Nervous Breakdown

My, my, my.

Big things afoot for the career. Or not. I'm sort of to the point where I think that whatever I write is redundant tripe and I should give up. And I just know the good stuff won't happen to me. But it might right? I mean, I could end up getting the agent of my dreams. I really hate the uncertainty. And I hate not being able to tell people what is going on. And the reason I can't tell people is because I broke the rules and if it doesn't pan out I don't want people to say, "that was stupid, why did you think you would be an exception to the rules?" Of course, if it does end up working out then I will be one of the few who broke the rules and it worked.

So when did I become the sort of person who didn't expect good things? Oh, Yeah. The day they told me I somehow beat the odds and came down with an incredibly rare brain tumor. Yeah. That was it. Oh and when the doctor told me the chances of getting a secondary tumor from the radiation were extremely slim, I just laughed. Which is why I drink a bottle of wine every MRI Day. And the last one... not too long ago led me to the next paragraph.

Last MRI day I did something so stupid I just can't believe it. I was under the influence of my MRI bottle of wine. Then I tried to fix it and was even more stupid. She, who shall not be named, knows what I am talking about and I hope I will be telling this story when I am rich and famous. Until then, I hope it never gets out.

The tiara club went well. I wore my tiara and one other person did as well. I had a nice showing of about ten. Am hoping for twice that many next time. But I will have a nice report back to the boss. I won't tell her about knocking my chair over.

And my parents are here. Oh, and they are getting back together again. The story is too long to get into. But I guess I am happy. After all my 89 year old dad would be happier.

I should just get back to work. Lose myself in something besides worry! HA!

Never a Beauty Queen

Now, I am not traditionally beautiful. Or pretty. Or even cute actually. I used to pass for cute sometimes when my hair was long and glossy and my skin tanned. I have lovely colored skin... and I used to have a pretty amazing body when I wore high heels. But at 40, cute just doesn't work anymore. I'm not even well groomed and love to sit around in sweats and a t-shirt. No, I'm not whining. I have a point.

Today I have to run a tiara club meeting. When I signed up for this it was called a Power Hour and women in business would get together and network. "Oh, I can do that!" I told my editor.

Then she changed it on me. Now it's the tiara club. She wanted to add an element of fun to the meeting. Yay. She even bought me this gorgy, very expensive tiara. Today is the first meeting of the tiara club and we are meeting in a very popular restaurant. People are going to see me in my tiara and know I was never a beauty queen. My editor won't be there this time. I think I will see if anyone else is wearing a tiara and then slip mine off at the last minute. See, even at 40 peer pressure gets to me.

These are the slots of my life

Everything in my life has slots. I feel as if my life were one big in- mail slot with everything catagorized. You know the kind, the ones you set on your desk to shove papers in that you are supposed to get around to filing later only six months go by and you haven't even looked at it? That kind. I have the northwest woman magazine slot. I have the fiction slot. I have the freelance slot. I have the mommy slot. I have the figure skating club slot. I have the wife slot. I have the home slot. Sometimes my slots collide. Too much going on at one time. Not sure which slot to put stuff in or if it is even worth slotting. This morning I had the mommy slot, the freelance slot, the NW Woman slot and the wife slot all clamoring for attention. What about the I need a shower slot?

Maybe I should tell them all to slot off?

Morning... I think

Stayed up way too late last night working on my fiction. I integrated another crit to it and worked on chapter 5. I have like 83 pages now, so I'm slowly but surely coming along. I just wish I could see this morning! Have to take the ice princess to the rink and then get back to work. I'd rather go back to bed.

I sat down and did quite a bit of plotting on On the Edge. I worked each chapter out on a 3x5 card and attached them together with a paper clip. I started with the ending so I knew where I was going, I just had to figure out how to get there. I think it is going to help a lot as I write. I have never done that kind of plotting before, so this is new to me. How do you plot your novels?

Not so much chaos

I have been a bad, bad girl. I have been working on my fiction to the exclusion of my nonfiction. I made zero bucks this week. Sigh. I am just so excited about my project. The writing is going very well. Better than very well. I just finished up chapter 4 and I think it's pretty darn good. I revised and edited chapters 1-3 and I think they are pretty darn good too. I am excited learning about my craft in my YA class and I think Lauren is a fab teacher. She has been giving me some good ideas on revising and it has made a big difference. Of course, my crit groups has made a world of difference in my writing as well. I totally recommend the Lauren's class, though. Will add her blog soonest. She and her agent Nadia (I would spell her last name out, but don't want to slaughter it) are doing a book on Writing YA for Writer's Digest books... how cool is that? I knew it was a fab class!

So now I am on chapter 5 and not wanting to stop to work on the different kinds of bedwetters or how to help baby sleep through the night. At over 15,000, I am a third of the way done with the book. Not sure of what is going to happen... some of it is a bit sketchy, but I have faith it will turn out. I also have a couple of ideas for adding depth to a couple of my characters.

Next week is going to be a very busy week. I hope to get some more work done on my YA, but I have a lot of NW Woman stuff to do. I would love to get some big advances and just live off my fiction!

Dream on eh?

Can we say chaos?

Got my desk put together. Got my stuff put away. Felt ready for the day. I wasn't. ACK!

Can we say Chaos? I didn't know wether to do my NW woman work or my bread and butter pay the bills work. I tried to do both... but was highly distracted. Then I had a focus groups luncheon to go to as a NW Woman rep. It was a free lunch, but NO Martinis! Sigh. I think better after a drink or two. At least I think I do;-) Snort. I did have a good time and made a lot of contacts.

Also had coffee with a friend at 7am, found some sources for one of my articles and finished up another one. Unfortunately, I don't seemed to have saved chapter four of my fiction WIP. Piss!

Okay must rush off and find a cool place to hang. And I mean cool as in cold. Don't care about "cool". Hee.

sorta back....

And sorta not.

My computer is set up on the kitchen island and I am in my wingback chair, squinting at the screen because it is too far away. I have a laptop, but it doesn't have enough memory to take the verizon download. So here I am.

The remodel was far more difficult than I had planned, but that is generzlly the case, is it not? My marraige may not make it through it, (I don't know what I ever saw in that controlling, perfectionistic man who has appointed himself Mr. Quality Control!) But at least when I get the house it will be a gorgeous one! With new floors even and a brand new paint job! Am waiting for Mr. Mean to give the okay on ordering my new desk. I know I really shouldn't wait for him and if he waits too much longer, I won't. Making me nuts. The new desk is fab. Ultra modern which may sound like it clashes with the dark cherry Queen Anne tables I scored at the garage sale, but since they are in another section of the great room, hopefully not. It is a black stell and glass jobby shaped like an L. http://www.staples.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/StaplesProductDisplay?prodCatType=2&storeId=10001&catalogId=10051&langId=-1&productId=92177

Will look wonderful against my dark red walls and lovely new floor. And the cool new art I also scored at the garage sale, black and white photos of old Portland.

Okay, that is all for now! Must get back to getting my house workable. I hope to be up and running by Monday. I still have to prime and paint the molding and finish the doors. Am tired of going potty behind a blanket... I want a real bathroom door!

Heading out

Just wanted to let you know I am going to be offline for a few days... It is time to do the floors. The painting is finished except for touch ups and we rent the sander tomorrow. Wish us luck. My husband is having anxiety attacks.

Is going to look so fab when we are done! I did the Skating Club garage sale yesterday and am so glad I did... I bought five black and white prints of old Portland for a buck each! Then I bought a gorgeous coffee table/end table set for 65 dollars. It is dark cherry Queen Anne style and unbelievably beautiful. WIll go perfect with my dark Currant Jam walls and soon to be mahogany stained floors! Now I just need a new couch. Hee!

see ya people!

I was a Madwoman

To have looked forward to this!

House is a mess. Will get to a hundred degrees today and I have to be done by Sunday so we can start the floors on Monday with everything dry.

Am still able to work a bit, but no fiction. No crits.

Must go paint.

Monday Madness

Am excited about the week. Well, sorta. Here's a breakdown:

• Writing: I just finished most of an article due today and it was actually pretty fun to write. I still have to get in touch with one expert for permission on something... I hope that will go easy and also be fun:)
• I got some great feedback on my YA fiction and it is getting better and better. I honestly think if I work hard I can send the first three chapters to that interested agent this week.
• Homelife: I am painting my house this week! YAY! It has needed it so badly for such a long time. I took all the stuff off the walls yesterday washed the first ones with TSP and edged the ceiling. Today I need to Paint the ceilings and start doing the priming edging on the clean walls. If I get that done I may wash the other walls. But probably won't get to it. I have to finish this week cause next week is refinishing the hardwood FLOORS!

So I am pretty stoked. I will no doubt be exhausted soon!

Lucky Thirteen

I am feeling pretty durn good about myself.

I wrote thirteen pages in On the Edge yesterday and finished out chapter three. I am going to go over those three chapters with a fine toothed comb and then put them up to my critique partners. I have an agent who said she would look at them for me once I had three chapters done, so those 3 chapters need to be simply smokin. Right now I am not even sure if they are sparking let alone smoking. We'll see. Now that I have hit upon the concept of GMC, I am anxious to make sure my charaters have them. At least my main characters. Let's see.

Cassie--Goal: To win first place at regionals and go onto sectionals and to get a date for her junior Senior Prom
Motivation: Her love of figure skating
Conflict: The new girl in town is threatening both her figure skating dreams and going after the guy
she thinks she wants to go out with.
Theresa-- Goal: To be a champion figure skater
Motivation: respect, money, fame
Conflict: She has very little money to support her skating and very few people believe in her.

That are the GMC breakdown of my two main characters. I could do it for all of them and I can see why knowing that would help. I am excited about this story and also my next one.

I am not that excited about the nonfiction work I have to get done today. But it will be good for the over all GMC of my household:)

Left Behind

I swear, I must be the only romance writer NOT in Reno. Maybe I will start on that new romance that has been brewing in me head. I have a lot of fiction writing to do, but had to catch up with my nonfiction work before I could hop off and be creative. I finally invoiced a thousand. Very slow month. That is half of what I invoiced last month. I was supposed to work extra hard this month because I needed the money next month. See how that works? Now I have gone and messed up the whole plan.

Meggie's Skates have come in. Poor dear. They are killing her feet. She will have to put about fifteen hours in them before they begin to break in to comfortable. She skated for about 30 minutes yesterday and will do another hour today, broken up of course. Tomorrow she will have to skate for an hour at one time. Her coach is pretty tough... she will not be happy if Megs doesn't put in the time. have to run to get her to the rink!

Back in the Saddle...

Yawn. Spent the weekend in Bend, a wonderful summer and winter getaway and the place where I was raised. Well, I live din Alfalfa, but it's all Central Oregon. My son and I had a wonderful time. I forget what a great kid he is. We must have talked in the dark at the B&B for two hours before we finally had to call it a night. How cool is that? Especially with a teenager!

My daughter must have missed me. We spent an hour or so last night cleaning the house then she wanted to help me with my writing business. She designed some aqdvertising tracking sheets for me and looked up some names. I also think I am going to let her help with some of the promotional work. She is, after all, a young northwest woman! Maybe I can train her into being my Assistant and hire her arse when the office goes in. Nepotism at it's best:) She's a lot more organized than I am anyway.

Have to make out my weekly to do list today... Am swamped as this is the last week that I can get invoicing done and am way far below the average for the month. Lots of stuff going on! I have several articles that have to be finished and a few more that need to be roughed drafted by the end of the week. I need to put together a partial for an agent, do tons of NW woman work, Work like a mad woman prepping the house for painting and finish up the third chapte rin Rink Rats. I woulds also like to do some Goal, Motive and Conflict work on my new novel and for Rink Rats.
Better run!

Working on Fiction

When I should really be working on my nonfiction. Oy! I have so many projects going it is hard to keep track. I worked on my YA novel yesterday. I finished switching chapter two over to third person. I think I like it, but I keep distancing the reader and the character. I think I need more dialogue. I will work on that in chapter three which will be from a different person's POV. I am being a wimp here. If a YA novel's word count is only 40K, then in reality I could pump this sucker out in 20 days. Now I understand that is a bit fast, but even 1ooo a day is forty days! I really need to focus on using the first hour or so of my day for just fiction. Warm up here at the old blog site and then just bite into it! Go for it, you know?

On the nonfiction news front... I got a promotion yesterday... I am now a contributing editor for Family Energy Magazine! A new spanky title and a new spanky raise. Go Me!

Now I just have to get some serious work done! I should do at least three articles this week and then four next week if I could! I have to have at least ten finished a month to make the small womanly's ice skating fees. That is my goal. Then to save some money for the laptops we need... then to save for the kids school..then regionals in October. Sheese!
Lots going on this fall and all of it expensive!

Okay... the world of fiction awaits and I must heed it's call!

What a week and a lesson in Retro!

Am so very glad that is over with! Too much to do and too little time! My invoicing for the month still sucks and have been involved in rewrite city so haven't been able to as much writing for my regular client as usual... though that will change this week. I must invoice 1500 a month or we are hosed.

I spent a lot of time on the phone with potential advertisers for the magazine, as well as planning our first business woman's luncheon and our first kindred connection event. A lot of work, but I really need to remember to focus on my other writing as well. Must make a note of that. I also have to get a report in to my publisher on distribution in Oregon... it is distributed in Washington and Idaho, but not widely distributed in Oregon yet. That must change! One of my first priorities.

Oh, and a lesson in retro! I found an old pair of sunglasses last week just at the time I had misplaced a pair. These were old Bucci glasses, circa 1988. They were 100.00 back then. White with the old Vaurnet type eyepieces... they have a thick clear plastic coating on the inside of the eye pieces (not the lenses). The ear pieces say handmade in france and a metal plate with Bucci and a small lion on them. I thought they were pretty cool and decided to wear them again... I have recieved more comments on those glasses now then I ever did when they are new. The 18 yo girl next door saw me pull up in the car and ran over to find out what they were. She couldn't believe they were from the eighties. Said they were something Paris would wear. I went to the ice rink and had three of the skaters (13 to 16) start gushing over my sunglasses... and yesterday my banker looked at me and said, "Great shades!" So let that be a lesson to us... keep everything! Snort!

I will post a pix when I get one:)

Information Overload

I just got back from a whirlwind trip to Spokane to the Northwest Woman Magazine offices. It was fabulously interesting and wonderful as a way of cementing the relationship I have with the publisher. We had meeting upon meeting upon meeting ... you get the picture. The first afternoon we visted the office by ourselves and got quite a lot of work done. She and I have much the same vision for the Portland division. She took me out to dinner with her fmaily which was nice. Yesterday morning, we had a breakfast with other business owners in the area. Then back to the offices to meet the other employees. A quick trip to office depot and then lunch with the manager of the radio station we are using to send out the NW Woman Magazine radio show. A sales rep was also there and he explained how to sell radio ads and how the structure was different and similar to print ads. I also got a tiara, (for the tiara club) a huge box of office supplies and a box of very cool nightshirts for promotional stuff. All in all, a very satisfying trip!

I had an editor contact me while I am gone to do revisions on a piece we thought we had put to bed. Hopefully, it won't come back again. We are beginning to hate the brand we are doing it for. I got that out this morning... I am pretty tired from all the driving, but I think I did it okay! Snort.

I am feeling pretty discouraged about my fiction. Pretty talentless. Got another agent rejection. Have another one that wants to see it, so we will see, but I am about to put this novel to rest. This one didn't like the name either. Sigh.
My CP group doesn't seem to be too thrilled with my skate series either. They are very helpful, don't get me wrong and it might just be the genre that bores them... Anyway. Am feeling a bit ... discouraged, I guess is the best way to put it.

But onward and upward. I need to try to get as much work done this week as I can... hard when Monday is gone. Just like last week. But I haven't invoiced hardly anything and it is already the 12th!

Am off.

Movies...

Anyone excited to see In Her Shoes? A JW book made into a movie:) Chick Lit books are now turning into chickflick which will be a lot of fun. I would love to see Gena Showalter's book, Awaken Me Darkly, turned into a movie... Even my son would like that... weell it would have to be a bit more PG13. But still a good book for it. Guys and gals would both enjoy it. What other books would make a fun movie?

The world is getting ready for the RWA conference...the one I ALMOST made it to. Dh is right though...no way do we have the money this year. Next year I will go as I hope I will have a book out by that time... or at least one in the works. (Ihope, I hope, I hope)

Tons of work to do today. I have an article interview to do here shortly as well as some crits to catch up on. And I would love to make it back to my own fiction too!

Garages

I took a break from writing today in order to head to the gym and work out... I had a good one. Need to do that every flipping day to get back on track though.

I also cleaned the garage. It was unbelievable. In order to force my husband to paint the living area and refinish the wood floors, I have to make sure that everything else is done so he isn't stressed. I have been working my butt off on the yard... I still have a bunch to do, but it is looking good. Then we need to finish the Bedroom... then we can finish the rest of it before fall. Very important. I can't live with the peeling paint and rapidly decaying floor for another winter.

I finished redoing chapter one of my YA novel. I think it's pretty good:) I like the third person POV for this one. I am going to make the changes I need to and then head onto the rest of the book... I need the freshness of working out the plot instead of just making changes all the time. I think I will start doing that and saving the critiques instead of going over them making changes and reposting all the time. It gets a bit stale that way.


Not much else going on in the writing world... Heading off to Spokane this weekend to have a meeting with my NW Woman Editor. I am hoping to have some good news for her... A firm distributor or something! We'll see!

post fourth

Yesterday was one of the best fourth of July's we have ever had.

First off, we stayed home. We didn't join any of the other holiday maddened people in the long lines or traffic jams. Secondly, we planned nothing. I kicked back in the hammock with some books while my daughter floated around in the pool. My husband was sleeping as he had worked graveyard the night before. My son showed up from the neighbors and said they wanted to know if we wanted to join them in bbq-ing. We already had chicken out and our son had just bought some steak for Kabobs so we said sure. By the end of the evening we had practically the whole little block involved. Just the kind of party I like, last minute, no planning or stressing... One neighbor brought their watermelon and we chilled it on ice. We ran up to the liquor store and picked up some rum and other ingrediants and made mojitos. Surely one of the most refreshing drinks I have ever had. We played badmitton and visited, the kids swam and ran around and when it got dark everyone brought out their fireworks and we did them in the street while we blasted ELO and the refreshments from the house. So, so fun!

Now it is time to get to work. I have one article due this week and a bunch of NW Woman stuff I could do, but mostly just a relaxing week... I like that!

One More Day!

One more day of Skate Camp. Meggy is helping out with the children's camp, not attending... she isn't even going to attend this year. Her coach, who runs it, said it wouldn't be worth it for her. She's at too high of a level. Tomorrow I sleep in!

My son comes home from Seattle today. YAY! I miss his loud noisy bones. We have tentative plans for the fourth... we are heading out to the lake for the day to boat, fish and picnic and then head back to the local highschool for the firework frenzy. Should be oodles of fun.

I haven't done five things on my list... but will get some of them done today. I have one more article due today and then I am finished for the week. Next week will be far more sane. Should be anyway:)

I am switching POV's on my YA novel. I started it in first, but am thinking of switching it to third. Actually I am thinking of doing a prologue in Omincient (I know I killed the spelling there, but it is my blog) Then do the rest in third... So much to think about. This must be a compelling read! I will be working on it this weekend, along with the yard, the housework and taking megsies to the mall with friends. Okay, enough. Must get something accomplished!