Happy 1st Day of Winter!

Well, you wouldn't know it to look outside my window right now that it is the first day of winter... there should be SNOW down. There isn't. You see green grass as far as the eye can see.

Well, I'd have to say that it's good in ways and bad. I don't mind having a mild winter for a change. Even a snowless one. I recall we had a very mild one back in 1999 (the year my father died), and we sat outside on New Years in lawn chairs in shorts. It was in the 70's--and no. We were not in Arizona at the time. We were right outside in our own back yard.

We don't have to drive in snow. That's one good point.

But on the other hand, having lived in the midwest all my life you sort of have the mind set that there should be snow on the ground by now and you should be freezing your assets off!

A bit of news:

Yesterday I got confirmation that the 7 books I ordered from my publisher for promotions (one is mine to keep), was sent on Monday. I got up and told my husband this bit of news--because he wants to read this next book badly and had hoped that he would be able to while we're off these next two weeks.

It wasn't five minutes later when he came to my office door asking me "When did you say the books were shipped?"

"Monday."

He moved into the door way further and held a large box in his hands. "Well, they're here!"

Weird, huh?

Because of the Christmas crush I'll wait until next week to send any books out. A couple of people won them and I need to send them out so that they can enjoy. I will announce winners then.

There really is nothing like seeing your own book in physical form. Holding it in my hands--oh, and by the way the cover is more awesome in person than in a picture. Believe me!---I read the back cover to my husband and couldn't quite finish I was just overwhelmed. A 30+ year old dream has come true. I've now got two books--a series--out there and people are buying it and enjoying it! I plan on getting the third book out next year and I'll have the fourth one ready at some point there after. I'm already getting ideas for the fifth book. It just never stops when I have developed characters and their world to such an extent that they seem real to me.

I have other things I'd like to work on as well. Eventually I'll reveal them, but they are in planning stages, or barely a few chapters written that I can't really talk about them.

Ah... 17 days off, I will have my writing cap on and I'll be deep into the mode. Of course we'll take a few days off to enjoy together as always.

One more day to get it done with, and I'll be FREE!

Peeling Eggs

You know how when you get a hard boiled egg and you go to peel it, you are wondering if it will come off easily, or stick like someone glued it?

Sort of how I feel right now. I'm the hard boiled egg.

Don't get me wrong. I have this week off, and it's great not having to rush through breakfast, make a lunch, get dress and fly out of here to go drive a damned transit bus and see all the same faces that get on every single day--maybe 3x in my 6 hour shift.

I'm working on my WIP, hoping to get into the climax. I've gotten this thing up to 82K words, and 223 pages so far. I've had several ideas hit me the past few weeks for the climax, scenes leading up to the climax and even the resolution that threw me so much I just wonder where the heck I get these ideas. I must have gotten on the Idea Train and it just treats me really well.

I don't get HBO, and even if I did, I'd probably not be able to stay up and watch True Blood. But there was a choice of magazine covers, this one was my favorite. I think this picture is the most duplicated, aside from The Mona Lisa for magazine covers.

Wild life around the house--since it's smack dab in the middle of our wild life/prairie/wetland park--has offered us glimpses of the usual parade of momma and baby raccoons going to her tree den, and one up in the old wooden water tower up by the house. But Dennis sighting takes first prize of momma deer and her little off spring. He said it was like a chihuahua with long legs, jumping around, and running in and out of the woods, trying out it's legs. I missed seeing it by an hour. Maybe I'll get to see them this week, if I'm lucky.

I am working on a post for Shelly of "The Life of a Novice Writer", for this week, I'm trying to not be so wordy. Wondering also if what I say will actually help anyone out there struggling, and wondering if they'll ever become good enough for an agent to grab them. Well, it's not that you're "good enough". It's more like the luck of the draw and your writing, or something about it hits an agent just right. I think you're better off playing the lottery, myself. And since I don't, well . . . here I am. We should all have nice juicy contracts with big houses, have our books on the shelves along side the likes of our favorite authors. And I'm going to tell you a quick tale of someone I knew who did just that.

Sabrina will be back--I'm not sure when, or what she'll post, but I'm sure it will be interesting. She's more interesting than me, by far. I mean, working for vampires, you know? So, she'll be in some time this week. I hope to get away a couple of days here and go and do something, go out to the White Pines State Park and maybe make reservations for a one-night stay in August before we have to go back to fall semester driving. I hoped to not have to do this again, but hey, Hollywood hasn't called yet, so I'm stuck in my "real life" job.