We Are Being Taken Over...

By the Disney Channel.

Seriously. Who thinks the tweener demographic makes up most of the audience watching Dallas slaughter the Seahawks? Someone does, since they had Demi Lovato sing the anthem and the Jonas Brothers do the halftime show. If you recognize those names, there is a 93% chance you have tweener children.

Give me Nickelback, or David Cook, or hell, even one of the Lacheys. Enough with these overly made-up teenyboppers with their manufactured images and questionable talent. (Note: My 13-year-old stole the Neo to write on and read this, and told me she totally agrees. \o/)

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So as you can see from my word meters to the right (or here if you're reading this at LJ or MySpace), I completed my read-through of Under the Moon. While I wait to discuss my revision suggestions with my agent, I've worked a little more on Heavy Metal for NaNo. I'm pushing through to 50k, but the story is so all over the place and boring that I really need to go back to the beginning and run through it. A couple of major issues to address: Roxie's abilities and the bad guy's big plan. Until I know that last one, I'm just kind of running in circles.

But after Monday, that probably will get set aside for a while. First, because I have several books I need to work on ahead of it. More importantly, because it's a sequel to a book that hasn't been submitted yet, never mind sold. So. My plan:

1. Revise Under the Moon until it's ready for submission
2. Process critiques for Hummingbird and prep for agent review
3. Revise Fight or Flight again, if Agent Awesome so decrees
4. Do first round of revisions for More Than You Know and submit to critique partners
5. Finish Zoe WIP

That's at least a good six months of work, probably a lot more. Kind of overwhelming when I look at it all at once, and it makes me chaff at doing anything that's not writing.

Um. Like blogging. So...yeah...I'm gonna go back over to file 5 and get back to work.

Thanks

I wish everyone a Happy Thanksgiving. Yes, even the Canadians, who already had it (you can never be too thankful or eat too much turkey/stuffing/mashed potatoes or elk or whatever) and the people who live in other countries all over the world (yep, the UK and that person in France and the ones in Australia and the Phillippines and that one down in Aruba) because hey! Everyone can use a day of family togetherness, eating too much, watching football (or futbol), and thinking about the good things in their lives.

In addition to the usual (family, shelter, money in the bank, WAHM status) and the obvious (Salute to Supernatural! Padackles! my awesome friends!) I am thankful for the following:

• The patience and hard work of my agent, who is so determined to help me figure out what's wrong and fix it, and her good cheer even when I get pushy.


• Friends I don't hear from (and who don't hear from me) for months at a time, yet who know they can turn to me in times of despair. I only hope I can offer a fraction of what they need to help them heal.


• Kids who have reached the age where they can entertain themselves all day while I work, and who don't resent me for it.


• The space heater in my office.


• My kids' friends, who for the most part seem to be decent sorts, not leading them down ugly paths (unless you count those on Team Edward, which I really don't, since Number One is kinda leading that gang already).
  
• Kids who are so self-possessed and comfortable with who they are that they choose the kinds of friends above.


• A husband who is so secure in my love for him that he buys me Legolas for Mother's Day and Jared Padalecki for my birthday.


• Friends who get me and don't get annoyed (or don't show it, anyway) when I get so freakin' competitive. Cranberries, indeed.


• A shelf full of books I can't wait to read.


• A computer full of manuscripts in different phases of completion AND half a dozen viable ideas awaiting my attention, ensuring I can keep at bay the particular doubt demon that worries about running out of things to write for a good long while.


• You guys. You, right there, the person reading this blog. Whether you ever comment or not, if I know you or we never met in any manner, wherever you are in the world--I'm thankful for you, for giving me a reason to talk to myself on a semi-regular basis. You all rock hard.

Buy More Books!

The economy is taking a toll on publishing, as it is every industry. Publishers have laid off staff and either reduced or outright put a freeze on acquisitions. But not everyone is doom and gloom. Check this out.

Karen Dionne from Backspace has started a list of book purchases. So every time you buy a book you can list it in the comments. She'll keep track, and we'll see how fast we can climb to a million purchases.

Go check it out now! Every book counts, whether it's fiction or non, paper or e-book. If nothing else, seeing what people are buying will be FUN!

Heaven and Hell

I just realized I haven't posted my thoughts on the last episode of Supernatural (until January 15 *sob*).

It wasn't my favorite episode. There were three things that bothered me:

1. Anna

I guess it was the actress. When she was interacting one-on-one with Jensen, she was fine. But when she was talking to the group, every time, she was, like, fakely overwrought. High voice, jolting speech, physical affectations meant to portray emotion that really didn't.

2. The "Battle"

The word "clumsy" came into my head during the angel/demon battle. I don't know if it was the blocking, or the lack of budget, or maybe rushed filming. It just didn't seem as smooth and convincing as their scenes usually are.

3. Sam at the end

Once again, Jensen Ackles is not only knocking the ball out of the park, but out of the friggin' state. His revelation wasn't at all surprising, it was what I gleaned from the hints they gave us and non-show mythology about hell. But they had a couple of shots where Dean wasn't on camera, and Sam was just nodding sillily. I'm not criticizing Jared's acting or anything, and what else would someone be able to do while hearing such things? But keep him soft focus in the background, let us absorb Dean's pain.

And I know I'm not the first to say this, but GOD, Sam, just put your hand on his shoulder! You don't have to go full-blown hug, but he needs a touch, he needs to know you understand, you're not disgusted or think less of him, and despite what he says about you not being able to do anything, that touch can ease his pain, just a little.

I blame the directing.

Okay, so what did I like?

a. The Sex

Not the actual sex, though that was fine--no, it was the fact of it that I love. A lot of the reviews and recaps and opinions I've been reading seem to be missing the complexity of it. Yes, Sam is sleeping with a demon and Dean's sleeping with an angel, but to say that puts them on opposite sides is very oversimplistic. Sam is sleeping with a demon who is trying to do some good, who is stopping demons and helping Sam exorcise them from people without killing the host. She probably has murkier motivations than that, but at this point, all we know is that the other minions of hell consider her an enemy, or at least an antagonist.

And sure, Dean slept with an angel, but he slept with a fallen angel, one who committed the cardinal sin of angels, and who fought them to stay alive and free, and who wanted to experience all the good and bad of humanity. There's all kinds of gray from both sides, which I think puts the boys squarely in the middle, with each other, working together.

b. The Bobby stuff

I loved how they handled the need for Bobby without the availability of Jim Beaver, and in fact, I think it is more believable that Bobby would be on the road and the boys on their own with this, instead of Bobby riding in to save the day. Again. I adore Bobby and could never have too much of him, but this was handled just right.

Plus, if he'd been here, we wouldn't have "...at Hedonism in a banana hammock and a trucker cap."

c. Dean going to Ruby's rescue

I don't think he fully trusts her, but when Uriel attacks, Dean is the one who goes to her rescue. Even more interesting is that Sam doesn't. Sam either thinks Ruby can handle herself, doesn't see her as a woman in need of protection/defense, or is ambivalent in his feelings for her. Either way, I love it.

d. The mythology

I know I talk about this every week, but I LOVELOVELOVE the way they are handling the angel/demon/God/Lucifer stuff. There are so few absolutes, and it brings up timeless questions about what constitutes good and evil, the ends justifying the means, etc. None of it is exactly fresh ground--much has probably been similarly addressed in other shows and movies (like Constantine, maybe?). But the characters and the relationship dynamics make it unique.

I think that pretty much covers it. I would be despairing right now over the far-too-long break, but I have the comfort of a Gold Package to Salute to Supernatural to keep it at bay!

Prize Drawing!

All of my titles at Echelon can be found here.

This applies to ANY item, ANY length, including Dollar Downloads! For every purchase, you're automatically entered into the drawing, so it's mega easy. And it applies to all the other awesome books Echelon sells, too. These make awesome Secret Santa and Hanukkah Armadillo* gifts. You can take care of, like, half your shopping list all at once.

*reference to the TV show "Friends" and no disrespect intended, only laughter.

My "Blog" Personality

AHAHAHAHAH. No.
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The analysis indicates that the author of http://www.nataliedamschroder.blogspot.com is of the type:

ESFP - The Performers

[ESFP]
The entertaining and friendly type. They are especially attuned to pleasure and beauty and like to fill their surroundings with soft fabrics, bright colors and sweet smells. They live in the present moment and don´t like to plan ahead - they are always in risk of exhausting themselves.

The enjoy work that makes them able to help other people in a concrete and visible way. They tend to avoid conflicts and rarely initiate confrontation - qualities that can make it hard for them in management positions.

Typealyzer

Random Friday

I'm still calling this Random Friday because I started writing it just before I dumped an entire mug of hot chocolate in my laptop and drowned the keyboard. That tends to take the wind out of your blogging sails. I've been working on this, therefore, for three days.

So, yeah. Stood up to help Number Two pull her hood out. The dining room carpet is thick and the chairs don't slide on it, so when I pushed on the chair, it didn't move. I did. I ended up leaning forward just enough to tip the mug with my heavy winter shirt. I didn't even feel it, just heard it clunk.

The good news is, I found another keyboard for about $24 and it's already on its way. The liquid didn't seem to get into the laptop itself. The bad news is, one of the screws holding the plate down over the laptop connector was tightened by Big Strong Man, and we can't get it off. It's now partially stripped. Stay tuned for the finale of that saga sometime next week.

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We have officially reached that time of year when I want to renovate my bathroom. Tear out everything in the master bath and the teeny room labeled "Daddy's Room" that's off our bedroom. Combine the two and install a gigantic tub. A tub that will allow me to immerse myself in hot water, from toes to chin, without, you know, half my body sticking out the top and my knees pushed up to my chin and my neck totally torqued.

I'm tired of being cold. Already.

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Moviefest

Friday night I watched The Christmas Cottage, the Thomas Kinkade movie. It had a fabulous cast, good acting, and nice individual scenes, but it was very slow and self-important. That sense was intensified when I watched the behind-the-scenes stuff. Thomas Kinkade seems like a very nice guy, but I'm always suspicious when someone says, "I have some great ideas for movies from my own life." He and the director acted like they were making a hugely significant, high-impact film that in actuality, didn't go anywhere that a thousand movies before it haven't gone.

However, I didn't get so bored I wanted to turn it off, and it made me cry at the end, a few times, so it was definitely worth the rental fee. As for Jared Padalecki, he made me forget about Sam, except a few times when he had an expression that's all Jared.

Next up was Bolt with Number Two, which was fun and funny, with a cute, well-executed premise. As all the reviewers said, the pigeons were awesome (Number Two couldn't stop giggling).

And finally I braved the teenager-fest and took Number One and her friend to see Twilight. I went in to this with a huge dose of cynicism, after seeing the trailer and reading interviews with Robert Pattinson. I expected high melodrama, and there was some, but not as much or as bad as it could have been. The casting was pretty good. The guy who played Jasper was the worst actor of all of them, and that made me feel bad for him. He looked terrified all the time, when he didn't look constipated. Luckily, he didn't have much to do. Charlie wasn't at all as I pictured him, but he did the job well, conveying the spirit of Bella's dad, if not the image. Everyone else was spot on.

Unfortunately, Robert Pattinson was pretty inconsistent. He did fine with general interaction, but when he had to convey intensity and struggle by itself, it was with wide-open eyes and flared nostrils instead of emotion. He made the crowd laugh at the wrong times, especially when he first encountered Bella. And his hair was just ridiculous.

But it was a good enough performance that I think he'll develop through the next three movies.

Story-wise, I thought they did a great job. Number One said she kept up a constant stream of criticism for what they got wrong (the color of Edward's rug, for cripe's sake!), but I read it the book long enough ago that only the bigger things mattered to me. Two scenes were absolutely perfect--the car/ice rescue, and the baseball game.

All in all, it earned the highest compliment I can give a movie adaptation--it made me want to read the book again.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

My NaNo words are trickling out. I'll make the NaNo goal, but it will be down to the wire. I have to spend all day tomorrow on a read-through of a previous book, then get started with revisions on that, so the NaNo book will suffer. Which is okay, actually, because it sucks. But that's to worry about later.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Trying to think of what else I planned to say...I'm behind on all my TV watching, so my Sci Fi Chicks reviews are suffering. And...

OH.

HOW COULD I FORGET?

The Supernatural Convention will be coming to Cherry Hill, NJ, in March. That's two freaking hours away from me. And guess what?

I GET TO GO!

It's my birthday present, and I am giddy with joy. The only confirmed guest is Jared Padalecki, but if he was the only one I got to see/touch/listen to/get my picture with, it would be worth it. I promised my autograph to Number One, since she's all ticked that I'm not taking her. Honestly, she doesn't need to see her mother being all fangirl. Not like that, anyway.

So thank you, Megan, for jumping all over this, and thank you, J, for being the best husband in the world, and thank you, JPad, for being so amazingly willing to put yourself out there for the fans. I am full of love for everyone.

Who else will be there? Gail? That's close for you, too!

I Want It All

I've had "I Want It All" running through my head all morning, for no reason at all. I didn't hear it, I didn't see the words somewhere, it's just there. I was trying to get it out, because Hello! High School Musical! *gag* But then I thought about the words, and hell, yeah, I want it all. So maybe I need to be like what's-her-face with the dog's name and just go for it. Maybe the mental is what I'm missing.

I was raised by a lapsed Catholic who struggled between what she was taught and what she taught us. Both sank in, one insidiously. Poverty is noble, hide your light under a bushel, do for others first, yourself dead last, and so on. I try to maintain balance (like, not go to the other extreme) and most of the time succeed. But when it comes to personal success, I have a hard time even breaking center.

While I work hard to achieve my goals, I think part of me believes I don't deserve them, or believes that if I think I deserve them, that's bragging and putting myself above others and that's not the right way to be. So consciously or not, I avoid it.

I know that In Real Life, there are always trade-offs. I don't regret the choices we've made or the sacrifices that come with them, and in most areas, they help me check off the list of things that qualify for "All." But that doesn't mean we have to settle.

I want my kids to get fabulous educations, and my husband to have a great, flexible job that he loves where he doesn't have to wear a suit. I want to not worry about money, which means making more money in the career I'm passionate about, the career that has led to those sacrifices we've made. I want success for my friends, so our get-togethers are a constant stream of celebration. I want my promotional efforts to actually work. I want to see my scattered family more than once a year. I want at least one of my books to be made into a movie, and to be allowed to lurk on the set anytime I want to while it's filming. I want Supernatural to last for five more years with no decrease in quality, and I want to meet Jensen and Jared in such a way that I stand out from all the screaming fangirls and they like me as a person and text me from time to time with things like "Jared is really smelly today" and "Jensen won't keep his hands out of my hair" and "We start hiatus next week, wanna hang out?"

Okay, maybe that's getting a little carried away. :)

Bottom line: I'm not going to chase that song out of my head. At least not today.

Aside: I was watching video of the Supernatural Convention, and I was amazed at all the people who talked about watching the show with their daughters, sons, and even grandmothers, and how the boys treated them all the same. They didn't have more respect for the adults, or give more attention to (or talk down to) the kids. They joked equally with everybody and appreciated everyone who was there. There's no reason why they shouldn't, but I still liked it.

New Publisher

Erotic romance authors might be interested to learn about a new publisher, Ravenous Romance. One of the owners is agent Lori Perkins. You can learn more here.

LOVES!

see more pwn and owned pictures

Creating Monsters

Today's post is at The Gab Wagon, about what happens when you encourage your kids to be writers, too.

Of Spoon Thieves and Gas Incentives

When I left my mother's house to go to college, I took three mismatched spoons. I still have them.

The spoons from the silverware set we bought when we first set up an apartment 17 years ago? Gone. I think we have one left.

Then there are the 10 or 12 spoons I bought by themselves a few years ago. Three of those left.

Luckily (for me and other frugal shoppers), our local Linens N Things is going out of business (I am very sad for those employees). I got a set of 10 spoons for $6.99.

I have no idea where those old spoons went. I thought they'd gotten dropped below the silverware tray in the drawer, but Number One and I cleaned it out a couple of weeks ago, and they weren't there. So I thought they'd fallen out the back of the drawer down in the pan cupboard, but I dug that out, and found only one of the two grapefruit spoons we used to have (no idea where the other one went, as we have almost never used them.

I remember being a kid and my mother saying my brother must be smuggling spoons outside to dig in the dirt or something, because they'd all disappeared. So either I generate a teaspoon black hole in my house, or this is a universal phenomenon, like socks in the washing machine/dryer.

How about you? Do you lose spoons inexplicably?

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One of our local grocery store chains has gas stations in their lots, and one of their incentive programs is that you earn a point for every dollar you spend (pretax) and for every 100 points, you get ten cents off per gallon of gasoline. They also occasionally have extra incentives, where if you buy 6 of 8 particular products, you get an additional 20 cents off per gallon.

In the past, I've gotten up to 40 cents off at a time. But thanks to Vicki, I became aware of last week's promo, which was 40 cents off if you bought three bulk meat items. So I got snow crab legs (which were muy yummy) and boneless pork chops and skinless boneless breasts (that were MAMMOTH and stuffed nicely with the crab meat). AND I got up to 90 cents off a gallon. Not nearly as good as Vicki got, but still pretty damned good--$1.09 per gallon!

But I'd counseled J to run his tank down as low as he could, because he has a bigger tank than I do, and I wanted to get the most of this savings. He took me at my word. But when we got in the car to go to dinner last night, and he hit the fancy button that gives us a rotating display that includes how many more miles you can go on the gas you have left...

...it said 0.

Thank God the local station is only a mile from the house, and half that is downhill, so we could drive without using the gas motor, but then we have to go UP hill, and I was very afraid we'd be pushing. In the rain. That wouldn't have been good. Needless to say, we made it, and that damned car lies, because it only took 14.6 gallons and it's a 17.1-gallon tank.

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I'm feeling a bit down tonight. I really don't know why.

--Maybe from watching The Lake House today, but probably not, because as much as it made me cry (even the third time watching it!), it's a lovely, happen-ending movie.

--Maybe from the whole NaNo thing. I'm a Capricorn, and live up to the sign description when it comes to competitiveness. Just ask Misty. :) I'm just as driven when competing against myself as against other people. So even though I'm (usually, but not every day) leading my Buddies on NaNo (Mary's way ahead of me, now), and even though I will have absolutely no trouble winning NaNo, I probably won't make my goal and beat my previous record, which beat the one before it.

It shouldn't be a big deal. There's no concrete reason why I need to do it, just personal challenge. But I haven't written all weekend (a NaNo double-first) and so I let that personal goal go. Which makes me feel bad about myself and my discipline and focus and blah blah blah, so I get determined to do it anyway, but then I feel despair because at this point, it will be so hard to do. So why bother?

Such is the circle of my mind.

--Or maybe from realization and acknowledgment. When you got to a conference, there is usually a small group (or several) of professionals at a particular level of success who are really, really close friends. Like BFFs to the Nth degree. And they all started being successful at about the same time, growing their careers on similar (though often quite disparate) tracks. And you look at them, and hug your own BFFs to the Mth degree close, and know that you'll be just like them someday. And then something happens, and those other friends start getting successful, and you don't, and you watch them flying, and are so happy for them, but the dream has broken down. The time has come when you can no longer fool yourself into thinking that you'll catch up. Can the friendships be sustained when you no longer commiserate on the same things? Will they start looking at you differently because you're just not at their level? Even if things don't change at all from their perspective, can you keep your own from changing? Admitting that maybe not can be a mood dampener.

ETA: Or MAYBE it's the fact that we haven't had any SUNSHINE for, like, a WEEK, and it's been dreary and drizzly and downright rainy and windy, not to mention dark REALLY REALLY EARLY. Thank God for Teresa! I feel inexplicably better. (And thank you to Cindy for linking to Teresa about Cats in Sinks and therefore exposing me to the most reasonable explanation for my kinda sad mood. Sheesh. And I'm supposed to be smart and self-insightful.

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So. That's kind of a bummer of a note to end a Sunday night post on. Let's end with this, instead.

SPOILERS!

Oh, Yeah, And...

...Putting the reunion scene (season premiere) in a new light, I still think Ruby/Kristy was too good in her lack of surprise at seeing Dean, but otherwise I think that all plays fine. She didn't know if that was definitely Dean and wouldn't want him or anyone else to know, necessarily, that she was Ruby. And she kind of stood back and let Sam take the lead on how to handle it, and of COURSE the first thing he's going to do is hide her presence from his brother. So I think I'm okay with how it went down, and Sam's subduedness fits the circumstances.

...How is Anna able to see demons in people, and move giant pieces of furniture with her brain, without much effort? Is she one of Azazel's kids? That seems likely to me.

...Why does her ability to see the demon in Ruby not faze the brothers for even half a second? Why don't they ask her how she escaped? I know they don't have much time for the latter after they meet up with her, but it doesn't even occur to Sam that she might be YED's. And I'd expect a double-take from Dean when she spots Ruby.

...It's not all up to them. One of my friends has commented on how averting the apocalypse is all on their shoulders and it's too much for two people. I need to point out that there are angels all over the world trying to stop the seals from being broken. Six of them died during the rising of the witnesses. I don't think it's ALL up to Sam and Dean, I think they're a weapon. A weapon that has resources (Bobby) and courage and knowledge (Azazel's past) and connections that no other humans have. They're being used by God and the angels, not having the entire shebang placed on their shoulders as G and the A's back off and say, "Have at it!" So while I don't fully disagree that it's a lot of pressure and crushing responsibility, I don't see it as any bigger than in any other show or movie that has end-of-the-world stakes.

I think that's all. For now, anyway. :)

Bring on the Hate

I loved it.

I loved that Ruby had sex with Sam, that she used that tool to loosen him up so he could maybe focus less on his pain and anger and hate and more on the job he needed to do.

I love Ruby. I have no illusions. This isn't a romance novel, and maybe she's not a redeemable character, so it's not like I think she's in love with Sam or anything. But I do think she gave him something he needed. I think she has maintained a shred of humanity that helps guide her actions, even if it's just a shred and her motives aren't fully honorable. After everything Lilith did to her, I can't fully blame her.

Mostly, I love Sam when he's with her. Sure, it's unhealthy for him to go all soft for a demon as if she's a fully human woman, but he's so BIG and HARD and when a guy like that goes soft...guh. Fantasy city.

As for Dean...if he would ever understand anything, it would be sex. He has sex with skanky truck stop waitresses with weird rashes! Of course it's not a big deal to him that Sam had sex with Ruby. That's SO not important when he thought she was dragging Sam to the dark side. And because she saved Sam, it also makes sense that he'd stop being so hostile toward her. I don't think he's going to go all the way to joining her fan club, but he'll trust her a little, until she shows that she's not trustworthy.

Which she might not be. Her motives and endgame might be worse than simple revenge on Lilith, but I have a feeling that in the end, she'll sacrifice herself for Sam (and maybe Dean) and their survival. (I can't accept that they won't survive--that possibility is not going to ever take up residence in my brain!)

I have to watch again...for many reasons...but some have said the episode felt a little clunky. I think the editing might be responsible for that, and that transitions from past to present weren't as smooth as they could have been. There were more inconsistencies than normal, like the angle of Anna's head in the hospital when they changed cameras/takes, and the whole Sam's-bloody-shirt thing (either he changed while he was talking and has two identical shirts, or they forgot he was supposed to be bloody, or they changed their minds about the arm or something and mixed takes they shouldn't have). But even if it was a little clunky, I got very immersed in those flashbacks.

Man, Jared has become a good actor. We had three kinds of drunk!Sam (fake/Hustler drunk, pit-of-despair drunk, and sullen-but-not-quite-sober-and-oh-my-God-don't-drive! drunk). Sam ordering Ruby around, sweaty poor-student Sam, determined/suicidal Sam, consoling Sam (with Anna). I swear, as much as I love Dean, Sam totally outshone him this week.

I also loved Sam taking over. At the end of last season, when Sam was trying to get Dean to listen to his viewpoint on using his powers to take on Lilith, and Dean kept cutting him off, I thought, "that's going to have to change." I like seeing Dean relinquish a little of his big-brother, I'm-in-charge role and give in to Sam, and seeing Sam take the lead. I want them to be full partners, and changing lead goes along with that.

More love:

--Dean making jokes out of Anna's situation, and her taking it well, just being relieved that they believe her and she's not alone anymore.

--Ruby inhabiting the maid. Ruby's mannerisms have been inconsistent from one body to another, which of course is understandable given the real life limitations of hello! different actresses! It has felt jarring for the Cortese Ruby to be so different from the Cassidy Ruby, though I haven't found her acting lacking the way some people have. Anyway, it isn't hard to rationalize that a body will hold its mannerisms even if the spirit inside is different, just because some of those mannerisms are dictated by shape and habit. Bottom line: She was funny!

--The Crossroads Demon was in a boy! Some of my friends rolled their eyes when Sam was burying the box, and I get that, we've had enough of deals at the crossroads, but Sam DID say in the opener that he tried to deal for Dean, and it's in character that he would, especially in the throes of drunken despair and self-loathing. But all that aside--I loved the actor's portrayal. Red eyes are my favorites, too.

--T-shirts and naked torsos.

--Self-stitching and setting dislocated shoulders, and that tiny little ice pack.

--To be continued. Oh-so-infuriating, yet oh-so-delicious.

The one thing I really, really hate?

Next week is no more eps until January. And facing this hiatus, being on the downside of the series (if Kripke gets his way and has five seasons), makes me think of what it will be like when we have NO MORE SUPERNATURAL. It's enough to induce depression.

Okay, now that I've gotten that out of my system, let's see if I can get some NaNoing done today!!!

Retail Therapy

I read that editor blog post I linked to yesterday, and immediately had to run out and save the publishing industry. Sixty dollars won't go that far, but it's something. :)

So I'm checking out, and the clerk says something about me doing Christmas shopping. I said, "No, not yet." And she looked totally appalled. "This isn't for Christmas shopping?"

"No, it's me shopping."

*more shocked look*

I felt compelled to explain more. "It's save the publishing industry shopping."

That snapped her out of it, but I had mingled amusement and annoyance. I mean, for Pete's sake, it's only November 13th! I know that means Christmas isn't far away, but I'm one of those who doesn't do much about it until after Thanksgiving. I always try to do some last-minute shopping on Christmas Eve. For me, it's about the season, not the buying. I do full-body Christmas immersion.

But more importantly--what the heck is wrong with shopping for yourself? Maybe she didn't think I would read all the books I got (Jim Butcher's graphic novel and the new JD Robb and a new Margaret Weis Dragonlance novel plus two romances). I admit it's eclectic, and the Weis is for J, but Jim Butcher is second only to JK Rowling for my favorite author, and J and I will share that one.

Maybe I'm projecting. Maybe she wasn't really appalled, or maybe people aren't spending as much on themselves right now as I was (I've barely bought anything since National in July...but hey, why do I feel the need to explain myself?! /defense) and so maybe I just surprised her with an answer she hasn't been getting this week.

Anyway, I'm sitting in the B&N coffee shop taking a break from a delicious scene between Sam and Nick, and I really should get back to it.

Go buy some books!

Poking My Head Out of the Cave

Don't forget to vote in the PCAs! Link to the right, or here. A little window will pop up and you can log in or sign up or whatever, and navigate back to the voting. The nominations are questionable in some categories, but not in the Sci Fi one. That nominee committee is brilliant!

So after you do that, scroll down a little and check out my NaNo progress. Things had fallen apart for me earlier this week, slightly because of other obligations, but mostly because of lack of...something. I kept letting other things get in the way. But not today! Today I wrote out a schedule. It looked like this:

9:00 - 9:05 Dry my hair
9:05 - 9:50 Write (did 1151 words)
9:50 - 10:05 Break, walk around, write a review for SciFi Chicks
10:05 - 10:50 Write (1195 words)
10:50 - 11:00 Walk outside
11:00 - 11:45 Write (1365 words)
11:45 - 12:00 Break, walk around, write a review for SciFi Chicks
12:00 - 12:30 Eat lunch
12:30 - 1:15 Write (1263 words)
1:15 - 1:30 Check the mail (outside) and write a review for SciFi Chicks
1:30 - 2:15 Write (1269 words)
2:15 - 2:30 Walk a little and write a review for SciFi Chicks
2:30 - 3:00 Write
3:00 - 3:45 Pick up Number Two, go to the library, and come home for homework
Etc. Crit while we do homework/chores/dinner/get ready for bed (did 60 pages)

I didn't deviate more than 10 minutes or so for most of that. A couple of phone calls and a not-too-long IM session pushed me to a 10-minute lunch, and I dropped some of the moving around. I reached over 6200 words by 2:30, so I caught up on e-mail then. I just checked, too, and I wrote another 2478 blog words.

All in all, a pretty productive day.

I'm happy with where my story is going, and if I have a few more days like this, I can still totally finish the whole book, and not just NaNo!

So? Gail? Where do you stand? :)

Check This Out...

Check this out...


...and then go buy some books.

Vote in the PCAs!

Hey, guess what!

Wait, you should sit down.

Are you sitting down?

SUPERNATURAL IS NOMINATED FOR A PEOPLE'S CHOICE AWARD!

Hey, it's somethin'! Go vote now! (Plenty of other options to vote for in other categories, too. Tired of awards being given for stuff you've never heard of, for beautiful people looking ugly but nothing else that really seems remarkable? The PCAs are for US! The ones who REALLY know who does an award-worthy job. The end user is the only one who matters, baby!)

I Have Something I Need to Say

One of my issues with the anti-gay marriage movement is that they have no logical grounds for it besides "I don't like it." They call it immoral and say it threatens "family values." But no one can ever say how.

I was thinking about McCain's interview with Ellen DeGeneres and thought of something I'd love to ask him.

"So you think gay marriage is immoral so I shouldn't have the right to do it. How about if I think having more than two kids is immoral? Should I have the right to tell you that you can't have seven kids, or that the Palins can't have five?" (Note: I know that not all of McCain's kids are his by blood, but he does still have more than two of his own, which is more than zero population growth standards advocate.)

I wonder what he would say. Because in comparison, having that many kids is not only immoral, it's irresponsible and destructive. It puts pressure on the world's natural and social resources. Those kids need food, space, governmental services. His family will pollute a lot more than mine, unless they manage to carpool their entire lives. They contribute to crowding in schools and competition for that ever-shrinking list of available jobs.

And while McCain maybe has always made enough money to support his family, and he personally didn't have to raise them because he didn't live with them most of the time, what about that widower with nine children he abandoned under Nebraska's holey safe harbor law? Would McCain tell me that we should pick and choose who is okay to have more than two kids? If so, how about if we pick and choose who is okay to get married? Ellen and Portia would be okay because they show decorum and stuff, but those guys who hang out at the highway rest areas wouldn't be. I bet he'd have a hard time responding to that suggestion.

Let me make some things clear: I am using McCain as an example only, a representative of all those people, in any political party or out, who has a problem with gay marriage. And while I think having more than two kids does put pressure on environmental and social systems that maybe someday we won't be able to withstand, I don't think I or anyone else has the right to tell people they can't have as many children as they want. (So don't yell at me, Vicki!). That's pretty much my whole point.

Oh, and the whole civil union thing? What the hell's the difference? Leave it to individual religions to decide if they want to allow gay marriages to be performed in their sacred buildings by their representatives. I got married in a non-denominational church/historical landmark by a justice of the peace, the local mayor. My intent in that marriage is no different than my high school best friend's, who got married by both an Episcopalian priest and a Catholic priest. Saying civil unions are okay and marriage isn't invalidates the entire argument that it's bad bad bad.

So, I would really love to hear from someone who can give me the opinion I've been seeking for years. IF you can speak articulately, avoid calling me names, and use proper spelling and grammar and capitalization (leeway allowed for true typos), I invite you to enlighten me. If someone can provide a realistic reason that gay marriage is a bigger threat to the family unit than abuse, adultery, absentee parenting, neglect, or divorce, I'll concede the point.

This was going to be, like, one paragraph. I guess I figured if I was going to violate my own rules and open up the topic at all, I might as well go all the way!

Leaf Pile 2008

So it's fall. Obviously, the time when trees shed their leaves and we all have to rake them up. That's what we spent much of this afternoon doing. Some things I noticed:

It used to be everyone was using leaf blowers. I don't know if they realized it takes MORE effort to use a blower than a rake (plus pollutes the environment and kills your ears) or if's totally a fad thing, but I saw only one other person in our neighborhood using a rake. Okay, maybe two. One used a blower and a rake. The rest are using riding mowers or regular mowers with the bags on them to collect all the leaves. I don't know, that still seems like it's not worth it. Run the mower over two rows. Empty bag, walking all the way from the back yard to the front. Dump. Repeat. If you have a riding mower, you can ride to the front, of course, and it will have a bigger collector. But it takes just as much time, it seems.

We do it the old-fashioned way. We rake into a dozen piles, load them onto a tarp, and drag it around to the curb. Usually, our trees are some of the last to drop their leaves, late in November. This year, they're almost bare and we did about three weeks/collections worth of raking at once. Consequently, our pile is much bigger than normal:




That high part in the front is up to my chest.

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I've started making a log of my word verifications when I comment on Blogger blogs. They'll make good character names! So far I have Sholosti and Dectio.

Random Friday

I have spent the entire week, but several hours of that just today, trying to resolve a PayPal issue when THEY decided my TOTALLY LEGITIMATE payment from my REGULAR client hadn't been authorized.

John, Mary, and Bill, you're idiots.

Candy, you rock hard. Thank you.

I also ended up yelling at the call center for my bank. One way in which PayPal is full of idiots is that when I try to add a bank account, I get an error message that First Name has to be only letters, numbers, and spaces. THERE IS NO FIRST NAME FIELD. The third person I talked to at PayPal, I mentioned this to him. He watched me try to do it, and told me to find out from my bank exactly how their name is written for online transactions. So I did.

And they told me I need to put in TD Bank. Apparently, Commerce Bank is now TD Bank. I expressed surprise at this, because I'd received no notice of a change in hands. She insisted that it was in my statements for months, and that at the main web page it tells me this, and forwards me to TD Bank. I told her no, it doesn't, and that I use commercepc.com and have been for 10 years or more. She kept telling me that at commerceonline.com it does. I ended up getting kind of snarky at her.

Then I got off the phone and checked my statements. No notice of a change. I went to commerceonline.com and sure enough, there's TD Bank, endorsed by Regis and Kelly, no less (yay). The site looks exactly like what I'm used to, except it's green instead of red and blue.

Really mad now, I called back. Graham, the supervisor, in his yummy accent, fell all over himself apologizing for the incorrect information. Commerce Bank HARRISBURG hasn't changed, only Commerce Bank of NEW JERSEY has, and the dumbass who took my call should have been able to see my location, even without account info. He calmed me down and I even did them a favor by pointing out that I could access my account info through both commercepc.com and TD Bank. He found out it shouldn't be that way and won't be soon, so I should just continue on as usual.

Me = vindicated.

Except that I still can't add an account to PayPal.

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NaNo is getting away from me. Between nonfiction and editing jobs and PayPal issues and meetings this week, I've written very little. I HAVE managed to write every day (before today), which is good, and I'm technically 950 words above the NaNo goal. But I'm about 7,000 words behind my personal goal. Blergh. If you look at my NaNo Buddies list, you'll see that three of them are way ahead of me. I have a feeling they're pretty gleeful about it, too. :) Two are close behind and probably about to pass me.

I am, however, ahead of CE Murphy. Considering how much she writes and that she's a big-name published author, that's kind of cool. Considering she's also revising one of her books, and that she's written nearly 400,000 words so far this year...well, my accomplishment seems to sink to the "petty" level. LOL

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I don't have much to say about last night's Supernatural. It was one of those episodes that's only okay though there's nothing really wrong with it. It doesn't invite extensive debate, which is good, because we need episodes like that. It was fun and yummy and yielded two supreme brother moments, and that's enough for me.

Random thoughts:

1. Sam's voice nearly killed me. I don't know if he had a cold, or if his voice is maturing to match his face, but guh. I'm not eager to watch it again, but I'll turn it on in the background so I can hear him.

2. I knew Dean was lying! My heart breaks for him for being so alone, and also for Sam for being unable to help him. There was a moment when he said "the things I saw...there aren't words." I think he was going to say "the things I did" and stopped himself. It was one of the most honest moments they've ever had together, and I loved it.

3. The existential suicidal teddy bear was hilarious. Number One couldn't stop giggling. That was helped along by the tiny bench the boys sat on outside the liquor store. Oh, boys. Gigantic boys.

4. There were some flaws, which I was surprised to see from Ben Edlund. I wanted a twist where the hot chick had wished for the geek to love her instead of the cliché we had. The resolution of the wishes seemed off. Pulling the coin from the well reversed them, but they didn't demonstrate consistency. Sam was easy--he'd been dead, so there wasn't anything about the wish for him to remember. Mom and Dad were back from Bali, but sunburned, so it wasn't like their wish never happened. Ditto the bear with the stuffing coming out of his head. But the hot chick didn't remember anything. She returned exactly to what she'd been before, except a month had gone by that she doesn't remember. And the bullies remembered Todd turning over the truck, but does Todd remember having superpowers?

5. On the other hand...there were little things I loved, too. Dean using his own research-fu to find the origin of the coin, while Sam confronted the invisible boy. I like when they switch around their regular roles. "But why am I here?" "For tea parties!" They consistently cast little kids who tickle me endlessly. Dean trying to counsel the kid, sympathizing even though he fully admitted he didn't know what it was like to be bullied, and then playing victim and being all smug when it worked. All in all, I think the good outweighed the less good. This ep will probably be in the bottom half for the season, all told, but that's not an indictment.

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I have to rake leaves tomorrow. Can I tell you how much I really don't want to do that? Mostly because they all seem to have fallen into our neighbor's yard this year, much more than usual. I don't mind raking them from his yard--they are our trees--but he doesn't clean up after his dogs. Which I'm not judging, really--it's his yard--but it gets so bad there's nowhere to step that's not poop-covered. So I'm thinking I won't be touching most of those leaves this year.

*sigh*

Have a good weekend, everyone!

Moments of Challenge and Clarity

All over the Internet, people are demanding to know if I voted. Yes, I did, of course I did. And now here I am so late, instead of joining in the nail-biting, I can report some concrete results:

McCain took Upper Allen Elementary School. But Obama took the larger, and therefore more significant, Mechanicsburg Middle School.

I voted early this morning. It went very well, and afterward, I drove away feeling excited. First, because after all the crap, all the fatigue-inducing, anger-driving campaigning, we were finally at the important stuff.

I was also excited because I'd had some opinions challenged. I'd done the challenging, and it's always interesting to see myself turned, figuratively, on my own head.

I kept thinking, "If anyone is undecided at this late juncture, they're idiots." And yet I, myself, was undecided. Not between McCain and Obama, there was no question there, but between the candidate toward which I leaned and the person I thought was best equipped to run the country.

I also don't hold to the idea of a spoiler. Yes, I know that enough votes for someone like Ralph Nader or that guy with the big ears who ran in the 80s (why, oh why, can't I remem--ROSS PEROT. That's it. Phew.) can end up putting the candidate you REALLY don't want in office. But I think it's bullshit to let that push you into a vote you don't want to make. I think it's important to vote your conscience.

So I did.

Believe me, I angsted about it for a long time. One of the two official candidates, I *really* didn't want in office. And with the ass-backward system we have in place, my one vote really doesn't matter. But I wanted to be an active part of the process, too, not a passive one, and voting a write-in kind of sets me aside.

In the end, when I started tapping that screen, there was only one thing I could do. And I knew the poll assistants knew exactly what I was doing as my machine beeped and booped way more times than expected. But I felt really, really good about it. It was the right thing to do.

J was watching live results tonight as the kids got ready for bed. Number One was telling us about the rousing debate she got into today with some of her classmates about abortion (a mixed gender participation, too!) and Number Two was deciding how she wanted to be informed in the morning (I'm to tell her who took Texas and California, and when she goes to kiss Daddy goodbye, he's to let her know who won).

All in all, I don't think I could have witnessed a better election day, personally speaking.

NaNo Day...What Day Is It, Now?

I know it's day 3, but I'm already bleary-eyed and behind. Well, not behind the NaNo goal, behind my own goal. It's so stupid to keep trying to write more words faster than the year before, but I'm so self-competitive. And hey, it's great training for deadlines.

So today I should be at 8,871 for my personal goal. Right now, I'm at 7809. It's not looking good. My eyes hurt. And I'm scared to check my profile and see my writing buddies' counts, because I'm sure skipper and MaryF and probably MarianneArkins are way ahead of me.

Yesterday the girls and I went to the TSO concert, and because of that and the STUPIDITY of the venue managers (and the Sunday Night Football game, shhh), I stayed up until 2:30 a.m. writing and stuff. Hence, the eye blearies.

You'll get a review of the concert sometime this week, and I'll keep updating my word count widget, but right now, I just need to go crash. Maybe I'll catch up on...oh, let's see, Tuesday have a meeting, Tuesday and Wednesday finish a nonfiction revision and an editing job, Thursday start a novel crit... Yeah, okay, that would be never.

Hey, in the meantime, while you're waiting for me to show up again (you know you will be!), go check out Victoria Smith. She's said a lot of great things lately, but this post is particularly brilliant and powerful.

I'll be back when the blearies go away.

Yes, It Does, Too, Count

So today was the first day of NaNoWriMo. Yes, I know it's after midnight, which makes it technically day 2. But I haven't gone to bed yet, so it's day 1.

It was quite a day, too. November 1st should never be a Saturday. I had my local RWA chapter meeting this morning. Then I had to get Number One to soccer (her team lost 1-0, but they will still win their division, and we'd already beaten the team three times this season, so they were due; it was a good game--Number Two won hers, barely).

I was going to start writing before the meeting, but I ran a bit late. So I was going to write while Number One warmed up, but my father-in-law arrived early, and I had to tell him all about seeing his cousin at my meeting this morning. After the game I had a little time, but I had to eat, 'cause I hadn't eaten all day. Then I had to critique a chapter, and do some e-mailey things, and IM with three people, one of whom just lost her stepmother. Now I have a big revision project to do Monday that scares the bejeesus out of me.

I got some writing done, but Number One was way ahead of me. I suspect she ended the day somewhere close to 2,000 words. She co-opted my Neo, too! I'll be lucky to be able to pry it out of her hands, if she doesn't hide it from me.

So around 10:00, J wanted to watch some TV. We have some shows recorded from earlier in the week. I planned to write some more, but it would be after midnight when I finished, and I didn't want the stats to show a zero count for the first day. So I input the 1894 I had done, which was enough to be on track to meet the NaNo goal of 50,000. But it wasn't enough to hit my record (see above right), so I kept going. Even once I hit it, I was in one of those spots where you know what's happening next and it's just as easy to write it as it is to make some notes and you don't want to lose it so you just keep going. So I just kept going.

And I made it! I also beat Mary's incredible day 1 count, which was unintentional but gratifying. She's going to be challenging this year.

So my day 1 count is 3894 words, even though my NaNo stats show it split across two days. And yes, it does, too, count. :P

Anyone else doing NaNo who isn't already my buddy? I love seeing how people are doing, who's on track, who's behind, and the competition (even if they never know about it) is directly responsible for my success. If anyone wants to buddy me, I'm here.

So Smote It Be

I don't have anything coherent to say about last night's Supernatural. You know what that means. I will start with one little thing and then ramble on forever.

Okay, maybe I'll start with a big thing. I love the way they're handling the angels/God/Lucifer thing. They're staying firmly away from religion and just addressing the mythology, which I've talked about before. I have no doubt there are people out there who are indignantly offended, but such people will be no matter what you do, so who cares?

Uriel is a black-and-white kind of guy. Actually, after I wrote that, I didn't know how to continue. I was going to talk about good and evil, but I don't think Uriel considers good and evil, balance and humanity (well, for sure he doesn't care about humanity). He considers his side, which happens to be God's side, and Lucifer is the enemy, and anyone who's not with him is against him. Hmmm, sounds familiar.

Castiel, on the other hand, has doubts, despite the sheer strength of his faith. If I hadn't already loved him, I'd have fallen hard during that scene at the end. Okay, I did fall hard. I've never been in favor of the whole idea of doing what you're told without question, of subjugating your ability to think and reason to someone else's agenda. Castiel wants the right thing, and isn't sure what that's supposed to be.

Now, he could be playing good cop to Uriel's bad cop, giving Dean someone to identify with and feel like he has an ally, in order to lead him down a path to doing something he otherwise wouldn't even consider doing. But for now, I'm choosing to believe his sincerity, and if I lived in their world, it would give me hope. Staving off an apocalypse wouldn't seem like a win if 1200 people had to die, including me.

I did like Uriel. I knew I would, when I learned who was playing him. He's intimidating and badass but in a quiet enough manner that will mean when he does go off on someone, it will have huge impact.

Sam meeting Castiel! How cute was he! And Castiel hesitating, not sure what to make of this guy. I bet he thought he knew what Sam was because of what he'd been given, but when he saw him personally, he wasn't that. Sam was like...well, he was like one of Jared's fans meeting him for the first time. I wonder if that was his inspiration for the gee-gosh approach. :)

And poor Sammy with his doubts after hearing what they wanted, and DEAN! Reassuring him! Saying Babe Ruth was a dick (they're trying to start a new drinking game, apparently) but baseball is still beautiful. He probably doesn't believe that himself, but doesn't want Sammy's faith to be destroyed because it's so important to him. He probably recognizes that it's one of the things keeping him in control.

Speaking of control... I know it's wrong, but Sam using his mojo is so frickin' hot. And that sequence, where he gives in because he doesn't have much choice, and he has to fight so hard, so he's struggling to draw the demon out (cool effect with the bullet holes smoke), and sees Dean seeing him, and sees Dean's reaction, and it just tears him up, but he can't stop, and he pushes harder and pops his brain. He showed a lot in a few seconds, and Jared wouldn't have been capable of that a couple of seasons ago.

Dude. Sammy's more powerful than a centuries-old, all-powerful demon! I know it should be scary, because use of power is what this thing seems to be all about, but it just delights me. Use of power = the Spider-Man credo, "with great power comes great responsibility." The angels and demons both think the power Sam has defines him, and Dean's afraid the power can change him, but Sam has even greater power than that. He has the power to use it wisely, not let it take over. The power to wield the ring.

Whoops, mixing mythologies there. Sorry.

In a CW Source interview with Misha Collins, he said Kripke modeled Castiel's look on Constantine. Now, he meant from the comic books, but all I could see was Keanu. (Megan! Dude! A Keanu connection! If you could love it more...)

It's a little annoying that there were so many slut costumes (ref. both parties, the one where the girl boiled and the one in the crypt), but I dismissed it because it gives the guys something to look at (the guys watching the show, not the guys on the show! geez!). It would be hypocritical of me to drool and sigh and then gripe. But can't there be some middle ground between crotch-level, skin-tight Lycra and floor-to-chin robes (the mom shaking her head at the witch house)?

Speaking of witches, there was a mission here. I liked the way they did that. After three-plus seasons, it's hard to either introduce new stuff believably (how come they didn't know about rugaru?) or reuse the same stuff without being stale and repetitive. Having the witch actually be a pair of witches, brother and sister, working together and yet using each other...nice twistiness there.

Ooh, also, the 66 seals thing is tough. If they stop a seal from being broken, it's over. Lucifer can't rise. Well, some seals, anyway, like this one that can only be broken every 600 years. So dramatically speaking, they can't stop the seals from being broken. But that means Sam and Dean LOSE all the time, and that's not acceptable, either. So what happened here is a compromise. I wonder if this thread will carry through to next season or be resolved at the end of this season? I guess it will depend on The CW. If we get a fifth, I betcha anything it continues. I mean, how do you top the apocalypse?

There was much less humor in this episode, but there was fun. Josh from Kyle XY got to be all party guy and then get shredded by a zombie (in probably the grossest moment of the episode). Dean got to face zombies and ghosts. The burning would have been cool to see, but probably out of their budget.

Oh, and the opposite of fun is what happened to Dean in Hell. Most of the people I've talked to so far seem to think he doesn't remember, maybe that he's blocked it. I think he does remember, and I think it was like when someone goes to supermax prison. You do what you need to, to survive. The biggest clue is from "Yellow Fever" when Sam said the people getting infected were those who use fear as a weapon. And Dean's hallucination of Lilith said Dean knows what he did. Which has my curiosity level almost as high as it was in season two when we were waiting to find out what Dad told Dean about Sam.

So, I guess this episode doesn't rank as high as my favorites of the season because it was less intense and revelatory, but it's in the top half, for sure.

Next week looks like a fun episode, though the CW has been really misleading with their promos. The "Yellow Fever" preview made that one look intensely scary, while it was intensely funny instead (and intensely disturbing, but not the way they implied it would be). For this episode, they showed some of the "Then" shots and the line of Sam's that they'd see every horrible thing they'd ever hunted. That led people to believe they were bringing back actual, specific things they'd hunted. The idea was probably fed by what happened with the rising of the witnesses, but I had my doubts. I remembered how the promos said the shifter from "Skin" returned in "Nightshifter," and it was actually a whole different shifter. So I take the previews lightly and don't let them feed my expectations anymore. Still, the idea of everyone's wishes coming true has huge potential, and I can't wait!

Man, I love this show.

Scary Dream

Last night, in my area of Pennsylvania, was trick-or-treating. Yeah, I know Halloween is today. Over sixteen years I've been living here, and I've never been able to find out why they do that.

Last night was also an episode of Supernatural set during Halloween. (I'll have my post up on that later--I wrote it on my Neo and it's upstairs and I'm lazy.) There were some scary things in the episode. Razor blades "in" candy, evoking warnings during fourth grade assemblies and every Halloween thereafter; boiling apple-bobbing water; zombies and ghosts and the demon-of-all-demons and smiting of entire towns.

But the dream I had last night was exponentially scarier than all of that.

I dreamed my daughter was involved with men.

She's 13. In the dream, she was wearing the clothes she wore to school yesterday and with her Halloween costume. We came home from somewhere, and there were two older guys waiting outside. They at first seemed totally adult, but I think their interest in Number One was TOO scary so my brain downgraded them to teenagers-but-at-least-16-because-they-drove. One of the guys kind of disappeared, like he left. The other one kind of pushed his way into the house before I could clear my confusion and address him. It wasn't aggressive, more like he belonged there. Number One knew him, even though I'd never seen him. It eventually came out that he was a driver for Studio 91. He got frustrated because he'd worked so long and hard to develop this gig he had with them, and I was trying to mess it all up. I explained that my kids didn't dance for Studio 91 anymore, but in the dream, Number Two had started the year there and quit, so that was how she wound up on his roster.

In the meantime, Number Two is in the living room listening to this OTHER adult guy play guitar for her. It was odd because it was like he was wooing her, though he wasn't doing anything overt, and Number Two's dance teacher was in the room with her. I think she was DeAnn Grady, though, a friend of mine from my writing chapter.

So this guy is flirting with Number One, being very familiar with her, making her laugh and stuff, but getting WAY too close. Finally, when he put his hand on her waist, I put mine on his shoulder and got in between them and said, "She's 13. Back off."

He did, and soon was gone, somehow, and I was trying to talk to Number One about him, and she was getting really shrill and upset about him and the other guy, and I kept trying to calm her down because there were strangers in the other room and I didn't want them to hear what my 13-year-old had gotten herself into. At the beginning, I almost said something about at least making a better choice. Then I stopped myself, and my mental analysis was actually kind of funny:

"So what if he looks like a sloppy Philip Seymour Hoffman? He's ambitious, created his own job and income, and I'm proud of her for not choosing on looks and superficialities."

But then we had the argument and I said "Have you done something?" and she burst into hysterical tears and I woke up.

I have NO idea what prompted this. In fifth grade, I asked her if she had a crush on anyone, and she didn't want to tell me. I pointed out that I'm a romance writer and I DIG this stuff, and ever since, we've had very open conversations. She thinks the boys in her school are idiots and dorks, for the most part, and really isn't interested. I don't think I have to worry until next year, when she's at the high school, has access to older, cuter, more mature, more assertive guys who will have no problem noticing that she doesn't look like a traditional freshman. Even then, I don't really have fear that she'll suddenly change her entire personality and way of looking at life and do something worth bursting into hysterical tears over. Not in the immediate future, anyway.

But that's the analytical assessment of things. Apparently, my subconscious has a different view.

I hope this isn't the start of a trend.

Will This Pique Your Interest?

I just read a post on a writer's forum in which someone said "peaked my interest." Since I corrected "peak" to "pique" in a recent edit, I had a moment of self-doubt and went searching. (FYI, "pique" is correct.)

While I was searching, I came across this post and I thought the discussion was interesting. It evolved, as such discussions often do, to analyzing why people are, basically, so wrong all the time.

Many people have the opinion that our schools are not doing as good a job teaching the vagaries of the English language anymore. That doesn't fly with me. First, though my scope is limited, I see the opposite in my own kids' schools. Second, the people *I* see using the wrong word (or bad spelling or grammar) all the time are not in their early 20s. They're my generation or older, which would indicate that either schools didn't teach us any better back then, or people ignore what they're taught. Maybe it's a little of both.

But one person pointed out that people will often hear the homonym and never see it, so they guess wrong when trying to write it. I think that's a huge part of the "problem." At least as far as the general public goes. I mean, think about it. We live in a world now where millions of people are communicating through text. Blogs, independent "news" sites, e-mails, text messages, IMs. Twenty and thirty years ago, no one read or wrote as much as we do today. People would use a word or phrase correctly but never see it written. So errors like pique/peak and (one of my pet peeves) "you've got another thing coming" instead of "think" will happen far more often.

In that context, it's a little more forgivable. But I can't say that about the writer portion of the population. I know which one is correct because I've read thousands of books in my life. Presumably, people who want to write are also readers, and if you're a reader, generally speaking, you should be absorbing what you're reading. Mistakes are inevitable--I know I make my share--and it's not possible to know everything, but it's a constant surprise to me that people don't seem to try.

Voting Video

Their opinions don't matter. People shouldn't do stuff because celebrities tell them to. But they're not just celebrities. They're familiar to us. We're used to them evoking emotion in us, and somehow, that adds power to the message.

But mostly? It's just funny.

Guest Blogger: Jeff Rivera

Jeff contacted me last week about including my blog on his blog tour for his new book that comes out this week. I didn't know him, but his story is pretty inspiring and his book sounds wonderfully intense. So here he is!

1. Let's start out with a little bit about your book, Forever My Lady. What gave you the idea? What compelled you to write a romance/romantic novel?

I feel like the idea came to me, actually. I had just come from being homeless and one of the first jobs I got was working at a department store, the oh-so-wonderful K-Mart (which I hated). I had a nasty boss who hated me and I wasn't too fond of her, either. I guess some personalities just don't get along. Anyway, one thing that happened was I met someone who would become a friend. He was Latino and was trying to turn his life around for his "lady" because he had just come out of juvey. He was in a gang. That's what sparked the idea, and I decided to come up with a story from scratch that would put what I've been through in my life and would hopefully be an emotional roller coaster, a story that would touch people.

I decided to make it a love story because I am a real softy when it comes to love. I really believe in meeting the right person and riding off into the sunset on a horse and stuff like that. There's a part of me that really believes that's possible.

2. The book blurb alone hints at deep emotion and, despite the heartbreak the hero faces, hope and possibility of happiness, too. Reading your bio, one can see that you've obviously been through some tough times. Can you tell us what, if anything, in your own life informed your writing?

One thing I learned from being homeless is that you have to take responsibility for where you are in your life. I could easily be a victim because of all the stuff I've been through, but that's not a very powerful mindset. Take responsibility for where you are right now in your life and you can take responsibility for where you're going. That's one thing that I felt was important to show with the character Dio in Forever My Lady. He has a drill instructor in the book who really pounds that into him.

3. A lot of my blog visitors are writers themselves, and we're always interested in success stories. Can you describe your journey from writing this book to the huge amount of success it's had?

Absolutely, it started out as a screenplay and even after Hollywood kept rejecting it I didn't give up because I really believed it was a story that needed to be told. Something kept pushing me to go on. That's when I decided to self-publish, and I built an audience of people online who spread the word about the book. That's when we piqued the interest of Warner/Grand Central and the rest is history.

4. What's next for you?

I really love writing love stories and things for young adults so I'm just going to go with the flow and see what happens next ...


You can learn more about Jeff Rivera and how to get his book at his website. Thanks, Jeff, and good luck!

I've Been Greeked!

I know some of you will know what greeking is, but for those who don't...

When doing layout, say of a magazine or brochure or something, and you don't have actual text to include yet, you insert greeking. It's usually fake words made up to look like real words to emulate the real flow of real writing, but without using real writing. An example would be like the following:

Whyn Zey Zvzmevy ztyppyz inte thy tellveem, thy culminetien ed e lidytimy ed yddevt gevy hyv zetizdectien tevzyving en yuphevie.

Oncy, zhy weulz hevy tyyn eny ed thy tuxyze-zhivt-unidevm weit ztedd eddyving eveunz tveyz ed chempegny. With e littly vizien enz mevy hevz wevk, meyty zhy’z hevy gettyn te tycemy thy menegyv tyhinz thy zcynyz, liky thy wemen in thy cevnyv giving inztvuctienz te thy tenzlyezyv. Tyn yyevz ege, zhy ceulzn’t hevy yvyn yntyvteinyz thy izye ed evviving hyvy ez e guyzt.

Tyllyn Steny eppyevyz et hyv zizy, enz Zey zmilyz up et him. “Leekz gevgyeuz, zeyzn’t it?” Shy zeuttyz hy cevyz eteut thy gelzyn light zhimmyving en thy zilky vittenz ezevning thy tetlyz, ev thy lecy clethz enz cuvteinz zvepyz yvyvywhyvy. Hy’z gvewn up in thiz wevlz, enz hy wez e guy. But zhy’z yevnyz hyv wey hyvy, hez wevkyz hevz te meky thy menyy thet hez peiz dev hyv tickyt te thiz tynydit. Shy vyvylyz in yvyvy zyteil.

That's a little heavier on the Zs and Vs than it should be, but you get the idea.

Anyway, I got my Google alert today for myself, and it included my usual two Monday blogs and this.

It looks like they took individual lines and partial sentences from a whole bunch of different sites, including my bio from somewhere I have it posted and an Amazon search that included one of my titles and my name. I have no idea what the purpose is, unless it's a placeholder for a future article.

Weird!

Just a Few Things I Love

1. Reading about myself on other people's blogs, especially when they don't use names, and, of course, when it's good stuff they're saying.

2. LOLcats. No matter what kind of day I've had, they make me laugh and laugh.

3. LOLdogs. Not yet achieving the consistent brilliance of the cats, but what can you do? They're dogs, after all.

4. Matt Cassel. Backup quarterbacks are always scrutinized, but when you haven't started a game since high school and you're following quite possibly the best player in the position ever, you're facing a whole new level of difficulty. Cassel has poise, class, and gorgeous eyes. And he's doing his job right. Gotta love him.

5. Saturday, we went shopping for Halloween costumes. Got a tan trench coat at Goodwill for $15 (excellent!) and black wings at Party City for $25 (eek!) plus some black and glitter hair spray. Add a button-down shirt and an askew tie, and you've got a warrior from God. Yep, Number One is going trick-or-treating as an angel from Supernatural. Not Castiel, because she wants to stay female, but modeled on him. It bothers her not a whit that no one will know what the hell she is. She dealt with the same thing last year when she was Tonks. The point is pleasing herself, not getting attention.

6. Kids who are secure enough to please themselves, not the world around them.

Friday Mix

A fellow soccer parent sent me this. I looked for attribution on the 'net but couldn't find anything convincing, so if you originated it, let me know. I do like to give credit where due. :)

I thought this was really funny. Particularly apropos items are in bold.

Is Your Kid's Soccer Taking Over Your Life?

You know it is if:

You know a few 6 year olds that are good but "lack focus".

You base the next purchase of your new vehicle on whether it will hold six kids, six soccer bags, and a portable goal.

You know every kid on every team your child has ever played on...but don't have a clue who their school mates are.

You feel lost when you have a free weekend.

You become a partner in a soccer store to save money.

You don't give your kids time-outs, you give them red cards.

You can rationalize spending $89 on the good cleats but won't spend $3 on a birthday card for your spouse.

You respond to the question, "How old are your kids?" with "I have a U8 and a U10".

You have to use a grandparent to take kid #1 to a tournament because Dad is at a different game with kid #2 and Mom had kid #3 two cities away in another tournament all in one weekend.

You find yourself missing the parents of your child's teammates during the off-season.

You wonder, "What's an off-season?"

You refuse to make any plans with your friends until you check your kids' soccer schedules.

You have been barred from the sidelines more than once. (I don't actually know anyone who has, though we do a lot of self-banning.

You have had the kids ask if Christmas is "home or away".

You yell at your kid to get up and shake it off, even after the ambulance arrives.

You need to budget for a new portable chair every year.

You have woken up in the middle of the night yelling "Get it out of there".

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I just finished a nonfiction project that had me delving pretty deeply into some current topics. I have come to two conclusions. Before this, I was, let's say, 94% convinced of their truth, but still believed there were exceptions. Now, if there's any optimism left in me, you'd need a microscope or maybe a gas chromatograph or something to find it.

1. All politicians suck. No exceptions.

2. There isn't even a semblance of objectivity in today's journalism. Everything is op ed.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Okay, HOW awesome was Supernatural last night?

I have a residual cough from my recent cold, and it tends to recur at night, and reclining on the couch irritates my lungs or something. Turns out, laughing's enough to stimulate a fit, and Dean nearly sent me into mechanical pneumonia.

I know I don't need to say it again, but...Jensen Ackles is a brilliant actor. He went from over-the-top goofiness with the girly scream and "that was skeery!" grin (which I had to pause while Number One and I collected ourselves, then rewind and watch again) to sheer, incredibly subtle terror when he saw Luther in the corner.

Of course, brilliance is easier when you're given brilliant lines and direction. No way to tell how much was him and how much was fed to him, but the basic writing, at least, was excellent. I looked up who wrote this episode, and was surprised to see two names I didn't recognize, Andrew Dabb and Daniel Loflin. This episode is the only true writing credit either has (according to IMDb, I didn't look beyond that). Color me even more amazed.

Let us not forget Jared Padalecki, who had to play straight man and did it as brilliantly as Jensen did the opposite. When his eyes flashed yellow at the end, it wasn't just the connotation that gave me a visceral gut reaction. His entire demeanor sent waves of shock (and, okay, I'll admit it, heat!) through me.

Then there's Bobby, who's such a Mary Sue (Japanese!) but you can't hate him for always knowing the answer. And they brought back Sierra McCormick, who's so good she makes me forget she's a little girl. I adore when she calls Dean "silly goose."

And we can't forget the supporting players off screen, those responsible for filming in light that shows us how green Jensen's eyes are and framing Jared so perfectly, and the gorgeous shot of the valley the mill is in, and the amusingly horrifying way Luther's head pops off and dissipates into smoke, as well as the white/green effect of Sam's eyes that tell us it's a hallucination with just a hint of doubt.

Kudos, too, for infusing a show meant to evoke laughter with such poignancy. Luther and his brother John won't get the credit they deserve (except from equally obsessive fans like me), but my heart broke for the poor guy when he cradled the kitten, and when they were pushed to do the same horrible thing to him that had been done when he was alive.

Megan, David Mattey/Luther is 6'10"!!! Who knew someone could dwarf Sam, never mind toss him around like a rag doll?

Man, I love this show.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Last week, a friend called, and asked why I was down that day. I blamed the base of my mood on the Patriots' huge loss the night before, which she really didn't understand. I get where she's coming from. I think "geez, people, it's just a game!" on a regular basis. But whether they win or lose DOES have a lingering effect on me, so I couldn't help exploring why.

I came up with identity. Your sports team is part of what makes you, you. It's often about pride of place, about connecting to the region that raised you. If you still live there, it's community. Shared goals and needs, bonding and making connections with people you might otherwise absolutely despise, except for this thing you have in common. If you've moved away, it's an anchor or a touchstone, something that connects you to where you came from, makes you belong. Some people chose their team for a different reason, maybe because a beloved family member liked that team, or a boyfriend/girlfriend, or because you moved to that area at some point in your life and it has meaning because of that connection.

Not everyone needs that, and many people find it in different things. But for those of us who like competition (and you all know I'm muy competitive!) and have forged this connection for one reason or another, it sinks deep into us. And anything that is that strong is going to have a powerful effect on emotion or mood.

If you didn't "get it" before, you still won't, and that's okay. It's just a thing. Sometimes, I have a need to exposit. :) If you "get it" but have a different idea, or disagree, feel free to say so!

And Go, Pats!

Where You Can Find Me

I have finally finished my Romance Wiki update! It's a cool place to find everything romance related, and it has everything about my books all in one place.

Where else do I hang out online, besides here?

Well, for the semi-regular ramblings about life and all it contains, I blog the same stuff at the following places:

Blogger
MySpace
LiveJournal

Pick your favorite.

For more focused, writerly ramblings, you can find me at The Gab Wagon with Cathy McDavid, Monica Burns, and Mackenzie McKade. I blog on Mondays and comment all the other days of the week.

I also blog frequently at SciFi Chicks. This is a site with reviews, news, and commentary on all the SF, fantasy, and paranormal TV shows being broadcast today. It's not just me, I only do half a dozen shows. There are several very smart, very cool women posting there.

Then, of course, there's my regular website.

And, if you are in need of editing or proofreading services, you can peruse my Elance profile. (Note: I have no feedback in the last 6 months because I've been so busy, I haven't been bidding for jobs. But I do have 100% overall positive feedback!)

So there you have it. The ubiquitousness that is me on the web.

Geez, Hadn't Thought of That

I'm supposed to be writing. Well, I'm supposed to be updating my Romance Wiki, THEN writing. But I had to do this first. It's that instant gratification thing. And maybe the procrastination thing.

I rarely dip my toe into the Supernatural fandom. I have a few online acquaintances whose blogs I read, careful associations that are "safe" in that the posters and their commenters are mature and thoughtful and usually feel the way I do about the show. But every so often, they link to something that has exploded out there in the masses, and I dare to click the link, and I get splattered.

This time, the wank is about the Sam/Ruby issue, and it brought up a point I hadn't thought about. And, of course, I was compelled to comment.

First, some facts:

1. In "Lazarus Rising," when Dean finds Sam's hotel room, a half-naked woman opens the door. A short time later, Dean comments on a bra.

2. In a recent interview, Robert Singer said Ruby was possessing that woman at the time she opened the door.

3. Demons and spirits have made references to what Sam and Ruby are doing, and those references have sexual connotations.

4. Jared Padelecki, as quoted in an article, says he believes Sam and Ruby are doing something.

It has been pointed out that if Sam and Ruby are indeed having sex, and Ruby possessed a living woman who is now trapped in her body with no control over what the demon does to it, then that woman is being raped. This is a truth. (I'd say she's being raped by both Sam and Ruby, and that the possession itself is a form of rape.)

Now, of course no one wants their beloved Sam to have crossed that line, and apparently, the response has been over-the-top abusive to the people who have brought this up. That's unconscionable, and it disgusts me. No, we don't know what's happening yet, and maybe the implication is being misread, and that's fine. But if that is what's happening, it is rape. Period.

Now here's why I think that's not what's happening:

1. No matter how close they want to take Sam to the bad side, I really can't see them letting him cross over so completely. While Sam has disregarded the reality of Ruby's possession, and often considered individual life acceptable collateral damage in killing demons, this is something he would think about. Dean might not think that deeply when sex is involved, but Sam doesn't do casual sex.

2. We can't take demon references at face value. I mean, come on, they know how to push buttons and dig at people's tender emotional centers and twist truths to make them sound completely evil. I can see that maybe Sam has desire for the body housing Ruby, and an emotional connection to Ruby that could make him consider having sex with her, and then the demons using those feelings against him. Referencing them in a way that implies they are dirtier than they are, or have gone further than they have.

3. It's possible that Kripke and company haven't realized this factor is there. I find that hard to believe, unless the writing staff now has no women on it (and Sera Gamble obviously is in charge, so that's not the case). Even if they weren't aware of the implication, it's not too late to "fix" it. It has not been established that Sam has had sex with a possessed woman, so they can take that thread anywhere, including complete and honest denial that anything has happened.

So. That's what I think. Let's see if the wank follows me over here. :)

Speechless

I don't have anything to say about this episode of Supernatural. My sheer delight, my pure love, from the opening old-time credits to the curly The End, renders me unable to articulate anything intelligent.

I laughed a lot.

Jensen Ackles, in particular, is even MORE beautiful in black and white (who'da thunk?).

Music? Perfect.

Cinematography? Awesome.

Casting? Excellent, even for the females (especially Lucy). [Hey, there was a Lucy last season!]

I can never get enough of this show.

Music Mania

Number Two started viola lessons this summer, and those are in full force, along with orchestra, at school. Number One is not very thrilled with her continuing cello/orchestra lessons, but not unthrilled enough to give it up, and she also has music class this marking period.

Number One is playing a lot of keyboard in music class. She has started printing sheet music to play on the piano at home, and has written out some notes for her sister for some simple songs. Of course, these notes exist on the viola and cello, and the songs they play on the strings can be played on the piano.

Plus, they're writing their own songs.

The upshot is that my house is filled with live music at random times, which means my head usually has an original composition (nicely done but short and oh-so-catchy) going through it. When that's kicked out, it's by one of the songs Number One is trying. The one that prompted this blog post is "Favorite Things" from The Sound of Music. I can't get. it. out.

The piano cover might get stuck closed in the morning. Accidentally, of course.

When There is No Right Answer

I was one of those kids who tested really well in school, and took great pride in doing so. The main factor in my success was a strong desire to do well, which meant being right.

That can be a detrimental trait in real life. Not that I can't admit to being wrong about something, or that I have problems with being wrong. I take great pains to admit when I'm wrong so that when I insist that I'm right, it has more weight. :)

No, there are other ways that my need to be right has potential to be problematic. Like taking a medical questionnaire. There are no right answers on there! But I feel like "yes" answers are wrong. I have to consciously consider my reality before answering certain things.

It's more of a problem at the eye doctor. You know the eye chart. You have to read progressively smaller lines of letters and numbers, and then she flips and spins lenses asking which is better, one or two, A or B. I squint at those little lines, and blinky-blinky forever, trying so hard to guess right.

This is stupid in two ways. First, she never tells me if I'm right or wrong. I noticed this when Number One was having her eyes checked, and I could clearly see the letters projected. When she said O instead of C, or Z instead of 2, the doc said "okay" or never told her what they actually were. So my need to be right will never be satisfied, because she won't tell me if I'm wrong!

The other way this is bad is, of course, because I'm not being tested on my ability to be right. I'm trying to get a pair of expensive contacts that correct my vision effectively, and being right but not really seeing what I'm being right about...well, that would make me wrong.

So there you have it. One of my rarely revealed flaws. Don't gloat too much. :)