The Wordpress dashboard tells me I have exactly 100 posts on my blog now. Yay, me. Congratulate me on my milestone. I guess that makes this post #101.

Sigh. I’m still feeling very unsettled in the wake of Eldest Son’s departure to university, especially after investigating flight costs and realizing it would cost something like $400 after taxes and surcharges to bring him home for Canadian Thanksgiving (usually around October 10th). And the flight is under an hour! Holy price-gouging, Batman. E.S. said when we parted that he was fully prepared not to come home until Christmas, and you can bet I’m springing the bucks for that two-week holiday. But two nights? We shall see… (In the event you all think I’m heartless, I do have a friend in his university town with two kids he grew up with who would ensure he was well taken care of).

Just before leaving to take E.S. to university, I wrapped up a chapter on the WIP that left me firmly in the middle of the book with a major turning point and a hook. You’d think the next chapter and scene would be a breeze to write, then, huh? Um, not so much. I have a lot of fast-drafted scenes for this story, and I’ve spent the last couple of days (after re-reading those first 12 chapters to plant my brain in the story again) physically moving the drafted scenes around in the manuscript, trying to strike the right balance between plot, mystery, development of romance, and characterization. I think what I’ve moved makes sense, and it’s time to begin revising the first of the two transferred scenes and see if I’m right.

Often, when I begin a new chapter or even a new scene, I walk around in a haze for a day or two, during which I feel super-anxious. I know the brain is churning, and in a way I can actually feel it churning. The churning is the anxiety (some might call it creativity). Right behind my forehead. Agh! Every time this happens, I curse my writing process, but I shouldn’t curse it, I should embrace it. It appears I need to go through the churning in order to successfully write and plot the next few scenes. I often blame this process on Elle Muse, because she’s the one standing inside my head laughing at my bruised forehead! However, she’s also the one doing all the work right now.

And you thought being a writer was all fun and games. Think again. It’s freakin’ hard work.

Well, there you go. I’ve begun a new chapter of my life with E.S. leaving home, and I’m beginning not only a new chapter of my WIP but a new direction, thanks to that major turning point. Wish me luck. For the next week or so, I’m pretty sure I’ll need it.

Oooh, I think I’ve mentioned before that I love eights. I know my blog defaults the date to August 8, 2008, so I had to bring attention to the triple eights in the blog title. Note that I also set the blog to post at 8:08 a.m.! Yes, I’m obsessive, but only in a nice way, I assure you.

Today, as promised, I’m posting pictures of Conference. First up, the ChickLit party, held Wednesday night at Annabelle’s Bar and Bistro in the Mosser Hotel across the street from the Marriott (the conference hotel).

Left to Right, Heather Roth, Kelli Estes, and Christina Arbini.

I first met Heather at the ChickLit party in Dallas last year. However, she was Heather Dodge then. Now she’s wearing a bunch of sparkly on her finger that has transmorphed her into Roth. Why is Heather so memorable, you ask? Because she convinced myself and Lexi Connor, among others, to imbibe in Lemon Drops at the bar in Dallas last year until the ungodly hours of the morning. I stayed up way too late and had to wake up at 6 the next morning for a group breakfast. Heather did not get me in her clutches this year, although I was tempted. The tiredness from this damn summer cold was already creeping in.

Kelli is a new ChickLit chapter member and Christina is a member of the Dancing Divas, from way back in Reno (you had to be there).

Thursday Pictures:

Moi and Kathleen Irene Paterka

Kathleen was nice enough to buy a copy of Penny’s first book at the Literacy Autographing for a friend. Kathleen and I have known each other in email for years—how nice to put a face to a name.

 With my Red Sage editor, Theresa Stevens, at the Red Sage Coffee Mixer.

Fellow Red Sage authors, Leigh Court and Mia Varano.

Mia Varano with publisher Alexandria Kendall at the Red Sage author dinner held at Roy’s. Yum!

Mia and I also had dinner together on Tuesday night, plus she made me walk all the way to the Coit Tower Wednesday morning, earning Moi a tiny blister on my pinky toe of right foot that required band-aids for the duration of conference. Bad, bad Mia. However, I must confess, it was my idea to visit the Coit Tower. But! It was her idea to walk.

Friday:

Amber Quill Author Dinner: Karin Story, Natalie Damschroder, and Karin’s mom!

Karin is my editor at Amber Quill. Yes, she’s responsible for the brilliance of my books! Actually, I’m responsible, but she keeps me on the straight and narrow (you didn’t think I’d let her hog all the credit, did you?). Natalie is a fellow Amber Quill author I’ve known on the loops for years. She’s also a fellow Capricorn, which naturally endears her to Moi.

Fellow Amber Quill authors Linda McLaughlin and Caitlyn Willows.

Note that I sport the same squishy-eyed grin in every photo!

I really missed catching up with my buddy, Jamie Sobrato. We were supposed to have dinner Saturday night, but she fell ill and had to cancel. Sob. I did run across her a few times during the conference, but I’m used to seeing her a lot at conference, so now I’m suffering Jamie Withdrawal. Anyone have a cure?

Thanks also to my roomie, Natale Stenzel, for putting up with me (or was that the other way around?) Heh, heh. 

Some of you will remember my struggle with the Evil Entity using my kitchen-door garden for her catbox. I am happy to report that after several weeks of experimentation, she is no longer going in the garden! How did I accomplish this monumental feat? Well, first I tried putting black pepper in the garden. She dug it up. Then I followed a friend’s advice and covered the soil areas with cut-up rose thorns. She booted them out. FINALLY, after planting marigolds and lobelia, I covered every square inch of soil I could find with bits of bark and sticks and a sprinkler and a digging implement and two old peony cages:

Success! Granted, I also had to resort to putting a litter box in the carport. Last week, fairly confident that I had her carport-litter-box-trained, I removed the rigamarole from the garden. Whereupon she began using it as a litter box again! Argh. Is my garden destined to look so, um, cluttered for the rest of the summer?

I am sad to report that my marigolds either hate the Evil Entity’s ”leftovers” or the record-breaking temperatures from the end of June fried them, because, as of this past weekend, ONLY ONE BLOOM REMAINED from six or seven plants. Sob. So I pulled them out and planted geraniums and some other little pink flower whose name I can’t recall at the moment. The lobelia, however, are going strong (everything is in the baby stage in the pic above, so you can’t really see the lobelia blooming—just take my word for it, because My Liege is out of town and he took the camera).

What does the Evil Entity think of all of this?

“Kiss My Paw, Submissive Human.”

Allie McBeagle’s reaction:

Pure exhaustion!

Did anyone else lose flowers to scorching temperatures this summer? Or must I admit that I have a brown thumb?

By the way, see that maple in the background of the picture of the Evil Entity? It’s now minus two massive branches, courtesy of a recent freak windstorm that also took out three fence boards and smashed the lantern at the end of the driveway.

Egad. Nostradamus said I’d have days like this…

My Liege and I were determined to spend July 4th on the lake, come rain or shine. Luckily, it didn’t rain, although at first we thought it might. Clouds hovered until the afternoon, when the sun finally broke free.

I was forced to take a self-portrait…

Because My Liege was reading… (There he is, at the very end of the left dock).

Who am I to interrupt such a worthy endeavor?

Note to Self: When holding camera so close to own face, nose looks enormous…

Behold, my photography skills:

“Choppy Waters, with Feet”

How did you spend your July 4th weekend?

In honor of Dadbert’s birthday yesterday, I’m starting a meme. Anyone with a blog can play. Here’s how it goes. I’m posting a “Cutest Baby” picture on my blog. I’m not tagging anyone. If you want to play, here are the rules:

1. Post a “Cutest Baby” picture to your own blog.

2. Link back to my blog (or the blog of whomever/wherever you first see the Cutest Baby MeMe…you know, after they get it from me.)

3. Include a link to your “Cutest Baby” picture in the Comments trail of this blog post, so I can easily hop over and ooh and ahh over the baby picture. In return, I expect you to ooh and aah over the picture I’m posting.

4. Explain why you think the baby in your picture is deserving.

5. The baby in your picture can not be you.

6. The baby in your picture must be a relative.

7. Repeat the rules on your blog if you want others to pick up the MeMe.

Ready, Set? Go!

I’m nominating Dadbert (naturally). Why? You have to ask? Look at those lips!! That cute little Three Stooges hairdo! The year was 1932, maybe 1933, depending how old he is in the photo (I’m guessing he was around six months, which puts the photo date around December ‘32 or January/February ‘33).

Dadbert is deserving of “Cutest Baby” because he has a perfect “Depression Era Pout.” I’m not sure, but looking at the picture, I think it was taken by a professional, but we’re talking 75 years ago, folks, so that’s ONE DARN CUTE BABY.

Show me yours!

…Eldest Son was born. I think that’s supposed to make me feel old. But the truth is, when he graduated high school two years ago, that made me feel old! I could not believe my baby was graduating high school. After all, I started seeing My Liege on the May long weekend the year I graduated high school (hey, that would be 30 years ago this weekend!) (I nearly forgot!)

For my American readers, this weekend is Victoria Day in Canada (celebrated Monday—no school or work). It’s a holiday in honor of Queen Victoria’s birthday, I believe, and Queen Elizabeth’s birthday, although it falls in June, is apparently celebrated this weekend, too.

Oh, by the way, in case you haven’t figured it out, that’s Eldest Son in the photo, at six months old. Isn’t he a cutie?

But back to the subject of my post. Feeling old. Youngest Son graduates high school in a few weeks. And that’s not making me feel old, either. So I guess the moral of the story is that, no matter how old you are when you have your first child—be it 16 or 42—when that first child graduates high school, you will feel old. So have your kids late in life, so you can feel old, well, later.

Now, for fun, see if you can guess the identity of this piece of pumpkin pie:

Is there a resemblance?

Not much to report in the WIPpy department. The writing is going well, but I’m still in the No Man’s Land of writing new scenes before I get to begin revising the scenes drafted during my NaNoWriMo experiment. The closer I get to those drafted scenes, the more I realize that the manuscript might just fall in line with my “plodding” (a.k.a. plotting). This, of course, amazes me to no end. And I have my brainstorming group to thank for it, because I couldn’t have done all that plotting without them (thank you, Looney Binners!).

My big news this week (well, last week or the week before, but I don’t think I’ve announced it yet), is that I’ve finally been admitted to RWA’s Published Authors Network (a.k.a. PAN). My Alter Ego’s third sale to Red Sage Secrets did it. It’s taken me so long to get here: two novel sales and three novella sales. Phew! And, if not for the change in RWA author eligibility standards last summer, I still wouldn’t belong to PAN. Because, before the changes, novella sales, regardless of advance level, didn’t count. Only novel sales counted, and my two Amber Quill novels, as amazing as they are, have not yet reached the level of income generation (LOIG - and, yes, I made that up) required to join PAN. However, now I am in PAN and they can’t get me out. Mwahahaha.

I know not everyone in RWA is happy with the changes to the eligibility requirements, but, I have to admit, being in the position of being able to continue entering the Golden Heart although I was in fact a published author always felt weird to me. This year, for the first time, because of the changes, I was able to enter the RITA, RWA’s contest for published works. Even though I didn’t final with either my or my Alter Ego’s entries, that I get to enter feels, well, exactly where I should be.

I was also able to join NINC this year (Novelists, Inc.). However, NINC’s membership requirements are different from RWA’s (which makes sense, considering they are different organizations). When I joined NINC in the fall, the requirements were two published novels. HEAD OVER HEELS and BORROWING ALEX qualified me. Last I knew, NINC was in the process of changing its membership requirements to one that might also include an income generation level (IGL for those into acronyms, as I, um, appear to be), however, seeing as I’m already a member, even if my earnings don’t reflect the minimum (I have no clue if they do), I don’t have to worry about it. I’m grandfathered in, and, unless I allow my membership to lapse, they can’t get me out. Mwahahaha.

Does anyone else have good or bad or lackadaisical news to report?

I’ve had two excellent pieces of news this week. On Friday, I learned that one of my WIPs, SEX, P.I.s & PACKING TAPE, is a finalist in The Lories Best Proposal by Published Author contest. This necessitated a mad afternoon of printing seven copies of the proposal for the final round and zipping them to the post office, so they’d make it to the contest coordinator in time for the deadline. There are no categories in the Best Proposal contest, so the six finalists are all lumped together (there were only supposed to be five finalists, but there was a tie). Seven industry judges are participating in the final round: two editors, two agents, a bookseller, a book reviewer, and a publisher reader (for non-writers, a “publisher reader” usually freelances, reading and giving her or his opinions on the suitability of a manuscript for a particular publishing house’s needs, and then the editor decides whether she (or he) reads the manu, dependant on the reader’s report.

My other piece of great news is that yesterday I received a phone call from RWA informing me that my name had been chosen in a draw as one of two recipients for the Rita Gallagher Memorial Conference Scholarship. I entered the draw through an ad in the Romance Writers’ Report a couple of months ago. As far as I know, one recipient is a PRO member, the second (moi!) an author with a sale in the past year newly qualifying her for PAN. (Note, if you’re not an RWA member, those designations won’t make sense, and they’re too complicated to go into now, but, rest assured, they make sense to me). When I saw the ad, I thought, “What the heck,” and now am I ever glad I entered the draw—because RWA is comping my San Francisco National Conference fee! This makes the conference a lot more affordable for an author on the…ahem…low end of the pay spectrum. I’m extremely grateful. Thank you, RWA!

Because of other commitments and recovery from the Devil of all Head Colds, I didn’t get as much writing done last week as I would have liked. The cold is still lingering, but I have my energy back, and I’m looking forward to diving into the WIP this week…and next week…and the week after that.

How about everyone else? Have good news to report? Experienced a bump on the road to publication and need a boost? Share your news, good or not-so-good. What are you working on?