My Daughter

Well, got through all the open houses and freshman orientations today. Phew. I even filled out all the paperwork needed. I wish they could just use the same paperwork I filled out last year. Nothing has changed.

My daughter is sitting at the desktop computer and I'm on the laptop. We're both writing. I'm so pleased that she is because she has a wonderful imagination. Of course she reads what she has to me every few paragraphs. Its a tad distracting, but I'm not going to complain.

Okay, there was no point to this post. Just a space filler.

It's The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year

Ah yes, the kids go back to school tomorrow.

My favorite commercial is the Staples commercial where the Dad is going through Staples getting the kids their school supplies and he's dancing and joyful and his kids are following behind, dragging their feet, heads down, looking miserable. Hehehe. But actually my kids are looking forward to going back. It means new schools for two of my kids as one moves on to high school (yikes) and one to middle school. And my youngest is still in elementary. How the heck am I supposed to keep track of this?

Well, its been over 2 months and still no word on Where One Road Leads. Yah, I'm trying not to think about it, but it hard not to do.

Time to get child #1 ready for her freshman orientation. I remember my freshman orientation. Joy.

Not.

More on the POV thingie and jumping in too soon

Well, I took care of some of the POV stuff in my first chapter and I'm working on chapter two. Now I'm faced with another question. Alright, I always intended this story to be spicey. I wrote it with a Blaze kinda publisher in mind. But at the opening of chapter two my H & h are already embarking on the DEED. Is that too soon, even for a Blaze kinda book? I've been thinking about what I can add to delay this plunge even for a coupla chapters. See, it was originally a novella so things had to run a little faster. Not that I'm personally uncomfortable with them charging full speed ahead, but I'm thinking what's marketable.

Or am I just thinking too much and not writing enough.

On other fronts, while its Saturday and I have my long workday ahead of me there've been some changes at the office. Internet surfing has been banned *gulp* and I don't know if I can even sneak in some writing. Its all work work work. Our eeevil CEO quit (or thats the story thats circulating-I think he may have been asked to quit), we have an acting president who is just as tough and who's in the office daily as opposed to the infrequent appearances by the former pres. And the owner of the company, the big kahuna, will be in on Monday. Don't know what that will mean. We've only seen him once and he didn't even say hello to us peons. Now maybe he'll deal with us.

So, don't know what the day will hold. Will bring my memory stick with me just in case, but I doubt I'll get any writing done.

The POV thing

I'm ready to start giving up on breaking up scenes for the POV thing. I've been trying to put astriks between the changes in POV but that is beginning to look awkward and I think it chops things up more than it has to. I really really try not to head hop and I think I do a pretty good job of it, but there are times, like with my current wip that I find myself going from one head to another a little too frequently. I honestly don't think it's confusing, but it wouldn't be for me, now would it.

My instincts tell me to just go with what is naturally flowing and worry about it later. If others think that it needs to be fixed than I can fix it. But I don't want to stunt my baby's growth right now.

So I'm going to pull a Nora and write the way the story is coming to me and be damned if its not right.

hehehe.

At least I'm writing.

Oh what a sad sad teen I was

Pathetic, in fact.

I found my old journal. I began it in 1981 when I was about 15 years old or so. Oh. My. God. Was I really that pathetic???? And fickle. Well, that I can believe. I was in love with just about every cute guy in my school, but dating no one. If anyone remembers the show "Square Pegs" (where Sarah Jessica Parker got her start), or perhaps Romy & Michelle's High School Reunion. Yah, that was me.

Where in the world... no, why in the world did I ever think I could be a cheerleader??? LOL Yah, I can laugh about it now. And get a little sad about it because I dont want my kids to feel the way I felt then. Not that my childhood was that bad, really, but this journal is so angst sodden that I could wring it out.

There has to be a story in this somewhere... some Judy Blume-ish kind of book.

Sometimes I wish I could go back and do it all over again, knowing what I know now, and make different choices. I wonder where I'd be now.

Yah, I could definitely write a story, starring me. hehehehe.

But I'd give myself a fabulous, purely fictional ending.

When Good Ideas Go Bad

I thought I had a Eureka! moment the other day! I've been wracking my brain trying to come up with a great plot for the 3rd part of my current wip. The first two siblings had good, emotional stories to tell, but the third and final one really didn't have much of anything interest, no real conflict.

The stories deal with blackmarket adoptions and I finally came up with a great reason why this guys "parents" went to those extremes to adopt him. Then I thought, hmmm... mom could go away and pretend to be pregnant and then come back with the baby who everyone would assume was hers.

But as I was plotting it out I had an "Oh Sh**" moment.

The "baby" is 3 years old when he's adopted. Explain that!

So, its back to square one.

What is Seamus's big emotional story???????? Besides his inability to make any sort of a commitment.

Borrowing

Oops. I'm doing my rewrites of my novella which I'm going to turn into a full length (some how) and I've come to my first kissy scene and I realize that I lent it out to another manuscript, one that is going to be published by Samhain. So dern it, now I have to come up with another good kissy scene. Okay, that shouldn't be too much of a problem. Just have to be in the right mood for it.

At least I got some writing done today, which is good. Now I have to do some more... and some plotting for part 3 of the book.

Okay, this is a short post. Its late and I have to be outa here early in the a.m. So much for sleeping in on my one day off.

Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes

Its official. At work I'm moving from the call center to the mail center. Well, thats just down the hall to the "big" room. I get my wish of not having to deal with customers on the phone (the mean customers) and will just have to do data entry. Yippeeee. But that means kissing the bonus program goodbye. Thats for phone reps only.

Anyhue, lately I've been spending too much time reading blogs and other things. Particularly about the situation at RWA (which I'm not a member of), the ruckus caused by a letter concerning how romance should be defined. I'm not going to get into it other than to say... yikes. And read a newspaper article about a convention down in Daytona for romance writers and readers. Double yikes. The articles writer was obviously not a fan and offended quite a few people.

But all this is distracting me from my writing. I've turned back to my rewrites on my novella. It's just over 25K and I want to make it a full length, I'm just not sure how. How can I possibly add another 35+K words to this story??? One way would be to combine all the stories (this is the first in a trilogy) into one long story. Or I could pl-pl-plot it out and see if I could add some more to it. But more than double it?? That would be tricky.

Never the less, must get working on it. Its not going to do anything by just sitting on my memory stick.

No word from Samhain. In the next week or so.... for sure.

Crispy Critters

Yesterday when I went to work my DH took the kids and went to my parents house to do some painting while they're out of town. About an hour into my morning I get a message from my son (who's six) saying that there's been an accident and to call right away. When DH was climbing onto the roof to start the painting, the ladder gave way and he and it and the grill and a table all went crash boom bang. So, even though he didn't want an ambulance or anything I had to leave work and head over to find him on his back on the deck. He was pretty beat up, cuts and abrasions all over his legs and arm, his back hurt, his shoulders hurt, but he didn't want to go to the hospital.

After resting for a long time to determine he didn't have anything majorly wrong, and cleaning up the cuts and scrapes (ugh) he decided to push on with the painting. I went out to help him. It was a beautiful day, weatherwise but now we have quite the sunburn-especially him. It was a rough night. Painting got done at 9pm and then we had to go home and get dinner.

He hasn't been off the sofa since he woke up. He's definitely feeling the effects of the fall, but it would've been much worse if it had been my dad coming down like that. Small miracles.

I just hope I won't get spoken to about not going back to work. I didn't feel comfy about leaving him alone.

Today is a day of rest. As if we could do anything else. even I'm tired and sore.

This and That

TGIF. Well, for me it should be TGIS because I have a full day of work ahead of me tomorrow. Ugh. I wish there were a way to work part time, but with the cost of living going up (including our rent next month) I have no choice but to sacrafice my weekends.

The van will be coming home. It was a screw. I'm paying over 100.00 because of a loose screw. I should be grateful. I AM grateful, I was expecting so much more! But thats a mighty big bill for one itty bitty screw. Of course most of it was towing fees.

I did a follow up with "my" editor about the manuscript I submitted in June. At least she got it and said that she's going to try to get to it in the next week or so. Well, I'm just glad she got it.

As far as my writing is going, I'm at a stand still, again not happy with the wip I started again. Maybe what I really need to do is start something completely new. It just kills me that I have so many wips that have lots of potential. I just have to get back into them.

The heat doesn't help, of course. We have pretty much no a/c at work and the office is filled with fans. Big help they are. It was about 90 in the office on Wednesday. In Maine it was a state law that offices couldn't remain open if it was that hot. Apparently that law doesn't exist in NH.

Well, off to do dishes. And to brainstorm.