Write another 750 in the new book while watching TV. Not me.

I did not write 1800 words in a new book. Not me.

The first rule of Fight Club is that you don't talk about Fight Club.

The first rule of a new book is that YOU DON'T TALK ABOUT THE BOOK.

You'd think I'd figure this out at some point.

I bought ground beef on Friday night (the 18th) so we could have burgers this weekend.

I pulled the package out of the fridge this AM, and the ground beef has turned an alarming grey color. The sell-by date is the 21st, so it's not like it's expired.

I realize they dye the meat to make it appealing, but...dude. Mine needs another round through the dye-squirter or something.

It's going in the garbage.

When I was a kid, I was fascinated with ghosts, Bigfoot, and UFOs. Mostly because they scared the pants off of me. I have no idea how many nights I went to sleep, utterly terrified after reading some lurid 'eyewitness account' of how the Jersey Devil busted into some kid's room and shredded them alive.

DUDE. I COULD HAVE BEEN THAT KID.

Anyhow. This probably also had a lot to do with friends that liked watching horror movies a little too much, and rounds of Bloody Mary and Ouija Boards. I was a total chicken. Still am. When I do business travel? I sleep with the lights on. Yeah. Don't tell my boss.

I've been pretty good about it in recent years. Even though my husband has a wild love for anything scary/gory, I usually steer clear of them. Most horror movies don't scare me anymore, but I do admit some leave me unsettled. And now that we have cable? I realize just how much creepy stuff is on TV. Yesterday we watched Cabin Fever, Dawn of the Dead, and nine million episodes of A Haunting, a cinematic documentary on some travel channel about 'real life hauntings'. After one particular episode that features a ranch style house (!!!), my husband yawns, looks at me and says "Time for bed!"

BED?

NOW?

Needless to say, I had difficulty going to sleep. After years and years of not being wigged out by TV, I was officially wigged out by TV. 31 years old, and I had to make sure the closet door was shut before I went to bed.

My husband, good man that he is, allowed me to hold his hand until I went to sleep.

Isn't this sad?

Furthermore, we are now recording the entire series of Ghost Hunters International, because I don't know when to stop. But dude. 14th century haunted British manor house? I am so there.

I've been ignoring you, haven't I?

Don't worry, I haven't forgotten about you. *pets journal*

But I think I've figured out what's wrong with my book. It's not the POV. It's the angle that I was looking at the characters from. I was going for the stranger-in-a-strange-land angle, and that's why the voice felt so alien. But instead, I've flipped my factions and put the main characters in the place of the old antagonists, and everything has slid into place.

This makes me happy. I even have icons!

(Also? A very well-respected stranger emailed me out of the blue and told me that she loved my zombie stories! That is so awesome and full of win, I was giddy for hours. And promptly told everyone I could think of. Twice.)

Your result for The Attachment Style Test...

The Waffler

Take The Attachment Style Test at HelloQuizzy

Already we hates the POV preciousssss.

After writing the last several books in 1st person POV, I thought I'd switch back to 3rd. I've never had a problem with 3rd (or 1st). I can write just fine in one character's head - it's when I write multiples that I get stuck or bogged down.

So I shouldn't have a problem yet, since everything is still in one character's POV.

But I am. I hate it. It sounds unnatural and awkward, and I'm not really quite sure what to make of it. It could be any number of things. It's early book, so it's bound to suck anyhow, right? It could be that I'm out of practice with 3rd and it'll be fine by the time I type ...

Or it could be that third is really wrong for this book and I'll figure it out halfway through, much to my eternal chagrin.

Decisions, decisions.

Also! I could not find any good icons to fit my new book. Not a good sign.

Tags: avv, pov

Getting started.

*drums fingers on desk*

I need iconage. Hmm.

I think I'm done. Again.

Lord I'm tired of looking at this thing.

(As an aside, ilona_andrews makes incredibly pretty synopses. You should all be jealous. I know I am.)

Last night the husband had a late-night war gaming session, so we were out late and crashed into bed shortly after 3am.

I then had my usual dream that I have about oh, once a week. I dream that I'm laying in bed, and I'm waking up from sleep. It's so realistic that I don't realize that I'm not really awake. And I look up at the window and see a giant spider scuttle into the curtains right over our heads.

I then wake up, thrash like a wild woman, scream bloody murder, turn on all the lights and start ripping the blankets off the bed. My husband is used to this after 4 years of marriage, and does his best to calm me down.

Him: What's wrong? What's going on?
Me: There's a spider! It just climbed into the curtains!
Him: There's no spider. You were dreaming.
Me: YES THERE IS. I SAW IT.
Him: No you didn't.
Me: I did! I swear I did.
Him: How big was it?
Me: As big as my fist.
Him: Yeah. Go back to sleep.
Me: But the spider...
Him: There is no fist-sized spider on the wall. Trust me.
Me: No?
Him: No. Go back to sleep.
Me: ...I think I just pulled a muscle in my leg jumping out of bed.
Him: Sleep. Now.

After a few minutes of this, I calm down enough to realize it's a dream, lay back down and immediately go back to sleep as if nothing is wrong.

Half the time I don't even remember these dreams. It's bizarre, because I regularly dream about spiders (sometimes scorpions) dropping down from the ceiling and landing on my face as I lay in bed, sleeping. I think the scientific term is 'night terrors' and apparently they run in the family. I know that's true because my mom and sister have them as well.

It probably has something to do with dreaming itself. I dream very vividly (and very bizarre stuff) and a lot of the time I remember my dreams, and if I don't like the way they're heading, I either change my dream or wake myself up to start over. So I think this has something to do with the night terrors.

Luckily my husband is an understanding sort. He's always able to calm me down when I wake up, rabidly babbling about spiders landing on my face and such. Apparently I carry on entire conversations in my sleep as well, and tend to stretch my arms in the air as I sleep (reaching for the ceiling).

I suppose it could be worse. I could be a boring sleeper, right?

"Warner Bros will be producing an Elfquest movie..."


OMG What? Woohoo! *fangirls*


"...made out of a combination of CGI and live action..."


...oh...


"...by the guy that wrote and directed Dodgeball."


*weeps*

So, I'm going to RWA, right? First time ever? Have book contract, not quite a book yet? Conference virgin? Yes?

Well, the fabulous Jane of Dear Author has set up a group blog for Nationals, called (unsurprisingly) BlogNationals. Here, a bunch of review-bloggers (and er, me) will be sharing their experience at the RWA Convention and all the wacky hijinx and gossip that is sure to accompany.

Here's the list of bloggers and their sites:

Blog Nationals

• Aimless Ramblings about Living Life
• Dear Author
• Dionne Galace
• for peaceful days and dreamy nights
• Jill Myles
• Nobody asked me…
• Nose in a book
• Ramblings on Romance Etcetera, Etcetera
• Smart Bitches, Trashy Books
• sula’s space
• Wendy_Superlibrarian

Now you might be asking "Which one of these does not belong?" And that's right kids, it's me. I don't review books. One might be puzzled why a n00b author such as myself got invited into such illustrious company, right?

It's because I'm fabulously witty-
I'm the life of the party -
I will offer a refreshing perspective in the midst of all the reviewers
Everyone is JELUS of my upcoming book-
One of them feels sorry for me-
Blackmail-


Jane is my roommate. Sorry to destroy all the mystery. :)

(Secretly, I suspect she invited me out of pity, but I plan to have fun with it anyhow).

Regardless of the facts! I shall be schmoozing with strangers, randomly going "OMG IT'S KRESLEY COLE I LOVE YOU!" in the lobby, showing up at panels and pretending like I know what I'm doing, fishing Meljean out of the local flora (she keeps threatening to hide behind the plants) and basically just having a good time. I'm not in PAN, I have no book to promote (yet) and will not be partaking in the signings. Instead, I will roam like a lone ninja through the lobby, trying desperately to find someone I know and taking pictures of the authors I recognize.

Fun times, right?

Done! First 3 chapters and a synopsis are completed. Moonrat, I'm a whole 6 days overdue on our deadline (boo).

It feels good to have it completed. I left off at a great spot, and I'm full of love and snuggles for my book again. Some characters are easy to slip into. It needs one more quick skim before it goes off to my agent.

Other than that, I confess my brain is fried at the moment. We got cable this weekend (hooray!) and I watched about 6 hours of Bizarre Foods on the Travel Network. Utterly fascinating. We have HBO and Cinemax and a few other premium channels free for the first month, but we haven't even glanced at them yet. There's too much other stuff on TV! Zomg! So much to watch! And we can record shows on the DVR!

It feels like a decadent luxury to have cable again after 4 years.

At any rate, I digress. A few metrics to toss off before skittering away to hang laundry:


Metrics for SFi

Word Count: 9600 or so overall. Still anticipating a 90k book.
Mean Things: Someone's on trial. *rubs hands like evil*
Nice Things: None? Oh wait, there's a lot of man-candy in the room with my succubus. But she hates them all, so I don't think it counts.
Things I need to fix: Just some tweaking here and there. Overall I'm pretty durn pleased.
Things to think up before next writing session: Trial stuffs.
Currently Reading: Red Hot Fury by Kasey Mackenzie
Special Typo of the Day: I typed 'Whorey Water' instead of Holy Water. Not sure how I managed that. My brain must be off.

Here's something that came up on a message board that I frequent.

Someone wrote up an idea. They went publicly and said "Help me out. I have an idea here." I posted feedback, and someone didn't like my feedback. The original poster hasn't replied yet, and I'm wondering if he went away in a depressive moment and decided his idea was crap.

Here's the thing kids (not that anyone's a kid, but I just like saying that, hee). I struggled with this concept for a while until this realization struck me. You ready for it? Here we go:

( All the secrets of the universe behind here! )

Haven't blogged in a few days. Nothing terribly exciting. The wordcount slows to a trickle mid-week because my brain activity slows to a trickle. I'm hoping to get some good page-count this weekend so I can get this off my desk and concentrate on other things.

And...that's all I got for now.

Quick wrap-up before I head off to bed.

Still not quite in love with the beginning. Usually I loathe it when it comes straight off the keyboard, and then when I read it later, it's not so bad. We'll have to see.

New book (S-Fi)

Word Count: 2,232 for today's count (though I suspect I will shrink some of it in a rewrite), total ms of 5,291. Projecting this one to end up at 90,000.
Mean Things: Someone refuses something rather spoilery.
Nice Things: A crate of Pop Tarts.
Things I need to fix: Scene feels flabby. Probably needs to be trimmed in half to make it move faster.
Things to think up before next writing session: Actually, I'm pretty sure how the next bit goes. It's the part after that I get blank on.
Currently Reading: Kresley Cole's novella in Playing Easy To Get

And I don't normally post one, but I liked this line a lot, so here's my darling for the day: “You know,” I carried on, angrily re-braiding my hair. “I thought going on this dig would be good for my career. I could finally set myself up as a serious archaeologist. But I swear to all that’s holy, it’s like I’m the Hooters girl at the church social."

Ignore, ignore.

Have not gone away. I do want to do more, however, I am experiencing a bit of a mental block in that I can't find a fairytale worth doing that I enjoy the heck out of.

There's Bluebeard, but...blah. Bluebeard is so obvious.

So if you have a fairy tale that you love and would like to see zombiefied, I'm taking suggestions. I can't guarantee to hit all of them, but if I like your concept, I'll use it and heap praise upon you for being so utterly cool to suggest it. ;)

I just read ELLA ENCHANTED by Gail Carson Levine. I don't know what the age group is for this book, but I absolutely adored it. It's a classic spin on the Cinderella fairy tale, and it totally makes me want to read more fairy tale fiction.

Anyone have any recs? Are Levine's other books as charming?