The Writing Room Revamp!

"Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler." ~ Albert Einstein

Finally! I've taken pictures of the before and after of the Writing Room revamp. First, let's start with the before and in progress pictures.


As you can see, it was messy, and then got messier. I don't even want to get into how much dust was kicked up during this process. Suffice to say, I should have taken out shares in Claritin. But finally, after way more work than I had originally envisioned and after weeks of promising my Success Team members that I would get it done, we have the finished product:



Ahhh...finally. Everything has a place. Granted, I still don't have my hardwood floor, two extra bookshelves or a big comfy reading chair. But once the dog condo is no longer required for the canine, those will come next. Either way, it feels good to finally have things squared away. I don't like mess. It agitates me.
Now I can sit and write and not worry about messy distractions. Unless you count the dog. And he's not so much messy as he is moronic. I'm told by the time he reaches the age of two he'll snap out of that...

So Many Books...So Little Time

Choices are the hinges of destiny.
~ Attributed to both Edwin Markham and Pythagoras

I know…I know…I was yet again going to do the Writing Room revamp, but I’m not at the computer that has my photos so unfortunately it will have to wait for yet another week. Just trust me when I say that it looks fabulous. Or at least not as much of a disaster as it did originally.

This week has been busy. I finished off my revisions of THE OUTLAW BRIDE and sent them back to my editor. Then I started thinking – what next. I am so close to having AN INVITATION TO SCANDAL complete and ready to send off to agents it would be a shame to just drop it now and put it on hold while I work on THE WIDOW BRIDE (Book 2 in the Brides of Fatal Bluff series). But at the same time, I have my foot in the door at Carina Press, it seems prudent to capitalize on that.

Oh the conundrum…

In the end, here is what I decided:

1) Since I am so close to finishing INVITATION, I will work on that from now until end of October with a view to completing it and getting out the agent queries, then;
2) I will use NaNoWriMo to write the first draft of WIDOW. (I’m using this week to work on an outline for it.)

My RWA Chapter have our annual Writers Retreat in mid-October and we always do brainstorming on books we are trying to develop, so I will use that to help build the outline for THE SCANDALOUS BRIDE (Book 3 of the Brides of Fatal Bluff series).

I think that is the best way to use the time I’ve got to my best advantage.

I still need to sit down and try to figure out the plan for 2011, but I have a few months left to get that done.

My Day In Court

"This is a court of law, young man, not a court of justice." ~ Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

My plan was to do a post on the Writing Room revamp, but I didn’t have time this morning to write it up and post, so today we are exploring the wonderful world of traffic court.

A few months ago I was pulled over on a routine stop where the police were checking everyone’s Motor Vehicle Inspections to ensure they were up to date. I wasn’t worried, as I had had mine done in January. I remember this distinctly because it occurred right before my birthday and I had to purchaser four new tires to pass inspection, which I was not happy about. I had planned on spending the money on a new pair of sexy boots as a b-day present to myself. Instead, I got tires. Not anywhere near as sexy.

However, when the po-po pulled me over, she said my MVI was not current. After my initial – “What?! No way!!” – I peered through the window to see she was in fact telling the truth. The sticker clearly stated January 2009. She told me to check my glove compartment to see if I had the current receipt they always give you, but that too had the old date on it. It appeared my dealer had forgotten to attach the sticker and give me the receipt. Well done, boys. Well done.

Now, if I hadn’t purchased the new tires, I would have been questioning my recollection of events, but since I had, I knew the MVI had been done. Unfortunately, my brand new tires were not enough to convince the officer. She wrote me up a ticket for $168.00. However, she was nice enough to tell me all I had to do was appear in court with my paperwork showing the MVI was indeed done and they would void the ticket.

I went home and checked my invoices and sure enough, along with two other things I had done the same day to the car, the MVI was among them. I called my dealer and told them what happened. I also told them I wanted a letter from them taking full responsibility for the gaffe, which they gave me when I swung in to have the sticker and receipt updated.

Then it was off to my court date for 8am (ugh). After going through security to get into the court and having a jolly little joking session with the very nice security guards who rifled through my purse, I went down to the waiting room. As the others filed in, I realized you get all kinds of people from all walks of life at the courts. I started slyly eyeballing each of them, trying to figure out their stories. Turns out most of them were there for not having their headlights turned on during daylight hours. Hardly scintilating stuff.

Finally, I was called before the judge where I entered my plea of not guilty and was given a court date. Now I am off to Night Court on December 8th to show them my paperwork and get the ticket dismissed. A lot of rigmarole for someone else’s mistake, but I figure I’ll think of it as an adventure and see if I can rustle up some story ideas along the way.

Revisions Have Landed

I had planned to do a post today on my writing room makeover, but my re-org hit a snag yesterday when the revision letter for THE OUTLAW BRIDE arrived from my editor (Liz Bass). The makeover has been put on hold while I deal with those.

My first thought when the revisions arrived went something like - oh my God oh my God I'm going to make a complete mess of this I don't know what I'm doing oh my God oh my God. And no, there wasn't any punctuation in my head either. It was one long, rambling mental stream of stark, unadulterated fear.

Thankfully, it lasted only five minutes before my brain took over, slapped itself upside the head and told me to smarten up. And then the dog barfed, which sort of diverted my thoughts elsewhere. Poor pooch is still dealing with some intestinal issues, and while there's improvement, he's not 100% yet. We hope the new antibiotics will help get him over the hump and back to happy, healthy puppy land. Although to look at him, he seems blissfully unaware there is anything wrong.

But I digress. Today, my plan is to read through the revision notes my editor made on the manuscript and formulate my plan. Once I have a plan everything will be right with the world. I'm almost through the manuscript now and so far, so good. There isn't anything there that jumps out and screams, 'You can't do this! You're in over your head! You should have taken up basket-weaving!'

Therefore, it will be a short post today, while I tackle my revisions. I'm hoping to get as much done this week as possible since I'm on vacation. Once I head back to Pod Land my writing time drops back to my 2-hour morning stint. Plus, I loathe leaving things to the last minute. I was always the kid in school that did projects the first day they were assigned to avoid any last minute panic.

The writing room post will happen next week (promise!), with before / during / and after pictures included. But first - revisions.

Cover me...I'm going in.

Adventures In Puppy Raising

"If there are no dogs in Heaven, then when I die I want to go where they went." ~ Will Rogers

If you've been reading this blog regularly, you know we recently added a beautiful Golden Retriever to the family mix. Cedar is now nine months old and 70 lbs of sheer goofy stubbornness.

Now, I'm not saying Cedar is a bad dog. He's actually quite delightful for the most part. But then there's the other part. Like when we tell him not to do something, he'll stop the one time, then do it again a few minutes later. The worst of it is, I know he knows he's not suppose to do it because he has that guilty look on his face and watches you out of the corner of his eye waiting to see if you notice what he's doing.

We took him to obedience school and he did great. Well, medium great. He was easily distracted when anyone new entered the room. Whatever was going on had to stop while he rushed over and went crazy with exuberance over their arrival. That was all well and good when he was only a small, fuzzy puppy. But he's a big boy now (albeit still a puppy), and if you've ever been barreled into by 70 lbs of muscle, you'll know it isn't exactly a joyous experience. At least you'll come to that conclusion once you regain consciousness and find yourself laying prone on the ground, your body feeling as if it's met the business end of a Mack truck.

Anyway, I have been bemoaning the fact that we have not kept up with his training and now we are having some issues. Mostly pulling on the leash, trying to jump up on any newcomers (or just anyone walking by), and his new thing - barking then biting the arm of the couch when he wants our attention.

We tried several methods that our trainer suggested, and while they worked when he was a younger pup, now they no longer do. Frustrated with how to handle the situation before it became a permanent thing, I found myself watching At The End of My Leash yesterday. Brad Pattison, the trainer guy, told the people on the show who had similar issues as we did with their lab, that they couldn't talk to the dog for a week, and when they needed to correct him, to give a quick snap to the leash. Not a hard, yank-you-off-your-feet yank, just enough to get their attention.

Hmm...I thought. I wonder if this would work with Cedar? I had the opportunity to find out about a minute later when he started barking and biting the couch. And oddly, it did work. J and I stopped talking to the dog and did the collar jerk when he barked, interrupting his behavior and showing it was unacceptable. After a few minutes, he figured it out and settled down at our feet. But he kept looking at us all night like he couldn't figure out why he was ensconced in the Cone of Silence. Have you ever had sad, golden retriever puppy eyes turned on you? It's a deadly weapon. But I was determined and refused to cave! Plus, it was working.

It's only been one day, but the walk this morning went better than usual. J rated it a 5/10 as opposed to his usual -12. So, we are going to keep the silence up for a few days and see how it goes. Hopefully, we are onto something, and the bad behavior will be a thing of the past. Our goofy not-so-little pup will grow up to become a well-behaved member of society. And this time, we will keep up with the training and not slack off. I refuse to become one of those dog owners people point at (curse at) because they have no control over their animal.