, and the uber-personal conversations with the girls. The ending was satisfying too. I'm looking forward to reading Megan's second book.

Off to find a master's program in Edinburgh so I can have fun like that too... ;-)

2) Conversations with the Fat Girl by Liza Palmer
As a curvy girl, this book totally hit home for me. Some of the "fat habits" in the book that the heroine does, I do too so it was very realistic. The motivations for everything Maggie did were believable and the evolution of the relationship between Maggie and her best friend Olivia, who got gastric bypass, was fascinating. I also loved the humor.

There is one image that I will laugh over until the day I die. Maggie is talking about a "tightener", i.e. girdle, and it's effects. She likens wearing a tightener to a slug in a straw. Holy shit I swear I was seconds from pissing in my panties. That is the best image I've gotten from a novel, ever. Come on, how funny is that?

I know it wasn't a romance, so I can't complain. But I would have enjoyed a bit more at the end with Dominic and Maggie. But hey, they got together and that's the important part. A very satisfying ending, emotionally all wrapped up.

3) A Hunger Like no Other by Kresley Cole
Two words: Hot Damn! Even though there's no actual "intercourse" until near the end of the book, the sexual tension is not left wanting. Kresley did a superb job in the hot and steamy department, from the very beginning. And she made the sexual progression very believable.

I loved the world building too, ass-kicking faeries - what more could a reader ask for? The character arcs in the hero and heroine worked well and very believable. Paranormal lovers gotta pick this up. You won't regret it. Also, if you've never read much in the way of paranormal but like the hot and steamy, you should grab it too. It's a good segway into paranormal. s

Right now I'm reading The Devil in the Junior League by Linda Francis Lee. So far, so good.

Sweet inspiration

2006-08-13T20:12:00.000-07:00

Oh sweet Rufus. A sweaty, smirking Rufus. Why is he sweating? Hmm...I'll incorporate those ideas into my book. Could I find better inspiration for my new manuscript? No.

Who's your inspiration for what you're working on?

Writing goals

2006-08-11T11:12:00.000-07:00

I know I've tried this before, but some things in life threw a detour at me. So with this new book, newly titled "She's All In," (SAI from now on) I'm going to give goals another try. And what better way than to be held accountable than announcing them publicly on your blog?

I'm setting a goal of nine weeks to write the book. That's not including 100% of the revisions. That's a full first draft and solid progress on revisions. Why nine weeks? Two reasons: the Emerald City Writers Conference begins nine weeks from today and NaNoWriMo is in November. I hope to be able to start another book in November by either letting SAI sit for the month, or have sent out queries on it.

Nine weeks sounds insane to me. But then I tell myself that it's mostly plotted (which saves a lot of time staring at the computer screen wondering what should happen next), I don't have kids, I've got a steady 8-5 job so I have all evening to write, and I have a wonderful support system to keep me going.

I hope to write 2,000 words a day so that I can spend the weekends revising and catching up. There are many writers who take a year to write a book, many who take two weeks (including revisions). I hope that I can write speedy because I'd like to be prolific. Here's a great test for that, eh?

Here's my secret motivation: I hope that I'm so busy writing I forget to eat and lose a bunch of weight! Muhahahahahaha!

So folks, leave me your most harassing blog comments. Poke and prod me until I bleed words. I'm ready (imagine you hear the Rocky theme in the background).

Trying hard now
it's so hard now
trying hard now

Getting strong now
won't be long now
getting strong now

Gonna fly now
flying high now
gonna fly, fly, fly...

It starts today.

Atlanta pics

2006-08-09T10:33:00.000-07:00

My sacrifice to the Blogger Gods has been answered. They are allowing me to post my pictures from Atlanta.

Fellow Rose City Romance Writers member Shirley Karr and myself at the literacy book fair. Don't you love her ode to Captain Jack Sparrow? I know, the coloring is whack. I had the camera on the wrong setting.

I hunted down the lovely Michelle Rowen. I was very happy to meet her in person after stalking her blog for months and months. Why is my mouth so wide open and you could stick a triple stack cheeseburger in it? Sheesh. Can you tell I'm hungry right now?

Some of the wonderful women at Romance Divas. It was great to meet them after chatting on the message boards for so long.

White I was hammin' it up at the FF&P Gathering getting my groove on with the chocolate fountain, my two lushes for roommates went out with the Wet Noodle Posse to a karaoke bar. Oh the things I miss when I'm eating chocolate and drinking screwdrivers.

Again, what's with my mouth?

I'm petrified of heights, so on the last night I finally felt brave enough to lean over from the 26th floor.

Don't you love Elisabeth's shoes?

Elisabeth and I. We're drunk on chocolate covered fruit. Did I mention that I love all the chocolate at RWA? And they had pineapple trees of fruit! Those women know how to throw a party...I mean conference.

Last but certainly not least. All three of us never got a group picture taken. And by the time Elisabeth and I had found Alice after the RITA's, she had already changed into her PJs in the room. So I photoshopped the photo of her before the Harlequin party on Friday into the group shot. You probably couldn't tell until I mentioned it, could ya? Haha!

There are several other, worse, photos of me that will never see the light of day.

My books arrived

2006-08-08T09:42:00.000-07:00

After more than a week of waiting, uncertainty and then panic, my books from Atlanta arrived! I gathered more than 100 books during the conference (I only paid for about 15 of them). About 25 made it in my suitcase, but the rest had to be shipped for weight reasons. I lugged the entire 15-volume set of Secrets books (a perk for volunteering at the book room) and some choice reading material while I awaited my shipment for a week, back home to Salem, Oregon.

I was fretting over how much this shipping would cost because they didn't tell me when I dropped the boxes off for UPS ground, nor did it appear on my room bill. I just checked my credit card statement and they charged me after the fact $46.17. That's not too bad for four boxes totaling 17 pounds. It equals buying about seven paperbacks. I got my money's worth, that's for damn sure.

I eagerly watched the reach 5 p.m. yesterday so I could run home and put my books away. Part of the excitement is that I moved recently and spent a lot of time with my dad building a wonderful bookcase. A bookcase that looked empty waiting for those books from Atlanta.

Empty no more! I took a picture of it because I'm so excited.

I don't have my writing books on there because they're on my desk and I'm missing a few recent reads because I haven't put them back. The bookcase doesn't look that great in the picture, but in person it's glorious. We primed and painted the shelfs a dark brown color and my dad secured them to the wall so it wouldn't topple over.

The top two shelfs (minus about 10 books on the right of the tippy top) are all "to be read" romance, romantic elements, chick-lit, erotica, etc. Most of those are from Atlanta.

The themes for the left cubby on the third row is castles, Scotland, Greece, Greek mythology and random funky non-fiction books such as urban legends, ghost stories, forensics for dummies, etc. Random reference tools that I may call upon for writing.

The right cubby on that shelf is Laurell K. Hamilton's Anita Blake series, most in multi-volume books. Then a couple other vamp fiction books before moving on to vampire non-fiction. Don't laugh, they really are non-fiction.

The left cubby on the fourth shelf is a few random paperbacks that didn't fit anywhere else then Anne Rice's vampire books. The right cubby is full of wonderful romances. On shelves five and six, the left cubbies are both true crime. The vertical books on the right cubby on shelf five are commercial fiction. The horizontally stacked books on the right of shelves five and six are what I call "book club oopsies." You know, those mailings that you forgot to say no to then forgot to send back so you end up buying them? The good part is I actually wanted one of those books. The bad part is, I don't want the rest. But they're unused hardbacks so I feel I should sell them.

The bottoms shelves are the least read or cared-about, they are random non-fiction books like Carlton Sheets' making money off real estate, Matthew Lesko's free money stuff (I did PR for him for about a week) then other stuff.

You may be asking why I dedicated an entire blog post to this. I don't have an answer my friend. It may be because I'm crazy. Or I'm too excited about finishing my bookcase. Or maybe it's that I don't have a life. I'll let you decide.

Afterthought: One year ago I would have never thought I'd read a romance. Now they take up three shelves of my bookcase. Go figure? What a difference a year makes.

I get to keep my Diet Coke

2006-08-06T23:27:00.000-07:00

That's right, I hit my goal baby. I've got the SNI (I really need to think of a name) plotted, or as much as I wanted to do ahead of time. I've got 34 scenes that will be used as mile markers, or my Mapquest directions if you will. They tell me where to turn and how far to go, but I don't know how many gas stations there will be on the way.

So, what's next? What? I actually have to write it now? Oh shit.

Weekend 'o plotting going well

2006-08-06T16:19:00.000-07:00

I'm pretty confident I'll get the book plotted by the end of the day. I haven't done all 50-60 scenes because I want to leave some pansting leeway. I've got the big stuff and about half the scenes so I'll let myself figure out the rest as I write. But at least I have lots and lots of check points to write toward.

Right now I'm trying to figure out if my SNI is a contemporary with paranormal elements or a paranormal contemporary. I know the basic difference is if the paranormal elements can be pulled and there's still a good story, then it's just paranormal elements. But, I'm still on the line. I guess I have to write it and see how it ends up.

There's been lots of vamp movies on all weekend, too much distraction. I also finished Secret Society Girl, it was great! I was all for Amy + Malcom until I read the Revelation. I'm still trying to decide between George and Brandon. I think I lean toward George because it seems Brandon is the easy choice. If she really wanted Brandon it wouldn't be a tough decision for her. I can't wait until the next one!

Next on the reading list: English as a Second Language by Megan Crane and Conversations with the Fat Girl by Liza Palmer. On a related note, my books from nationals still haven't come via UPS. Anyone on the west coast get theirs? According to their online schedule, the boxes should have arrived Friday. If they don't come tomorrow I'll be very, very upset. If they don't come at all...well...I just won't say.

Weekend o' plotting, here I come

2006-08-04T13:37:00.000-07:00

I'm looking forward to the weekend. My one and only goal and mission, should I choose to accept it (I did, FYI), is to plot out my SNI (for those who missed the last post or forgot, that's my Shiny New Idea).

I typed up all the exercies in the Writing the Breakout Novel workbook into Word so that I can type out answers instead of hand write. My wrist is crooked 45 degrees so longhand hurts after about a page. I'm still just as jazzed about it as before. Turns out upon further inspection that part of the exercises can be done during the plotting process and some can be done during revisions - talk about a multi-purpose book.

Per Michelle's recommendation, I have The Marshall Plan workbook on hold at Border's, which I'll purchase immediately after work today. They asked if three days on hold is enought time. Ha! I only need three hours. So I'll be plotting with that as well.

Since I'm, uh, unique, I'm going to break down my weekend to see how much time I have to plot my book. I consider my weekend beginning tonight at 7 p.m., once I'm done running errands. Let's say my weekend ends at 9 p.m. on Sunday since about then my dog will be crawling on my keyboard demanding attention and I'll have to stop working.

That leaves me with a 50 hour weekend. Minus 20 hours for sleeping (hey, I was at RWA last week, I've got some catching up to do). So 30 hours minus six hours for showering, getting ready, eating, errands, etc.

A full day for plotting. Except, I started reading Secret Society Girl by Diana Peterfreund last night, there's no way I'm not finishing that this weekend. Shave off three hours for that. Okay, 21 hours for plotting. I'll probably read another book because my TBR shelf grew exponentially since last week (gee, I wonder why) so we'll shave another three hours. Eighteen hours left for the weekend. I moved a few weeks ago and still have some boxes to empty, so if I take off four hours for that I've still got 14 left.

That's a lot of plotting time, I hope. It sounds like a lot, but I'm sure that once I dive into it I'll find ways to distract myself or I'll get Plotter's Block. I wonder if that's a real term. If not, I hereby claim it.

Does how my brain works scare you? It scares me. I don't know why I always break things down into number. I hate math!

Here's what I would like from you. If I don't finish plotting by the end of the weekend (my Monday morning post) - how should I be punished? Let's keep it clean folks, there may be children readers. No Diet Coke for a week? No chocolate for a month? No reading blogs for a day? Any other terribly ridiculous idea that will have me plotting like mad so I don't have to partake in the punishment?

Great writing tool

2006-08-03T09:41:00.000-07:00

I, like many, am going through the post-RWA Nationals writing frenzy. I learned a lot and got some great ideas brewing in my mind. Now I want to use them and go full steam ahead on my Shiny New Idea (hereby referred to as SNI.) The truth is that I began the frenzy mid-week of the convention. My poor roommates had to put up with me waking up in the middle of the night, grabbing my pen and paper off the nightstand and writing notes. In the dark. Can you say freak? I sure can.

I decided that I'm going to think about this book by scenes rather than a list of events - to me they're different. I think that will improve the action, pacing and make it easier to plot. So last week I sat down with my $15 lunch (sandwich, soda and fruit cup) and my trusty Alphasmart. I spent an hour coming up with the first five scenes. Aren't there usually 50-60 scenes per book? That's a lot of Alphasmart time. I may actually have to change my batteries.

I realized that I needed a tool to help me plot my book, I'm new at this and just can't do it all on my own. I used some of the First Draft in 30 Days worksheets. Several of them helped get the ball rolling, but for my need at this point in time, it won't get me all the way there.

Then, I remembered that I own Writing the Breakout Novel by Donald Maass and the corresponding workbook. I hadn't looked at it before, but I sat down with them both last night. I skimmed the book then dove into the workbook. Bypassing the explanations and character sections, I jumped to the plot exercises. Holy wedgie Batman! It's just what I'm looking for! (Bear with me, I know this is jumping between present and past tenses.)

It breaks things down into scenes and subplots and threads. It asks questions like:
* What would make your novel's central conflict worse?
* What are the circumstances under which my protagonist(s) would actually fail to solve the problem?
* Assign a character to enact each complication.
* What are some other problems, not related to the central conflict, that your protagonist(s) will face? Use those as subplots.
Etc.

This may look like a nightmare to some of you. But I am a list-obsessed-control-freak-who-needs-medication-yesterday. When I looked through these questions, pieces fell together in my head. It points me in the right direction to the elements that will make a great novel. It helps weave those elements together. And it will help me reach those 50-60 scenes, easily. There are so many little tricks and tips in there. I can't wait to use it! I know what I'm going to do this weekend.

Is there a resource you've found that turned the light on for you?

Oregon druggies have manners too

2006-08-02T18:30:00.000-07:00

My dad was on his way to work the other day, about 3:30 a.m. He stopped at Plaid Pantry to pick up coffee and a paper, as is his morning ritual. There was a man and woman acting fishy and sort of antsy in front of the store.

He went in and bought his stuff. When he came out and started his car, the low oil light, or whatever it's called, was on. He ran back in to buy some oil and when he came out he heard the woman talking on the phone saying something about how she was about to get some money. A few minutes later the guy came up to my dad.

Get this, he apologized, twice, for partaking in a drug deal in front of him. Salem, Oregon is the meth capital of the country so odds are that's what he bought. But hey, you can't say that Oregon druggies don't have manners.

Back from the ATL

2006-08-01T10:05:00.000-07:00

I survived my first RWA national convention. It was a blast! I fully intended to blog each day while in Atlanta with a blow-by-blow of the conference. However, I wasn't willing to spend $13 a day to do that. Damn that's expensive.

So here is a week's worth of posts all in one for your reading pleasure. It's really long, I know!

Flights
I flew standby. Before you gasp and reach out to slap some sense in to me, let me explain. If I were to by a flight to Atlanta from Portland, Oregon. It would have cost about $600. A very nice person who works for an airline offered a reduced rate standby option. That cost $270. So - big price difference. Just about enough to pay for my hotel for the week.

I don't regret my decision to fly this way, but it didn't turn out as I hoped. Let me preface this by saying I only slept two hours on the Sunday night before my trip and three hours the night before that. I wanted a redeye on Monday night so I'd get in to Atlanta at 9:30 on Tuesday. I planned to go to the World of Coke and hang out with my roommates if they had arrived on Tuesday.

I didn't make the redeye. So my mom got to the airport at about 12:30 a.m. to pick me up. I was laying down to go to sleep about 1:30 a.m. Unfortunately, I had to get up at 3:30 a.m. to catch a ride with my dad on his way to work to go back to the airport and try for an early morning flight. For those of you math challenged - that's seven hours of sleep over three nights. I need eight hours a night to function properly. I don't drink coffee either, so don't even bring that up.

Luckily I got on that early morning flight to Dallas. I was told that Dallas-Atlanta is easy, it's in and out of Portland that's hard. I got the first flight out from Dallas I wanted and got in to Atlanta about 5 p.m. I lost my day of sightseeing, but oh well. At least I got there the day I wanted.

The return trip was a different story. I didn't sleep Saturday night because I had to get up at 3:30 to check out and head to the airport. My roommates and I talked until pretty late and I just couldn't sleep. I got to the airport at the buttcrack of dawn. It turns they had an opening in first class, so guess who got it? Me! Yay standby. However, when I should have been celebrating my good luck and soon-to-be-blissful-nap-in-comfortable-airplane-seats, I started panicking. I knew that it was a prepayment for a really shitty day. Don't ask me how I knew, but in my gut I knew the only reason I got first class was because the Karma Police wanted me to get some sleep before spending the rest of the day in an airport.

I landed in Dallas at 7:40 a.m. There was a 9:30 a.m. flight to Portland. I was number 14 on the standby list, needless to say I didn't get on. There was a 12:30 flight, didn't catch that one either. I was moved up to number eight on the standby list. I was starting to panic because I only had a 4:40, 5:50 and 8:10 flight left for that day. If I didn't catch any of them I'd be paying up the ass for a hotel room last minute.

At about 3 p.m. I go up to see how it looks for my chances to get on the plane. I had been bumped down to number 14 on the standby list. The guy at the desk (very unfriendly, they all were when they found out I was standby except for the guy at the gate when I left Atlanta), said he didn't see how I would get on a flight to Portland that day, let alone the next day. They were all oversold and I kept getting bumped down the list by employees of the airline. He said I should look into going to Seattle.

I called my dad to see if he could pick me up if I flew there. He said he could and would take a day off work. So I marched back up to the gate, feeling good about my prospects of leaving the Dallas airport that I had been sitting in for nearly EIGHT hours. With no sleep the night before. He looked on the computer and said that those flights were just as full, but there was one leaving at about 9:30 p.m. So if I didn't make the Portland flights I could try for that one, and stay in a hotel worst case scenario.

Um, sitting in the airport for another SIX hours, a total of 14 hours did not sound pleasant. Especially not knowing how much a hotel would cost, I didn't have extra clothes, and I need to work the next day.

I panicked. I called my dad and had him look on Orbitz for flights from Dallas to Portland. Keep in mind the time was about 3:15. There was one on another airline leaving at 4:30, with a layover in Las Vegas. The price wasn't terrible. The problem was getting on the tram and booking it to the other side of the airport to see about buying the ticket. When I got there, there were in fact seats available. It cost me $250 for a flight from Dallas to Portland. It was delayed a bit and had a three hour layover in Vegas. I wasn't scheduled to land in Portland until 11 p.m.

For those trying to keep track of time zone changes and travel times, let me break it down for you. I woke up to leave the hotel at 3:30 a.m. (east coast time) on Sunday. My flight from Vegas was to land in Portland at 2 a.m. (east coast time) on Monday morning. That was nearly a 24-hour day of traveling. Holy shit, I just worked that out myself and that's a lot of fucking time in airports and planes.

I made peace with the decision to buy a ticket, bringing my air costs to $520. It was still less than if I would have bought the ticket in the first place, but time equals money, ya know? I just reminded myself I had to get home for work and it was only money.

Don't worry - there's an end in sight for my tale of bitching and complaining. When I'm on my way to work Monday, I got a call from the person who hooked my up with the standby (he was really nice throughout the process, checking on flight options for me and getting up in the middle of the night to list me for flights). He told me that, *deep breath*, the 5:50 flight leaving Dallas for Portland had 10 seats that were never filled. One in first class. That means that about 20 people on the oversold flight didn't show up and the 18 people in front of me on the standby list either didn't show up, or made it on the place. I would have gotten to fly first class from Dallas to Portland and saved $250. Fuck. Ing. A. Talk about pissing in Cheerios. I don't regret the decision because how in the hell was I supposed to know that the airline Gods had chosen me to fuck with? It's only money, it's only money (yeah right).

Hotel
I had stayed in that hotel for a conference about eight years ago. I didn't remember it being so expensive! A bottle of coke, turkey sandwich and bag of chips ran me about $13. Good lawd that's a lot of money.

The hotel staff I talked to while walking through the hotel were very friendly. The staff in Grandstand and Champions were a totally different story.

On our first night the three of us went to Grandstand for some drinks. We sat at a table, merrily talking for twenty minutes or so. No service. Three seats opened up at the bar so we moved. Another half an hour or so go by before the guy took our drink orders. It was ridiculous. That was the story every time we went there. We would watch other people get two drinks before we got our first and when we'd ask for drinks he'd say "just a minute." Sheesh.

The rooms were great though, very comfortable beds. And it was easy to meet people in the centralized areas. I just hope the food is cheaper at the hotel in Dallas.

Roommates
On Tuesday, Elisabeth and I hung out in the hotel room for a while, hoping that our other roommate Alice would arrive before we went out to dinner. After a while our stomachs won and we trekked to Hard Rock in the humid heat (nothing compared to the weather we had in Oregon the weekend before - topping at 107 degrees!). I ordered my favorite Hard Rock meal, a pulled pork sandwich. I also splurged and got a Hurricane and paid for the glass. It was $11, but it equaled about three drinks at any other bar, so a good deal if you ask me. Elisabeth had a Hypnotiq Tea and holy crapola it was yummy!

When we got back to the hotel we decided to walk around and check out the pool. As we're walking on the Garden Terrace level, we hear "Elisabeth!" Low and behold it was Alice! Here is a near-accurate reenactment of the conversation:

Elisabeth: "Alice! When did you get here?"

Alice: "This afternoon. Didn't you see my bags in the room?"

Elisabeth: "No. Did you?" She turned to me. I shook my head.

Alice: "Did you get the notes I've been leaving you?"

Elisabeth: "No...have you been getting mine?"

Alice: "No...uh, what room are you in?"

Elisabeth: "2632."

Alice: "I'm in 609! (or whatever it was)"

We proceed to the front desk to reconcile the situation. It turned out that although we were all supposed to be in 2632, they made a booboo and put Alice in the wrong room. But we got it fixed.

I had a blast with my roommates. We got along great and had lots of fun teasing each other and giggling like fools. All that was missing was a pillow fight in our underwear. They even put up with my newbie energy and helped me with some brainstorming. While we were there Alice found out that her intrigue "My Sister, Myself" hit the Waldenbooks Top 10 list!!! The sequel is at stores now, called "Duplicate Daughter."

People
The literary signing on Wednesday was awesome. Elisabeth, who was interested in the romantic suspense authors, and moi, interested in paranormal authors, walked up and down the rows meeting our favorite authors and taking pictures of each other with them.

A highlight for me was meeting Michelle Rowen. I'm an addict of her blog and books and was jazzed to meet her in person. I got a super cute photo of us (will post later when Blogger stops being a bitch.) And I love the smiley face she turns into an angel when she signs her books. Clever Michelle, very clever.

I wanted to meet Stephanie Rowe as well. But, I was alphabetically challenged that evening and didn't stop to think that Stephanie would be right next to Michelle (Rowe - Rowen.) So I went back there later and met her. She's so nice!

I was also excited to meet Susan Grant. I was lucky enough to get to read "Your Planet or Mine" before it came out. It's fantastic! She's really sweet too.

The next night I went to the Mysteria booksigning at the Border's across town. It was only supposed to be a couple of blocks up from the Marta station. It was actually a few blocks up, several blocks down the hills and several blocks up again. Well worth the trek though. MaryJanice Davidson, Susan Grant, Gena Showalter and P.C. Cast were there. The four of them are fantastic! And really, really, really funny. I can't wait to read the book. I shared a cab ride back with some great ladies from a Seattle chapter. Woo woo PNW!

I also met some of the lovely ladies at Romance Divas. I didn't make it to the event but luckily I ran across several of them throughout the week. It was great to put faces to people I've been talking to for months! I'll post a pic later of some of us, again, once blogger stops being a bitch.

Everyone was very friendly throughout the conference. I'm an introverted person unless I know someone well. But I really felt like I could come out of my shell a bit at the conference. I love RWA.

Workshops
I started out the week by religiously attending the workshops. I had a couple of "a-ha!" moments, but nothing too profound. I felt my time was spent just as good by working on my new book idea. A couple of the workshops I wanted were full. Overall the workshops were okay. By the end of the week I was choosing booksignings over workshops. I still learned a ton over the week though and met lots of great people.

Food
I wanted to hurl at the first luncheon. The salad was good and the rolls, top notch bread. But when the main course arrived, yikes! I don't eat chicken on bones. I don't like cook vegetables. And I really hate mashed, cooked, cauliflower that tries to replace potatoes. At least I thought it was mashed cauliflower. I took a bite, almost barfed, then learned it was grits. Fucking gross is what they were.

I don't eat much red meat either so the steak the next day wasn't very appetizing. Especially since it was mostly fat. Thank god for potatoes though. The desserts were yummy both days.

I loved the sandwiches at Atrium Express. Even though they cost a ton, they were really good for pre-prepared sandwiches. I'm actually craving one right now. Lots of yummy, fresh turkey on a croissant. One night I ordered room service and it was really good. A turkey club. Mmm mmm mmm.

Books
My roommates lovingly call me a book whore now. I ended up with over 100 books. I only bought about 15 of them. Some are going to our chapter for our workshop next month, I'm putting together the goody bags and gift baskets. But the rest are mine, all mine. Muhahahahhahaha! I shipped four boxes home. USPS wasn't open so I couldn't do media mail...my only option was UPS ground. I still don't know how much it cost because the hotel didn't put it on my room bill by the time I checked out. They'll probably just charge me for it later. Bastards. I wonder when they'll even ship the books.

I can't wait until they arrive. I rearranged my bookcase to accommodate my needed TBR space. I'll post a photo once it's done.

Long-winded, I know. But it was an eventful week, even if I didn't crash any cool parties. My new goal is to be on the other side of the tracks by the San Francisco conference in two years - published. I've got myself a great book idea and a can-do attitude and I'm ready to roll.

Optical illusions

2006-07-20T12:33:00.000-07:00

Read out loud the text inside the triangle below.

More than likely you said, "A bird in the bush," and.......
if this IS what YOU said, then you failed to see
that the word THE is repeated twice!
Sorry, look again.

Next, let's play with some words.
What do you see?

In black you can read the word GOOD, in white the word EVIL (inside each black letter is a white letter). It's all very physiological too, because it visualize the concept that good can't exist without evil (or the absence of good is evil ).

Now, what do you see?

You may not see it at first, but the white spaces read the word optical, the blue landscape reads the word illusion. Look again! Can you see why this painting is called an optical illusion?

What do you see here?

This one is quite tricky!
The word TEACH reflects as LEARN.
Last one.

What do you see?

You probably read the word ME in brown, but.......
when you look through ME
you will see YOU!

ALZHEIMERS' EYE TEST

Count every " F" in the following text:

FINISHED FILES ARE THE RE

SULT OF YEARS OF SCIENTI

FIC STUDY COMBINED WITH

THE EXPERIENCE OF YEARS...

(SEE BELOW)

HOW MANY ?

WRONG, THERE ARE 6 -- no joke.

READ IT AGAIN !

Really, go Back and Try to find the 6 F's before you scroll down.

The reasoning behind is further down.

The brain cannot process "OF".

Incredible or what? Go back and look again!! Anyone who counts all 6 "F's" on the first go is a genius. Three is normal, four is quite rare. (My dad and I both got 3. I tried it several times before I scrolled down and still couldn't find them.)

Why am I so tired?

2006-07-20T12:06:00.000-07:00

Why am I tired?
For a couple years I've been blaming it on lack of sleep, not enough sunshine, too much pressure from my job, earwax buildup, poor blood or anything else I could think of. But now I found out the real reason:
I'm tired because I'm overworked.
Here's why:. .
The population of this country is 273 million.
140 million are retired.
That leaves 133 million to do the work.
There are 85 million in school.
Which leaves 48 million to do the work.
Of this there are 29 million employed by the federal government.
Leaving 19 million to do the work.
2.8 million are in the armed forces preoccupied with killing Osama Bin-Laden.
Which leaves 16.2 million to do the work.
Take from that total the 14.8 million people who work for state and city governments.
And that leaves 1.4 million to do the work.
At any given time there are 188,000 people in hospitals.
Leaving 1,212,000 to do the work.
Now, there are 1,211,998 people in prisons.
That leaves just two people to do the work.
You and me.
And there you are sitting on your ass,
at your computer, reading jokes.
Nice. Real nice.

Is it Sept. 5 yet?

2006-07-19T11:34:00.000-07:00

I'm going to request September 5 off of work. Can you guess why? It's the release of Lover Awakened, the latest book in J.R. Ward's Black Dagger Brotherhood Series. Zsadist's story. That's going to be some steamy stuff. And there's no way I'll make it through the work day waiting to read it when I get home. So, I'll use a vacation day.

I keep reading the excerpt to it to help pass the time. I think I've read it so much I can recite it. Well, to my surprise there is now an excerpt for Lover Revealed. Man o man does that look like it will be good. The emotion and sexiness packed in just that little excerpt is incredible. She's a fantastic writer.

This brings me to a question. On the "brothers" page on J.R.'s site it reads: "Tohrment: the steady one, the calm one. He is the one whose betrayal by fate will cut the deepest."

How do you interpret that? That he will betray the Brotherhood and it will cut them the deepest? Or he will be betrayed by fate and he will be cut the deepest? I just can't stand the thought of him betraying the Brotherhood.

Her Pinkness, my inner-Diva with pinkitude says: "Lisa, it's fiction. Chill your ass out. They. Aren't. Real."

Blogger ate my posts

2006-07-18T09:20:00.000-07:00

Well, the few posts I did in the last week have disappeared. Blogger decided to eat them. Grrr.

In other news, I leave for Atlanta on Monday night. Woohoo! My first RWA conference and I am very excited about it. I've picked out all of the workshops I'm going to and I'll post that schedule this week. Maybe some of you are going to the same ones.

I signed up to volunteer at the registration table all day Wednesday, but I'm first on the waiting list. If I make it in there, be sure to stop by and say hi. I'd love to meet you all.

So, who else is going to Atlanta? Anyone want to bring me to some publisher parties ;-) *wink* *wink*

Review: Angel with Attitude by Michelle Rowen

2006-07-09T09:42:00.000-07:00

From the back cover:

Falling naked into the killer whale tank at MarineLand is always bad news, but it's a real bummer when you've just been kicked out of Heaven. Former angel Valerie Grace is determined to reverse her banishment -- Earth's just no fun. Her best friend is a slightly perverted human-turned-rat (note to self: never cross a powerful witch) and she's being tailed by a sexy Tempter Demon named Nathaniel who's trying to lure her to Hell with kisses that are almost worth the trip.

With the talking rodent sneaking peeks down her shirt and Nathaniel getting more irresistible every minute, this ex-angel has only one hope: find the stolen Key to Heaven and go home. Then the oddest thing happens -- Nathaniel starts to show signs of loyalty and love. And soon Val is asking herself if it is such a bad thing to have the hots for a demon.

Let me start by saying - I loved it. Michelle Rowen's writing and wit really works for me. When I'm looking for a light, humorous read there are only a few authors I know I can turn to and get what I'm looking for and Rowen is definitely in that category.

The concept of this book was great. A fallen angel named Valerie Grace (I love the name) must face a tempter demon whose sole purpose is to tempt her down to hell, while she's trying to make her way back to Heaven. She has no idea why she was kicked out of paradise and when she eventually learns the reason, it doesn't make any sense. But Rowen's great writing helps the reader understand why she was kicked out, even if Grace didn't.

The secondary characters like Reggie the womanizer-turned-rat by his witchy girlfriend, and the seven-foot-tall demon who writes romances, kept the book very entertaining. The reader meets a lot of other creative characters while Grace takes a trip to the Underworld to obtain the Key to Heaven, namely biker fairies.

Rowen did a great job with the plot throughout the book and the conflict. How can there not be conflict when the hero and heroine are an angel and a demon? I also appreciated how Rowen was able to make Nathaniel, the hero, lovable even while he was doing his demonic duties.

I would also like to say that I really liked the ending and the twist at the end (I won't give it away) of why Valerie was kicked from Heaven. It was a realistic ending, which is a nice turn from many romances that end unbelievably with the hero and heroine getting married after knowing each other less than a week. You'll still get your happily ever after ending, don't worry!

If you're looking for a funny, creative book with entertaining and lovable characters, and fresh ideas (a rarity these days), then run out and get Angel with Attitude. Click on the picture above to go straight to Amazon to order it, and while you're at it grab her first book Bitten & Smitten. She's currently working on the sequel to that.

Also, swing by my Web site to read an informative interview with Rowen where she shares with us how she writes and edits her books. I'm always fascinated to learn how other people write, and I love to pick up tips.

Contests scores: part 2

2006-07-03T09:49:00.000-07:00

Let me start by apologizing for not being on here much lately. I just moved. It sucked. Hard. End of rant. Wait, I need to add that dads are awesome to have around. Mine has been a lifesaver with this move. And my cute little house is ADORABLE. I'll post pictures.

On to the main reason for this post: another contest entry. I entered two contests about the same time. The feedback from the first results I got back were helpful. There was criticism, but it was constructive. So I'm ok with that.

You know how people always say that contest feedback ranges quite a bit. And how everyone will probably get feedback from one judge that maybe went a little too far. Well, I'm proud to say I'm a member of that club. I just got results from the other contest I entered - same entry as the other. I was judged by two people, one was published in something outside of romance and the other was unpublished.

This contest included a sheet with scores and rankings for all of the other entrants in that category. I received the lowest score the published author gave, 15 points below the next lowest. I was middle of the pack for the unpublished author. However, the average between the two put me in last place because of the published author's score. Oh well, I wasn't in it to win. I was in it for feedback.

But this feedback - yikes! I'm going to break it down for you. First of all, the scorings were a scale of 1-5, 5 being the best. Everything was 1s and 2s except I got a 5 on "do you as a reader feel the emotions of the main characters" (sweet!) and I got a 3 on "do you get a vivid picture from the writing." I felt good about that, obviously compared to everything else those were things that this person liked. And those were things I didn't think I did well, so maybe I did better than I thought.

These are direct quote comments from the published author of something other than romance (I cut out a lot of comments directly relating to events in the story or plot points, this is general stuff):
* like about heroine - "she knows a hottie when she sees one"
* dislike about heroine - "she's a lemming. No brains. A chick lit bimbo"
* favorite parts of story - "description of the hottie; good sexual tension"
* parts of the story that didn't resonate - "her voice - standard chick lit with no originality; her stupidity; excessive efforts to be sassy; plot is dumb"
* "if you stop trying to imitate a chick lit voice you will find you already have a voice that works fine (but what if my voice is naturally chick lit-ish?)"
* "lot to like here but it's 'like' totally buried in chick lit bullshit verbiage"
* "cut all the explaining, the head chatter and the girly-girl crap"

I whole-heartedly appreciate the time this person put into the feedback and for pointing out holes in the story. He/she filled out the score sheet thoroughly and took extra time to write suggestions and comments on the back of two pages. And this person practically line edited the entry. I'm really thankful for that, especially with the number of entrants in the category.

The unpublished author gave me a much higher score, but didn't leave any comments or suggestions. I would have liked to know why some of the things worked for this person. Even though I was a bit put off by the published author's brashness, this person took a lot of time and energy on my entry. Thank you.

So, there's a contest entry folks. I made it through another one. My skin must be thicker than I gave it credit for because I'm not in the least deterred by it or upset that someone thought it didn't do well.

Tag, I'm it

2006-06-26T09:28:00.000-07:00

Thanks for the tag Karmela :-)

Man, this was hard to think of.

1. A song by the first band you liked:
Anything by the Monkees. Davy Jones, *sigh*

2. A song that makes you think of your best friend:
Sweet Home Alabama by Lynyrd Skynyrd. Nobody rocks the house when that song comes on like the Stanimal, baby.

3. A song by the first band you saw in concert:
I know I saw several bands when I was a wee one in concert, but this is the first concert I really remember. New Kids on the Block, the song is Step by Step. I remember driving from Portland to Seattle. All the other girls had painted stuff on their cars and would flash the universal peace sign to each other up I-5. It was rad.

4. A song that reminds you of college/school:
College Girls are Easy by Easy E. I think that's who sings it. I thought that song was hilarious, I blasted it from my stereo on my dorm room as my first taste of rebellion.

5. A song that makes you think of a boyfriend/girl (love) past or present:
I Knew I Loved You by Savage Garden.

I tag:
Elisabeth Naughton
Piper Lee
Paty Yager

Studmuffin of the day

2006-06-14T14:24:00.000-07:00

This gorgeous specimen of a man goes against my "type" in so many ways. But, I still can't get enough of him on Supernatural (great show, by the way). He's tough, but sincere. A smart ass, but caring. He would fit the bill of an alpha pretty well I think. Maybe I'll use him for inspiration in an upcoming book. There's a lot to work with!

Jensen Ackles

Is there anyone you love who goes against your traditional type?

Watch your language people!

2006-06-13T11:18:00.000-07:00

Not profanity, no. I don't mind that. It's the repetitive language in romance novels, the kind that sticks out in your mind and makes you take pause when you read it again and again. Sometimes this comes in the form of purple prose. I know when I read too many "his throbbing sword of passion aimed right toward my velvet petals of desire," I tend to second guess my interest in the book. Sidenote: I haven't read that sentence in a book, but I vow I will find a way to work in to the one I'm working on ;-)

I thought of this rant for today because of several books I've read lately. They are all from the same series. I love the author, I love the books, but the repetitive language has me taken pause dozens of times in each book. I'm tired of reading the same phrases over and over. I feel like the creativity of the language is gone, almost like it's a list of phrases that are inserted rather than organic writing.

Here are examples of some phrasing that is used over and over in the books:

velvet sheath
rippling muscles
molten fire in his eyes
lightening sizzling and arcing across the sky
spilling breasts
tongues of fire lapping over her body

I knew to watch for purple prose, but I don't consider the above purple prose. It's some nice phrasing that's used too often. When I say too often, I mean at least once a chapter in each book (approximately).

Part of it comes from reading these books back to back so these phrases stick out more. But it's becoming increasingly difficult to keep reading because some of the scenes feel formulaic with the repetitive phrasing.

I know that when a love scene comes up, I'm going to know his eyes are molten, lightening will strike, her velvet sheath will pulsate and tongues of fire will be a-lapping. It takes some of the fun and fantasy away.

But, I will still read books from this author because I love the plots and characters. They are just becoming slightly less enjoyable.

I know that when my book is finished, I'm going to find a fresh person to read it - just looking for repetitive language like this. I don't want to take any chances.

Writing progress

2006-06-12T09:00:00.000-07:00

Do you want the good news or bad news?

Let's get the worst of it done then. According to the schedule I gave myself last month, I should be waaaaaaay closer to the end than I am. I wanted to have a solid draft done before RWA for agent/editor appointments. But, I didn't get an appointment. However, I hope to do a walk-up pitch - if I can grow the cajones. So - need to get crack-a-lackin.

The good news is I began incorporating the contest feedback yesterday. I hope to have that finished up today so I can send it off to a wonderful person who offered to rip it apart. Thank you! :-) Ripping apart is good, that's the only way to make it better. A friend of mine thinks I'm crazy for wanting someone to tell me what's wrong with it. But as I told her, I'd rather hear it from someone critiquing me than an agent or editor and get rejected.

I still hope to have a good draft by RWA. I'm going to have a lot more free time pretty soon. In the meantime, I'm trying to work out some plot kinks and do a little outlining. I'm taking part in an online plot workshop right now. I'll let y'all know how it goes once it's over.

I'm also reading lots of articles on showing vs. telling. That's a weakness of mine. I'm a big teller.

Here's the big countdown folks: 42 days until I leave for RWA Nationals. I signed up to work the registration table all day Wednesday, so hopefully I'll meet those of you I only know online.

I will leave you today with a pearl of my wisdom, savor it as it may be my last: I became a writer so I could tell. If I wanted to show, wouldn't I be a painter?

I'm back...and got my first contest scores

2006-06-07T09:43:00.000-07:00

Wow...I didn't realize it's been this long since my last post. It's not out of laziness, I assure you. Things in life have taken me away to other, more personal things. But I'm back on the schedule, or will be tomorrow :-)

A few days ago I got my scores for the first contest I entered. I entered it for feedback and to get a feel for whether or not people like my voice. I always figured that fixing problems with plot, pacing and characters is more attainable than changing my natural voice.

Luckily, the two who reviewed me liked my voice. I had other problems, but I expected that. One person gave me 121/150. The other gave me 90/150. I was actually very proud of myself. I didn't feel depressed or upset about my scores, I was more excited about some of the comments. Maybe I'm in a weird emotional place or something because I fully expected to throw myself over the balcony or something with some criticism.

Maybe I have thick skin after all. That's a very exciting revelation. It could stem from the fact that I write in my day job too. I never thought about that until I began writing this.

This contest gave a nicely detailed grading sheet. So does the other one I entered, but I'm still waiting for those results. That was one of the reasons I entered both of them, more bang for my buck.

The biggest problem I had was reading the comments. I haven't written cursive much, so reading it is somewhat difficult. I can only make out about half the comments on one judging because of the cursive. I'll probably bring it to my next RWA meeting for some help in deciphering :-)

So here are some of the comments I received - in case any of you have never entered a contest and are curious about the types of feedback.

From 121/150 scorer

Lots of passive (I thought I had done well in eliminating most of that, back to the drawing board)
Lots of strong images (I thought I did a poor job in that area, nice to know someone disagreed)
Good sense of heroine, not so good sense of hero (I'm writing in first person in the heroine's voice, so getting a good sense of the hero right away without dialogue will be tough)
Dialogue a little awkward and formal (and I thought I was too casual)
Good balance of action and narrative so far (woohoo!)
Five senses aren't present (that one I knew, need to work on it)
Strong voice/original voice in writing (yessssssss! I knew my odd sense of humor would pay off!)
They are going to be pretty hot (that surprised me most of all, I thought my sexual tension wasn't believeable and was lacking, I may be on the right track)
Love the premise in the synopsis (oh yeah, baby!)

From 90/150 scorer (I couldn't read many of the comments because of cursive, back to school for me)

The heroine comes off very (?-can't read the cursive - I think it says nosey or manly) in this segment. (the judge marked know when asked if they liked the hero/heroine, ouch, got to work on that)
I think you've got a great plot (why thank you kindly)
You're dialogue is very witty and amusing (stop, you're making me blush)
I really struggled to get a mental picture as I was reading this (done with the flattery, eh?)
Way too much backstory and telling (I agree with the telling part, I struggle with that, but I thought I did a good job of diving into the conflict and weaving in details throughout)
Your strengths are your plot and humorous dialogue, work on pacing and description (will do)

And now that I'm thinking about these comments, I'm not obsessing over the criticism and suggestions. Rather, I'm saying to myself - "They like my voice! They think I'm witty and humorous! I wanted to come across as witty and humorous and it just might be working. Maybe I can be successful as a funny, paranormal writer after all. Woohoo!" Then I remember that I have to actually finish the damn thing.

Moral of the story is contests can be a good thing if you pull out what you want and discard the rest. They can help confirm what you thought was or wasn't working. And, if you have pretty stationary like I do, you can use it for thank you cards.

Joke of the day

2006-05-26T10:59:00.000-07:00

THE DOG'S DIARY:
7 am- Oh boy! A walk! My favorite!
8 am- Oh boy! Dog food! My favorite!
9 am- Oh boy! The kids! My favorite!
Noon- Oh boy! The yard! My favorite!
2 pm- Oh boy! A car ride! My favorite!
3 pm- Oh boy! The kids! My favorite!
4 pm- Oh boy! Playing ball! My favorite!
6 pm- Oh boy! Welcome home Mum! My favorite!
7 pm- Oh boy! Welcome home Dad! My favorite!
8 pm- Oh boy! Dog food! My favorite!
9 pm- Oh boy! Tummy rubs on the couch! My favorite!
11 pm- Oh boy! Sleeping in my people's bed! My favorite!

THE CAT'S DIARY:
Day 183 of my captivity...

My captors continued to taunt me with bizarre little dangling objects. They dine lavishly on fresh meat, while I am forced to eat dry cereal. The only thing that keeps me going is the hope of escape, and the mildsatisfaction I get from clawing the furniture. Tomorrow I may eat another house plant. Today my attempt to kill my captors by weaving around their feet while they were walking almost succeeded. Maybe I should try this at the top of the stairs.

In an attempt to disgust and repulse these vile oppressors, I once again induced myself to vomit on their favourite chair - must try this on their bed. Decapitated a mouse and brought them the headless body in an attemptto make them aware of what I am capable of, and to try to strike fear into their hearts. They only cooed and condescended about what a good little kitty cat I was. This is not working according to plan.

There was some sort of gathering of their accomplices. I was placed insolitary confinement throughout the event. However, I could hear the noise and smell the food. More important, I overheard that my confinement was due to my powers of inducing something called"allergies." Must learn what this is and how to use it to my advantage. I am convinced the other captives are flunkies and maybe snitches.

The dog is routinely released and seems more than happy to return. He is obviously a half-wit.The bird, on the other hand, has got to be an informant. He speaks with them regularly, and I am certain he reports my every move. Due to his current placement in the metal room, his safety is assured.

But I can wait. It's only a matter of time.

Pandora

2006-05-25T11:29:00.000-07:00

Didn't I tell you that I'd be posting in addition to the schedule? Ha! I didn't lie.

Check out this kick ass music site. Type in a band or song you like, and it grabs similar type music, a lot from lesser known artists. Then you click on "guide me" and tell it if you did or didn't like the song. It adjusts the station accordingly to your preferences. Pretty groovy.

Pace

2006-05-25T08:36:00.000-07:00

Not the salsa, story pace. This is something I've though a lot about in the last few days, especially with the short story I'm working on for the Phaze Samba contest.

When you have 5k-12k to tell a story, moving to slow is a constant worry. Multiply that into an 80-100k novel - it's a major concern. As writers, we hope that someone will devote several hours, at least, to reading our book - finishing it - and liking it.

There are lots of things that can turn a reader off from a book, but I know that if the pacing is fine, I'm more forgivable in other areas because I want to see what happens next. So what if the heroine gets on my nerves a bit, I want to find out if she finds the missing sword to Babylon. However, if pacing is slow, I find myself much more critical of everything else.

This past week or so, I've been reading like crazy. I think I finished five novels. Half of them had great pacing and you know what? I went to those authors Web sites to find out when their next books were coming out. The other books with slow pacing, I didn't bother. I forced myself to finish two of them because I'm not someone who can start a book and not finish it.

So, after reading several articles on help with pacing, I've gleaned a few things that writers should watch out for that could slow down pacing:

Opening with backstory or not jumping right into the conflict - reader may not be hooked right away and you may never get their attention back
Long chunks of narrative - dialogue seems key to moving pace, and action, along
Info dumps, flashbacks, and backstory - good writers can weave in backstory without making it obvious...hopefully I'll get to that point soon ;-)
Characters thinking, analyzing, talking things out with themselves, etc - use dialogue with someone else to put that info forth
Useless scenes - if it doesn't move the plot and story forward, cut it out, who cares if the heroine is allergic to water, unless it ties directly to the plot
Predictability - nothing seems more annoying to me than guessing the ending early on, then reading just to see if I was wrong then finding out I wasn't and having wasted that chunk of my life on reading a predictable book
Too much explanation - a writer needs to assume the reader will have some level of understanding coming in, so there's no need to explain simple things that don't need to be explained

I need to apply these things to my work...

Studmuffin Wednesday

2006-05-24T11:05:00.000-07:00

There's no better way to kick off the new Studmuffin Wednesday feature than Gerard Butler. In a pink shirt. And a kilt. Three of my favorite things all rolled up into one. Sigh.

Critique partners

2006-05-23T11:17:00.000-07:00

Lately I've been thinking a lot about critique partners. It seems that most successful writers as well as the aspiring authors that I know have critique partners, good ones. I keep seeing workshops by critique partners who are also best friends or blogs shared by CPs. The CP relationship, at least the ones that work out, seem to be a strong bond and friendship.

How does one go about finding CPs that fit well with your needs and strengths? Many of the CPs I've seen met online and live in different parts of the country. How do they meet? Loop postings looking for CPs? Onling critique services? Meeting at conferences? Through contests?

Once you have found someone who may be a good fit for a CP, how do you foster that relationship? What are the unwritten rules for CPs?

I've shared critiques with a couple of fantastic women I've met online. But it hasn't taken off becuase we didn't have things to share at the same time, or life got in the way. The common things that happen.

I know many without CPs turn to online critique groups or boards. I've tried that too, but I feel like I have to get my work to some level of polishing before I'll put it out there. But I want someone who can read my brain spew of draft 0 and let me know if they feel I'm on the right track or not before I spend tons of time editing and revising.

There seem to be so many things to worry about too, especially when you only know people online. What if you start sharing work with someone but it just isn't working. How do you end it without being a bitch? There's also the concern of sharing work with someone in the same genre and purposely or accidentally absorbing the other persons ideas. It probably doesn't happen often, but I've seen several horror stories on loops about that. What if you're not sure you would be a good CP yourself? I know I'm not sure. Do I have what it takes to spot a sagging middle or to help someone strengthen the likeability of the hero? I have no freaking clue.

I would love to find one or two people to build that bond with. A CP that I can talk to and say, "I've got an idea. This is what I'm thinking, but I'm struggling with this. What do you think?" And they may have ideas I never thought of. And visa versa.

I would like to make a connection with someone while we pursue our writing careers. Someone to share the ups and downs. Help with looking over those first three chapters one more time before sending them to a requesting agent. Or consoling over the woes of the latest rejection.

I think the best thing for me to do is just keep meeting people online and eventually I'll find that one (or two) person who could be a critique partner, and friend.

Those of you who have CPs, I would love to hear how you found them. How long did you look for them? What works with your relationship? Those who don't have CPs, how do you go about finding them?

Blog schedule

2006-05-23T11:01:00.000-07:00

In an effort to make my blog more interesting and update it as often as I should, I've created a schedule. It seems to work for others, why not me? This way I can squeeze in all the silly stuff I want without looking like a randomized lunatic.

Here 'tis:
Monday - Writing update as I will have probably done most of the week's writing on Sunday...
Tuesday - Rant on something about life or writing, I'm sure I'll always have something
Wednesday - Hot guy to spice up the middle of the week
Thursday - Writing tips I steal from more experienced people
Friday - Silly stuff (quizzes, jokes, funny pictures, etc)
Saturday - Writing prompt to get our creative juices flowing
Sunday - Book review

And of course I'll add oddball stuff here and there. As I've mentioned before, I like lists. They make me happy. I like schedules. They also make me happy. Thus a blog schedule makes me very happy. I am now at peace.

Let's see, it's Tuesday so I must prepare a rant.

Lisa Pulliam

MySpace and Facebook

Long enough break

Rated R - naughty me

Obsessive is the way to go

Did you miss me?

Holy accents, Batman!

2007 To Do List

A humorous post for you kilt aficionados

Shitty day...cont'd

Shitty day update

Warning: Loads of whining ahead

Bite the bullet

What is the Internet?

I'm a slacker

Puzzle Pirates

I'm baaaaaaaaaaaaaack

Away for the weekend

Confession

A special birthday today

Thursday Thirteen

Tag, I'm it!

Wednesday round-up

Halloween, aaaaaaaah!

Weed out the fib

Ass Flasher R-Us

Wardrobe malfunction

Thursday Thirteen

I have 69 years left

My personal Hell

Video day

Huge pink pen!

Link

Avoidance behavior

Love story of my generation

Thursday Thirteen

More editing

Dogs rule part 2

Dogs rule

Stupid utility company

Other blog post

Editing

NaNoWriMo time already? Holy crapoly batman

Romance is NOT porn

Emerald City recap

Check out this blog

Spiders. Not cool.

Pitches, bitches

Bring back Jeff!

Emerald City, here I come

And so it begins

Jokes to enhance your Saturday

Research

Devil Dog

Can I borrow $30k?

Sweet inspiration

Hero help

Grey's Anatomy

Celebrity look-alikes

45 Master Characters

Random round-up

It's gone

Multiple WIPs

Page 103

D-Day

I LOVE this book

2005 was a good year

13 days! Really?

Too early for Halloween costume shopping?

Oh the memories

Great reads

Sweet inspiration

Writing goals

Atlanta pics

My books arrived

I get to keep my Diet Coke

Weekend 'o plotting going well

Weekend o' plotting, here I come

Great writing tool

Oregon druggies have manners too