Carolyn's Blog

Thursday, December 28, 2006

Writers in the Mist

The mist of my cold has lifted a bit. Tomorrow is Friday, casual day, payday and the start of a long weekend. It's also taco day. On Fridays, I splurge and get tacos at Gourmet Taco. All the rest of the days I make my lunch. So, yeah, today I went to work. Blah blah blah boring blah.

I notebooked at the gym this morning and worked out my cool idea for Magellan's Witch. I wrote that scene tonight and it came out cool indeed. I have no idea what I'll be writing tomorrow. I guess I'll figure it out at the gym. But it's cool. I exceeded target, which is good. Repeat daily until there's a novel. I know some writers just keep going with the flow, and that any others insist that you should never go back to fix until later, but that doesn't work for me. I need to adjust what I have now to meet the new coolness of my scene. Then I can proceed. Well, we'll see.

Labels: taco Friday, words on the page, writing

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Wednesday, December 27, 2006

Another Victory!

My cold and I stayed home from work today. I slept late, had breakfast and then a long nap and after that I felt a lot better. I'm not 100% but I'm well enough to go to work tomorrow. Sigh. Tonight, I got some good work done on Magellan's Witch and I exceeded my target word count for the day. I followed through on a few things I thought might be a total bust, and I don't think they were at all, which is good.

I finished The Historian last night. I confess that toward the end, I was pretty enthralled. I recommend the book for sure. Kostova handles some pretty challenging structural issues with ease. The story is revealed through a combination of conversations recalled at second and some third hand, letters and documents, and very little direct experience. I think most writers would have gone splat trying to pull that off. She establishes her fiction of structure and then sticks with it. I loved the way the title became ambiguous. For me, that was the high point of the book. Who, exactly, is The Historian? There are multiple answers. The history, by the way, was fascinating. I never once even thought of skipping the history. I love books that sweep over history like this one and make me see the past as alive and vibrating. At the end, however, I said, "What?" Things ended far too easily for me. Bram Stoker did it better. And now I'll make a strange comparison:

The Historian does not compare to Sharon Creech's Walk Two Moons. When I finished Walk Two Moons I knew I had read a great novel. Yes, I am aware that Walk Two Moons is a YA novel and not a vampire novel either, but I was wrung out and crying at the end. Creech transported me with a story that continues to resonate with me. That's what literature does, regardless of genre. Walk Two Moons is a book no one should miss.

I strive for that. Yeah. I have a long way to go.

Labels: literature, vampires, words on the page, writing craft

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Tuesday, December 26, 2006

Ratzafratz!

I have the day off work, but am not feeling well enough to enjoy it much. The Cold is getting worse. Ick and ick again. It's raining cats and dogs and it's windy. I ate way too much chocolate yesterday and today. Further, I made the horrible error of ordering my Leonidas chocolate from other than my usual source. They sent the wrong selection and did not pack it appropriately such that most of the chocolates arrived broken. For future reference, the ONLY place to order your Leonidas chocolates is from Leonidas-chocolate.com. Don't make my tragic mistake. Megan F can probably take the bus or something to get hers, they're at 487 Madison Avenue, New York. The wonderful folk at the Madison Avenue store pack their chocolates in foam blocks and they never send the wrong kind either. Sniff. I've now bookmarked the correct site and won't be making that mistake again.

I've been mulling over my hero for Magellan's Witch. I have a very specific mood in mind that I really want to pull off. Oh. Gee. My fogged brain is getting foggier. OK. I'll just muddle along here.

We had a wonderful Christmas here. My mom got me a sweatshirt that says Careful, or you'll end up in my novel. My best friend got me typewriter bookends. My dog is asleep on my lap right now. The kids loved and appreciated their presents. Right now, my son is working on a large paint-by-numbers Panda that I got him. He's good at detail like that. I have errands to run, but don't feel well enough to run them. Oh, well. I've been reading The Historian. Very good, but to be perfectly honest, there are genre vampire novels that get it much better. As I recall, Dark Jewels was better.

I've been reading a lot. I re-read all my Black Dagger Brotherhood books, and then I read over on Romance : By the Blog that Michelle Buonfiglio managed to get her hands on #4, Lover Revealed. Arghh!!! I wanna read this book! Sorry, MB, I do hate you because you've read it. (OK, not really, but here I am sick and feeling sorry for myself and I just know I would feel much much better if I had this book to read. Now.) I also read Loretta Chase's Mr. Impossible which I totally loved.

And I got my copy of Gina Trapani's Lifehacker which I've been flipping through and really enjoying. When I'm feeling better, I'm going to implement several of the suggestions, which are mostly about how to use technology to actually improve your life. None of them are terribly complicated, some are common sense, and some I have already implemented for other uses. Like using Instiki, which is a personal wiki. But I use it for writing stuff, not life stuff. But now that my son has a real computer, I'm going to re-commandeer my old laptop, install Linux on it and turn it into a web server so I can set up a more robust wiki.

Personal note to Patti O'Shea: I never get lie, lay right either so I write around that, but my ninth grade English teacher gave us this sentence to remind us of the distinction between affect and effect: The sound Effect Affected my ears. It helps to repeat this sentence with a deliberate emphasis on the opening vowel sound of the two buggers... er.. words. Therefore, when you are confronted with the effect/affect dilemma repeat that sentence to remind you of of the distinction. Thus: The effect was fantastic. E word. He was glad his whisper affected her. A-word.

I think that's it for now. I need to go lie down.

Labels: books, chocolate, pesky English, writing

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Sunday, December 24, 2006

Do this! read that! See here!

In no particular order (that's irony I think. Obviously my non-quantum mechanical world ethos requires that these appear in a particular order in order to communicate with you-all.) Whatever. I have a headache.

1. Check out this great post by Tess Gerritson. I spent most of last semester in a classroom of students with this attitude. [snotty comment omitted]

2. The new James Bond movie, Casino Royale totally rocks. Go to this movie while it's still in the theater. I saw pics of Daniel Craig and thought, meh He's okay but-- Well, I stand corrected. The man is one hell of an actor and long before the end of the movie (like within the first 2 minutes: the word "Considerably" won my heart lust and soul) I was more than willing to bear his children. Oh, the joy of a James Bond movie that isn't insulting to women. Thank you writers. Thank you director. And thank you for all those work outs, Daniel Craig.

3. Have a Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays and safe traveling.

4. Then there's this post from Marjorie M. Liu about a subject of my frequent obsession.

Labels: Casino Royale, James Bond, writing craft.

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Friday, December 22, 2006

Madly Writing

All-righty! Yes, I wrote a lot today. I was able to set aside many distractions and get words on the page. They were not fabulous words, but they are words that give me some structure and later I'll be going over them and really editing and fixing. Today, I was creating the bones. I had to delete a lot, though, so my word count looked worse than the number of new words written. At least this chapter (7) is now the skeleton of this version and all the stuff from the older version is gone. A couple of unexpected things happened, and I went with it. We'll see how much I get done tomorrow. Probably not a lot. I have presents to wrap, and my son needs to do some shopping. And I think the two of us need to relax a bit together doing mom and son stuff.

I am really, really glad about getting so much done today. I was afraid I'd futz around too much. Again. I have Tuesday off, too, so it's an extra long weekend. I'm looking forward to that a lot. Mostly the sleeping part. My cold is markedly better. Sleeping yesterday afternoon helped a lot, but I'm dead tired right now, so I'm going to bed.

Labels: words on the page, writing

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Thursday, December 21, 2006

Looking for some pity here

I have a cold. Ick. And right now I'm in the feeling miserable stage. To speed things along, go ahead and insert several sentences of whining bathetic self-absorbtion right here. Yeah. But I'm feeling even worse that that!

The holidays are distracting me. They should stop doing that. Miss Snark needs to stop distracting me. And other my favorite bloggers need to stop posting stuff I have to read. That's really distracting.

I'm still reading The Historian and it's pretty good, but it's not keeping me up at night like I expected. It's wonderfully written, and pretty creepy, but not really creepy, which is what I expected. In short, I expected a trope-busting exploration of Dracula, and so far, I haven't seen it in this book. But I'm not done yet. However, I am silently (unless you're reading this out loud) suspicious that the literary folk don't read enough genre novels to know when a trope has been really, truly and creatively busted wide open. Have none of them read MaryJanice Davidson? Did she not turn all-that-vampires-are on their collective pointy little fangs? Why, yes, she did. Further dissertation is probably unfair since I haven't finished the book yet, and maybe that's coming.

Last year I judged in the RITA's, this year it's the Golden Heart. My entries arrived today. I'm looking forward to reading them.

I have to get to work. Now.

Labels: holidays, self pity, vampires, writing

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Wednesday, December 20, 2006

Time's A Wasting!

The Shards of Crimson release date is fast approaching. If you haven't entered the contest to win ALL the stuff you see in this picture, you're running out of time.
So what is this cool stuff? No insulting the photographer please. I admit my shortcomings. The picture on my website is bigger in case you want to go there to see more not to mention enter right away! including, cool, awesome tattoos (the two flowery looking things on the white cards, those are the tattoos) The mug, the stakes. Gosh, my photo doesn't do the prizes justice at all.

So, as I say to my son, stop dawdling! Enter to Win!

Labels: contest, free stuff, shameless promotion

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Monday, December 18, 2006

Improbable? You be the judge. . .

Here's something I never expected: Jakob Nielsen, one of the preeminent (some would say the preeminent expert in web usability, has a post that is relevant to the writing of fiction, plus, in a super duper bonus, he actually mentions these statistically-improbable-for-a-usability freak words and phrases: hero, time travelers, Napoleonic War, captain of a British frigate. But wait! There's yet another bonus for you! Here is my favorite sentence of 2006, straight from Mr. Neilsen himself:

Films are littered with so many other unrealistic plot details: you'd imagine, for example, that the ability to shoot straight might actually be a primary job requirement of Imperial Stormtroopers.

Why yes, one does. But George Lucas never let details get in the way of a good story. Besides, everyone knows bad buys can't shoot. This whole article just really tickled me. I kept imagining Mr. Nielsen throwing popcorn at his TV while shouting Why isn't the user hopelessly confused?!? Check it out. It's way worth a read.

In other news, I am done with my holiday shopping, and all my holiday cards are sitting in front of me, unaddressed except for names. I think I'm going to email everyone a picture of the card instead. Let me know if you'd like me to email you one. :)

In writing news, I'm pretty pleased with the building process for the current project. I can feel the deadline panic starting up and that's good. The writing is agony but things are getting laid down well and I feel like I know the way forward, which is pretty important. I just hope I remember that Imperial Stormtroopers ought to be damn good shots.

Labels: statistically improbable, usability, writing

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Friday, December 15, 2006

I've been a good writer, but it really hurt

All righty. I'm on track for the better direction. Actually, that would be, a direction since until a couple of days ago I had only a very vague sense of direction. First, I stopped futzing around. Then I worked on my outline so that I was clear on what was happening in the chapters I have so far, and I added the skeleton of what I need to write. That way I can keep track.

Then, I went to the chapters and moved the bits around until they were where I needed them to be. Then I fixed the egregious discontinuities that resulted. Next, I looked at and deleted all the chapters (there were 10 of them) that were the result of work on the previous draft. I marked the ones I know have bits I'll need. The result? -8 words which is really not so bad.

The 10 deleted chapters don't count, since I removed them from my master document ages ago. I just hadn't decided on a direction so I wasn't comfortable moving them to the dead files section. But now I am and now I'm in a position to fix more stuff all the while going forward.

And now I'm going to bed. Ah, sleep. You are my favorite muse.

Labels: editing, reassembling, ripping to shreds, writing

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Sometimes writing is like this...

I love being a writer. What I can't stand is the paperwork.
Peter De Vries, editor, novelist (1910-1993)

For me, it's hardest when I'm starting out and my idea is at its vaguest. This is when my room is neater, laundry is done, when I do stupid web tricks or pass the time reading writing blogs.

In good news, last night's notebooking session was very productive, as was this morning's at the gym. (Which reminds me, I haven't seen Jaguar man in a very long time. Tattoo-boy is there regularly, so that's nice.) You'd think I'd be all raring to go with the new stuff, but no. It involves some painful reordering of events and writing from scratch.

So. Sigh. Off to it. Because, unfortunately, words don't write. Writers do.

Labels: beginning projects, quotes, writing craft

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Thursday, December 14, 2006

Cranking it up to bigger better faster

I am reading Philip Pullman's The Golden Compass to my son. It started out, you know, pretty good, but for a while I was wondering what all the fuss was about. And then, very sneaky-like, you're hooked so deep it's too late to do anything about it.It's wonderful, and we're having a fabulous time reading it.

As a writer, I say read this book to get an example of what Donald Maass means by a breakout book. I'm hanging my head in despair. Why hadn't I already thought of something bigger and wider for my Work in Progress? OK, well, I've been thinking about that and I've thought of something. I'm going to go to bed and notebook it for a while before I sleep.

Labels: writing craft

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Used Abused and misunderstood (but check out those abs!)

Now this is really funny. From The Onion. How Did I End up On the Cover of This Romance Novel?

Labels: humor, romance novel covers, writing

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Wednesday, December 13, 2006

Weekend on a Wednesday

Today was my day off which was nice since it involved me skipping the gym and sleeping in. I got some writing done. Slow going there. The ABC crew (all of them very, very nice) came and got shots of my son having breakfast and going off to school, me writing (yes, visually dull, even if I did have on a pink sweater.) They seemed to be under the impression that writing mostly involves typing. Um, no. Writing mostly involves thinking, reading and agony. Well, it does at the beginning stage anyway, which is where I am with my current project. My cat Jasper had the presence of mind to sit cutely on my lap while I was "working." So, perhaps you'll see him on TV! I wonder if I should get him an agent? Then lots of talking, then they got shots of me feeding the sheep. The title is America at a Crossroad. In my imagination, I am more more articulate that I was in fact.

So, in sum, I got more work done than usual, plus I got to sleep in. A good day. Except for the worry about looking like an idiot come April. Come to think of it, though, I take that risk every day.

Labels: ATT, EFF, writing

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Monday, December 11, 2006

Monday (To be rendered in a Monday tone of font)

Well, yes. It's Monday. I was busy all day Saturday, and Sunday, my brother and his wife were here from Santa Barbara. They'll be in Denmark for the holidays, so we visited, and then I had to shovel out my room because ABC wants to film me being a writer --

how boring is that? Author stares at ceiling. Author stares out the window. Author taps on keyboard, hits backspace and/or delete. Muttering and groaning. More staring. Tapping. Repeat until everyone falls asleep except the author who's close to tears. Could be joy. Probably not --

and my writing space is not very tidy. Patti O'Shea I am JUST like your parents. I feel for them. I need you to come over and save me from myself. Please!

After getting my room cleaner, then we all went out to dinner. All 12 of us, grandparents, siblings, wives, children, except my sister, who had to work. I dressed up by putting on a clean shirt and my converse sneakers.

And today was the day for unexpected emails. I heard from an old friend who picked up A Darker Crimson at the hospital-- to read while she was getting chemo. Oh, my gosh. I am so grateful she emailed me. I think of her often and I'm really pleased to be back in touch with her. I also heard from one of my students from the semester I taught. She's in an MFA program nwo. Her story was really charming, so here's hoping she finishes. And two strange emails from somewhat clueless but enthusiastic people.

And in between it all I've been trying to finish Laurel K. Hamilton's A Stroke of Midnight which I am really, really enjoying. The prior book was hard for me, interesting, but hard, but now she's worked out her issues with this flavor of story and I think this one's a damn good book.

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Saturday, December 09, 2006

It was a long day all day

I attended my local RWA chapter meeting which meant getting up early and driving quite a ways. But the company was great and gosh it was really wonderful to sit around and talk to writers -- real ones -- who know about agents and editors and how freaking hard it is to write. We traded stories and gossiped about agents, editors and writers and talked about our careers. Then I drove back home for my save-me-from-myself appointment and then back to Larkspur for my son's soccer games. It was raining, windy and cold. Oh my gosh. Then back home with a stop off to get burritos for dinner then home to get our wet clothes in the laundry. I got *some* writing done between then and now, but I'm exhausted and, naturally, I bought books at the meeting, so I'm looking forward to falling into bed with the dog and the cats and a new Laurel K. Hamilton and reading until my eyeballs fall out.

One good thing about my new-to-me car is that I don't have to worry as much about the roads that routinely flood during the winter. The Petaluma River runs right through Petaluma, meaning much of the town is alluvial. Large sections of the surrounding countryside are vernal wetlands. And some of those vernal wetlands have roads through them. Now that I don't have a low to the ground car, I don't have to worry so much about my usual route home -- which has two places that are not uncommonly under a couple feet of water.

Tired. Bed. Book. Me.

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Friday, December 08, 2006

groan!

Today, I almost didn't write. I thought of a bazillion things I need to do instead. But I was strong. And panicky. It is a sad fact that novels do not write themselves. They do not magically appear in your word processor ready to go, all but for a little polishing. Drats. You have to put the words there yourself, one-at-a-painful-time. And when they don't seem much like the wonderful words you imagined before you sat down to write, you have to suck it up and keep writing so that, eventually, you have enough words to edit into something. I really hate this part. Passionately. I would rather clean my room than write brand spanking new novel-words. But I was strong. My room is not clean (but must be by 7:15 am Wednesday, alas).

What else can I say?

I have my local RWA chapter meeting tomorrow morning so I can't sleep late. Plus soccer games. Plus this appointment so that Carolyn can learn about how to wear makeup for my updated author photo which I need to get, plus, the ABC/PBS documentary thing on Wednesday. So Saturday, I drive 45 miles south to Berkeley then back north for my consultation, then I drive 27 miles south to my son's soccer games (there are 2) and back north. Ick. But I can't change the appt for obvious reasons. I should think.

Sigh I try to keep politics out of this blog, but I suppose I can't since it seems I'm to be on National TV in April. I am a plaintiff in theElectronic Frontier Foundation's lawsuit against AT&T for allegedy turning over their customers' internet traffic to the NSA without a warrant. More accurately, I suppose, the EFF represent me in this lawsuit. So, ABC TV will be out here interviewing the EFF and me. My son is thrilled that they want to get footage of him going off to school. No one was deterred from this notion when I mentioned that this means he cuts across the field to the neighbor's house because he gets a ride from them. (Their son goes to the same school). Are these New Yorkers prepared for Petaluma? I think not. Should be interesting. Anybody think I can lose 20 pounds by Wednesday?

Me neither.

Labels: politics, writing

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Monday, December 04, 2006

Last hill before the rise

Today as I was doing the reading for school tomorrow, I began with the usual sense of faint dread. I worry about making sure I say things nicely, without letting people think it's OK to natter on for pages where nothing is happening except the nattering. Like that. The door to my room was open and I could hear the noises of the house, the TV, someone in the kitchen, etc. I read the first one. And then, I realized the second one was from Holly Wilcox. I closed the door and I fell deep.

This was a draft, so there were some rough spots, but genius is there right on the pages. Years ago, when I first starting writing, I took a creative writing class and there was a man named Howard Ockman whose stories were pure magic. I wish I'd copied his stories for myself, but I never dreamed he wouldn't publish them. I keep looking for his name, but if he's publishing, it's not as Howard Ockman. It's not right to have a gift like that and not publish. And so, my fear now is that Holly won't finish, or that if she does, she won't do what it takes, which is submit and revise and keep submitting until you find the agent or editor who gets what you've done.

Lots of people complain about how hard it is to get published. No doubt about it, it's hard to get your writing to the point where someone else who holds only your pages in her hand, falls into your story. It's really hard. At this point, I'm getting cynical. Most unpublished writers seem to believe their work doesn't need work. I now suspect they believe the real problem is the agents and editors who are prejudiced against, well, something, right?

It's a sad fact that talent is never enough. You have to finish the book, too. And then send it out there into a world populated with people who don't care how hard you worked or what you saw in your head when you were writing. Agents, editors and readers only care about what you managed to actually get onto the page.

Later, of course, agents and editors care about your print run and sell-through. But that's enough cynicism for one night I think.

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Sunday, December 03, 2006

Well now, isn't that interestng?

OK, first off, I did work on Magellan's Witch today. Finished up my fix and got going into chapter 4, which is sort of OK at this point, but needs lots of work. Words rarely, if ever, trip lightly off my fingers. Mostly I need to spend my time herding cats into some semblance of order (wherein, by the way, it's meant that the reader should substitute the word "cats" with the word "words" in order to get the full flavor of the writing portion of my day.

Saw Stranger Than Fiction today. Writers should see this movie. Dustin Hoffman is wonderful as the literature professor -- see how many literary allusions you get -- and Emma Thompson fabulous as the blocked and suicidal author. Queen Latifa was great, gosh she has presence. And Will Farrell grew on me after a bit, too. Go see it. Good movie.

And, lastly, I just got done reading an author's blog (won't say who) in which she seems to be complaining about the poor and unworthy books that are pushing literary fiction to the margins. Uhm, excuse me? Well, yes, I note a very fine irony here. We untalented and unworthy authors of genre fiction (and yes, the digs were got in about romance) sigh over the ways in which literary fiction is privileged in terms of worthiness and wish we had advanced even as far as Sci Fi or mystery in the worthiness race, let alone literature. And here all this time what's really happening is we're pushing literary fiction to the fringes. Oppressing the auteurs and keeping them from vast readership and prints runs greater than 10,000.

Babe, if your genre is on the fringes, it's not the fault of some other genre. People like to read good stories. Get a rep for telling a good story and people will read it, even if gasp! it's literary. Or not. There's room for us all, so stop whining.

I am now ready for the sleeping portion of my day. Night. Whatever.

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Saturday, December 02, 2006

Tomorrow came and could have been worse

First off, in writing news, I started work on Magellan's Witch (not wild about the title). I am currently addressing my small but significant change in chapter 3. It's going OK. I'm going to let Scandal sit a bit, look at it, send it out to critique and then unless the critique results are not happy, to my agent.

Since I promised I'd confess my car adventures, here you go. I have a new-to-me car that, naturally, cost more than I had hoped to pay. But after hitting all the on-line dealerships and Craigslist etc it was more than apparent that a car that was in my preferred price range would have a bazillion miles on it and be older than the one that got smushed. Sigh.

Plan B, by the way, was to buy this 1975 Mercedes SEL for $595 and just drive that until I could find/afford something else. But that car turned out to be at an impound lot, which, to my mind, is just not the same as buying an el cheapo car from someone who's been driving it around. Sigh.

Plan B had to be abandoned. In fact, the majority of the deals on Craigslist (for cars I was interested in) turned out to be from people who were, mysteriously, out of the country but willing to ship the car to me... Yeah. Right. So, dealership land for me. I did NOT go to the dealership that sold me the lemon oh so many years ago. The guy who came to greet me was really nice. It was his first day on the job at this dealership and I was his first customer. He writes poetry, by the way. So, I briefly flirted with the idea of a BMW 7 Series that was $16K but it had 97,000 miles on it and only gets 20 mpg. Considering I sometimes drive 50-60 miles a day, such a car just didn't make sense. Drats. So instead I got a 2005 Suzuki thingee that has 10K miles on it. I like it. I just Sigh was so looking forward to paying off the former car and not having a car payment. But I'm happy enough. It gets good mileage and has room for soccer playing boys.

All things considered, the experience could have been much worse and was actually pretty pleasant. I got to drive a big honking Beamer and pretend it was to be mine. Someday maybe.

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Friday, December 01, 2006

dreading tomorrow

Tomorrow is pretty much the day I have to buy a new-to-me car. I have a sort of plan B which is too stupid to talk about right now. If I am able to implement the plan, I will, naturally, confess all right here. Until then, mum's the word.

Anyhoo.

I did indeed stay up too late last night to find out how Zsadist got his HEA. Now I'm crushed to realize that J.R. Ward's next Black Dagger book isn't out until March 07. But I've pre-ordered it. Here's what I love about the series -- bigger than life heroes who are seriously flawed. They're all twisted. OK, my favorite line so far is when Wrath, from the first book, says his two favorite words are f*ck and off. Is that fabulous or what? So about these alpha heroes: One is blind, another has a resident monster and one has a reputation to match his name. Another is missing part of his leg. Goodness. I admit that at times the testosterone levels go off the charts, but the male characters are really interesting, and the women are hardly less so.

Where was I? Oh, yeah, I'm supposed to be working on my books not reading someone else's. Oh well. I got some excellent notebooking done at the gym this morning and arrived at a good solution to a nagging problem. But, it's something of a fix. I'll start that tomorrow. I'm going to bed now because I have hours to catch up on my sleep.

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