Friday Five: Most Annoying Habits of Those Around Me

Call me a snob or worse, but I easily annoyed. I rarely show that annoyance because I was blessed with a lot of patience, but the annoyance is still the same. Here are some things that happen on an almost daily basis that makes my eyes twitch.

It is annoying when people:

1. Act like I must be 12 years old because I look a lot younger than I am.
2. Speak over me because I am literally shorter than them.
3. Call me weird because I don’t get blitzed every night, don’t slack while working, and tend to follow the rules however stupid they may seem.
4. Assume that I have no life experiences and/or must be very immature because I am not married and do not have children.
5. Say “One day I’d love to be a writer.” You either are a writer or you are not.

Just so its clear, I know I do annoying things too. Sometimes I'm not actively aware that I am doing them though. You would not insult me if you called me on the following:

1. Running a conversation and/or just not getting the hint that its time to stop talking.
2. Ignoring a speaker because I either don't hear them or don't realize they are talking specifically to me.
3. Getting lost in my own mind and shutting out everyone else as I work in a mindless haze.
4. Singing and dancing as I go about my business when I have no talent in either.
5. Refusing a social invite because I actually enjoy being a shut-in most of the time even though I complain about not having anything to do.

Love is love, no matter the back story. <3 DS

Friday Five: Books that Could Make Good Movies

There are some books that just lend themselves to a visual medium because the storytelling is so detailed, the characters are so vivid. These are movies I would like to see made into movies... soon!

1. Sabriel of The Abhorsen Trilogy by Garth Nix
2. Magic Kingdom for Sale- SOLD of The Magic Kingdom of Landover Series by Terry Brooks
3. Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaimon
4. Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal by Christopher Moore
5. Journey of Shadows of The Immortalis Trilogy by Dee Sutter teehee

 Love is love, no matter the back story. <3 DS

Success!

I finished my read-through finally! Let me repeat... I hate, hate, hate editing. It is my least favorite part of writing. But it is part of it so I do it. Yes, I have a wonderful editor, but that doesn't mean I get to slack off and give him the 1st draft and make him deal with it. I sent it to him this evening and the file I sent was revision #3. As I did the read-through, I edited for clarity, passive voice, and continuity. We'll see how good a job I did once he has a chance to look it over. I'm still somewhat close to when I figured I'd finish (the 20th). Depending on his other projects and stuff going on in his life, I'll have Immo2 ready for Beta readers before long. No ETA, just soon. :D As always, I will update you when I have more information.

Love is love, no matter the back story. <3 DS

Friday Five: Five Movies Based on Books that are Not Terrible

As a general rule, most movies based on books are awful. Some are not so bad though.

1. The Green Mile- This Tom Hanks movie was great, so much so that I didn't even suspect that it was based on a novel until several years later when someone pointed it out.
2. Shawshank Redemption- This movie was played over and over when I was a kid. I don't know what the appeal was specifically but we loved it.
3. Bridge to Terabithia- I love the sweet simplicity of this movie.
4. Black Beauty- Any one of the versions of this movie is good. I like the one that came out when I was a child though.
5. The Shining- This movie came out before I was born but Steven King proves himself to be an amazing storyteller, as this is the 3rd of his novels-turned-movies that I have on the list. It is pretty telling I think.

Love is love, no matter the back story. <3 DS

Friday Five: Tech I Want To Buy

I love technology but I am very resistant to trying new things, simply because I understand that they will come out with a "newer and better" version within 6-9 months.

1. Wireless Repeater- The signal in my house sucks. 'Nuff said.
2. Kindle Fire- I love my Kindle Keyboard but it is very limited in the stuff it can do. Now that Amazon is likely coming out with 2 more Fires, it is likely that the $199 price tag will drop and I will snatch one up by Christmas.
3. Smart Phone- I loathe cell phones. I hate being tethered to the damn thing. And I hate touch screen phones. The smudges make my OCD go into hyper drive. But it is getting to the point that if I don't have a smart phone, then I'm not going to be able to function away from my computer. Lame.
4. Computer for the kids- The girls need to start learning how to use a computer. It will be a nightmare, I know. But it will definitely be good for them.
5. DVR- So that I don't have to watch Dad's shows the one time a week that I want to watch TV, a DVR would be so handy... my show could get taped and I could watch it at my leisure. Well, I do that already by watching it on Hulu I guess. Hmm...

Love is love, no matter the back story. <3 DS

Update On MS

Fixing the italics in Immo2 took less time than I thought. A few hours over the past couple days. However, my first read-through session netted 22 pages over 5 hours. Granted, I was plenty distracted. The kids, the cats, parents, phone, etc. But I really hoped that I could get more done in that time. At this rate, I won't be finished until about the 20th or so. Oy. I hope the weekend works out a little better.

I'll update my progress in a few days. :)

Love is love, no matter the back story. <3 DS

Goodbye Summer Break!

I go back to work tomorrow. I'll be up at 6 or 6:30am by the latest. The coffee is ready to start. My lunch is so not packed. My clothes are set out though. 2 out of 3 isn't too bad I guess. I'm ready to get back to work.

The cats finally had their baths yesterday and today thanks to my 13 year old cousin. She wanted to do it. Yea, I know right? Weird-o. But I was sure to thank her from the bottom of my lazy heart.

I got a lot done over the break. Thanks to Steven, my 8 separate files for Immo2 morphed into 1 large manuscript weighing in at over 131,000 words. Cripes. I whittled away about 150 words today just by doing a spotty adverb purge. It took all damn day long. I fixed the chapter, section, and paragraph breaks yesterday. It took several hours but not nearly as long as today's project.

I nuked the file so now comes the fun part. This is my project list for now:

Friday Five: Things My Family Does When the Power Goes Out

Our power went out last weekend due to storms. It was out from about 6pm until 4am. My family, for whatever reason, lose all threads of common thought processes and immediately rush into borderline mass hysteria. This is what each of my family members did as soon as (or later, a little after sunset) the power went out.

1. Scrambles for candles all through the house, cusses about being out of lamp oil (Mom)
2. Digs out the generator, cusses because it is always low on gas (Dad)
3. Flips on the light switch in every room thinking one of them will come on, actually asks why the light won't work (Sister 1)
4. Asks “when is the power going to come on” constantly, actually assumes I can tell them an answer (Sister 2)
5. Calls and suggests a cookout in the middle of the night because he is bored with no tv (Brother)

*sigh* Thankfully, I had a fully charged Harvey ready to go so I turned on some music and played World of CryptoPics for about an hour and a half until my battery got low. Then I turned off my cell and went to bed. The rain did not continue through the night so I wasn't lulled to sleep by the tap-tap-tap on the roof but at least I got my nightly nonogram done.

Love is love, no matter the back story. <3 DS

Happy 4th of July!

We have 5 kids here at the house running through the sprinklers and screaming like banshees. Dad has the grill going. We did a small bonfire (apparently illegal now- burn warning) and s'mores last night. I had the brilliant idea to replace the Hershey's bars with peanut butter cups. They were amazing. Mom is hanging out in the air conditioning with Gran, mixing up salad, making deviled eggs, and getting all the cutlery and such together.

I have managed to get the yard cleaned up with the help of the kids. I mowed while they drug tree limbs into a pile for the fire, watered the plants, and pulled some weeds. A teenage neighbor cleared out the gutters (yay no more trees growing in them!) for $20. I got up early and went to the cemetery to lay some flowers on my aunt's and my cousin's gravestones. No cats were bathed... its just been too crazy with all the kids running around and the random bouts of no electricity. So it is Wednesday and all I have left- minus bathing cats- is to write. I have been working on that but I've yet to be really productive. I'm so distracted!

Have a safe and enjoyable 4th of July folks. Make sure you drink plenty of fluids if you are going to be out in the heat!

Love is love, no matter the back story. <3

Three Things

I wanted to touch on three things that have been playing on repeat through my mind today.

Andy Griffith passed away this morning in North Carolina. He was 86 years old. He was an icon to millions, and was my dad's hero. He has watched The Andy Griffith Show every time he could find it on, sometimes bypassing A Christmas Story if he could find reruns of AGS running instead. In our family, that is huge. With his discovery of Netflix, he has watched AGS every day for the past year or more. To put it mildly, my dad is upset and mourning his childhood idol and hero. RIP Andy.

Nora Ephron passed away last week of complications due to leukemia. She was 71. Her name might not be as brightly illuminated to some as Mr. Griffith's, but her passing has left many in mourning too. Many remember her for her big movies Sleepless in Seattle, When Harry Met Sally, and You've Got Mail. I remember her for All I Wanna Do, a young adult film starring many of the big names of my age group (Kirsten Dunst, Vincent Kartheiser, Matthew Lawrence, Rachel Leah Cook, Gabby Hoffman, Monica Keena, Hayden Christensen, and Shawn Ashmore) that failed to reach beyond a 6 digit gross. I fully admit that I originally watched it solely because of Danny Smith, a remarkably comedic actor playing in a campy Canadian teen show called Big Wolf On Campus at the time. But I fell in love with Nora's talent (she produced AIWD) and went on to spend several years in college attempting to watch every project she was associated with. To date, I have seen everything except Julie & Julia, My Blue Heaven, and her stuff prior the the 1990's which is a lot harder to find. RIP Nora.

John Irving's 13th book, In One Person, explores the BT part of LGBT, a hot button topic right now. He gave this fantastic interview (here) that made me do a "Wait. John Irving is gay? Anderson Cooper is gay... sure, no surprise there. But John Cider House Rules Irving? Damn!" A quick cross reference with some web sources confirmed that Irving is in fact... straight. I was pretty ashamed of myself when it occurred to me that a straight man could write openly and honestly about a bisexual youth exploring his sexuality while growing up in rural Vermont without sounding trite and put-on. I get pissed at people for being judgmental and relying on stereotypes and yet, I did the exact thing that I despise. I gave myself a stern talking to and resolved to work on mending the error of my ways.

Love is love, no matter the back story. <3 DS

Things You Love Don't Owe You

I ran across an article about writing a book that made me stop and ponder for a while. Agent extraordinaire Janet Reid posted about the article yesterday. This article, by Corinne Purtill for Salon, was titled "My book was a bad idea" and went on about the trials and tribulations of writing a novel for the author. Please, go read the article before you click the jump. I'll wait... it really isn't that long.

Smashwords Sale!

For the month of July, Smashwords is running a special sale for the summer (and winter for those south of the equator). As part of the sale, Journey of Shadows will be available for a 50% off discount from 12:01am on July 1st until 11:59pm on July 31st. That means you can pick up my debut novel for a whole $1.50 over the next 31 days! How cool is that? Simply enter the promo code SSW50 when you go through with the purchase. Not ready to drop that much cash just yet? Head over to the link above and download the first 15% of my novel for FREE.

Remember the sale does not start until 12:01am Pacific Time on July 1st. They will have a complete listing of participating titles from Smashwords authors for you to browse while you are there. Don't miss out on this chance!

Love is love, no matter the back story. <3 DS

Friday Five: 4th of July Celebrations

The 4th is quickly coming for us and I already have a list of things planned to do while I am off of work for 10 (count them with me... 1, 2, 3...) days.

1. Family cookout that includes burgers and cheesy mets, grilled veggies, homemade desserts, relaxation in the pool, sparklers (no fireworks allowed in our neighborhood), and s'mores at the bonfire. Yes, we can have a bonfire, but no fireworks. Makes total sense, no?
2. Lots of yard work to make up for the past month of my complete inability to cope with work exhaustion. Need to mow, weed the garden, clean the patio, and probably clean out the gutters. Seriously, there are 2 and 3 feet tall trees growing on top of the house.
3. Give the cats baths. There are 4 of them if you count the April Fool's Day kitten we received unexpectedly this year. None of them are going to cooperate. It is going to be a blood bath. I'm already predicting at least one of us will require first aid, if not stitches, after the fact.
4. Go to the cemetery to decorate my aunt's grave, as July 4th is her birthday and I haven't went to pay my respects since the funeral 9.5 years ago. Also, my cousin passed this weekend and I was unable to attend the funeral because of work. They are both buried in the same cemetery. Yellow mini roses for my cousin and red, white, and blue daylillies for my aunt. All grow here at the house.
5. Write. A lot. Not on my trilogy though. Book 2 is ready for the 1st revision (maybe that will happen during this time since I have time to kill). Book 3 will not be started until NaNo 2012 season as is my custom. During my internet hiatus, I have been working through the idea stage of a new story to start once Immortalis is completed. I will continue with the background work while using it as a reason to finally learn how to use Liquid Story Binder to its full potential. I have a lot of work to do.

What is going on this coming week for you?

Love is love, no matter the back story. <3 DS

How You Doin'?

Okay that was a stupid joke. I've been away from the internets for so long that I feel like I have forgotten how to "do it" as they say. My last post was over a month ago. It was a Mother's Day post. Since then, a lot of stuff has happened. Not in a OMGUGOTGOODNEWS!!!! kind of way. Just lots of stuff happening. So here is a little update:

Happy Mother's Day Everyone!

Tuesday Treat: Pita Chips

Okay, so today's Tuesday Treat is not a recipe. But I do want to recommend the pita chips found at the Dollar Store. There are tons of flavors and they are yummy! I'm sure they are available elsewhere if there are no Dollar Generals or Family Dollars or whatever near you. My favorite right now is Bacon and Cheddar. Yum!

Friday Five: 5 Questions with Elizabeth

... about teaching reading!

Elizabeth is a dear friend of mine, though we haven't seen each other in a long time. I got the chance to chat with her over the weekend about teaching reading to elementary students. Just so you know, Elizabeth hates all things computer related. So much so that she doesn't even own a home computer or a cell phone. I know... how crazy is that in this day and age? I try to convince her to join the technological era every time we speak, but so far she has been resistant to my common sense arguments. This was a phone conversation, where I tried to scribble notes and she tried to speak slow and keep things short, which she failed of course. Answers may not be 100% verbatim, but I read this to her and she agrees that I got it pretty much right. haha

Thursday Thought: Tradition

W. Somerset Maugham, one of the highest paid writers of his time, said this about traditions:

"Tradition is a guide and not a jailer."

I'm a fan of traditions so long as it doesn't become an extreme view on life. Unfortunately, many people keep hurtful traditions over helpful traditions. Maybe that will change one day. It is a work in progress, I think. :)

A View From the Margins

I found an awesome thing from the New York Times this weekend. A Year in Reading is an interactive look at a snippet from 12 different reading materials that literary critic Sam Anderson read over the past year. Included is an audio of Sam speaking about the selection and an interactive photo of his "notations" in the margins of the selection. For every piece, Sam has written something, sometimes funny, sometimes serious, and underlined the specific lines that produced his reactions. Roll your mouse around each photo to see it up close, or just read the caption below each photo to see what he wrote. Selections include A Pale King by David Foster Wallace; Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert; John McFee: The Art of Nonfiction, No. 3, an interview with writer John McFee by the Paris Review; and Bleak House by Charles Dickens. Good stuff here! The commentary is short in each section and well worth the listen! Also, I don't know Sam Anderson, but he sounds like a hottie. :D

Tuesday Treat: Favorite Snacks of the Great Scribblers

I ran across this awesome article/cartoon this weekend. Illustrator Wendy McNaughton, writer and illustrator of Meanwhile, pondered the snack foods that inspired some of the greatest writers. The article itself is very short. A single paragraph. The cartoon is the biggest draw of course. Did you know that Walt Whitman started every day with oysters and meat for breakfast? Um... yum? I guess. Check it out!

My newest snack inspiration is bacon and cheddar chips that I found at the Dollar Store. Oh such deliciousness! I still keep pretzel rods and Goldfish snack crackers on my desk (which is now in a bedroom instead of the den and/or dining room!!!). Baby Cat had a kitten on April 1st (what a terrible April Fools Day joke on us lol) and I've been doing my darnedest to keep Baby Cat out of my bacon and cheddar chips while she is "under house arrest" until the kitten is weaned. Huge struggle!

Do you have any new/old favorite snacks that help you focus on your work?