Category: This & That

Tell Me Tuesday

Today is Dadbert’s birthday. Happy birthday, Dadbert!

Dadbert is my new blog nickname for my father. I call him Dadbert quite frequently, and it’s more respectful than “Old Man,” which is another of my nicknames for him, so I decided it made a better blog nickname for He Who Gave Me Life than Mon Pere. Also, Dadbert doesn’t require an accent. So Dadbert it will be. Live with it. 🙂

What’s the news in the blogosphere? Writing or non-writing? From writers or non-writers? Myself, I had a bit of a tough writing week last week. Oh, I made progress, but every single sentence was like pulling teeth. Can I blame it on Mercury Retrograde? Or hormones? Or both? I think I will. However, now the hormone cloud has lifted, and the writing is moving along much better. In fact, I’m nearly to the NaNoWriMo mess of already drafted scenes for this project. I’m so close, I can breathe on them. I’m so close that I’ve started re-reading the NaNo scenes to ensure they and those I’m writing now will still bridge to each other. And you know what? I think they will. This gives me no end of joy. You mean there was a purpose to my NaNoWriMo experiment? I should know more next week.

Now, I open the floor to those brave enough to comment (yes, ye Commenters are a brave lot). What’s going on in your neck of the woods? Any news to share? If you have no news and you just want to give me a pat on the back, I won’t stop you.

Oh, and come back tomorrow, because I’m starting my very own MeMe! One big difference, I’m not tagging anyone. Participation in Cindy’s MeMe is strictly voluntary. So if you don’t come back, you don’t get to see what it is. And wouldn’t that be a shame?

 

My Poor Tulips

As promised last week, evidence of my patheticism as a gardener. Keep in mind, there are dozens of tulip bulbs planted in this garden:

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Yet, aside from these, um, beauties, only a few purple tulips and one yellow tulip bloomed this year. No scarlets at all that I can recall.

Try not to focus on the mucky gravely bits around the garden wall (I’ve cleaned up it up since taking this picture, I promise). Try to focus on the fact that I built the wall myself!

I have a theory regarding my lack of tulips this year. It’s either the fault of the freak snowstorm in April freezing my flowers as they were trying to grow, or it’s the fault of this Evil Entity:

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Keisha. Born a scant year ago, the formerly precious Keisha faithfully used her litter box until this spring, whereupon she discovered my tulip garden and proceeded to commandeer it for her own nefarious purposes.

Evidence:

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See the dig holes behind the tulips? The dirt scooped out of the garden? Well, it wasn’t me, I can tell you that much. No, Keisha is the guilty party, and I hereby sentence her to twenty lickings by Allie McBeagle.

Here’s my worry… When the tulips have had their day (the bulbs are now gone, but Little Pisser tells me the still-green stalks “feed” the bulbs for next year’s crop), I like to fill this garden with bedding plants. I may not be much of a gardener, but even I can’t bear to leave the dirt patch beside our kitchen door devoid of color. How do I stop the Evil Entity that is Keisha from digging up my bedding plants? Aside from throttling her, that is, because I wuv her!

Help! Any tips from gardening experts out there?

Tell Me Tuesday

It’s very rainy in my part of the world. No big surprise, because yesterday was our May long weekend (Victoria Day). It seems it always rains on the two big camping weekends of the summer, the other being the July 1st (Canada Day) long weekend (if it falls on a weekend). What’s Memorial Day like in the States? Is it the start of camping season like it is for those of us up north foolish enough to enjoy camping (I can take it or leave it…usually leave it, but I know people who adore camping). Do you have plans for the upcoming Memorial Day long weekend?

Because it was Eldest Son’s birthday on Friday and then a long weekend, my writing ground to a halt. However, a lot of overdue cleaning was accomplished. So, my only bit of writing-related news this week is that I received my first ever scores back from the RITA contest. I’m pleased to report that BORROWING ALEX received one 9 (the top score possible for those not in the know) and also an 8. However, it also received one upper-middling score and two “lower-middling enough that there’s no way this entry will make it into the finals” scores. However, that the book received such differing scores didn’t bother me. This was the first year that an author with a book published by a micro-press (I picked up that description from Natalie Damschroder) like Amber Quill could even enter the RITA, and, frankly, there wasn’t really an appropriate category for my entry. I did the best I could with my choices, which were to either enter a short book in Single Title, where it would have competed against books twice its length, or to enter it in Series Contemporary, which is really for category romance novels published in a series (Harlequin/Silhouette). However, the definition for this category is loose enough (employing words like “usually” quite frequently) that I felt it was the best place for my story. So, in actuality, I was very pleased that BORROWING ALEX snagged that 9!

Lastly, the managing editor of the Casablanca line for Sourcebooks, Deb Werksman, is taking questions today on the new Casablanca Authors blog. I’ve spoken to Deb on the phone, and she is very enthusiastic. This is an excellent opportunity to pick her brain, so don’t miss it. And, yep, I asked a question myself.

No Takers?

So far no one has tried to guess the identity of Lucienne Diver’s agent. Need a hint? Okay, okay. Read yesterday’s blog. I’ve named her agent there. There, that narrows down the choices. You can either guess straight out or surf the agents’ websites (hint #2: check their client listings). Put your answer in the comment trail of this post or that one. I’m not picky. If you guess right, well, maybe I’ll be nice and promo your own blog or website on this one (if you have one) (as long as it doesn’t contain objectionable material…and, yes, whether the material is objectionable or not is entirely up to me. I’m ornery that way.)

I hope to update the Articles section of my website this weekend. That means my latest Girl Talk column with Jamie Sobrato will go into Archives. I’ve interviewed Silhouette Special Edition author Mary J. Forbes for Chatting With, and unless I run into major problems installing the family’s new router and helping Youngest Son set up his new laptop, the interview will go on-line. I’ll announce here when it is. In the meantime, if you want to read Jamie’s and my differing philosophies on Writerly Procrastination, feel free!

Lastly, Happy Mother’s Day in advance to all the wonderful moms out there (including mine).

Tell Me Tuesday

How’s everyone doing? Any news to report?

I can’t believe I’ve finally made it past page 100 in my WIP. Yay, yay, sis-boom-bah. I still have a fair bit of new writing to wade through before I get to revise scenes I fast-drafted during my never-to-be-repeated NaNoWriMo experiment. I’m sure I’ll appreciate NaNoWriMo once I revise those scenes, but right now the whole idea of knowing where the story is going just aggravates me. Someone please remind me why I did this? Oh, yeah, to prove I couldn’t.

I also signed up for my RWA National editor/agent appointments yesterday. The PAN/PRO appointment schedule doesn’t open up until next Monday, May 5th. However, as a Golden Heart ’07 finalist, I was allowed one week’s head-start. For anyone interested, after the GH and RITA ’08 finalists finished chewing through the appointment schedule this past week, I’m happy to report that as of this morning when I logged onto the RWA website, there was only one agent not showing any available appointments left. A couple of other agents look like they won’t have appointments left in a matter of days (including the agent I booked—sorry!), but still others remain wide open. So I nabbed my agent appointment, and then I grabbity-quick headed to book an editor slot (oops, no, actually, it was the other way around—I booked the editor appointment first). An editor at a major single title publishing house requested one of my full manuscripts in the fall and looked at it rather quickly, then gave an encouraging rejection letter asking to see more of my work. So I felt it wise to get some face-to-face time with her.

I also have one other piece of good news to report, but I received it right before I wrote this post, and now I want to hoard it, rub its belly, and kiss its nose. Return Wednesday, though, and I’ll share.