Pains in my butt

My butt hurts. Sorry for the lack of TMI heads up, but I'm more into whining than warning right now. Don't let anybody ever try to tell you that swimming isn't good for the glutes. My whole body is sore, actually. I guess this is what I get for skipping the gym four days in a row. Although the butt thing could also partly be because I haven't gotten out of my chair for at least two hours...

I've been spending most of those two hours moving old posts from my fiction blog to my new fiction Livejournal. I would explain here, but I'm already planning to explain at both of those other places, and I'm too sleepy and sore to explain it all a third time. Yes, sore butt does in fact make it difficult to type. Hush.

Tonight I'm meeting Tess for dinner and then we're going to see RENT. This has always been one of my favorite musicals, and I've only seen it once before (not counting the movie), so I'm not sure why I'm not really that excited about it. I think I might have outgrown the whole celebrating rebelliousness and individuality and diversity message of the show. Not that there's anything wrong with any of those things, but I've reached a point in my life where I'm pretty comfortable embracing my homogeneous middle class mediocrity. I'm not sure how many years ago I saw the show last, but I'm pretty sure I was still in my twenties. At twenty-something, the bohemian lifestyle is a lot more attractive and romantic than it is at (not quite yet) thirty-five. Now it's more like, "Stop whining and get a day job! Grow up and take some responsibility for your life! Get off my lawn!"

But still, the music is awesome. I'm sure I'll be more psyched about it once I get there. I'm also sure it has nothing whatsoever to do with the fact that I haven't slept properly in days, thank you so much Daylight Savings Time.

Nano updates: where to find 'em

In case you haven't figured it out yet (and if my Sitemeter reports are any indication, you haven't; neither has anybody else), I'm blogging about my NaNo progress, such as it is, over at Jean Writes Genre.

Thursday Thirteen: NaNoWriMo Edition

Thirteen Reasons I Caved At the Last Minute and Signed Up for NaNoWriMo I'm a bit touched in the head. I have a new idea that's been nagging me and now's as good a time as any to develop it. I was feeling left out of all the NaNo talk I keep seeing. I want to have a good framework ready to build on so I don't lose any momentum when I finally finish Hero Factor. I always, ALWAYS overestimate how much time and/or energy I'll be able to devote to any project; why should now be any different? It's a great community of writers that I want to be a part of. Getting some exposure for my writing certainly can't hurt. I have a new word processor! And it's portable! I have a lot of writing process hangups that I need to overcome. I need to practice writing in a POV other than 3rd person limited. I secretly kinda like it when friends and loved ones look at me like I'm a few fries short of a Happy Meal. Mmm, Happy Meal. Did I mention the part where I'm just not a sane woman? Links to other Thursday Thirteens in the comments!

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250: It's a (jump)start. Also, Jensen on TVG

After a week of fiddling with my outline to work in the Big Fix, this morning I finally sat my butt in the chair and typed out 250 fresh new words on the novel. I don't know yet whether they'll be keepers, but considering it's 250 words more than I've written in the previous two months, for now I'll take them. At any rate, The Hero Factor is moving forward again, and it feels fabulous.

I think 250 words/day is a goal that's both reasonable and attainable. The thought of keeping up my 1,000/day quota had become as intimidating and discouraging as Tyra Banks on an ANTM panel (note to Ebony: good for you, chica! [/digression]). 250, I can do. It might not sound like a lofty goal, but it's an accomplishable goal that will result in progress, nevertheless. I'm all for progress.

The important thing is, I'm writing again. Whee!

***

In TVBF news, TVGuide.com has posted an interview with Jensen Ackles. I've not had time to read it yet, so I don't know if it gets spoilery. Read at your own risk.

Mmm, Dean.

Oh! And in Supernatural news, last week I FINALLY got Husband to watch it with me. It was just an amazingly fortuitous coincidence that it happened to be a Ben Edlund-scripted ep. Needless to say, he liked it, and plans to keep watching it. Here's hoping the non-Edlund writing can continue to live up to the pretty high bar that last week set for his expectations.

Be-mused.

I'm feeling better, but I'm way behind, so I'mma have to skip the TV Boyfriends again this week. I'm so sorry. But somehow I'm sure you guys will find a way to go on without the beefcake.

In other news, I'm stupidly excited to have just purchased one of these for a mere $24.95 (+S&H) on eBay. This might very well be the answer to my lack of a laptop, no computer available to write on at home, no portability woes, and should pretty much eliminate any lingering excuses I have for not writing.

And there have been so many excuses lately, what with the health problems and the fainting drama and the crazy-busy times at work, and I almost cried when I realized today that it's been two months since I've actually written on my novel. It hasn't all been a giant waste of time-suck, at least--apparently during that two months off my subconscious kept working out a story problem that I didn't even realize was a problem, and all of a sudden this weekend the answer that I didn't even know I needed to the problem I didn't even know I had started playing itself out as big as life on the movie screen inside my head, so at least now I've got some inspiration again, if I can only make the time for it.

This will involve "killing some of my babies," as the writer-speak goes; namely, it will mean sacrificing a scene that I've been harboring and nurturing and imagining for about three years now, the scene that was more or less the inspiration for the novel in the first place, and that will be painful. But if it ain't working, it gotsta go. And I think I like my new idea better, anyway, so that works out.

Speaking of writing and inspiration, today I discovered I Should Be Writing, a podcast "FOR wannabe fiction writers BY a wannabe fiction writer," and have been enjoying it immensely, mainly in being inspired not to beat myself up for my long lapse in productivity.

And on a final writing note before I shut up, I'm not doing NaNoWriMo this year, seeing as how I'm still working on last year's NaNo project; but I plan to hang out in the trenches and cheer the rest of you crazy kids on. Best of luck to the lot of you. I'm glad it's not me.

O HAI. I HAS A WURK.

Apologies for the slow turn the blog has taken lately. Work is busy (not in the "OMG everybody needs me NOW how'mIgonnadothis" kind of way, but in the actually having time to clear some of the neglected piles of non-urgent stuff off of my desk and out of my inbox way--it's nice), and the novel's going great--which, if it's going at all, that's pretty great right there--and between the two, I have very little time or mental energy left for blogging. Don't worry, I'm sure it won't last.

On a completely unrelated and random note: I CAN HAS CHEEZBURGER? is a great tool for whenever you need to scrub out a disturbing mental image. "Oh my Lord that's disgust--oh, lolkitties! Ha ha!"

Speaking of meditating on not-impure things (oh, come on. What's more good and pure than fluffy kitties?), any Christians in my modest little readership might enjoy reading Internet Monk, a Christian School teacher who's got some thoughtful, thought-provoking, and downright soul-convicting things to say about the state of post-modern evangelicalism. His entire blog's a good read. And he's got a podcast, too!

KAE BAI!

Battle of the Blogvertisers!

I've got a new article up at Associated Content: Making Money From Your Personal Blog: PayPerPost Vs. LoudLaunch, comparing the two blogvertisers and what they each have to offer.

In other news, today I'm feeling decidedly bleah.

Tired again. But not too tired to beg a favor.

I had to stay late to get another huge construction drawing order out last night, which was the second such night in a row, so I'm feeling pretty worn out right now. Trusty Pedometer said I walked/jogged/stair-climbed the equivalent of 5(!) miles in the course of getting them done yesterday afternoon. Who needs the gym when you've got semi-hard labor?

Of course, I wouldn't be nearly so tired today if I hadn't stayed up to watch Lost. I'm glad I did, though, because it was co-written by my old Mutant Enemy boyfriend Drew Goddard, and it was good, and provided some actual answers, and featured actual communication between some of the characters. How novel! It even managed to genuinely creep me out for a minute there, which I don't think it's done since the first season. Well done, Drew! Not that you'll ever read this or even know who I am.

***

Fan-ficcers, I need a favor, and it's a shallow one: I keep getting review notifications from Elysian Fields. As much as I insist on leaving my fanficcing days behind me and moving on, I'm still a shallow praise whore, and if somebody's saying something nice about my writing, I'd like to be able to read it. Trouble is, this here Net Nanny has begun to spank me whenever I try to do so. Seems it finally figured out that site contains a shameful amount of vampire pr0n. I would appreciate it muchly if somebody would go over there and copy the reviews from the last couple of months for Butterfly Effect and Dead Leaves and paste them somewhere I can get to them, such as in an e-mail, or even right here in the comments.

At least there's a reason for all this wackiness.

This morning's shot. I got in early, but instead of writing I flitted from distraction to distraction and got not a single word written. Unless you count the e-mail I sent to a Craigslister advertising a really cute, recently renovated 2 bedroom duplex in one of our target neighborhoods, but I'm pretty sure that doesn't count.

The upside is that some of my distractions involved job-related tasks, so I can charge that hour and get some overtime. Overtime is good.

Here are some random links I came across in my scatterbrained wanderings this morning.

Joss talks of Angel: Season 6. Two thoughts make that three: one - Eeeeee!; two - I don't normally go in for non-canonical Whedonverse comics, but now I have to get Spike: Asylum; and three - that shot at the bottom of the article always chokes me up. Always. *sniffle*

The Fantasy Writer's Exam (via Miss Snark). Test your book to see if it's yet another a Tolkein ripoff. Mine passes (or maybe it fails? I'm not sure what the perspective is there), probably mostly by virtue of being an urban fantasy. So it's more of a Gaiman/Whedon/Butcher ripoff, really.

Isn't this a cute duplex?

***

Update from about an hour later, because I got distracted and busy and forgot to hit "publish," which should tell you a little something about the kind of day I'm having.

I must be PMSing. Exhibit A: Yesterday on the drive home, my regular radio station wouldn't come in for some reason, so I switched over to the news (our CBS station comes in on the radio here; I have no idea if that's universal), and apart from bawling over a segment the local news did on a VA Tech victim from Tulsa, when it went to national news and Katie Couric started talking about Iran becoming a nuclear power, I very nearly had a panic attack. It was the same kind of tight-throated, constricted breathing, sick stomach, scared poopless feeling I used to get when I was a kid at the height of the Cold War and we lived in fear of The Button and our teachers made us watch The Day After and write reports on it and ensured we wouldn't get any more peaceful sleep that year. Which was, I admit, a little over the top, and not really my normal reaction to that kind of news, and I think that's a pretty good indicator of PMS right there.

But if that's not enough, I give you Exhibit B: CAG called in sick (again) this morning. I have a ginormous drawing package going out this evening that will likely take up most of my day (and probably get me another hour or two of overtime tonight), and now I'm also responsible for whatever her team's got going on today. Sure enough, one of her people called to tell me he's also got a major drawing issue going out today. I didn't quite have a panic attack that time, but I did very nearly have a meltdown, and after I hung up the phone I had to put my head in my hands and sit that way for a while, taking deep breaths and willing myself not to cry. Also an admitted overreaction.

I managed to pull myself together, by the way, and when I mentioned it to one of my project teammates he reassured me that the other team's drawings and distribution lists are really small compared to ours, and that one should be fairly quick and easy to handle, but if I still feel overwhelmed, they'll find me some help. I work with nice guys.

At any rate, the weird panic and overreacting plus the more-extreme-than-usual scatterbrained-ness plus the dwindling supply of blue pills in my birth control compact all add up to PMS. Happy happy joy joy.

By Jove.

Yesterday, Miss Snark posted a question about how one would go about writing a short hook for a novel with multiple protagonists. Being that my novel has two main protagonists who kind of serve as shadow selves of each other, this is a question I've been pondering myself. When I was writing my hook for my Crapometer entry back in December, I couldn't figure out how to fit both of my protags and their distinct storylines into 300 words or less, so I ended up picking the one that gives the best idea of the overall plot. That didn't go over so well, and it gave a lot of people the wrong idea of what my book's about.

This new discussion got me to obsessing about my hook again. It may seem a little premature to do so, seeing as how the book's only a third of the way done, but as I'm sure I've said before here at some point, I think writing a hook is a good exercise for honing your plot and figuring out exactly what your story's about. Plus, it's motivating. At least for me.

So after obsessing on it all night, I think I've got it: a hook that includes both of my protagonists and their separate stories, as well as the overarching plot that combines them. I did it in about 400 words. I'd like to whittle it down by 50-100 words if I can figure out how to do so without losing the integrity of the thing. At least I've still got plenty of time to pare it down.

As Michael Chambers wraps up the last day of shooting his hit supernatural TV series before it goes on summer hiatus, he's looking forward to some down time before beginning publicity tours and summer film projects; but when his ex-girlfriend and current personal assistant shows up with her cat in tow needing a place to stay, he's too nice a guy to refuse her. When he accidentally lets her cat run away, he's too responsible not to go look for it. When the cat turns out to be a shape-shifting trickster who abducts Michael and delivers him to the militant daughter of the Faerie Queen, he's too wigged out to stick around and hear what she wants. And when his attempts to get home reveal a hidden Faerie world full of violence and terror that is about to spill over into his own world, Michael must decide whether he's too much of a coward to take part in the princess's plan to prevent it.

The trickster has been tricked. The pooka, a shape-shifter who gets his kicks playing cruel practical jokes, has met his match in the princess. He must now perform three tasks to win back his freedom. The first two are simple: get close to the actor, and bring him to the princess. It's the third that proves a challenge, as he must pose as Michael and carry on his life so that no one notices he's gone. The pooka's weakness for human women, and the consequences he would face for indulging that weakness, have for ages kept him from impersonating a human, so he's a little out of practice. The only person close enough to Michael to unwittingly provide the pooka with the guidance he needs is Claire, Michael's beautiful assistant, who is still struggling with feelings for her former lover. The pooka just wants to finish his task and get out of this mess with his immortality intact so that he can return to the simple life of pleasing only himself.

As one world stands on the brink of a war which would bring destruction to the other, Michael's and the pooka's paths eventually intertwine as one discovers the mystery of his past and what it means to possess true power, one discovers the mysteries of humanity and what it means to love someone other than himself, and both discover the sacrifices required of those who would be heroes.

I'm excited about this hook. Looking at it as objectively as possible, this describes a book I would love to read. That means it's a book I'd also love to have written. That last part is what's going to keep me going when I find myself slogging through the second act, trying to fit all of the pieces together and in desperate need of a second wind.

It's nice to be appreciated.

If there's one thing my accidental career in corporate administration has taught me, it's that when the boss asks if you have lunch plans, it's generally best to say no. This is how I suddenly find myself scheduled to go out today with CAG and our bosses for an Administrative Professionals Appreciation Week lunch instead of spending that hour literally sweating my ass off at the gym. As this is the second such lunch in a row (yesterday was a group lunch for the entire administrative staff, at which I totally caved and ate a giant cookie. Bad Jean!), I suppose I'd better make it a priority to find the time to get sweaty at some point today.

In other news, because, yes, there is a bit more going on with me today than coffee stains: I passed the 20,000 word mark on the novel this morning! Woo and hoo! This puts me about one-third of the way toward the end, and the current chapter wraps up the first act and kicks off the second. I didn't get as much time to write as I'd hoped this morning, but I'm still on track to finish the first draft by mid-summer. Matt and I are talking about cashing in his old 401K to help pay some bills and go ahead and buy a new computer, because we've reached a point where having our own working computer is a necessity bordering on emergency. Once that happens I should be able to get some writing done at home, too, which should speed up my progress considerably. Even if it doesn't, though, mid-summer isn't so far away as to be too daunting a finish line.

Music to stain your shirt by

I wore a plain white tee-shirt today, so OF COURSE my coffee mug missed my mouth to dump its contents right in the middle of my chest. Thankfully, I wore it under a button-up that I can, y'know, button up, but still: sheesh!

So that this isn't a post entirely about my own ineptitude, here's the soundtrack I'm writing (and spilling) by this morning:

Happy International Pixel-Stained Technopeasant Day!

What is International Pixel-Stained Technopeasant Day, you ask? It's a day in which creative types around the blogosphere are encouraged to give away some work for the free entertainment of the masses. I think it's meant more for actual real published type writers and artists, but what the heck, I figgered I'd play along anyway. My contribution, the first and only twelve finished chapters of a romance novel I attempted a couple of years ago, is up over at Jean Writes Genre. It's rough and incomplete, but I think it still has the power to amuse.

If you've decided to play along at home, feel free to post a link to your own released works of art in the comment thread below.

It's not the money or the fame; it's the time

What I envy most about Neil Gaiman -- well, what I envy the most are his imagination and talent, but that kind of goes without saying. What I envy most about his success, though, is not the fact that he's set for life even if he decides not to write another word, or that he's pretty much a literary rock star; it's that he's able to disconnect from the world and hole up for days on end to do nothing but think and write. If I could get one day to be left alone to do that, I wouldn't know what to do with myself.

Writers are a ritualistic and persnickety lot.

Over at No Rules. Just Write, inspirational romance novelist Brenda Coulter discusses various methods, rituals, and/or vices different writers need in order to get started. It's an interesting list, and I can totally relate to the shower thing. And to the chocolate, except for the part about no longer enjoying it, but I always thought Douglas Coupland was mildly whack anyway.

My methods are pretty straightforward and boring (but does that prevent me from blogging about them? OF COURSE NOT!), and largely dependent upon the location and time of day I get my writing done. Currently, writing in the early mornings in my work cubicle, I must have some mellow, non-intrusive music, a big mug of strong coffee, and about forty-five minutes of uninterrupted staring into space to let my mind wander and give the story a chance to take shape in my head. After forty-five minutes, usually, and as long as curious or clueless co-workers don't bug me, I'm good to go, and can get my novel output for the day done before anybody needs me for anything job-related.

If I were writing at home in the evenings, as I used to do a lot back before my computer died and I brought home a husband who can't stand to be in the same room with me for more than five minutes without talking to me, it would probably be much the same, except I might forgo the music for night noises outside an open window, and trade the coffee for a glass of wine. I remember a brief period back in my fanfic days when I couldn't possibly write without a cherry Diet Coke from Sonic; I think the time in my car driving to and from Sonic did more for triggering my imagination than the actual drink did. I think that habit ended with a bought of crappy weather, and never got taken up again. I guess the commonality here is that I need something to sip while I write, be it hot or cold, alcoholic or non.

Quiet's good, too, even better than music when I can get it, but that's pretty rare in my life. Maybe I should check into getting me some of those earplugs.

Blog Hacks

Final post before I take off for the weekend. Promise.

Lifehack.org has an entire category devoted to improving writing and blogging skills, which might be of interest to anyone looking to grow the quality of their blog (or start one out on the right track).

Now I'm off, for a weekend of last-minute tax preparation panic. Whee! It's scary storming out there, so if anyone's of the praying persuasion, I wouldn't mind having some get-home-safe prayers sent up for me.

Have a good weekend.

Write me a story!

I know I've got a few fellow writers in the audience, and I don't know about you guys, but that vampire killer kit I linked below is giving me all kinds of story ideas. I don't have time to indulge any of them, so I've decided to bribe you guys to do it for me. Write me an original (that means no fanfic, sorry) story that features that kit. Be creative. Ideas include (but are not limited to) how it came to be, how it was marketed back in the day, whether one was ever used for the intended purpose, whether one was ever used to accidentally kill an actual (non-vampire) person... like I said, be creative. No word limit, but try to keep it short enough to post in the comment thread.

My favorite will receive one of the many copies I've still got lying around of the Dancing Lessons: War! soundtrack CD. This is an ecclectic mix double-CD that it is not necessary to be either a Buffy fan nor to have read the fanfic in question in order to enjoy.

I'll set a deadline for midnight next Friday, so that gives y'all exactly a week, plus a few hours' change.

So get to writin'!

A day late and a genius short

I'm a bit behind on the blogosphere, which is where I get the majority of my news, so I just found out about Kurt Vonnegut. Damn shame, that.

Here, lifted from Jane Espenson's blog, are Vonnegut's 8 rules for writing fiction (from Bagombo Snuff Box: Uncollected Short Fiction). I've taken them all to heart.

1. Use the time of a total stranger in such a way that he or she will not feel the time was wasted.

2. Give the reader at least one character he or she can root for.

3. Every character should want something, even if it is only a glass of water.

4. Every sentence must do one of two things -- reveal character or advance the action.

5. Start as close to the end as possible.

6. Be a sadist. Now matter how sweet and innocent your leading characters, make awful things happen to them -- in order that the reader may see what they are made of.

7. Write to please just one person. If you open a window and make love to the world, so to speak, your story will get pneumonia.

8. Give your readers as much information as possible as soon as possible. To heck with suspense. Readers should have such complete understanding of what is going on, where and why, that they could finish the story themselves, should cockroaches eat the last few pages.

Good advice from a great writer. It saddens me he's no longer here to pass on his craft.

D-day

Today wasn't such a good day for the novel. My allergies are defying my Claritin and flaring up anyway, and it's making me more (yes, even more) scatter-brained than the usual. I pretty much spent the last hour staring at the little bit of this new scene that I started yesterday, knowing I didn't like it and trying to figure out why, and what it needed to be instead, but nothing was coming to me, and I can't focus on it any longer. Oh well. At least now it has the whole weekend to incubate, so it should be ready to spill out come Monday.

Moving on: since I'm in no mental shape to write, I guess I'll spend the day doing maintenancy things, and finally forcing myself to get some of that dag-burned filing out of the way. I have a feeling I'm going to be mostly useless today, though, so we'll see how it goes.

Today is decision day regarding the Weight Watchers account, and I think I'm going to cancel it. The fabulous Fenwic pointed me to Sparkpeople.com, a FREE diet community with its own set of FREE tools, so I'm going to give that a try. I'm also thinking about setting up a spreadsheet to track Zone points that's based on the WW points tracker. If those don't work for me, I can always sign up to WW again in the future, and wait for coupon or a sign-up special, or even just sign up for one month at a time so I don't have to pay the huge fee up front. I'll let you know how that all goes.

I'm pretty proud of how well I've done all week at sticking to the healthy eating plan. Especially last night. Matt called me at work to ask me to pick up some burgers on the way home. I got him burgers, but I didn't cave to the temptation, and got myself a grilled chicken garden salad (no croutons) instead. I brought it home and made my own light citrus vinaigrette for the dressing. It was pretty yummy and satisfying, and didn't leave me hating myself the way a burger and fries would have. Best yet, I still had enough points left over for a glass of Merlot and a piece of dark chocolate. So go team me!

Weight Watchers: is this a keeper?

Yeesh. It's almost 11:00 already. Once again, the day is flying by without my noticing.

Good novel progress today, folks. I went over my quota to finish the first scene of the tenth chapter, and I wrote a couple paragraphs into the next scene so it should be easy to pick up on tomorrow. My goal for this week was to complete up through chapter ten, and it looks like I'm going to hit it.

Let's see... that's ten chapters, completely re-written (and some of them completely new content) in just under a month. If I keep up this rate, I should finish my first draft by July, no problem. That means I should have this puppy beta-read, workshopped, critted, edited, re-edited, re-edited again and ready to query by the end of the year. Er, yeah. For now I'm just going to keep my sights fixed on July and conveniently forget how long it takes to go from first draft to saleable novel. And that's not even to mention how long the querying process can take... right. July it is.

***

Day four of the whole Weight Watchers Zone and daily exercise thing, and I think I'm already starting to look better. I'm definitely feeling better, despite some major muscle soreness. I thought about skipping the gym today to give my poor tired limbs a day of rest, but then I weighed on my bathroom scale this morning and realized I over guestimated the weight I entered at WW by 10 pounds. When I re-set my starting weight, they took one of my points away, so now it's even more crucial for me to get out there and earn my activity points. So I guess I'm off to the gym in a few minutes.

I have one more day to decide whether I want to keep my Weight Watchers membership and pay for it (actually, I have until Sunday, but there's that pesky not-online-on-weekends thing to factor in). I'd simply go for it if they only wanted me to pay for one month at a time, but they want the first three months up front, and I'm not sure I can afford that, at least not without breaking out one of the credit cards that I'm trying to pay off. I also know that the Zone already kind of has portion control built in, so WW isn't really that crucial. But their points tracker is doing an excellent job of keeping me motivated and making me hyper-aware of everything I eat, and as much as I've sucked at forcing myself to stick to the Zone and not overindulge for the past seven months, I tend to think it's worth the fees just to keep it up. I also think that if I pay for membership, then I'll start thinking of it as a financial investment and I'll be determined to get my money's worth.

Sigh. I need help. Tell me what you would decide in my place.

Die Bunny Die

I spent my allotted novel-writing time this morning working out the next chapter, since the turn the last chapter took kind of screwed up that part of my outline. I think I know what needs to happen in it now, but I need to let it stew a bit longer before I commit to it.

I'm ten chapters in now on the total rewrite. As progress goes, that's not too shabby.

Part of what's slowing me down today is that I finally got around to reading the new Buffy: Season 8 comic, thoughts on which I'll elaborate in the comment thread a bit later, and now my head is full of fic bunnies. Kill them! Kill the bunnies! No fanfic! Die!

*ahem*

As for the rest of my day, I really need to concentrate on my actual job. I've been slacking off on anything job-related that doesn't require immediate attention, and things are noticeably piling up, so it's time to roll up my sleeves and get back on top of it all. I need to find some good podcasts to get me through the mindlessness of logging my files. Anybody got any recs?

Writing and weight. What else is new?

I had a pretty productive novel-writing session this morning, which is a darn good thing, seeing as how I haven't touched it in the last five days. The chapter I left off on Wednesday took a surprising and much-more-interesting-than-planned turn when I picked it up today. I love it when that happens. That's the sort of stuff that makes writing fun. I also finally wrote dialogue for a scene much later in the book that's been floating in my head for, oh, say, a couple of years now. Felt good to get that down, even though there's an excellent chance that by the time I reach the point where it fits, I'll either come up with something different or it will have otherwise been rendered irrelevant. Still, it's written for now, and I like it.

This Weight Watchers thing is, dare I say, going well, although it's only day 2 and really too soon to say. So far, though, it's keeping me on track well enough to consider shelling out the fee to keep my membership. I like that I can combine it pretty seamlessly with the Zone, since the Zone is more about the type of foods you eat and WW is more about portion control and motivation. What I'm finding really great about WW that I didn't anticipate is how you can earn more points with exercise, so it's basically dangling a slice of carrot cake in front of my face to get me to move. I'm ashamed to say how well that's working on me, but it is. So far.

I jacked my back up pretty good last night. It felt fine until I went to bed, but once I lay down it was pain, pain and nothing but pain. I'm surprised I was even able to sleep. This morning it felt a little better, but it kept spazzing and going out on me. So at the gym I spent a lot of my time doing the stretches and back strengthening exercises that my chiropractor gave me once upon a time when I could afford a chiropractor. Those helped a lot. I also got in about 10 minutes of power walking on the treadmill and about 20 minutes of Pilates and more stretching, and today I actually left the gym feeling good, unlike yesterday when I walked out of there fearing I might pass out in the parking lot. Overdoing your workout is BAD, kids, mmm'kay?

Otherwise, today has been pretty busy on the job front, so I haven't gotten around to the other writing and blogging I hoped to do today. Maybe I can squeeze something in before quitting time, although I really should do some filing and work on cleaning off my desk. I also need to add up my receipts from the weekend and see how much we have left in the grocery fund before I go stock up on more Zone-friendly foods.

Yessiree, we're back in that daily grind.

More Easy Money

This week, through Friday, Associated Content is offering $8.00 for product reviews. The limits are a minimum of 400 words per article and a maximum of 5 articles. If you have any writing skills--which, the majority of you being bloggers, it would seem that you do--this is an easy way to earn some extra money, free of all of the issues that pop up with paid blogvertising, since you submit these articles to AC for publication on their site. I've got a whole list of products to review jotted down next to my keyboard. Now it's just a matter of finding the simultaneous time and mental energy to write them.

Of course, if you decide to sign up and do so using either this link or the button on the sidebar, I'll get a little referral kickback, but if you don't want to go that route you can always use the link up there in the first paragraph.

Just getting out of bed was enough of an accomplishment for today.

Woo! Today is new Buffy day!

I didn't make my quota on the novel this morning. Once the workday started and I was officially on the clock I got too distracted to keep going on it. I kicked a new chapter off to a good start, though, so I still feel good about that. It features a different pair of characters than I've been writing about for the past week, so it took almost the entire hour just to get into their heads and remember where I'm going with their plot thread. I'm really beginning to see the advantages of single-character, first person POV. SO much simpler to write.

Today might be a busy one. I was warned on Monday that today we'd be busting our collective arse to get a construction drawing issue out tonight, but I'm not sure whether that was going to be for the meeting that got postponed, or if it was something else. If it was for the meeting, then it probably won't go out today. I hope it was for the meeting.

My big goal for today is simply to get through it. If I had felt confident that CAG would show up today, I would have called in sick (she did show up, thankfully, so at least I don't have to handle her workload on top of mine). I feel okay for now, but it's one of those intensely painful and uncomfortable Girly TMI days, and if my heating pad and Midol combo doesn't continue to do the trick, I might see if they'll let me go home early. No reason I should be the only stalwart who works through the pain and never takes advantage of sick days around here.

It probably goes without saying that there's no way I'm going to the gym today, but there, I said it anyway.

At least I'll have free comfort food. A couple of the engineers just told me they brought in the stuff to set up a taco bar for lunch. That sure beats the low-carb yogurt I was planning to eat. Hoo!

And now I'm going to proceed to goof off for as long as I can get away with it. Right after I go microwave my heating pad. Ow.

Too much excitement for one evening

Man, I had no idea about all of the scary weather that came through my state night before last until I listened to yesterday's evening news. I guess that's one downside of never watching live TV anymore--you miss all of the tornado warnings. Scary, especially given that I live in a rural area where there aren't any sirens.

It got a little scary on the drive home last night, which was why I turned on the news in the first place, to make sure I wasn't going to get swept away to Oz before I made it home. I was sitting in traffic getting pelted by rain, and it felt like the wind was trying its best to pick my car up and throw it somewhere. Turned out there were some little "gustnados" -- weak, F1 tornadoes that drop down for like a second before pulling back up into the clouds -- nearby. Fun times!

Speaking of sarcastic fun times, late last night we had some family emergency room drama when my step dad-in-law's heart rate sped way up for no apparent reason. I was already in bed on the verge of sleep when Mom-in-law called to tell us. He appeared to be okay once they got to the hospital, but they kept him overnight for tests. She didn't want us to go up there, so we didn't, but if they're ready to release him by the time I get off work I'll be giving them a ride home from the hospital.

With all of the late night drama, when I finally made it back to bed I moved my alarm up an hour to let myself sleep in. I knew my brain would be a useless bag of mush if I didn't. If work is slow today, I might still get some novel writing in, but it won't be a tragedy if I don't pick it up again till Monday. I'm still pretty happy with the progress I made on it this week, and I've got other stuff I need to write, too, so I might just let it lie for the weekend.

Sugar Crash

I don't have an official word count today. I spent my allotted novel writing time doing some background research and choreographing a fight scene for the next chapter. So now the foundation's laid for what I think will be a pretty cool action chapter, which I will do my best to write tomorrow. I'm still feeling good about the progress I'm making, so, yay for that.

I'm sleepy today. I stayed up past my bedtime last night to watch Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead LOST last night, which is the only real time TV I've watched so far this week. Hopefully I'll at least be able to catch Supernatural tonight, and that'll make two less hours I'll have to spend with the TiVo this weekend.

Also, I caved and ate donuts this morning. Yes, plural. I suck so hard at dieting. *cries*

JWG Update

Regarding Angels: Two is up at Jean Writes Genre.

MyGeekSpace

Ad alert!

I just signed up to Sci-Edge, a new social networking site in the vein of MySpace for science, technology, and science fiction geeks. I haven't done anything with my page yet, but if you go sign up there, be sure to friend me. I never did get around to creating a MySpace page, so maybe this will make up for that. This looks like it's more for my kind of people, anyway.

Of course the greedy cash-mongering blogger in me is excited about their paid blogging and affiliate program, wherein they will pay you for blogging about pretty much anything you can tie in to science, technology or science fiction (you can even branch out to fantasy and horror), so long as you can link it back to their products. Having yet another potential writing/blogging income stream at my disposal is peachy-keen by me.

Movin' right along

Today is better.

Over a thousand words written. Finished a chapter, started another, came up with an entirely new scene (most of what I'm doing right now is re-writing previously written scenes from scratch), figured out a problem with chapter order, and even thought up a scene for the chick lit novel that's still incubating in my noggin. Oh, yes. Today is better.

One of my co-workers is on to me. I decided I wasn't going to tell anyone about my writing endeavors at this job, because that just never goes well. It leads to questions and expectations and disappointed looks when you're forced to confess you haven't published anything yet and downright strange looks when you admit you write fantasy. I've managed to avoid all of that so far, and have been truthfully telling anyone who wonders why I'm coming in so early that I don't have a computer at home and I need to work on personal stuff.

The other day I had to send out an e-mail apologizing for a document delivery mix-up, and based on that one of the engineers decided I must be a writer. When he asked me he caught me off guard and I copped to it. Since then he's managed to piece it all together and figure out that I'm writing in the mornings.

I have neither confirmed nor denied this accusation, but even so, the questions are starting. He came over to my cube a little while ago to ask me what I'm writing. I managed to evade the question and change the subject, but I'll be surprised if that's the end of it. Oh well. At least the bullet's dodged for now.

Here's hoping he doesn't go telling anybody what he thinks he knows.

Publsihed! Sorta.

Associated Content bought my article. It's not posted yet, but, yay! It's not not as easy a payday as PayPerPost (although as few and far between as decent opportunities I'm actually eligible for have been lately, they're not so easy these days, either), but it's real writing, and good practice for this type of nonfiction article writing, which has never been my strong point. I got a good start on a second article for them today, but my brain and wrist both pooped out before I could finish it.

I'll try to wrap it up this weekend, in between going out to dinner and seeing 300 on IMAX and catching up on all of the TV that I didn't get to watch ANY of this week because Matt decided he's finally ready to suck it up and finish season 4 of Angel. And watching our Netflix stuff. And the Sin City DVD Matt picked up on sale yesterday. And p