Okay, so ~ I am alive. I am getting better.  There have been no more instances involving the cops and my mother.  That is a good thing.

I know I recapped the DFW Writer's Convention via my writing blog, but I thought I'd talk about the non-professional aspects over here too, since I haven't posted and well, I feel like it.  I meant to get all ready on Friday but wound up piddling around with Linda, shopping and getting lunch and stuff until mid-afternoon when there was a whole trip back and forth to Ross to return a laptop bag and dig around for another.  See, I found this perfect blue and black laptop purse, but it's made for a 15"ish laptop.  Lappy is a 17is" laptop.  Two inches.  Two friggen inches kept me from having the coolest laptop bag.  I'm upset.  I also had to just accept that most stuff is made for 15" laptops apparently!  Insert a very unhappy Cidly  :(  I did get two really nice shell-shirts to wear under sweaters for work and stuff, so that was a win!

Saturday Linda came to my place and we took Jeepie to the convention where we met up with Suzan and Criss - yea!!!  Haven't seen Criss recently since she got prego on us.  I miss her face!  I was really surprised by the lack of technology.  I assumed more of the people there would have laptops and all, but apparently our group was in the minority.  In most of the classes we were the only people clustering around outlets and taking notes on laptops.  And I'm the one in our group that brings a power-strip.  NaNoWrimo taught me well.

There was much fun to be had at my expense because I went to the romance/sex writing workshops.  This included twittering about me being in these with the con's hash-tag.  I also saw people sitting in front of me pulling up my twitter profile as SOMEONE twittered yet another silly thing at me.  Oh well.  Good thing I like to laugh at myself, right?

My amazing friend Linda got a partial request from an agent, so uber congrats and well wishes her way.  (I have yet to hear back on the short story I sent in, but I shouldn't hear back until end of next month)

Saturday night was the cocktail party in which I played dress-up with Suzan and *gasp* MADE HER WEAR A DRESS!  This included a really funny Marylin Monroe moment while Suzan took a smoke break.  We also met a really cool recent transplant to Texas who will be joining our online critiquing.  Super jazzed about this.

Sunday.... Linda and I - without talking about it - both automatically assumed that the conference would also be starting at 8am.  She showed up at my place same time as the day before - without us deciding that's what we were doing, we both just assumed the same thing!  And we arrived at the convention center... and realized our mistake!  LoL!!  I had about an hour long conversation with an author who is trying to understand twitter and so we sat on some benches and I pulled up my TweetDeck and we discussed twittering, retweeting, hash-tags, and the benefits and uses of twitter.  We also got the guy leading the twitter workshop to come over and join us and then there were four of us talking about twitter.  It was really fun.

During a session with one author, the author stopped speaking for a few moments and then asked the full room if anyone had any Claritin - allergies are really bad this year.  Well, when I'm sick and I need to be in public sans-medicine-head, I take Claritin.  Yes, it's expensive but it leaves me clear headed and functioning.  I pop'd up with the medicine and this author said she'd read my first ten pages of a manuscript and critique it.  I needed to have gotten it out last night in all honesty but I got blocked with web hosting issues on godaddy.com

So I'm excited about that!

I also hate godaddy.com  If anyone is better with internetz than I, I would love helps.  Otherwise I'm going to corner Suzan and beg her to help me, though it might not take begging, it could just take some Dr Pepper....

There were also some really nifty writerly threads available.  Sometime this week two shirts I bought will be here and I'm sure there will be pictures. I can't figure out if they have a website so I'll just have to tell you that both shirts are funny and one is semi-sexually funny, but writerly, both are girly.... yeah.

Ho-hum...  I'm rather certain I don't like staying at home.  I don't think I ever realized how little time I spend in my apartment some times until I had someone living with me.  I'm sorry world, I make a terrible roommate.

The Epic Closet Cull is .... still underway in the way that I mean there's a huge freaking pile of STUFF at the foot of my bed.

My apartment is a wreck.  Tonight will officially be Cid-cleans-stuff night; bathroom, bedroom, chin cage, dishes, trash - you're all going down!!!!!!

And my garden is officially beyond resuscitation and is dead.  Dead.  Dead.  Dead.  I'm sad.  I also don't know if I have the willpower to start over again.

I think this covers it.... yes, it should, if not, well, I'll say it next time!

Okay, so yesterday I was uber, uber, uber productive - and I got pictures of the Chinnies!

You have NO idea how hard it was to get these pictures!  They dart around and try to investigate the camera and are just generally uncooperative when cameras appear.  That's always the exact moment they MUST bounce around the cage.

Speaking of the cage, the chins spent a good deal of time sitting on the patio last night while I scrubbed at their drop tray and cleaned it uber good and sprayed it with cleaners and scrubbed it again.  Hopefully that faint, strange odor I smell will leave.  No one else smells it, they just smell their hay, but I can smell some other dirty-cage smell and it drives me nuts!

The plants, which I meant to take pictures of, are shooting up and up and up.  The beans are the worst ones - as far as shooting UP goes.  I'm thinking I might plant some this weekend, the others will probably be kept in the little green house a while longer.  If the beans weren't so much farther along I would still have the cover on the greenhouse but the beans were getting tall enough they were growing sideways by several inches.

Righteo, headed to critique group tonight and I'm taking my new, shiny "short" story.  :D

Wheee!  So I totally passed up buying a Beauty and the Beast novel that focused on a modern day version from the perspective of the beast - because I found a copy of Beauty by Robin McKinley! I check the Borders we do our weekly crit group at every so often to see if they have any other McKinley books in that I don't own already - and this week there were two copies of Beauty that were not there before! I was very happy.  And we finished the group early enough there was plenty of time to go wandering around.  Which considering it was Suzan, Linda and I was a bad thing.  I'm far too easily encouraged to buy - and Suzan and Linda are all too willing to suggest - especially Suzan!  I bought a book called The Princetta, which is a story about a princess turned pirate.  That's all I needed to know to buy it....

I'm very excited about what my fellow critique group is writing and I look forward every week to seeing their stories unfold.  I'm still focused on finishing The Barking Dog before I bring any more chapters, which means at best another month or two before I'm really ready.  But that's okay!

Progress is being made in that quarter as well.  I'm coming to the close of the section which will mark a big achievement in my opinion.  I hope that next month, despite my mom's race and the quickly populated weekends I will be able to write more focused than this month.

I'm still pumped from reading The God Engines and driving home I puzzled through some other points of the book that left me thinking.  It's a fascinating read!  I'm going to read another McKinley book, Spindle's End, next.  I'm starting to attempt to think through some of the other books on my shelves and put them in some sort of order of how I want to read them.  Of course I know I'll pick one up when I feel like reading it, but I should try to get through some of the others soon!!

So far this week is going by slowly, but I'm being very productive.  Wrote a bunch yesterday, got a lot of stuff done.  Finished one book, read another, wrote a really good chunk and set up the next, necessary bit.  I'm starting to think about the rest of the week.  Tomorrow night Amanda and I are going to church in Grand Prairie.  Thursday and Friday nights will be spent at home, I believe, during which I will clean and read and write in preparation for the weekend.  Saturday a bunch of us are going to TCC for a creative writing workshop and Sunday is craft day.  Lots happening, really exciting, and look - the Olympics are on!

Can I just say that seeing mounds of snow in Texas is still really weird?

Yes, I've been quiet the last few days; I don't know that I've had anything really to say about the last two days.  Well, I could have said something - I can stretch nothing out over a very long distance if I feel inclined to do it.  I'm gifted that way I guess.  (Yes, I will pretend my long-windedness is a gift, thank you very much!)

See, Monday was work-work-work-real-hard aaaannnnndddd go to La Madeline and write-write-write-omg-I-don't-feel-like-writing! And right when my battery was about to die I finally found the pace and figured out how to wrap up this problematic area.  Good job me.  Wait till you have to leave to figure something out!  Tuesday I had meetings.  Work meetings.  I got a new work project which I feel very confident about and can crank out without too much worry - which is nice.  I have this tendency to expect myself to do everything perfect the first time - which is impossible and unreasonable and silly.

I also listened in on Digital Book World's webinar while I was working on said project.  I'm in the office for a long time by myself, it's nice to hear voices sometimes. It was all about designing for the Kindle and ePub formats; fascinating even if I didn't understand half of it.  I discovered they're hosting something called The Round Table, which seems to be a weekly planned discussion of mostly the book industry.  I think I might try it out, see what it's like if only because it'll be interesting and there will be semi-live people.  I really don't mind being in the office alone, I'm really quite capable of being happy left alone, but occasionally it does get old.

I am disappointed in myself; I haven't done much knitting and I just realized this morning I'm really not doing well on the whole working-out thing.  It's frustrating but I'm going to try to remedy both issues.

Also, is it acceptable for me to not understand why non-Catholics participate in Lent?  I sort of get it, but honestly it means nothing to me.  I guess I should do some research to understand the why.  In college I had a very dear friend who would do Lent and last night at the critique group someone was ranting about what they're giving up for Lent (that ensued an entirely hilarious conversation, but not the point).  Maybe I just don't get it.  It seems like one big contest to see if you can go without your favorite addiction for 40 days.  Oh well, chalk it up to things I don't understand in the world. (Like fasting, I mean I understand spiritually the reasons, but at face value, the way most people approach fasting, I really would like to ask them what the point is.)

Circling back to the critique group.  I'm not sure what it is, but the last two weeks have been just crazy.  It's like we're all drinking the same cracked out water because the tangents we get on and how much we laugh - it's just unreal.  I guess that comes when you really like your company.

I've referenced her blog a few times, but Janice Hardy's Re-Write Wednesday blogs are just always great.  She did one today that touches on The Spit Shine of a novel.  She lists several groupings of words people either use too much or wrongly.  I don't need to do this now, I'm still working on putting words on the dang page, but later I think I will try to search out these different words and try their place in things.

Yes, more book talk.  So almost right after I posted my last blog where I bemoan my writing - I read Janice Hardy's weekly Re-Write Wednesday blog entitled, The Frankendraft.  Now, this actually helped me to see that my story isn't buried, it's still plainly obvious - to me of course - and I don't see it as having some of the other bits she talks about - so maybe there's hope for me yet!  It's a little encouraging at least!  However, yesterday was all about indulging in a semi melt-down/pity-party about how terrible I was doing and woe is me, I should be doing something else!  I laid down around 11 on Wednesday night, got comfortable - and then - EUREKA! I had a brilliant idea I should have had ages ago when writing the first draft. I even twittered about it! And then I promptly cuddled up to my pillows to go to sleep.  Except then I was too consumed by the idea to do anything else.  In short, I got up and wrote until 2am.  I was very tired, please excuse the randomness as I tend to keep a blog in edit until I feel like posting it. This one happens to cover three days.

On another topic... I need to get my bangs trimmed, but the idea of sitting down in a chair while someone waves scissors around my head gives me nightmares of what happened last time.  They're just bangs - right?  I'm not ready to trust someone with the rest of my hair; I just want my bangs trimmed. Oh - well then I think I might need an eyebrow wax too.... Blarg - being a girl is expensive!!!

So I'm still reading through The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo and I keep wanting to scream at it.  I find myself not caring about the MMC and really only about the bits on the FMC - unfortunately 3/4's of what I've read are about the character I don't particularly care about. Grrrrr!  At least last night she came into a more prominent role.  I'll save my other thoughts for my book review.  [edit] Finished last night. I want to burn the book.

I'm currently sitting at my desk wondering what reason I could have to try making Bakerella's new Oscar Cookies. OMG they look so YUMMY!

And yet more book drama - Macmillan takes a shot at Amazon in an add for a new book with the bottom text saying Available Everywhere Except Amazon!  Other book publishers are joining in on the whole mess and a friend and I have started a GoogleWave to keep a semi organized chronicle of all the stuff that's going on because - well - I'm a drama whore.

OMGOMGOMG - This just made my Friday! Robin McKinley shared the new cover of her upcoming book, Pegasus.  I'm super excited!!!!

Today did not start out well.  I woke up at 7:28 and freaked out. I usually leave my apartment between 7:30 and 7:35.  Today is also the start of a new class.  Today was not a good day to be late.  On top of this my clothes were either damp and still in the dryer or still in the washer because silly me didn't get home in time last night to do anything but catch some evening news and read some stuff and go to bed.  Also, weirdly, I wore my socks to bed and the elastic on the ankle/calf part was so tight I think it bruised me.  Oh - and I'm wearing a dress and forgot to shave my legs - but thank goodness it's one of those maxi-almost-floor-length dresses so if someone wants to stare at my ankles they'll see I didn't shave.  Sorry. I was sort of running late this morning.  *sigh*

Okay, so I don't remember whose blog I read it on but it is vastly true that the recent mess with Amazon and Macmillan is really hurting the authors that fall under the M-Umbrella.  There are a number of people who discuss that at length and much better than insignificant me will, however, I can tell you about what I'm going to do!  I went through their website today, more specifically the new releases and I've picked out - oh - seven book - I want.  Now I can't possibly buy seven new releases, I'm scraping the bucket this week, but I can buy two or three to do what I can to help out.  The ones I really want are Zeus: King of the Gods, a graphic novel by George O'Connor to feed my current Greek mythology addiction.  It's not really a brand new release; it was released in January, but I figure the guy still needs sales.  I used to read a lot of historical fiction; not so much anymore unfortunately.  The Forgotten Legion by Ben Kane looked interesting and promising, so it has a big star by it's name.  And, to feed another guilty pleasure - a vampire novel; not just a vampire novel, but a vampire and werewolf novel!  Touch of Evil by T. Adams and Cathy Clamp.  Hey - it's research to see if I really want to keep shelving my vampire story idea!!

The stupid thing torments me.  Yesterday I had some great ideas for it that I wrote down on my little notepad and filed away to type up later when I have time.  I also had some good ideas for some other stuff, but none that irritate me like a story I don't think I want to write because everyone is writing vampire stories!  At least this morning while driving to work I came up with a really neat twist to another idea I've had, but started out as a fanfic idea I couldn't write because the author expressly says on their website: do not write fanfics!  So I'm really happy to have worked it so it's new and original but with the same overarching issues and problems.  The new ideas I had for it are super nifty to me at least and I like them so I'll scribble them down and file them away for later.

I am seriously considering starting on another project that maybe a short story or a short novella length work.  It's romancy in nature, which is strange for me, but is very Christian in nature and is derived from a huge game of "What if....?" that I played once with someone I used to know.  I have struggled with how similar the FMC is to me and how to make her less like me - but I don't know that I can and not completely change aspects of the story.  Then again I have to accept that the idea came from my own personal, on the fly decisions about what I think I would choose to do if certain things happened to me.  Going to snag a few people for brainstorming help on this one and see where it takes me.

Is it just me, or am I slowly starting to just talk about books and writing ideas and stuff?  I really do other things.... Like tonight I'm going to church!  I just stand at a computer and check kids in and hand them an adhesive name-tag and smile and say something witty (if I'm lucky) but more often than not I'm just hopelessly silly.

Oh hey! I just realized today that the Super Bowl is sometime this weekend.  Wow....

And yet MORE drama! Well, it was coming eventually.  So far I've only seen one tweet about it and two articles from Cult of Mac, nothing that puts things in concrete terms to me - yet.

Annnddd now I've typed my lunch away.  Today is getting better!!!

Bah!

I'm having one of those not-so-happy nights.  As I read through bits of my novel, I know I can write better than what I'm currently doing.  Really!  I've seen me do it before! But -- it's not good.  Or at least I'm at a point where I reread stuff while the critique group is reading it and all I can think is OMG this is utter crap!  Yeah.  And then I groan and wonder why in all that is sane in the world am I still plugging away all determined like at this project.  It's a wolf-by-the-ears situation; I really refuse to let go because I'm determined to finish the thing. 

Maybe I just need fresh eyes on it now that I've had some critique and revised the first bit of it to get another opinion.  I'm just not sure what to do.  I have two friends who have said they will read through what I have and give opinions.  I'm just frusterated with myself and having a pity-party tonight.

Also wondering if maybe I should set revision aside and work on a short-story or something this week and then come back to my novel with fresh eyes.  Hmmm, I'll make a decision tomorrow after I've slept on it.

Okay, so as relaxed as my weekend was - this was not so in the rest of the world.  I'll touch on that in the end.  :)

Friday - hockey game - we won!!! Spent this with my friend Amanda.

Saturday was like... make up for all of the time I haven't made the edits my critique group suggested.  I spent the day at Barnes and Noble critiquing and rewriting stuff.  I wrote about 4K, added some really nifty stuff and am still very excited about my writing process. Oh - and I bought books.  Yes, I know I said I shouldn't - but I did!  I bought Becky Levin's book The Writing & Critique Group Survival Guide (this time I smartly copied and pasted that, because even though I try, I keep getting the title wrong!  I'm sorry!!!!)  I also got Sunshine and I think Rose Daughter... Crud. I can't remember!!!!!!  Oh well, both Robin McKinley books!  Other than that, I didn't do anything really useful Saturday; just reading and writing - but I loved it!

Sunday was mostly a useless day. I took out the trash! And did dishes! Watched 500 Days of Summer and went to a hockey game - again - only we lost this one  :(

Today I need to be very useful.  I need to do laundry, change the Chinchilla cage, clean, clean and clean, and hopefully revise and pretty much rewrite the next scene because I had some great ideas for it.

I have also decided I dislike my planner. I want a small monthly view calendar and I want to be done with this almost useless one I have now.  I think I saw one at BnN that fits what I want that if I get everything done as I need to this week, I just may treat myself to.  Ug - and have I mentioned that buying into the BnN membership thing has made me want to go and use it more? Because I really do need to make sure I get my money's worth!!!!

This week should be the normal type of busy.  Tonight being domestic, with some knitting time thrown in, tomorrow Critique Group, Wednesday church Thursday the Book Club - where I give my unfavorable review of the book everyone else loved and I - ah - didn't, and Friday I hope to hang out with people, go to movies and clean like crazy for Friday - because Saturday is Write Your @ss Off Day!!!!!

And on to the DrAmA!!!!!!!

I think I've become a real-life-drama-nut.  Like, I really like reading about crazy stuff that really happens, except this news isn't really the giddy type, it makes me sit back and grimace and think.  The thing this weekend is the whole Amazon vs Macmillan debacle, which can reasonably be said to happen as a result of Apple debuting the iPad.  Everyone has an opinion, everyone thinks this way or that; I'm erring on the side that neither are really right, but I agree far more with Macmillan than Amazon.  Now, you can read the full release from Macmillan here on the free edition of Publishers Lunch.  And then there was Amazon's rebuttal and subsequent removal of all Macmillan titles.  Nathan Bransford posted a blog this morning explaining the whole mess; he always has a lot of really good stuff to say and plays connect the dots with stuff.  I thought Scott Westerfeld posted a really interesting and insightful blog about the whole mess, and I think I agree with him on most points.  However, over at Fiction Matters, they posted an article that is more favorable to Amazon.  I'm sorry, but I just have a hard time with the seller dictating the price of what the publisher can sell their product for.  All in all, I'm reading everything and it's fascinating! If it also makes me sad.

Anyways, lunch is over!  Still plugging away at Girl w the Dragon Tattoo!

I swear stuff costs more than it did two years ago when I moved out on my own for the first time.  A dollar doesn't buy what it used to - which sucks considering no one is making more than they used to.  I probably need to sit down and evaluate where I spend what and reign in some of my spending and redirect it better, or something.  It's frustrating and I have to do better.  I'm not broke, but neither am I saving as much as I wanted to.  I'm probably also my own worst enemy when it comes to spending and impulse buying.  I don't know if I know how to say no to me sometimes... This is probably a very dangerous thing.

Today was a really successful writing day.  I totally plowed through chapter 2 and came up with some stuff I really liked.  The critique group really helped me see an opening I missed for inserting more world info.  Tomorrow I'll work on editing that and get the whole bit over to my friend who is doing beta reading for me.  It's really exciting.  I just hope I can keep this up. 

So Paperback Writer suggested this interesting site today that makes up words. This could be very useful for when I need to make stuff up in writing and just need a quick word!

Now, I think I've mentioned this but I'm going to the DFW Writer's Conference.  Well, Inky Girl tweeted today this blog entry about Conference Tips from Jane Makuch.  I really need to finish my manuscript and work on a short this-is-what-my-book-is-about.

Anyways, short blogging day!

Okay, so I read the first chapter of Practical Demonkeeping and I'm not hooked and I'm eying other things on my shelf....  I bought more books Tuesday night before the critique group.  I bought a book by Alan Moore on writing for GN's and comics and two McKinley books - which fit in with two goals so I might be putting aside the Christopher Moore book.  This is bad since I keep doing the same thing to his other book, Fluke.  I really, really, really liked Lamb and You Suck was good - but I could never get beyond the first chapter of Fluke and the Practical Demonkeeping first chapter just kinda... didn't get me.  Struggling with the idea of pressing on or grabbing up Chalice or Dragonsbane by McKinley....

[edit] Okay, I'm cheating on my writing. Today I will be brain-dead and not mind.  I took Chalice with me to work today and managed to get through the first section of the first chapter and OMG I'm hooked already! Have I mentioned I really like Robin McKinley's books? I want to know more about the elemental fire Priest, the Master and what the heck the Chalice does!!!![/edit]

I was super excited with the comments I got back from the critique group; I got some great opinions and review and I'm actually looking forward to tackling the issues addressed.  I really feel like it's all coming alive.  I might need to rethink some of the names... I know why people are named like they are - but the reader won't for quite a while - if at all in this book.  I think that's a thing to tackle much, much later once I know where the book actually ends.

I had another one of my super weird, crazy dreams last night.  This time I think I can blame Avatar for a little of it, but not the dragons bit.  There were these floating islands or maybe they were really tall plateaus that looked like islands that were covered by jungles.  Anyways!  My dream followed a character who did some interesting things and dragons were involved in a non-stereotypical rawr-I-will-eat-you way.  I was able to jot down what I remembered of the dream and do a reasonable amount of brain storming on it.  I don't have a climax for it - which is the main problem I see.  I could, however, make it a very curious short story with the material I have right now for the quarterly Glimmer Train contest on writing a 12,000 or less word story.  There's a regular contest schedule set up there too!  I'm getting interested...  Jane Friedman clued me into that on her blog, There Are No Rules.  She has some really good stuff on there.  Like this blog she wrote about a book she wrote with someone else [BIG edit] the someone else is Becky Levine.[/BIG edit] called The Writing and Critique Group Survival Guide - and I want it. I've bought more books in the last week than I really should have, so I'm sticking this on the To-Buy-Eventually list - like, in a month or something when it looks like I'll read it sooner rather than later.  I'm really big on revision right now so I need stuff like this for tips and whatnot! ... Hmm, maybe I do really need this book now...

I'm watching the minutes tick by as I loose my lunch break.  *sigh*  Yesterday was crazy and today is worse; my job is not normally like this so I'm more surprised about all of this crazy stuff and more or less frustrated with myself for the inability to do everything perfectly the first time.  I don't talk about my work here much - I realize - mostly because I'm following my company's blogs and I don't see myself as a spokes-person or anywhere near equipped to talk about my company or what we do so I keep my trap shut.  I would never want to jeopardize my job here because I like it. I like the people I work with.  I don't always understand what we do, but I can do the job, I'm reasonably happy with it and in this economy and time those are things not everyone has.  I'm thankful for my job - but I'd be really happy if the last few days did not repeat themselves in the level of crazy that's been going on.  I think this afternoon, should everything not blow up, I'm going to tackle the mess that has become my desk!

Okay, so after the critique group I'm accepting that I really can't just fudge around some of the words to make it all work out - I need to actually rewrite most of it.  Keep the text open in one window and rewrite in another, like new yWriter project.  It's depressing - because it's a lot of work - but at least I know that now and I can prod myself into working on it more and more studious.  I had other people make up my mind for me!  Well, they didn't say anything about just needing to start over, that's not how the group is, but based on some of the feedback I think it would be more beneficial to revise the manuscript that way.  Follow the lead of what I originally wrote and write it all fresh, sparkly and new.  However, this will mean entire chunks of time I must disappear and rewrite the blasted thing.  I'm also struggling again with whether or not Suspicion has enough meat to stand on it's own frail little legs or if I need to cut out some fluff and smash all three back together and plow through it all.  I'm back to squirming over this and complaining to myself and I'm probably going to agonize over the whole mess a lot so please feel free to ignore all of this ramble because I still haven't eaten breakfast or taken anything.  (This was written Wednesday morning....)

Now, this bit is written Thursday afternoon....  I'm still nowhere near certain about what I should do about this problem.  I rewrote the bit I took to the critique group but I'm at a point where I'd like someone or someones to bounce ideas and worry off of but I don't know if I want to take it out on my poor critique group who has several of us who are agonizing over stuff as it is.  *sigh*  I need my own personal editor I can bemoan the what-if's to and force to read three different versions of the same scene. I will take applications after this blog.....

For some reason I thought that I could get up Wednesday morning and do a measly 20 minute exercise - nope.  Woke up and my pounding head said No Moving.  I'm not going to church tonight; my head is rebelling enough I wish I hadn't worn my contacts at all.  I think I will spend tonight shuffling around my apartment cleaning. Yes, cleaning.  The whole place is a dump and in need of serious cleaning, like scrubbing and cleaning.  I also need to do something about the dear little rabbit; I call it the dear little rabbit because I'm tempted to call it other not quite so nice things.  Thursday morning was a bit kinder to me so I'm hoping that Friday will be very nice to me indeed and let me do some exercise since I seem to be doing well.

I've managed to clean up my kitchen and fix my vacuum cleaner the best I know how.  It's still spitting out some stuff but it's by far much better than it was.  I apparently accidentally sucked up some of the rabbit bedding which did nothing more than clog up the hose and I had to unscrew all the little plates so I could get to this clog of recycled, puffy stuff.  Not sure what I'm going to do about this problem; it's rather perplexing.  Not sure if people plan on coming over tonight, but I do plan on cleaning more and actually cooking dinner.  I may have the weekend free after all, which would be super, as I want to clean, clean, clean and finish this scarf and work on some more revision. Did I mention I'm taking applications to be the confessor of all my revision nightmares??  At this point I'm really not kidding.

Some people are ridiculous and I want to start rambling about true Christianity but I think that Don Miller really does say it all best when he addresses what Pat Robertson said about Hati suffering it's just desserts.  You read that right.  Plus, I've just about decided that Don Miller has to be one sexy man if only for how he thinks about things because often times I feel the same way.  Would it be weird if I twittered at him and asked him on a date?  Yes, yes it would and I'll stop letting revision drive me crazy - in like a month or two.

Blogs, Books, Stuff.... Rick Rioden - you know the guy I've been talking about for a bit? Well the cover for his new series is up here.  I will be hungrily awaiting the paperback!  I think we all know that I have developed a taste for real-life drama, and I have to say I feel sorry for Moonrat after this blog where she recounts a conversation with one of her authors.

I think I'm done for the day on this blog. I'm sure I could talk about other things, like my twitter obsession, how much I've been reading or how the cold weather has given me nosebleeds, but it all comes back to trying to figure out my revision and how to tackle it....  *sigh*

I think it's pure stubbornness I'm wearing my dress today.  I bought it before Christmas but it was just too cold and pointless for me to wear anything other than jeans to work.  It's a brown dress, which is even more pure novelty considering I don't particularily like brown or wearing it - but this one has a design of blue colored teardrop and semi-nike-swish things that go absurdly well with my blue cashmere sweater that - well - I kinda felt super compelled to buy it.  And thankfully the weather is copaerating and it's warm enough to wear it so today is a good day.  I'm also feeling much better!  I think that tomorrow I will push myself to get up and exercise.  I put it off on the weekend and yesterday for not feeling well at all, but I think tomorrow morning I will be pretty well off.

Last night I lay awake in bed and contemplated a new prologue for Suspicion and I penned out a few paragraphs I think I will have the critique group read.  I'm rather thrilled with the idea as well as expanding the novel to include various bits from other characters perspective other than the female main characters.  I think it will help the reader fully understand the complex plot that was just lost on the first draft.  Lots of nothing happened and then in a few thousand words everything happened and left even my head spinning for how in hades it all came to a point besides the fact that green is a very suitable color.

I was reading Brandon Sanderson's blog, oh my, yes - blogs, and the whole thing about his books being made into movies intreigued me.  I've sort of been forcing myself to ignore that he writes anything other than Wheel of Time but I do believe I will have to read his books, and at the current rate I am devouring printed pages of stuff I should easily be able to do that - later this year.  Heck, I started Robin McKinley's book The Hero and the Crown last night; I probably haven't read it since Jr High.  I can't believe I haven't read it between then and now - it's such a crime!  I will probably also finish it tonight or today or something impossible like that because I just could not sleep despite how exhausted I was so why not read?  (and of course between the time I wrote that line this morning and now after work, I finished the book.)

Perhapse I need to be interested in thicker books.  Then I would spend more than three days reading it.  It's a little exciting to move on from a book so quickly, but it's also a bit of a let down.  I wish they lasted me longer, but I am glad to have read them.  I'm going to force myself to hold off reading The Blue Sword until tomorrow.  I believe my current plan is very much to not go to church tomorrow because my fever has yet to leave me and the headache is still permanently wrapped around my head so that even after ingesting drugs to dull it - it's still just there outside of sight and hearing like.

So I leave work very soon and I'm going to go on to the Borders where we have critique group at instead and probably eat some soup at McAllisters and piddle around on the next scene of Suspicion and force myself to be yet more productive today.  Ug, and I must also get food for that little varmet the rabbit - and it needs fresh bedding.  I ached and hurt so bad last night I almost didn't clean the Chin cage, but I did.  I don't have the right bedding for the rabbit.  The rabbit gets expensive, absorbant stuff.  That's what happens when the animal actually sits in their bedding; they get the better stuff.  My Chins, who have a tray that slides out of the bottom of their cage, can have cheapy crushed corn stuff that absorbs and whatnot and so long as I am mindful of changing it every few days works rather well.  However, I'm starting to feel that their cage isn't getting really clean and I'd like nothing more than a chance to hose it down and scrub it - but where do I put the Chins while I do this?  I'm pondering over this question and browsing CraigsList.  People are bound to have cages they don't need anymore, what with small children learning the responsibility of an animal isn't all that glamerous.

OMG - stop the presses - I just found out that Brandon Sanderson, the person who is completing Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series will be at Dragon*Con this coming year.  My friends have been trying to coerce me into going but I think this just won me over. Go to Dragon*Con, hear him speak, maybe see the other Writing Excuses guys?  HECK YES!  *strangles inner fan-girl*

I'm adding two more things to my 2010 Goals.  I can't recall if I blogged about this already and I'm too lazy to go back and look. I'm joining in the blogging adventure, Project 52.  The idea is that you write 52 blogs a year, once a week.  Now I know I can do this; I wrote close to 80 to close out 2009 and only started in like...September.  However, I think it's a good goal and I'm doing it.  The other goal is a bit more daunting; it means I have to be a bit more disciplined.  Inky Girl is challenging people to write 1000 Words a Day in 2010.  This means I'm already behind, having written a whopping 1500 words last night on Premonition.  Gee, I need to get something cranked out today. I'm hoping this motivates me some more this year to continue with my writing.  I'm even biting my teeth, really wanting to go to the DFW Writer's Conference in April, but I don't have the cash just quite yet.  I emailed my mother, thinking she'd talk me out of it because that much money right after Christmas is hard to come by - but instead she was very excited and is encouraging me to go.  *sigh*  We'll see what I can come up with in the next few weeks.

Okay, so I haven't blogged much because New Years sort of tirededed me out.....

I spent New Years at my friends place; we played some cards, some other odd games and then did a champagne toast at midnight where I discovered - I don't like champagne.  No big surprise, honestly.  Then someone had the great idea to go out on the balcony and light up sparklers and stand in a circle facing each other. Yeah - doesn't that sound like a great idea to you too? Not to me. I stood outside of the circle and was the only person to not get burned.  I was the first to leave, but I also had the furthest to drive and went home and I think I went to bed fairly early.

New Years Day my brother came over around noon and we hung out for a bit.  I introduced him to The Lightning Thief and I believe he's currently hooked.  We also went down to Chance Webb's Tattoo Emporium and got our tattoo finished - finally!  We're both really happy with how it turned out.  I'm entering that painfully itchy stage of healing that makes me want to go cross-eyed all the time, but soon enough it'll all be over!  I think I cooked us dinner and we watched some Four Star and then went to go see Avatar in 3D which wasn't all that much different from the normal one; I thought it looked a lot more unfocused and that it would have been just fine to see it without the 3D nonsense.

The next day my brother and I went to a Stars game.  It was super fun and I got a Dallas Stars SNUGGIE!  Don't be fooled by their strange looks, they rock. I really like mine, even if it's all covered in rabbit hair now; silly rabbit.  Brother left not long after the game to go back to Wyoming and I had a few hours to myself.   (Note - I waylaid the Ice Girls and informed him he was getting his picture with them.  He didn't protest.)

My friend Micah came over late (I'm talking either 9 or 10pm) that night.  It's probably the last time I'll see him for several years.  His parents are taking up a church in Vietnam and they'll probably stay over there for most of the next three years and he lives in Virginia Beach now doing his doctoral so though we talk on Skype a lot (during his classes sometimes - oopse!) we probably won't get to hang out.  I was super impressed when he gave me a bottle of home-made vanilla extract.  Like REAL vanilla extract! He MADE it.  Really - like it's real stuff and wow.  I'm just blown away by that. I think I'm going to try to make some myself.  How cool is that???

Eventually Micah had to scoot out and that left me going to bed a bit late - but because I made Sunday my Selfish-Day, well, it was okay.  Really I stayed home by myself and read The Titan's Curse and watched a movie and did some cleaning and played with my Chins and the rabbit and did laundry and went grocery shopping and had a great, stress-free day.  I think I'm going to start requiring more of these in my life; like once a week or something.  I knew going into this week that we were having a writing night Monday, Critique Group was Tuesday, The Mix where I volunteer with the youth is on Wednesday, people come over to my place on Thursday - the only other time I'd have to just veg would be FRIDAY!  So I didn't feel bad about taking Sunday to myself.

A little update on my challenge to write 1000 words a day.... I wrote a little over 1000 on Monday, and like 700 on Tuesday.  I'm a bit frusterated with those numbers, I'd like them to be higher, but oh well.  Now if I'm really going to this Writer's Conference I need to have a finished something to take with me.  This means I'm going to be putting a lot of effort into Premonition now and hopefully will finish it in January and start editing Suspicion in February and get the second draft done and start getting critiques and reads in March.  WHEW!

Bah! I checked my Amazon order and it's STILL not here! I ordered my bookclub book before Christmas and it's yet to show up.  I'm getting impatient. I think I shall read Gail Carson Levine's Writing Magic the rest of the week and camp out at BandN and read the last Olympian book because I just don't want to buy brand new hardcover.

[edit] After skimming through the first two chapters of Writing Magic, I realize I need to do as the book suggests and sit down and do the writing exercises.  I'll be doing this, but I think I might take it slower - maybe do one chapter a day or something and compile all of the writing exercises into a yWriter project.....

And one last interesting bit. I joined Ravelry this morning at the urging of another knitting friend.

And with that, lunch is over and I must go back to work....

Wow, okay, so my parents came and visited me last night; other than my dad currently being upset with my mother over something unknown and not speaking the entire night - it was fun! If made slightly awkward by his silent, staring off into the distance, refusal to speak, presence.  My parents also bought me a Wii!  Now, I'd only said in half jest that I was going to buy one; they're rather expensive and once I really considered it I didn't think it was the best way to spend my money; with insurance going up 50% I need to cinch it in a bit.  But they bought me a Wii!! And I'm rather convinced I need someone else to put it together; I started trying to read the help guide for putting it together and got distracted by the bad grammar and started pondering writing things like the help manual to stuff....Yeah, never made it past the first page!  Hopefully tonight before the writing critique group I can get it together and feel successful!

I ran by Half Priced Books last night and found they had three Robin McKinley books; I'm sort of rediscovering her and going fangirl over them.  I now have The Blue Sword, The Outlaws of Sherwood, and Spindle's End.  I really want to read The Hero and the Crown first - so I believe my $10 B&N gift card will be going to getting that.  However, first I need to speed read the Fannie Flagg book, A Redbird Christmas, for my book club book. Arg! And I still have V for Vendetta to read, bought Watchmen because it was $7 and the comments on Writing Excuses actually made me curious.  And then I still have Foundation from Mercedes Lackey to read as well as the first book in a trilogy from Weiss and Hickman!!  *sigh*  I will probably go through the book club book first, then a McKinley book and slide V for Vendetta in then as I really do want to read it.  I will now be collecting the full roster of Robin McKinley books, I believe - so if you are in need of a Christmas present idea - go there!

Began discussing the Last Air Bender movie with some friends; I know the release date was pushed back because of the name stealing Avatar movie coming out this weekend, as well as the official name being changed.  I don't like Shameylanwhateverhisnameis - with the exception of The Village, which I really liked.  I've also only seen one Book of the Air Bender series, but it was good.  I've heard that the creators are collaborating over the making of the movie, but some of the casting looks questionable to me. I don't know, but it came up so I'm mentioning it in passing - Ha!

Today I signed away another chunk of my paycheck to pay for insurance - I never use.  Insurance was a drop in the bucket when I first got this job; I didn't have to pay hardly anything - now I'm paying a hefty sum.  Thanks Obama, thanks a lot. I wish I could just go without insurance; say screw it and throw caution to the wind.  It's really ridiculous how I hold a decent job, I don't spend an absurd amount of money, often less than I bring in, and I can hardly afford insurance.  I'm starting to rethink my big trip next fall to Georgia, that maybe it's not a good idea and I should do a staycation instead.  I know I stress too much over money, but it's because I'm not good with it - so I over compensate for my inability by being obsessive.  Yup. Makes perfect sense, doesn't it?  I'm thinking about picking up something else to bring in money on the side, like crafty things; people are always asking me to make them something so if I ask them to cover cost plus a little I'd make a little.  It's an idea and every little bit helps, right?

Bah - anyways - tonight was my first go at the critique group and it wasn't so bad. I took a very silly section from a short fairy tale I'm doing; I'm pushing myself to write in First Person and not over-explain everything.  I like it and the general response was very good and very encouraging.  I still need to finish it, but I'm actually excited about it and not dreading finishing it.

Anyways, I should sleep soon.