Pantsless

Made you look! Yeah.... Not so much, huh? Went camping this weekend. Forgot my belt. You wouldn't think this would be such a huge problem, UNLESS you were unlucky enough to be nearby when my pants were falling down (Trust me. Pantsless isn't a good look for me.) Anyway, being a resourceful girl scout, I improvised - found me a bungee cord in the trunk and voila! Insta-belt! Just thought I'd mention in case you ever found yourself wearing southerly gravitating drawers out in the middle of nowhere. I like to be helpful, you know. Share those little bits of wisdom I gather along the way.

Also, I learned that campsite karaoke isn't quite the same as the type that happens at a bowling alley. Almost. So close. But not quite. I never thought I would say this, but the bowling alley actually has a lot more class (although significantly LESS cute kids). We did stay for a round though because I am a sucker for making an idiot of myself on stage, and our friends' daughter does a mean Kenney Chesney.

And speaking of making an idiot of myself on stage - callbacks for the Full Monty were today. I guess we'll know by Friday if I'm a loud-mouthed wife or a loud-mouthed chippendales groupie. Keep your fingers crossed I'm not cast as a pantsless guy. That would be really unfortunate.

On the writing front, just rejections, rejections, and oh, wait - a referral!! Which is technically a rejection with benefits. But whose complaining, right?

The Best Cosmo I Ever Made. (OK, the ONLY Cosmo I Ever Made, but Whatev, It's Still Really Good.)

Saturday was Girls' Night. Hubby was away, so Leah came over to spend the night and we planned to stay up all night drinking Extra Special Cocktails and watching Supernatural Season 1 and talking, which we so did, and it was just like college again. Except that Leah and I didn't know each other back in college, and that's too bad because it would have been wicked fun!


I'm still quite amazed at how easy it was to make a cosmo. It's always been a fave drink that I reserve for those "special" times when I want to drop 10-15 bucks on a single beverage, so I guess I thought it would be harder to make. Well, the hardest part was actually finding my shot glass in the back of the liquor cabinet. I spent maybe ten minutes looking up recipes and choosing ingredients. I'm not usually a liquor snob or anything, but I thought if I was experimenting, I might as well get the good stuff. Here's the recipe I used, which is sort of a "best of" mixture of like three recipes I saw plus my own "special" ingredient:

Persephone Cosmo

1 oz Absolut Citron

1 oz Cointreau

1 oz fresh squeezed lime juice

2oz pomegranate cranberry juice cocktail

Combine in a shaker of ice, shake, strain into a martini glass,

garnish with a slice of lime and slurp away!

Two Guesses What Show I Just Auditioned For...

First one doesn't count!

(*um, btw, may not be work friendly...I'm just saying...)

Some photos of JCS

I got these a while back, but haven't really had time to check them out until now. They came out pretty good I think! These are a bit out of order, I think, but oh well, right?

This pic is from "Hosanna" in the first act. I really love the way the colors worked for this scene. And I especially love the look on That Jesus Guy's face. (That's what the little kids still call the guy who played Jesus. They weren't really convinced that he was an actor.)

Judas. Obviously. He could really rock. I could have listened to that guy sing ALL day.

There's me on the far left. Female disciple number one. LOL.

The priests. Lovingly referred to as a flock of evil "crows" in the reviews. The director often had them forming a "V" on stage like birds do in the sky, so that actually WAS the impression they gave.


And THIS. Beautiful lighting. Look at his ribs. Makes me cry.

Sipping Sangria

Huge sigh of relief this past two weeks - my six-month probation period at the Day Job officially ended, and I passed my fingerprint training as well as the other training portions of the job in time. So YAY. That rocks!

In my spare time (between sipping frozen sangria and playing cribbage with friends) I've managed to hit 52K words on HOF before getting stuck again.

52,750 / 90,000 (58.6%)

But not to worry, I sent that sh*t to Leah (who knows exactly where I need this story to end up) and asked her how to get there, listened to her worldly reading advice, and am cooking up the next uber dramatic plot twist as we speak.

I have big plans for this fall. Big plans which include probably either submitting this book or entering it in the Golden Heart or both. I don't know why, but I have a very good feeling about it. Whereas with my other ms, I liked them - I even loved them - but felt slightly insecure about whether others would like them as much - which we all know is necessary to making a first sale.

So... because I'm having a bit of a writer's block today (which to me means an idea is cooking and not ready to write yet, and I MUST RELAX and READ and DAYDREAM if I want it to ever get there) I've been doing a bit of websurfing and blogreading, which is totally awesome, and I thought I'd share the love. This post by Holly Black made me giggle. #5. So. True.

And I also found this: The first book trailer that ever made me want to go out and buy the book. I have to go out later, and I'm definitely getting it and it's totally going to the top of the To Be Read pile. Check it out!

What Not to Do...

Oh my god. I used to think office ass was a myth. I was so wrong. I just went out with the girls from work. I ate chips and salsa. Drank a bushwhacker. Ate some coconut shrimp tacos. Laughed WAY too much and got home late. Needless to say, I didn't go to the track.

more cat pictures

The Update Meter

So I hit 182 pages today on Heart on Fire. w00t! That's 44,500 words or just over the halfway point of a projected 90,000 word novel. The story (incredibly enough) just arced at the second turning point. Perfect timing. So I think I'm on still track, and hopefully won't have to do much scene hacking when I'm done with it. I'm still kinda buzzing from last night. I stayed up until 2:30 am just knocking out the pages, because I didn't want to stop the flow. And I still can't believe what just happened - totally wasn't expecting the main character to do what she did, but given the situation, it worked.

Okay, back to work for an hour before bed. I have to try to get this next scene out before I lose it.

It's Not Them - It's Me.

So I've been trying hard lately to balance my writing time against my working time and my family/friends time, and I've come to two conclusions:

1. Word count requirements aren't for me. I just do not have the hours in a day to force myself to write a certain number of words. It's like this: I have a limited number of hours of time per day, and either the words are flowing or they are not.
2. Despite the previous being true, daily writing is still good even if all you have is fifteen minutes.

I was reading about Laurie Halse Anderson's Write For Fifteen Minute's A Day Challenge, checking my Write-Ons messages and pondering my suckage on my last bout at Sven's Gym when it occurred to me why I often fail at these writing challenges (um... nanowrimo, anyone? yeah, um, did not finish. I couldn't even commit to writing sh*t for a month.). And realized I've been waaaay wrong. I've been beating myself up for so long about not finishing, not following the rules, not getting published -that I forgot the most important thing. To enjoy writing.

I was reading over there on Sarah Dessen's blog that she commits to writing just two hours a day. And I was like, holy crap. That's it?!? Sarah's been consistently turning out relevant awesome books since 1999, and she only writes a few hours a day? Naturally, I have no idea how hard she slaved away in the "early" days. And naturally, I don't want to compare myself to her - BUT it finally occurred to me after reading that post that I really can still do this. Something I'd been telling myself, but not entirely believing since Feb when it hit home how long a 45 hour work week is when you have family and friends that you actually like and want to spend time with!

So this week, I've been happily continuing my little routine at work where I write during my breaks - which equals out to around 30 or 45 minutes of actual progress IF I pack my lunch & stay away from the water cooler (which is hard when you work with funny people). Sometimes I get nothing done & just reread what I've already written and think about what might happen next while tightening and rewriting scenes. Sometimes I actually write something that really really stinks. Delete. Delete. Delete. But days like today I managed to write about ten pages that really worked. I'm cool with that.

Delete. Delete. Delete.

So here it is. I confess, I totally hit a wall with Heart on Fire, the new book, and out of a moment of desperation, I sent it to my critique partner for a quick read to see if where I thought the book was heading was going to be remotely satisfying to her, and she did agree that yes, she could quite possibly fathom this idea working. Only problem is that I'm still stuck. I've spent all morning looking at the spot I left off in and I have NO idea how to save it from there.

I just deleted like six pages. Now I'm trying to breathe deep and convince myself it's okay.

The story is doing that morphing thing that I hate where it's trying to develop layers I never intended it to develop. Where I meant for it to be a straightforward 300-350 page novel, it's threatening to take on subplots and detours that will easily stretch it past that. And I. Don't. Want. It.

It can be really hard to stay the course. To stick with the original vision you had of a book. But I already know from experience that following all these tangents just ends up with a scattered book that you can't sell (or finish) because it's so far from what you meant it to be that you don't even know what the hell it is anymore. So.... delete, delete, delete. Back to the drawing board.

Weekend Guest Blogger - Teenie

So sayeth my verra wise seven year old niece. Don't think my sis (her mother) will mind that I pilfered this off her mommy blog, because it was definitely worth sharing with my handful of readers! Her teacher gave her these proverbs to finish and her fabulous answers are in the bold italics. I honestly think an adult could not have made any more sense if they tried!

1. Anything worth doing is always fun.
2. Never underestimate the power of the blue whale.
3. Let's cross that bridge together.
4. You are only as good as a circus trained elephant.
5. Two's company, three's two company including me is three.
6. The pen is mightier than the crayon.*
7. Don't count your chickens before you eat it.
8. All good things come to you.
9. When life hands you a lemon never eat it.
10. When the going gets tough don't hold your back.
11. It's always darkest before it's lighter.
12. Love all. trust people.
13. Children should be seen not taken.
14. Better late than anything.
15. If you can't say something nice never talk.
16. Laughter is worth it.
17. If at first you don't succeed never say a word.
18. Never put off until tomorrow I have to go to play.
19. If you lie down with dogs you'll don't do it.
20. You can lead a horse to water, but just for a drink.
21. Don't bite the hand that I broke.