Category: This & That

Five Thursday Novembers

I had a panic attack when I woke up this morning. Not a real panic attack, but a Holy-Crap-Now-I’ve-Done-It moment. You see, my work-in-progress is set in November, in the United States. Canadian Thanksgiving falls on the second Monday in October, but because American Thanksgiving is occurring now (as in yesterday), I happened to hear or read that American Thanksgiving falls on the fourth Thursday of November. Frankly, I can no longer remember if I heard or read that information sometime yesterday or if my muse decided to torture me with it upon waking.

The point is, I had to do a mad scramble to Google, because I always choose a year to set my fictional stories in, so I can print out a calendar and ensure I’m not forgetting something like, oh, that Americans celebrate Thanksgiving in November. And then I keep track of my scenes according to the calendar dates.

My WIP is set in 2007 (I don’t mention the year, I just use 2007 for plotting purposes). Last year, November had five Thursdays. This year, November has four Thursdays. Thanksgiving and Black Friday figure into my plot, so you can imagine my mini-moment of freak out. Ack, do I have to revise the entire freaking manuscript so that Thanksgiving falls a week later? Thank God for Google, because typing When Was Thanksgiving in 2007? assured me that I had properly researched American Thanksgiving dates last year and wasn’t just making up the extra Thursday after the holiday! (Forgetting what you have and haven’t researched is an unfortunate side effect of setting aside a manuscript to work on another manuscript, as was the case with this particular story late last year).

Of course now I’m obsessing over—how often does November have five Thursdays? Do I need to worry about this/mention it in my story? When (note the confidence) this book gets published, will American readers think, that stupid Canadian, she set Thanksgiving in the the second-to-last week of the month?!

Halloween also figures in this story, and I do mention several times that Halloween falls on a Wednesday, which should alert a clever reader that November 1st falls on a Thursday, which is how my WIP’s November winds up with five Thursdays… Is that clear enough?

And, by the way, yes, I do have PMS, thanks for asking.

Thanksgiving Notes

Happy Thanksgiving to all my American friends! I hope you have a great day surrounded by friends and family and that, despite the economic situation, you have plenty to be thankful for today.

We had our Thanksgiving 5 or 6 weeks ago, so today is a regular day for me. I didn’t get a chance to write yesterday, but had lots of fun babysitting my two great-nephews. With the help of my little sister, I walked/strolled them all the way (it was a fair distance) to the adventure playground park where I used to take my kids. We got all the way there and discovered the adventure playground was GONE. Only the swingsets remained. You could have knocked me over with an ice cube. I have no idea what happened to the playground. I loved taking my boys there when they were little. Luckily, the great-nephews were happy with just the swings, although the oldest (3) insisted that he get to ride in the stroller on the way back, and the 20-month-old walked verrrrrrrrrrrryyy slowly. But they were so cute! And, yes, the cutest part was getting to give them back. 😉

If you haven’t entered my BOX ‘O BOOKS HOLIDAY GIVE-AWAY yet, there’s still time. I’m taking entries until midnight, Sunday, November 30th, and I’ll contact the winner December 1st for her/his snail mail address so I can mail out the books ASAP. However, I won’t announce the winner on the blog until Wednesday the 3rd, as author J.L. Miles is blogging Tuesday, and I’ll be telling you all about her book, DIVORCING DWAYNE, on Monday.

Oh, and if anyone noted the other day before I edited the post that Susan Lyons’s guest blogging date was listed for December 9th, due to unforeseen circumstances, Susan will now be blogging Wednesday, December 10th. Hope to see you there!

Monday Musings

Welcome to my first post of November! What makes this day even more special? It’s my first ever first post of November! What would have made it even MORE special? If I’d posted my first ever first day of November post on November 1st! But I didn’t. So I guess this day isn’t as special as I’d thought. And here I got all excited for nothing. Hmph.

I hope everyone had a fun and safe Halloween weekend. Did you attend any parties? Kid or grown-up? Accompany kidlets trick-or-treating?

I had an eventful week in my writing world last week that reminded me what a front-car-of-the-rollercoaster experience writing and publishing can feel like. I received one bad piece of news followed by three good pieces of news.

Early in the week, I received a rejection from an Industry Professional I was eager to connect with (note how I am not admitting in public if the I.P. was an editor or agent? This is to keep I.P.s who might read my blog guessing/in the dark/curious/scrambling to snatch me up—snarf!). The rejection hit me a little harder than usual, not so much for the rejection itself, I realized later, but because of an Act of Ungracious Behavior on the part of someone from whom I’d expected better. Yes, life is strange when someone else’s reaction to your rejection hits you harder than the rejection…but no one ever said writers weren’t neurotic (honestly, NO ONE has ever said that, and if they have, they should be shot).

Thank God for the good news. And guess what? The first piece of good news was the rejection itself. I realized when I read the rejection what an excellent rejection it was. Personalized, specific, basically saying only good things about my writing followed by a comment about worries about the tight market. And it was very, very bad of Moi to allow the Act of Ungracious Behavior to overshadow that.

The publishing gods must have decided to take pity on me and force me to get over my bout of blues, because the next day I received my second piece of validating news—a thank you note from an unpublished writer I’d judged in a contest. What a smile it brought to my face. To hear that the writer greatly appreciated my comments and input, to hear that I’d mentioned points she felt she should have caught herself, to hear that my critique was the best she’d ever received from a contest judge…okay, maybe she wrote the same note to all her judges, but I don’t think so, and I don’t care. I needed that. Thank you, contest entrant. Honestly, unpublished writers out there who enter contests, yes, we judges need our thank you’s!

Number three good news came the day following the thank you note—a manuscript request from another Industry Professional I’m just as eager to connect with (I’m not playing favorites at this point, Moi, and, even if I were, I wouldn’t announce it here). So I had to put aside the writing of the Work in Progress to feel great, re-read the requested material yet again, and submit it. No matter what happens with this submission, I needed the request to come when it did. I needed the thank you note. And I needed the wonderful compliments in the <insert bad word that starts with a R that should not be spoken aloud> letter.

I think there’s a lesson in there somewhere…

Typée Dans Le Français?

Or something like that.

Okay, I got A’s in French all throughout high school, and I also got an A in first year university French. But what can I say? It’s been a few decades.

THANK YOU to Teresa for pointing me to a website that lists the ALT key/Key Pad codes for French accents. Yes, it took the combination of two emails and the website to get the information through my thick skull, but now I have it. My apologies to anyone else over the last few months who has attempted to teach me how to use the computer codes for accents. For some reason, Teresa’s lessons took hold while yours didn’t. I assure you, I’m a lousy student, you’re not a lousy teacher.

Here are some Do’s and Don’ts:

  • You must use the number key pad on your PC, not the numbers across the top of your keyboard.
  • If you have a laptop without a key pad, I can’t help you, because I am laptop-less.
  • You MUST have your Number Lock key pressed before you attempt your bee-oot-iful accents.
  • You DON’T type the letter you want accented before or after the number code. Just type the code.
  • You DO press the ALT key before you type the code.
  • You let go of the ALT key.
  • The correct accent above the correct letter magically appears.

Voici un example. Mais, ou es l’accents dans l’examples?  J’ai oublie moi accents completement!!

Okay, let me try again (I have no idea if completement is a French word, so don’t hassle me if it isn’t, at least I’m trying, damn it). (For those who wish translation of Cindy’s feeble French, the above is meant to read: “Here is an example. But, where are the accents in the examples? I have forgotten my accents completely!”)

I think ou (where) has an accent above the o. I mean the u: Où. Yes!

Tres has an accent above the e: Très. Yes!!

Moi, j’ai mucho brilliance!

Clearly, I’m no better at Spanish.

Go forth and accentuate yourself. 

Tell Me Tuesday–Please!

Okay, blog-buddies, I need some good news! My life has been very stressful for the last couple of weeks. A loved one is experiencing an extremely stressful situation, as well. I can’t go into what our situations are on a public forum like a blog, but the good news is my situation is not health-related and it’s not marriage-related. The bad news is I have no clue when the stress will alleviate. Thank Elle Muse I can find a refuge in writing.

So hit me with your good news! If you need to vent, you can hit me with that, too. Misery loves company, right? But I would most like to hear about your writing goals and accomplishments. If you’re feeling great about your writing lately, tell me. Maybe it’ll rub off into other parts of my life.

Awwww…

Allie McBeagle is seven today. This is how she celebrated:

Also, she got a hard-boiled egg for a present. She’s one happy dog.