The Novelty Girls

From all of us at TNG, hope y’all have a great and safe night! We’ll see you next year!

and a lousy, drive me crazy, out half the day, internet connection. Don’t these people realize I just spent a week with almost no ‘net!? Okay. Enough about my internet addiction.

I hope everyone had a good holiday no matter what it is they celebrate. My kids are in gadget and book heaven this week.

These few days after Christmas a lot of us look to the new year and what our goals are for 2007. And I’m going to do that. Really. Like, later. The next couple of days I’m going to just spend enjoying my kids float on their Christmas high though. ‘Cause I had an epiphany Monday morning. My babies are growing up. I mean, really growing up. The girls will be teenagers soon and too cool to hang out with mom anymore. And that’s just gonna suck. The older they get the more I like them. Did that make sense or did I just come off like monster mommy lol? Anyway one day in the not too distance future the magic is going to wear thin for them. I’m going to miss it.

So I find myself looking back over the last year, and it was a hell of a year for me and my kids. Definitely a year of growth for all of us, and while I’m thrilled the writing is going so well I sure wish I could slow them down a little.

Anyone else want to freeze time for just a little while? I just need a little longer to enjoy them at this stage before those awful teenage years sneak up on me lol!

So it’s the day after Christmas! How did everyone do? With diets, family, re-gifting (did I say that?) deadlines… we all had our hurdles.

I think I’m fairly relieved it’s over. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I love the holiday. Like love-them-I-want-to-marry-them type of giddiness over them. But it’s also a time to put ‘reality’ on hold. Like diets? Diets become about as valid as the weight on my driver’s license. Writing? Sure I get in some, but I also do a lot less because I’ve got parties, family occasions, shopping, Christmas movies to watch.

And then don’t even get me started on the toys. The toys you bought for your kid that you thought would be a good idea. I nearly gave myself a heart attack–and taught my kid some choice words–while trying to put together a Disney vanity table this morning. (Never again, all toys must come assembled!!!)

So I’m excited to put away the decorations and switch back to country music (I’ve been listening to the same Xmas cd for a month now!) Soon the cookies and endless supply of candy will be gone. And Curves will again be on my horizon. And I’ll throw myself back into my writing with great enthusiasm. Not that I haven’t been writing, I have. But come on, the holidays are a great reason to procrastinate and blow diets. But I’m not telling you anything you didn’t already know.

I’m looking forward to the New Year and a new set of goals. A new beginning. My biggest goal for next year (besides to lose my fat ass): New York, baby. Maybe it won’t happen, but it won’t be because I didn’t try. Seriously, I’m writing a new single title book and I’m sending it out. I mean OUT. I won’t do my usual. Send to one agent and then wait for a rejection, send it to another one, wait…etc. No, I’m going to send it out to multiple agents and see who nibbles. What kind of interest it generates. Yeah. Okay. So hold me to it.

So how was your holiday? And are you excited about the upcoming New Year? What are your goals? Or the major one?

Are you going to get any done? Me? I sure hope so! This time of year is so hectic. Even though I’m going to be off from work until the 3rd, I wonder if I’ll be able to manage it with three little people running around the house with new toys and gadgets begging for bread and water every hour on the hour. It’s my plan. I’m on a mission. I’m hoping to re-work/write a story I’ve already written. Change some things. Add about 8,000 words or so and get it shipped..er..emailed off before I return to the day job.

Have you finished your holiday shopping yet? Even though I got a late start, I’m happy to say that I will NOT be in the stores today or tomorrow with the eve shoppers. However, I have not wrapped a thing. NOTHING! The dreaded cutting, taping, bow topping and labeling hasn’t even begun. There are packages and boxes all over my house waiting for me, calling me name, and I’m ignoring them. Maybe tomorrow.

Here’s wishing you all a very Happy Holiday, Merry Christmas, Happy Kwanzaa, Happy Hanukkah…and if you celebrate none of these things, I wish you Love and Happiness.

Smooches, Lyric

Yeah, I’m phoning it in this week. Sorry y’all, but the season and deadlines have me strung out in about 15 directions right now. And today’s incident seemed to make good blog fodder. (I’m writing this Monday actually cause I need to write 20k this week and the ‘net is just gonna have to go.)

So anyway, I made one of my many trips to school, this time to see if any of our teachers needed anything else for the Christmas parties on Wed. Interesting thing happened at school today. DD#1’s TAG class is going on a field trip in Jan and the money for it is due by this week. I told her she wasn’t going. Thirty bucks (wtf!?) a week before Christmas. I think not. So her TAG teacher stopped me in the hall and said look, just send in the form and we’ll take care of the rest. Bad timing yada yada yada. It wasn’t until I was in the parking lot that I thought, oh man! Is this an appearance thing? ‘Cause I was in my usual writer’s uniform. Hey, I don’t have to clock and no on sees me at work. I don’t have to look professional do I?

My uniform is pretty basic.

Jeans

Neat and comfy. What more could a girl ask for?

The Army PT Shirt

Okay, I admit I have a lot of these and they’re old–I’ve been out of the Army, um, a while–but they are sooo comfy. They’ve been washed so many times the cotton is soft and alright, I admit it, a little threadbare. Did I mention I wore the worst of them today?

Flip Flops

About the flip flops. I live in these suckers 24/7/365. Yes, even when it’s 50 outside. I know. Hate me for my mild winters. This is more part of the beach bunny persona than the writer probably.

So there you have it. My daily work clothes. How about y’all? If you work at home or you aren’t going into work for some reason, do you get up and dressed up? Or do you go for comfort?

Last night, the Engineer got a phone call from his sister-in-law, not long after I’d gotten off the phone with my mother. I had just finished telling her that we planned to have a relaxing Christmas this year. No traveling. Just us. He’d actually managed to get time off, which is a miracle in and of itself.

I spoke too soon.

Dear sister-in-law suggested that we come down for Christmas. Same state, just six-and-a-half hours apart. I don’t so much mind family or company for the holidays so much, so that in itself isn’t necessarily bad.

If it were just the brother and sister-in-law.

But my mother-in-law is down there. Mami is a five-foot-nothing Cuban woman. Blonde haired and green eyed, which you would not believe to look at her sons, but there you have it. Mami has opinions about everything. Including me, the non-Cuban, not-so-fluently Spanish-speaking daughter-in-law.

Mami, as a matter of fact, has not so recently informed the Engineer that, as I do not participate much in the conversations around her house that whip by, in Spanish, at approximately warp three, there must be something wrong with me, poor soul. I must be slow. Tsk and for shame.

It’s going to be one of those holidays.

That said, family is family and I will survive. I’ll probably even enjoy myself a little. I’ll try not to white-knuckle the car door handle when we pull into the drive, and all will be fine.

Anybody else out there dreading the holidays as much as they’re looking forward to them? I hope, for your sakes, that you can find some joy too.

Happy holidays!

Sara Dennis

You know what’s beginning to irk me…really chap my hide? The question we get as writers. A question that at first didn’t really bug me, but every once in awhile brings my eyebrows together.

Yes, this cartoon might annoy some, but it cracked me up so I put it in my post.

So, my last week was spent converting an old manuscript called Every Witch Way from first person present tense point of view to third person past tense point of view. My hands hurt. It was a constant drudgery of point, click, replace, repeat. Ouch!

I finished it yesterday morning. Yay! Now I have to add the hero’s point of view in there somewhere and maybe add a middle. It’s amazing that I wrote 60K (yes, SIXTY THOUSAND words) and never managed to write the middle of the book. More ouch. That means there are plot holes big enough to drive a Mack truck through–sideways. Maybe two side by side. What I have is good, it’s just not even close to done. I’m waaaaaaay less close than I thought. I need 90-100K and I was lulled into a falses ense of security by getting to 60K. Another ouch.

What I found was that my first chapter is one huge info dump. Like I don’t get to any action or even talk about where my heroine is or what she’s doing until page ten. TEN! Yeah, that section needs to be neutered and put elsewhere. Major ouch.

Still, I felt a major sense of accomplishment that I finished the first phase of the overhaul. That part is done, complete, finito. Yay! Now on to the fifty thousand other phases.

What about you? Have you ever tried to overhaul a book, or have one you intend to overhaul? How did you get through it without being totally overwhelmed by the project (or underwhelmed by your older material)? Thoughts or suggestions on this one?

Thanks!
Crystal Jordan

I bet you’re wondering what the heck I’m talking about. LOL. But I really want to know is which type of writer are you? Are you a Left Brain writer or a Right brain writer?

Our brain is divided into two halves. They are connected by a thick cable of nerves at the base of each side. The left side of your body is wired to the right, and the right side of your body is wired to the left. A left brained person uses logic, is detailed oriented, facts rule words and language; they are reality based and practical and safe. I tend to think of this as the writer who plots, makes lists and knows everything that’s going to happen in their book before they sit down and write it. The plotter.

A right brained person uses their feelings more, they are big picture oriented and their imagination rules. They are impetuous and risk takers. I believe this writer to be the panster. They have a general idea, know where they want the story to go and how its supposed to end, but they write by the seat of their pants.

However, no one writes with just their left or right side. The human brain is too complex and crossed wired for that. But your ideas may spark on either the left or right side of your brain.

So, which one are you. Right? Left? Or somewhere in between? I tend to think I fit somewhere in between. I don’t out right plot each and every chapter of the book but I know what things I want to happen along the way and I do write that down.

I hope you have a great Saturday!

Smooches, Lyric

Change is in the wind. We switched to the new beta blogger here, and it got me all metaphoric in my thinking. Why is it that computer programs as ’save changes to…’? Almost every program gives you a nice reminder that what you’re about to do is going to have long lasting effects. Most of the time, they’re not ‘undo’-able, either.

Wouldn’t it be nice if life were like that? If, in the moment before something Life Altering was going to happen, you had the option to save where you were so you could come back to it later?

Granted, there are those of us (myself usually included) who will say ‘without those mistakes, life would be boring’. I’m not sure I’d be bored if I could keep going back and seeing how things went if I did something different at a Crucial moment. I might ‘discard changes’ after I saw how it went, but it would be fun, wouldn’t it?

Of course my deep thoughts usually end up doing two things:
1) they confuse everybody else. I hope you all followed my illogic today!
2) it makes me realise, once again, that being a writer is a personality thing, not a job.

Because when I write, I get to follow the ‘what if’ scenarios of my own life, as ridiculous as some of them might be (what if I’d been abducted by aliens here, instead!) It’s a great way to overcome the pain of being dumped, or rewrite being dumped (even if it’s just to dump his butt before he gets the chance.)

So. If you could rewrite one moment in your life, would you? How do you think it would change things for you if you did?