Clearing My Brain

After driving one run of the #7 through the Walmart and Target parking lot (among other places), I feel a little bit like this fellow. I'm not bad right now, actually. My husband had a worse day than I... However, by the time we are into our second week of these nasty runs we will definitely feel green and want to go "Bah Humbug" to the whole thing.

Ah-h-h... I feel better having gotten that off my chest. But, just so you know, I may have to let out steam again at some point later on this week. But tomorrow I will post the Coffee Klatch post, Tuesday I hope to put up another Teaser Tuesday, which I've missed a couple of weeks in a row, it seems. Wednesday I have some more humorous comics to post. And I think that is all I can promise you all at this point.

As for what I'm working on, well, it's a novelette. And it slightly deviates from my Sabrina Strong Series, as  it's horror fiction, and has nothing to do with the series. It's actually derived from scenes I took out of Vampire Ascending, because as I realized these scenes were very unrelated, and made the book too long. I saw that I actually had another book, basically. But I don't think it will be much longer than 50,000 words--which is right around the range for a novelette. I've wanted to put this one down, but until now I didn't really have the time. Now, maybe I do and will be working on that for the next several weeks, see what I can do with it. 

Hopefully you all had a restful Sunday. I'm ready for some R&R!

No-Name Thursday ~ My Day Went Fine

I had wished for no rain today--because we'd gotten rain for two days, basically. Well, it didn't rain but we did get one doozy of a cloud burst snow shower. It lasted for about 5 minutes, and quit. We then had a couple of small showers, with peeks of sun after that.

My day went fine. I always seem to cultivate friendships from a few young college men that find me interesting enough to slouch against the front area behind me (while I drive the bus) to talk to me during the 15 min. trip from campus to where they live. Each semester I loose one and gain one or two. The end of this semester I'll be loosing one. Michah is a biology major and he's moving to New Mexico where they don't get quite the diversity of temps, and--as I stressed--more beautiful surroundings. I will miss him. We had some interesting conversations in the past. *sigh*. But, I'll keep in mind all the things we spoke of and because of one area of interest in blood, I may have an interesting thing to use in a future book.

Why is it the young men will speak to me and not so much young women? I don't know. It was like that when I was younger. Guys gravitate to me more. There are some young women who will say hi to me. And of course older women who get on my bus will speak to me, too. But then we already have a lot in common. I think it's just something about me and my ways. While these young guys know I'm approximately as old as their mother, I'm not their mother and I dont' act like it. I can talk on their level. I tend to know what makes them chuckle and I think it's what they like best about me. I think that maybe also they like to talk to me because there is no pressure. And we're just chatting. Whereas if they speak to women their age, there is always some sort of pressure.

Because of the fact I'm waiting on edits, I'm not joining in any reindeer games blog hops, or anything that asks you to write flash fiction. I need to concentrate on what I need to do for the next couple of months. Gadz am I glad I didn't go ahead with NaNo. And glad that everyone out there is sort of busy with it. I'm feeling no pressure about doing posts, no one is really coming here to make comments, but that's okay. I don't mind. I just check on things and go back to my work.

Tomorrow is Friday, and it's Veteran's Day. Be thankful toward those who have sacrificed much in the name of our country.

Have a great evening and an even better Friday, everyone!

Night time Thoughts

Okay, I know what you're thinking. I don't usually post twice in one day--like they say that lightning doesn't hit the same place twice. Riiiight. But dang it I did have a wonderful day. My back feels about 50% better. I still have to watch twisting and bending. But aside from that one physical aspect, I had a free day to do what I want.

I marveled at the new floor and cabinets in the kitchen, knowing that in two weeks they should be done with it all. Plans for the colors and what we'll do with it filling my spare moments as I make a list of things we'll need.

Today, I also won an ebook from my visit yesterday at Marissa Farrar's Official Author's Page, The House On Blackstone Moor by another (new) friend, Carole Gill. I will not tell you how long it took me to figure out how to get this book downloaded. And I'm thinking I didn't even need to do the Adobe down load at all, once I went back and did a simple down load to an RTF format. Sheesh!

Anyway I thank both Carole Gill and Marissa Farrar. Marissa has added a Friday interview with authors on her blog, and she has kindly invited me to be on it in June. So, whoo-hoo!

I've also worked further into my second book, did some research on King Solomon, and a magic ring he was supposed to have that helped him command demons, which relate to some degree with the second book's details, which lead me to some other interesting things that were just as interesting as my main interest. I love Wikipedia.

Then, tonight I began penning a scene down for the third book. It's actually the climax scene, merely because it was just there, even though I am no where near this scene in the book's actual writing progress. I'm only half way done! You see, I am a "panster", Carole! I can't help it. I think it's one of those obsessive things. Outlining doesn't work for me merely because the scenes come to me and I write them, sometimes out of sequence. My only basic structure might be a plot-planning template to keep me on track, and then possibly writing short descriptions down on note cards and placing them in order of where I want them. If that's outlining I'm a monkey's aunt. But it does keep me from deviating too much and hold me on track toward where I want to go with the book. And if it changes mid stream, no big deal. I love when my characters decide they are not what I expected them to be. Like Jett of the third book turns into a prince instead of a necromancer. I'll admit the necromancer idea wasn't bad, but Jett decided he was Drakulya's son. Go figure. And Sabrina is attracted to him, where as, in the beginning I didn't want her to be. That girl is hard to figure! But then, the were-creature sort of has her dancing in circles, so I can't blame her much.

And finally, but not least, Michelle Bradford-Arkon tells me that she will be posting a review on my book, Vampire Ascending, at her blog tomorrow. I will place a link for you all to take a peek.

Tomorrow I'll be singing the phrases "Ding-dong, the witch is dead!" because the most horrible man in this century, Osama bin Ladin, was killed by American forces. Good riddance!

I see by my clock that it is getting late and I do have to get up in the morning and go to work "sigh", but I will have this day in my mind, remembering all the things I accomplished and things that happened and all the people who happened by today.

Spring into Spring Fever

I'm needing a break and gonna get it in another week. I think everyone needs a break once in a while.

You know how you say something that's misconstrued and--well, I guess you sort of "screw" yourself because you misspoke. That happened to me today when I said something over our radio. Don't get me wrong. It wasn't a "bad" thing, I was being sarcastic and because my sarcasm has to be taken with a grain of salt--or possibly a teaspoon of salt--the guy who thought I was sort of making an indirect comment on something he'd just said over the radio took offence at it. And when I parked my bus and got off, there he was--all 6 foot and 200-something pounds of him.

Not really thinking that he'd come over to snarl at me, I said, "What's up" and he just sort of led off with the question if I'd meant "such 'n' such" and immediately I went to him, put my hand on him and told him not at all. I grabbed his arm and we spoke. He said he'd had a bad week. I assured him I wasn't making fun of what he'd said or tried to imply anything to the negative.

We all have bad weeks. I had a bad week last week. I seem to be saying things I don't mean, or things that can be taken wrong. I think it's something to do with Spring Fever. Yes. There is such a thing. I can't remember things, I can't talk right. Heck I probably can't even write right.

So, if I've offended anyone at all I'm so damned sorry. I tend to say things that some how come off as wrong and get misconstrued and I feel stupid for saying them. I know that I should just shut the heck up. Zip my lip. Say nada.

So, the guy--and I don't even know his name, if I ever knew it, I don't recall it--the student who drives one of the other 14-15 buses, he's going through it too. It's called mid-terms.

I grabbed his arm and we walked across the street together. "You need a hug," I said.
I felt his arm just sort of squeeze down on my hand as I had looped it under his, which told me he was forgiving me.

"No. What I need is a nap," he said.

We laughed and made disparaging remarks about our radios because that's exactly what the whole thing was about. Our radios go into this mode and we can't communicate with one another for a few moments--usually when we need them--the GPS system sucks.

I told him that I was glad he'd come over to me. He found out I wasn't the Witch of the North--or whatever he might have thought of me. We had rarely--if ever spoken to one another. Not even probably a "hi" at all. So, now he knows I'm a nice person, where as moments before he probably was cussing me out and wanted to rip into me for something that came out of my mouth while my brain was in a dumb mode.

So, that was a moment in my day. Believe it or not I didn't dwell on this. I took care of it. I have people get on my bus and talk to me and tell me about their day. I stop and let people cross the street between buildings on campus--all day long as I drive down Normal Road and get under way on my run.

I also was feeling under the weather and took 2 Zycams and one aspirin and hope that I can ward of whatever the heck invaded me while I wasn't looking.

So, this is my warning to all of you out there. If you are behaving strangely, can't remember things, feel like you need a nap in the middle of the day, out of sorts, irritable . . . blame it on Spring Fever.