Category: This & That

Daylight Savings Blah

I’m recovering from my flu and getting back to writing, but Daylight Savings Time definitely hasn’t helped. I’m waking up at the same time, but it’s too dark to walk the dog. No, I won’t walk her in the dark alone anymore, not even with a flashlight, despite that I live in a safe neighborhood. We won’t go into why! (Other than to confess that it was a little whoo-whoo).

Plus, DST always makes me feel a little jetlagged. Yes, it’s only one hour, but the spring has left my chicken. I need my sleep!

Here’s some good news! Finally got to the eye doctor, and despite the problems I’ve had lately, they aren’t due to any dreaded eye diseases. Probably just incompatibility with my (formerly) new contact lenses (I say formerly, because I tossed them out). I’m test-driving a brand of multi-focal contacts that allow in more oxygen. In a couple of clockwork99rrlc1weeks, my optician is bringing in yet another (brand new) brand. I’ll try them both, and if the dry eye situation doesn’t improve, I’ll go back to my old trustworthy contacts and reading glasses…until I feel brave enough to tackle laser surgery without visions of Malcolm McDowell and A Clockwork Orange dancing in my head.

Can you say Crazy Laser Eye Guy anyone?

Friday Frump

The writing hasn’t gone well this week. At first I thought I’d just hit a road block in my WIP. You know those days. Draft a scene, toss it out. Draft another. It sucks, too. Go to sleep. Wake up. Toss out second attempt and prepare to resuscitate the first.

That’s pretty much been my week. Mid-day Wednesday, I finally realized why. Turns out I’m sick. I’ve been in a writing frump ever since.

What’s a writing frump, you ask? It’s when your writing feels like a bedraggled housecoat. No matter how many times you wash it, even iron it, it’s still soiled and smelly and all-around mucky. You just want to MOVE PAST THIS PART. But it’s hard to move past the frumpy part when the frumpiness is caused by…well, you. Your crummy illness.

The good news is, I have an excuse. My writing sucks because I’m sick. I can’t be sick forever. I mean, it’s not like I’ve contracted the plague or anything, so I’m guessing I’ll feel better next week. And the writing better reflect that—or else! I will go nutsoid on my muse.

The super blagh part about all this is that I was making good progress toward Finishing the Damn Book. Now I’ve lost a week.

Ah, well. No looking back. It’s counter-productive. I’ll spend the weekend catching up on promo stuff and fulfilling other biz-of-writing commitments. And making sure I get better. Even if I have to lie on the couch in front of a blazing fire for hours while My Liege and Eldest Son attend to my every whim. Yes, even then.

How did your writing go this week?

The Eyes Have It

I’m having issues with my vision, so am limiting my computer time this week. Might not be hanging around here much—the WIP must come first. And hopefully I can manage that.

My vision has always been important to me. When you’ve worn glasses since 10 and probably could have used them at 9, it’s safe to say your vision is precious. As a writer, having vision problems naturally makes it very difficult to write! So, next to my brain, of course, which houses my creativity, my vision is my most important writing tool. I mean, I could go deaf and still write without any problems. I could lose my sense of smell and hopefully rely on memory or an excellent beta reader to help me through scent descriptions. My hands? Yes, I need them to touch, so if I lost my sense of…sensation, I guess I’d have to look at the keyboard to make sure I was typing the right letters. However, overall, the eyes have it.

Which is your most precious sense?

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Who Loves Ya, 13?

I had a different post planned for today, but then I glanced at the calendar and realized—it’s Friday the 13th! And, guess what? We get another Friday the 13th in March, mwahaha.

Thirteen is my favorite number. It has to be. My birthday is January 13th, which, if you continue counting after December (and who wouldn’t?) is the 13th day of the 13th month. As I was lamenting to someone the other day, sadly, though, I was not born at 1 p.m., which would have made me a 13th hour, 13th day, 13th month baby. Nope, I was born in the evening. Irritation sets in!

For years, I thought I was born on a Friday the 13th, because my father was working out of town, only coming home twice a week, every Wednesday and Friday. My mother assured me that I was born Friday the 13th. The year I was 13, I found out, however, that I was born on a Wednesday. Yes, I’m a child of woe, which pretty much describes my adolescence and can account for all the characters who came to foul ends in my teenage short stories.

I have a brother and a sister born on the so-called “lucky” dates of 7 and 11, so you can imagine the ribbing I received over the years that I was born on the supposedly unlucky date of us three. Now, as an adult, I’m closest to the sibling who was born on a plain ol’ nothing fancy date. That’ll teach the other two.

How do feel about Friday the 13th? Are you superstititious? Do you avoid all things 13? Will you not read my books now that you’ve found out I love 13?

Tell Me Tuesday

It’s that time of the week again. What are you up to? In your writing life? Non-writing life? Sloth life? Snowflake life?

I’m judging the last of my RITA panel. I saved the biggest book for last, and now I’m glad I did. I still have lots of time to finish reading and report my scores.

I’ve really enjoyed judging the RITA for the first time this year. However, next year, I think I’ll ask for different categories. Not that I don’t appreciate the categories I received this year. But I received 8 entries in one category and only 1 in a second. I’d rather judge more of a mix-up, and I think I can solve that issue by requesting different categories next year.

How about you? Are you judging RITA or the Golden Heart? How’s it going?

In other news, I just created a new group at Facebook called Muse Interrupted Guest Bloggers. The sole purpose of this group is so I can easily send email notifications to members who wish to receive them (read that, if you’re a member, you DO wish to receive them, otherwise there’s no point in joining) regarding my guest bloggers and book give-aways. I sent out the first notification on Sunday for Susan Gable’s blog yesterday. The next notification will go out a day or two before Natale Stenzel’s blog occurring February 25th. If you’re a member of Facebook and would like to sign up for the group, here’s a link. If that doesn’t work, just log in to Facebook and search for Muse Interrupted Guest Bloggers. It’ll come up.

Writing wise, I hit a bit of a block last week (horrors!). I had this wonderful love scene already fast-drafted set in a dark room. However, no matter how much I wanted to, no matter how hard I tried, once I reached that very lumpy portion of the book, the scene no longer fit. I thought it would work, but after a lot of research, re-plotting and re-plotting, and soul searching, I realized it just didn’t work. And that’s okay. That’s one of the dangers of writing scenes out of order. When you get to revising them, you might not need them anymore! Or, in the case of this scene, it no longer made sense that my characters would make love in this setting at this time.

Once I plucked the scene out of the file and tucked it away for safekeeping in a Book Fragments file, my mind opened up and I suddenly realized another fast-drafted scene I thought was coming much later needed to fit in now. So I’m working on that scene, and the wonderful dark room love scene will have to wait for another book…maybe one of Penny’s stories. Oh, my hero and heroine still have some fun awaiting them, so all my research hasn’t gone to waste. It’s just taken on a different life.

How Do You Read?

A topic of discussion on one of my writers’ listservs got me thinking about the different ways people read, so I thought I’d do a survey. When you read a book for pleasure, do you read it lying down? I do. I read lying down on my bed. Reading sitting up bothers me. I only read sitting up when forced, like on an airplane, or when I’m in public and I know full well that laying on the doctor office floor to read might get me carted off to the Looney Bin.

(Okay, now I’m suffering paranoia about the whole lay/lie thing—should I be writing laying or lying?—gah!) (That’s my excuse for writing it different ways in the above paragraph).

Well, reading sitting up doesn’t bother me, per se. I’m perfectly capable of doing it. But to me it’s not relaxing. And I want to feel relaxed when I read.

I also watch TV lying down. In fact, I’m quite the couch hog, because I take up the whole thing!

What about you? Do you lie down to read? How about when watching TV?