How I Started My Writing Career

First, after all my whining, I must report that my eyesight has miraculously adjusted and I am no longer viewing a slightly out-of-focus world. I really thought I was doomed, that there was no way it could improve after getting steadily worse that first day. Now it's fine, though I have daily headaches from wearing the glasses themselves. That should work out, too.

Four days down, a-number-I-don't-want-to-count to go.

My husband dug up a folder with "Tammy Moran & Natalie Jacobus in the movies" with "Top Secret" and "censored" stickers on it. I remembered it immediately. Tammy and I spent HOURS of our childhood "making movies." I should probably give her a great deal more credit for my current success as an author. *makes note to give credit*

This is kind of hilarious. I think it was 8th grade that we wrote these up. She'd have been slightly younger, which is demonstrated in the casting. She paired herself with Patrick LaFontaine, hockey star. By the end of the booklet of ideas, I was writing in my actual crush, David Andry. My handwriting is eerily similar to what it is today, and there's a lot of editing.

Here are some examples. All typos, grammar errors, etc., are SIC.

Models without Makeup
Two famous models are posing for a new photographer. Little do they know, although they wear makeu clothes, a new x-ray camera has been developed for. A scandal sheet buys the pictures, and the girls fall in love w/ the two photographers that take these pictures, not knowing the story. Find out what happens by seeing the movie.

Understand my Love
Two girls think they are pregnant and are terrified because they are only freshmen. They tell their "fathers," and they "fathers" tell the whole school. They are not pregnant, and but they still have bad reps. As juniors, they really get pregnant, and get a lot of understanding from their boyfriends. But Lesil's father gives her the silent treatment, and Janet's mother wants to her to get an abortion. But she refuses. Will they keep the babies and get married? What will happen at school? Find out at the movies.

This one's my favorite. You've got to understand, I was an incredible Goody Two-Shoes myself. I don't know where we came up with this stuff!

Not so Innocent
Two girls [it's always two girls, of course, because we had to share top billing] are called "Goody Two shoes" by their schoolmates. In real life, they go on "school trips" to New York—they are actually Hookers. Will they ever get caught?

Like the capital H in there? Not just regular underage working girls, these two.

Here's one that foreshadows my current writing career:

On the Run
Two seemingly intelligent reporters are living in a penthouse on Park Avenue. How did they get there? They always get the best scoops because they were born with super-hearing, x-ray vision, and super-smarts. But the Mob is after their super-defense weapons, not yet known to the public.

Ahhh. Good times, good times.

Retreat Day 1: Getting the Excitement Out of the Way Early

What were YOU doing when the fire started?

Kim: I was screwing around on Facebook, but I didn't have time to post anything before I had to go outside!

Fran: I was actually working, and thinking how much better my book is since I started working on it today!

Elizabeth: I was talking with Cindy about my plot, actually.

Vicky: I was reading a book on writing synopses, and taking notes.

Misty: I was listening to Megan talk about her book.

Cindy: Talking to Elizabeth about her plot.

I sense some collaboration going on here. Do we believe all this nobility?

Donna: I was writing! *points emphatically at interviewer* (and having a glass of wine)

Heidi: I was talking.

About what?

Heidi: Shapeshifting multi-partner sex.

Heather: I was listening to Heidi. *shudders*

Elaine: I was writing.

Mandy: I was trying to achieve my retreat goal of painting my nails.

Misty: How far did you get?

Mandy: I got em! *shows off blood red toenails*

Megan: I was discussing writing with Misty.


I won't ask Smith what she was doing, because she and I were outside watching the approaching storm. The alarm went off, and a moment later, writers in comfy pants started coming out, so we ran in to get our laptops. When we got back outside, I saw a couple of purses, several phones, and only, like, two laptops!

Me: What the hell kind of writers are you, anyway?

Half of them went back inside to get their stuff. LOL

Okay, not so funny. Our hall was clear of smoke or any other signs of fire, but a few minutes later, Misty came back to us and said there was a real fire. She'd seen smoke rolling along the hall ceiling from the laundry room.

Luckily, it was only about 9:20 p.m., so no one was asleep or anything. Everyone from both groups present was accounted for and safe outside. The executive on site put out the fire, but after the seven trucks showed up, there was still smoke coming out of the building. We hung out for about half an hour, then they directed us to a building on the other side of the property, so we could sit inside out of the rain.

Well, that didn't last long. The Three Stooges Musketeers (Me, Misty, and Smith) headed back out through the pouring rain to see why we heard more sirens. There were now fifteen trucks, still smoke hanging around despite the rain, and two ladders up to the roof.

We saw the manager driving back to the dining hall, so we ran (yes, RAN) back to beat her here. (Luckily, she stopped to talk to the priests in the other building, first.) They said the fire was out and had been confined to the one room. They were clearing out the building to see how bad the smoke smell was, and we'll have to decide if we're okay with staying. Our hall shouldn't be affected, or at least not badly. I'm now typing this at 10:44. We should know more in half an hour. I wish I had Internet access so I could live blog! :)

Update:
We got back into our rooms just before midnight. All is fine! Check out my Facebook page for crappy cell phone photos, including one of our hero!

Now, back to revisions.

Road Signs Release Day!

Today is the day that MJ Fredrick's fantastic Road Signs is available!

My favorite contemporary romances are friends-to-lovers stories, and this one incorporates some details that made me gleeful. Classic cars. Skeevy hotels. (My fellow Supernatural nuts are nodding and grinning. Am I right? :) ) It also has tons of chest-tightening emotion, and the kind of hero that actually exists in real life. Go check it out!

Also, head over to MJ's blog today. She's launching this week's theme of leadership with a post about Sheriff Rick from AMC's zombie series, The Walking Dead. Comment anywhere her full post appears for a chance to win this week's prize, $25 in Omni Bucks from All Romance eBooks/OmniLit!

~~~~~~~~~~
Buy Road Signs, MJ's newest release from Carina Press.
Friend her on Facebook.
Follow her on Twitter.

This is It

My last full, true, personal day.

Numbers One and Two are at the final Camp Nana of the year tonight, and will be there all day tomorrow.

I don't have to work tomorrow.

For the first time since I started the job, I don't have three appointments and mandatory grocery shopping to do on my day off.

What I do have is a large to-do list that's a mix of personal (ordering gifts), professional (updating the Contests and Conferences column on the RWA website), and writing related (finish applying Angela James' self-editing workshop to Hummingbird, work on formatting of Soul of the Dragon, start revisions I just got today for Fight or Flight, my spring release from Carina Press). I can't wait, and I'm going to wallow in every blessed minute.

After that, I'll still have Thursdays off, but my kids will have school, which means up early to see them off, etc., and many of those days off will have the aforementioned appointments and errands packed into them.

Hey, remember this post? Ignore the self-indulgent and boring descriptions of the dreams themselves (gah, why does anyone read this thing, anyway?). In that post, I talked about my old friend Peter, and guess what he did? He Googled himself. And e-mailed me. Ack!

But really, how cool is that? After 20 years, I've heard from two old, very close friends in the span of a few weeks. I LOVE the Internet!

That Week Was at Least Two Weeks Long

Reasons (both good and bad) why this week felt like two:

1. Started new job on Monday morning.

2. Number One also started biology lab at school on Monday morning.

3. #2 necessitated Number Two going to a friend's house every morning.

4. Soccer practice for Number Two on Tuesday and Thursday.

5. Multiple editing projects sent to me daily, including a heavy project with a new client.

6. Soccer game in MD on Wednesday night, 3-hour round trip.

7. Editing that had to be done when we got home from the soccer game at 11:30 p.m.

8. Jason Manns in Philly Thursday night, another 3-hour+ round trip, didn't leave the city until close to midnight (albeit earlier than we usually do! :) ).

9. Record heat levels with no reprieve.

10. There really isn't a ten, but I had couldn't leave it at nine.

Okay, WHAT?!

I had really weird dreams this morning.

First, I woke up around 5 or so, remembering that I had to make sure I was up and dressed and the carport clear for the A/C service guy at 7:30 this morning. Then a while later I remembered that it was Sunday.

So then I dreamed all this stuff I don't remember because I neglected to write this in the morning when it was all VERY fresh, but I do remember some parts.

1. I was at MJ Fredrick's house, and Trish Milburn was there at one point. MJ had a cool house, colonial in style, which I somehow doubt is the norm in San Antonio.

2. They had made TONS of food for a party and Trish kept making me sample stuff. It was really good food. Lots of dips, and a dessert thing that was like two pieces of cracker candy with some whipped creamy type stuff in the middle.

3. A bunch of people started crowding the house, just random visitors, including Fran, who was one of my mother's best friends, but who died over a decade ago. Then he wasn't Fran but some other guy.

4. MJ had a big hole in her counter top, and had covered it with a big white cutting board, and I knocked it askew and it fell into the cabinet underneath, breaking some colorful china thing. I didn't tell her.

5. I said "San Antonio" a lot.

So what the heck is up with THAT?

We're Here!

Well, four six of us are, anyway. The other 13 seven will trickle in today, with a couple coming tomorrow. But retreat has BEGUN!

All of the welcome items are organized and ready to hand out. I squee'd over my *-***** and my ***** *** from Misty and my **** and **** [all redacted to protect the late arrivals] and the super-secret gift made by retreat chair Vicki Smith and CPRW president Misty Simon (no links, I'm on retreat, too lazy!).

We have a full house this year, and a different conference room, which is farther away but super-big and actually away from the rooms so our Saturday night game, which is always raucous, will not disturb. Not that we disturb anyone, anyway. The other group that's always here, a quilting gang, stays up even later than we do, some of them. :) And we give them free books, so they love us.

So.

I am unpacked and put away and ready to go!

My laptop is set up and plugged in!

*taps fingers*

*trims nails*

*checks empty e-mail inbox*

*smooths wrinkle in super-secret gift*

*ponders opening book file*

Is it lunchtime yet?

Around the 'Net

This week is Read an E-book Week! Guess what? I have tons of e-books. I mean, most of the books and stories I've written are available in various e-book formats. The story I wrote for Heartwild Solitaire Classic is also, technically, an e-book. :) But you can get a whole bunch for free this week! Maybe mine, I don't know, I guess it depends where you go and what the promotion is. I suggest you start here, at Jody Wallace's blog. She listed a bunch of stuff so why should I do more work? :) Thanks, Jody!

Speaking of e-books, Victoria Allen's new story, Aces and Eights is on sale!

On March 18th, the cover for CRUSADE, the new series by Nancy Holder and Debbie Vigue, will be revealed at WICKED SERIES on Facebook.

Vicki Smith blogged about Sam and Dean today at Supernatural Sisters today. It's quite funny and soooo true!

Monday I did some contest venting at The Gabwagon. It's not the kind you think.

March Madness has hit! No, not basketball, SUPERNATURAL. My friend Gail does it every year, and it's fun. And very difficult on occasion. Head over and vote for your favorite SPN episodes in head-to-head matchups! And make sure to keep checking as additional brackets go up.

Circle of Friends Blog Award

Wow! I'm humbly honored that Vicki Smith passed on the Circle of Friends Blog Award to me! Thanks, Vicki!

Please check out her blog. She is by turns hiLARious (as are her kids) and profound, and reading her blog is one of my semi-daily highlights.

She made choosing who to pass it on to easier, too, by listing many of the ones I read. Since I did the Lovely Blog award recently, I get to cover those I missed!

Cindy Procter-King (please note the E in Procter, that's very important)

Tracy Madison

Monica Burns

Beach Retreat: A Running Journal

Friday, 5:55 p.m. Yay! We’re on our way to the beach!  I happen to be lucky enough to have a friend who bought a beach house, and five of us are going down to test it out for retreatability this weekend. We’re all packed into a Suburban, making dirty jokes and cursing people who annoy us. I’m carsick, but I won’t say so or Megan will leave me on the side of the road. She hates vomit. Not that I’m going to vomit, but she’s paranoid.

Friday, 7:02 p.m.  Dinner. All the chain restaurants are packed, so we stop at a diner.  Bix, who doesn’t travel well, orders a side of ham. Side to nothing, but hey, to each his own.  We make fun of the typos on the menu and specials list. For a special accasion, be sure to order off the sauteed pan menu.

Saturday, 1:59 a.m. After unloading, claiming beds, changing into comfy jammies, and talking forever, we all suddenly decide to go to bed.

Saturday, 7:12 a.m. My roommate got up to pee, which gave me permission to get up to pee, but now I can’t go back to sleep. Misty and Bix are whispering out in the living room. Misty boots up her computer. The chime galvanizes me and I leap out of bed. Yay! Writing.

Saturday, 8:59 a.m. I’ve only written 94 words. Smith’s Windows Live Messenger won’t autolaunch anymore, her iPod is working, and I’m excited to write. But it’s snowing, and I’m giddy. I’ve never seen the beach in the snow. And now Smith and Simon are eating bagels and that woke up my stomach. After Simon is done picking on me for being too sensitive (I moved my mug so it wouldn’t be in her way and she said “Are you afraid I’m going to contaminate your mug?” and I was like, “See, I knew you would think that, so I debated whether or not to move it!” It’s a neurosis. She’s decided to mean me out of it. Yay.

Saturday, 9:21 a.m. Megan’s finally up. I’m still eating, but the others are, of course, done. But now we’re all at the table sharing “how I slept” stories. Burkholder has multiple noses. Megan dreamed there was a tornado here, and we’re like her kids to her. Smith is a canine racist, thinking all black dogs look the same. 118 words

Saturday, 10:37 a.m. 627 words. Ate, showered, talked about adoption and stupid people. Starting a 20-minute writing challenge. Ready…GO!

Saturday, 11:05 a.m. We start walking, in the snow. After ten minutes, Smith and Simon wimp out. “Snow in my face.” “Too friggin’ cold.” Wah Wah Wah.

Saturday, 11:33 a.m. Bix and I reach the beach. Awesome! I’ve never seen the beach in the snow. Slightly disappointed because the wind is stronger here, so the snow on the sand is patchy. Take a few pictures, start to leave, but the ocean is calling me, so I walk down to the edge and watch it for a minute. Wind is fierce here. I want to go in the water—it beguiles me—but I’m not psychotic.  We head back and wave off the offer of a ride. We’re having fun!

Saturday, 12:05 p.m. We laugh at my frozen dredlocks.

Saturday, 12:45 p.m. I am way overstuffed from lunch. It was healthy, except for the cracker candy. Starting to write again now. Not planning to stop until it’s done. We’ll see how that goes.

Saturday, 1:45 p.m. 2785 words. We’re being so good! One chapter to go.

Saturday 2:07 p.m. 3218 words. Now the other three are driving down to the beach. I feel a little stupid, but WTH. I didn’t want to risk missing my chance to go there, if the others decided they weren’t going later. The two-mile walk felt good.  But now I’m cold and I don’t want to get wet again. Finishing the book now…

Saturday, 3:16 p.m. Sooooo close! 4980 words. Very last scene. But I had a desperate urge for Supernatural, and since the wireless signal is weak, I knew it would take a while to download. But even on my brand-new laptop, if the signal is too weak, iTunes locks up. Dammit. I need Sam and Dean.

Saturday, 3:33 p.m. Crap. About 3 pages from the end, one phone conversation left, and I typed a line that required me to go back and totally revise the big climactic scene.  I’m never going to finish this thing!

Saturday, 3:43 p.m. I just felt a surge of contentment. Four of us are working at the table, three on laptops, one longhand, all deep into our stories. The energy of creation is…oh, forget it, that sounds pompously fruity-tootie. Anyway, it’s awesome. If only the fifth member of our group wasn’t hiding in her bedroom…

Saturday, 4:55 p.m. 6,301 words.  Aaaaand DONE! The Supernatural episode downloaded on the second try. Plus, the book. I finished it. Yay!  I’m such a dork. I edited a little bit to make it come out at exactly 80,000 words.  It’s silly, because when I revise it later, it will change.

Don’t worry, I’m not going to goof off the rest of the weekend. I need to update my book’s timeline, make sure it all works right.  And maybe I’ll start revising Hummingbird. In the meantime, dinner is smelling awesome, and I have that SPN episode.

When I get home and have my camera cable, I’ll post snow!beach pictures!

Pure Indulgence

“They” say computers and the Internet are depersonalizing our society, keeping us from connecting with real people.  Once again, I call bullshit.

Today is my birthday.  The first person outside of my house to wish me a happy one?  A guy I knew in college.  The second?  A writer friend I met once, who lives hundreds if not thousands of miles away.  I got dozens of wishes via Facebook, text, and e-mail.

And not a damn one made me feel disconnected and alone.  Instead I felt warm and loved and part of a giant community of people who care about each other.  Imagine that.

So far, it’s been a great day.  My husband took the day off, so he got up at 6:15 with the kids and got them off to school (not that they need much) and did the morning chores (the very best part of having a birthday is not having to scoop litter boxes, stand outside with the dog while she does her business, or load the dishwasher).  I slept until 10.

I know!

Shortly after I woke up, he brought me flowers and tiramisu truffles. I do have a little bit of work I can’t avoid, but otherwise I’m going to write and read and relax.  Then I’ll open presents and go to Red Lobster for dinner and drag said totally awesome husband to the 3D version of Avatar, because I want to see it and because he’s made of awesomesauce (he hates 3D, but he hasn’t seen the new 3D yet).

I’ve opened one present so far.  My brother gave me Tom Brady.  Is that cool or what?  Of course, don’t worry, I’ll let him out for games. :)

Merry Christmas to all of my readers who celebrate it!  May you all have as much joy and love around you as I have today.

I’m a Slacker

I was just catching up on blog reading, and now I feel like a slacker. I have a friend who has twice as many kids as me, her day job takes her outside the house, she has fifty family and school and extracurricular obligations a week, and she STILL manages to blog every day.

Obviously, I’m not that dedicated.

She also writes funny and fun posts, while I write about paper towels.  It’s a wonder anyone ever reads this thing at all.

*crickets*

My dog is mostly better now, I don’t remember if I’ve said that here.  Her head tilt is almost gone, and she can walk and eat and everything is fine.  Except for the residual effects that have nothing to do with the vestibular syndrome itself.

First, there’s the eating thing.  She doesn’t want dog food anymore.  We hand fed her real meat at the worst of the condition, and she’s gradually gotten back to eating dog food, but she clearly prefers not to eat it.  She’ll snarf around the kitchen looking for crumbs and she’ll eat the cat food, so I’ll put her dish back down, and she’ll turn away.  Too bad.  She can starve.  (Not really—we actually have plenty of crumbs on the floor.)

The other thing is that she can’t walk on non-carpeted floors anymore.  She avoids them, and when she can’t, she dashes across them.  Now, even when she was healthy, she wasn’t the most graceful dog.  You could call her, in fact, one of the least graceful.  So when she dashes down the hall or across the kitchen, she inevitably slips, her feet splay out, she crashes into the wall, and down she goes.

I haven’t been able to take her for grooming because of her balance issues, so I bought nail clippers.  Oh, yeah, you can see where this is going, can’t you?  I bought nail clippers with the plan to clip her nails, thinking if they weren’t so long, maybe she wouldn’t skid so much.  They didn’t have a styptic pencil, though.  So I just decided to be really, really careful.  And I was.  Despite her wiggliness, I was really careful, and didn’t cut down very far at all.  Of course, on the eleventh nail, the blood vessel must have come all the way down to the point, because…yeah, she bled.  All over the carpet, the tile…me.  I sat holding her down as she was desperate to get up and run from me (no pain, she just didn’t like me holding her foot!), trying to get it to stop.  I thought it had, but it hadn’t.  Then I used flour, and that worked.  Phew.  Kept a newspaper bag over her foot for an hour, though, just in case.

Guess who’s never using clippers again?

Soothing the Soul

I got lots and lots of bad news today. On a normal day, it would send me crashing to the floor in despair. But today, I'm riding on this:


(video courtesy Megan Hart)

So it only stings a little.

Megan wrote eloquently and beautifully about our trip, so I hesitate to write my own thoughts here. But I'm gonna try, with the caveat that she's just better than me. :)

I've said here many times that I'm a music moron. I've never been big into music, rarely ventured in my "younger" years beyond Top 40, and only attended three concerts in my entire life (Billy Joel in 1989 because a friend had tickets, Nickelback for Number One's birthday one year, and Trans-Siberian Orchestra 7 times, but it was essentially the same thing all 7, so it only counts as one :) ). I've never reacted to a musician the way I've reacted to Jason Manns.

Cynics might say it's because of his tenuous connection to Supernatural. It's true that's how he came to my attention, and I did first meet him at a Salute to Supernatural convention. But there are other musicians (like Steve Carlson) associated with the show about which I'm so obsessive passionate, and they haven't had the same effect. Carlson is fine, I have a couple of his songs, but that's it.

Jason Manns is totally different. The opening notes of his guitar set up my anticipation. His voice melts my bones, until he growls, and then it's shiver time. Motorcycles and honeyed clouds. It's like aural serotonin. Then there's what he sings about. I love his covers, because he takes familiar songs and makes them his own (I know, nothing unique about that, it's just that it's HIS voice). But I love his original stuff even more. "Journey" describes how I feel as a writer. "Perfect Spot" is how I try to see my life as a whole. And I'm a romance writer, so how can I not thrill to "Without You"?

A lot of things we love can diminish under exposure or examination, but not this. First, I share this love with friends, and that always boosts it exponentially:

Picture stolen from Megan Hart because it's the best I've looked in years! LOL

Being with them made the trip, and the dinner, and being so close to the stage you can touch it (eat our foresight, bitches! :)) so much fun by itself, I never wanted it to end. Even without the music.

Meeting Jason, though, is the ultimate enhancement to his music. Some musicians are jerks, or divas, or full of themselves, or so shy/introverted they seem like one or all of the above. Jason's sincere, friendly, engaging, sweet to people who act like idiots (no, I don't mean us, though some other people might, it's all a matter of perspective! LOL), and patient when you're trying to take a picture and Smith closes her eyes three times in a row.

This was the third performance I got to see. The first was great, but in a well-lit room packed with people, which makes it harder to sink into the music. The second was slightly disappointing, because his awesomeness was obscured by (incredibly rude) loud talkers in the room, and the lateness/time hogginess of the performers before him (which I actually didn't mind until I discovered it meant Jason's set was limited to, like, four songs), and the poor quality of the sound system.

The Tin Angel was none of those things! Excellent venue, if you ever get an opportunity to see someone perform there, take it. And eat at Serrano first, so you can get a reserved table up front. And call for reservations as SOON as you know you want to go, and you'll be RIGHT in front.



Anyway, the sound was professional and clear, the crowd was all there specifically for Jason so any rudeness was only mildly annoying instead of infuriating, and he had the night to himself so we got two sets of I-lost-track-of-how-many songs. The only way it could have been more perfect was if he had his new CD ready. I wait with bated breath.

So thank you, Megan, Vicki, and Misty, for another wonderful night, and heartfelt thanks, Jason, for helping me forget that I'm supposed to be in a sucky mood today. :)

Cohesive Fail

I can't seem to post a single-topic post this week. *shrugs*

I'm doing some Facebook catching up right now, and this appears a lot:

" No one should die because they cannot afford health care, and no one should go broke because they get sick. If you agree, please post this as your status for the rest of the day."

At first, who posted it made sense. The first three or four were authors, and we're a small world. But then I saw Christopher Lennertz, a composer (video games, movies, and SUPERNATURAL), who is very much not in the same world. Kinda cool.

I don't care how many people tell us technology is distancing us from each other, I keep seeing more and more ways it's doing the opposite.

~~~~~~~~~~~

So today Number One was telling me about this story she's reading in English. She gives a little rundown of the story, and says as she read, first thing she thought was "The Benders!" I said, "Ray Bradbury, The Most Dangerous Game" and she was floored that I knew what she was talking about. *snort* Kids.

(But srsly, as good as Bradbury is, and as teachable as that story is, why does generation after generation get taught the same musty old literature? How about some contemporary stuff that comments on the human condition NOW? Mix it up a little, people.)

~~~~~~~~~~~

Productive day today. Cleaned my office (whoa, there's carpet in here!) and did my filing, which necessitated spreading the foot-tall pile over the pool table. To-do list is decimated. Not really smaller, but it was a good day.

Now I'm off to watch some Supernatural season 4 DVD bonus features and write an analysis for Supernatural Sisters! Check it out. After midnight. Central time.

Night!

All in Suzuki Life of Manns

I left with some friends at noonish yesterday to head to NYC, got home at 4:05 this morning, and got up just before noonish today. It was a rockin' 24 hours!

First, huge thanks to Megan for driving into NYC, which is always an experience. We shall never forget her creative curses thrown at other drivers, many of whom also had out-of-state plates but jumped on the "moron city driver" bandwagon with relish.

Second, nearly as huge thanks to my friends. How often can people spend 16 hours together, non-stop, and not only not run out of things to talk about, but never get annoyed with each other or have any kind of tension? You guys rock harder than the bands did!

So. The bands.

The venue, Sullivan Hall, was fine. Standing only, which was annoying but tolerable, especially since we got there at 6:45 or so and there was hardly anyone there. The sound was kind of bad, but we were right up front, so everything sounded mostly okay to us, except when there was feedback.

Ace in Blind was a pretty decent rock band from New Haven, who thanked their friends and family for coming down for the gig. So cute. Sad that they didn't have more people there, but we helped make up for it by buying their CD. I also got their T-shirt for Number One, and told her wearing a shirt for an obscure band makes her look cool. Or she could tell her friends it's a band her mom went to see in NYC, which would make me look cool. But she said that would make her look like a dork. Oh, well.

Next was Andy Suzuki, who played with The Method, I think he said. He had a high, sweet voice, very emotional lyrics, and tons of energy. The band was really interesting, with the typical guitar, bass, keyboard, and drums, but also another guy who did all kinds of eclectic percussion, a backup soloist (his sister!--Mom sold his CDs for him), and the coolest, an electric fiddle. He was good. He dueled with the guitarist and his fingers flew! The instrument sounded even sweeter than Andy did.

Doesn't he look a lot like Joseph Gordon-Levitt?



Next came Life of Riley. I became a Riley fan (love that name, too, have it slated to use in a book :) ) back when Jason Manns first did a tour with them, and they were great on stage. I was disappointed when they had to stop.

Which was a real problem with the whole setup. But I'll get to that.



Finally, we got to Jason. He was accompanied by Jonah, the Life of Riley drummer, and that was a great enhancement. The backup percussion supported Jason's guitar and his incredible voice, and they had nice on-stage chemistry. I grinned every time Jason growled, and my friends looked at me and laughed every. single. time. But damn, it was WAY too short.


Here's the problem. The bill was typical--less experienced bands first, more well-known, experienced, skilled performers last. But the bar had another gig at midnight. So when the first band started nearly half an hour late and ran 45 minutes over, it pushed all the others, so the last one, the one we traveled 8 hours to see, was the shortest. Jason didn't have time to play any of his new stuff and left off many of the favorites (damn, I really want to hear "Journey" live--maybe someday).


Still, it's a minor complaint. We did have time to meet Life of Riley and talk to Jason for a little bit.



Overall, it was well worth the trip, and I'm satisfied for now. I won't have to go to such extremes to go see Jason play again, at least not for a while, though I do expect to see him again sometime. I already feel like a groupie, can't make that complete without the actual hanging around part. :)

Now, to try to recover enough from the trip to survive the rest of the summer...

Retreat Craziness

Oddly, all the craziness--or, at least, all the craziness I captured--was on Saturday.

First, we wanted to go for a post-dinner walk. But the weather wasn't quite cooperative. So Mandy suggested we use the excellent canvas bags Joyce and Kristine gifted us with:



But it cleared up for a while, so we managed to get out.

Then we hazed Elizabeth.



She was a new member on her first retreat! Had to do something! Actually, someone said something about how we should make someone lie down on a grave, and she volunteered. Said it was peaceful.

Remember the weird circle from two years ago?



It's still there.



Misty decided the weird circle demanded more weirdness, though.



Supernatural fans know what a weird circle in a cemetery means, but the only zombie we encountered was Megan:



Vicki demonstrated how NOT to ride a playground dog:



And then we went to the other cemetery, which we haven't done before. I don't know, it's just not as creepy without the fence:



I don't think we'll be going back. I mean, how much fun is a cemetery if you can't bring coat hangers?



Saturday night we played our game. Here's Beth, posing after she won putting Johnny Depp together, defaced as he was.



We laughed harder than at any other retreat game, and that's saying something. Joyce hyperventilated and had to sit down:



Gotta love David Beckham as Spock played by @ZacharyQuinto.



We were equal opportunity defacers, of course:



But honest, among all the insanity, we did work!



Now, don't you want to have a retreat of your own?

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.

When Do I Ever Post Anything That's Not Randomness Anymore?

I can't seem to post on a single topic here anymore, even when I post more than once a week. Is that annoying?

While doing my post for The Gab Wagon today, I looked up all my Amazon rankings. Most of my paper titles are old, so their numbers are dismal (except Brianna's Navy SEAL, which was 658,733, which is higher than Megan Hart's Wish List and An Exaltation of Larks, and even her next book, Stranger! And yes, I measure myself against her All. The. Time. And usually come up wanting. :) ) Most of my Kindle titles haven't even achieved a ranking at all, but again, Brianna's Navy SEAL had an overall rank in the Kindle Store of 47,461. Since they advertise that Kindle has over 170,000 titles, that seems pretty good. I'm not complaining, anyway.

*Makes note to check ranking every day.*

Soccer season, the real one, is in full swing now. Both kids have played two games, both won both games, both are top of their divisions by either number of wins or goals scored/goals against. It's a nice feeling, especially for Number One, whose team has had varying levels of success but not this one. Number Two's team has yet to be tested, and we'll be up against a particular team (who beat us twice last fall) not once, not twice, but at least three times. We play them twice in the regular season and are bracketed with them in an October tournament. Should be interesting.

Football season, too, is in full swing. The Patriots are 2-0. They had a convincing win against the Jets yesterday. Matt Cassel looked good. Everyone can settle down now.

I have two really great things to look forward to this week. Tomorrow I'm going out to dinner with some friends. These are the ones I did the writing challenge with this summer. We're celebrating our hard work, discipline, and dedication. Someone's got to do it!

The other thing is, of course, the Supernatural premiere. There are two clips available online. One is, I think, the reunion scene, and I don't want to watch that one. I want to see it unfold. Even if I misunderstood what that clip is, I don't want to expose myself to too much. Anticipation is very high for this show, and if it's going to pay off, I want to give it the chance to.

However, I let a friend (damn you, Smith!) browbeat entice me into watching the second one, which showed the boys in their usual form. They were funny and gorgeous and belied implications by Kripke that their relationship is damaged. I can't wait until Thursday!

Number Two just got home. Must move on to the belongs-to-everyone-but-me part of my day now. :)

Mixed Bag

I'm highly amused by the difference between the media's talk about the New England Patriots' new situation and the perspective of the players from around the league.

Summary:

Media: OMG! SEASON'S OVER! PATRIOTS ARE ONLY TOM BRADY! CASSEL SUCKS! NO ONE ELSE ON THE ENTIRE TEAM PLAYS THEIR POSITION WELL!

Players: The Patriots didn't win because of Brady, they won because of the well-coached, dedicated, team-focused team that they are, and they will continue to be a challenge--nothing changes.

The truth, of course, is somewhere in the middle. Tom Brady's loss does change things, but it takes a team that might have been stratospheric (which we'll never know since the injury occurred only a few minutes into the season) and brings them down to the level of the rest of the NFL.

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I have a new blog! Well, it's more than a blog, and it's not MINE, per se. Okay, it's not mine at all, I'm just one lowly member of a fabulous group of women who like speculative TV. Today I posted my review of the season premiere of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles on SciFi Chicks. The site will have reviews and commentary, news and spoilers, and rousing discussions about the best in SF, fantasy, and paranormal television. Check it out!

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I really want my TiVo back.

Last night was the first night we watched anything we'd recorded using the new DVR box, and I HATE IT. Really, really hate it. Enough to pause the show and rant.

With TiVo, you have a list of shows you recorded. You click on the show, click Play, and it starts either at the beginning, or where you left off the last time you viewed it. When you get to the end, it takes you back to the menu.

We recorded three shows yesterday. Two and a Half Men (I don't watch that, J does), Terminator, and Prison Break. I went into the List, highlighted Terminator, and Selected it, then clicked Play.

Prison Break started.

I thought I'd hit the wrong show on the list, so I did it all over again. Same result. (This was about 9:10 last night, so just a little into PB, so it was starting from the point of the live show, not even at the beginning.)

I'm not yet familiar with all the features of the remote, so I started rewinding, and it was rewinding through T:SCC but geez, I don't want to have to take that time, or watch a whole show in reverse before I watch it in forward/regular motion. So I checked the cheat card and saw that if I hold the six-second jump-back button down, it will jump to the beginning of the show. When I did that, though, it jumped back twice, to the beginning of Two and a Half Men! Which I had to fast-forward through.

So okay, yeah, I have to learn the features of my remote and maybe read up a little on how the stupid Playlist works. I mean, gawd, am I gonna have to jump through 56 episodes of The Suite Life of Zack and Cody to get to Fringe?

Stay tuned to learn if Natalie Stops Being an Cantankerous Old Lady and Learns This Newfangled Technology or says F*** It! and buys a new TiVo box.

How Can I Come Up With a Title When I Don't Have a Topic?

My cats have lost their water privileges.

Recently, I've been finding one of the two cat water dishes tipped over or splashed, or even just the mat under them wet. I took that dish away, assuming it was too tippable—it was just a "disposable" storage container—but it didn't solve the problem. I caught Maya—the good cat!—deliberately tipping over the other, more stable, meant-to-be-a-pet-dish dish. I'd just filled it, and the water cascaded across the freshly washed kitchen floor. So now they have no dishes. They mostly drink out of the dog's water dish, anyway.

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Why do kids always say, "Mom, I need a note" five minutes before it's time to go to the bus stop?

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I miss Doyle.

I'm watching Angel season 1, and Doyle was my favorite character. The way he died was great, well done, but the fact that he died has brought the show down in my estimation. And it was only the ninth episode! I didn't believe it until Wesley actually replaced him in the opening credits.

I looked up the actor, because to leave a show that early, I figured he had to have gotten something else, like a bigger role on a new show. But not only did he not get a new show, not only did he hardly ever do anything again...he died of a drug overdose three years later! It's tragic. My husband suggested that might be the reason he was canned, the drugs, but if it was, it didn't show in his performance. He was sweet and brave and weasly and Wesley has his points, but he just doesn't measure up.

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I felt borderline hypocritical yesterday, but then I realized I wasn't at all hypocritical, I was exactly what I'd always said I would be.

Number One has gorgeous hair. It's so thick, we can't find ponytail bands that will hold it properly. When she's on the soccer field, it looks like a horse's tail. And she's 13, so it's lush and healthy as well as long and thick.

Well, it was long. Almost small-of-her-back long. And it was due for a trim, but she wanted it shorter, like shoulder length. I lamented, but said it was okay. I mean, it's her hair.

A few years ago, my mother-in-law was telling me about a friend's grandchild who'd gotten a spiky mohawk and colored it some putrid color. I said "so what?" She didn't debate the topic, but the look on her face said I was nuts. I've always felt that hair is not worth fighting over; there are more important things to put your foot down on (facial jewelry is one of the minor ones—overnights with a boyfriend would be a major one).

Anyway, the hairdresser of course tried to talk her out of it, but Number One kept saying, "It's just hair" and "It's not like it won't grow back." So then Lisa, the hairdresser, was measuring how much she wanted off, and said if she went about an inch higher, she could donate it to Locks of Love, something she'd done once before, and she immediately agreed. We feel good about that—her ponytail was about the size of two normal ones, and it takes 15 to make a wig for a kid with alopecia. And when someone donates, Lisa doesn't charge for the haircut. So I wasn't going to argue.

But when she cut off that tail...oy. Some of the shorter hairs were at the nape of her neck. So instead of being just above her shoulders, it's just below her chin in front and barely at her neck in the back.

It's a lovely cut, with ragged ends and a great curve that looks adorable on Number One, and she's delighted with it. But I cringed a lot, and made noises in the back of my throat, and kept asking if she was okay with it--like it could be put back or something. That's when I felt hypocritical. But then I realized, I always said my kids could make their own decisions about their hair. But I never said I wouldn't be vocal about my own thoughts on the matter.

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I don't know why I keep reading Supernatural: Rising Son. Okay, I do know. I keep reading because I got the comic book store to put every issue in my husband's box, and once it's there, I can't make myself give it back, and I don't think to cancel it. But every issue, I hate it more and more.

BIG HONKIN' SPOILER ALERT

Okay, I can buy the storyline as an alternate "what if" scenario, but not something that really happened in the canon of the show. I mean, they made Sam a killer. He's old enough in the comic to REMEMBER that in the present. To remember that people were after him, and that he could do things. His visions wouldn't have been so out of the blue.

Worse, they made John a murderer. Not someone who hunts supernatural evil, but someone who pre-emptively kills men in horrific ways, and I just don't buy that of John. Sure, he was a terrible dad, but that's because he left his kids alone all the time and was obsessed with finding Yellow Eyes and raised the boys to have all kinds of issues. The John in the comics who's killing all these guys is not the John who would be in so much pain when Meg kills his friends. Murder deadens you, hardens you, makes you less able to connect to other people, and in the comics, this is happening way before he had "falling out"s with all his friends.

Plus, Dean killed a man, a regular person, and whenever that happened in the earlier days of the show, it was a Big Deal. If he'd first done it at age 10, he'd be a totally different kind of person in the present.

The thing I do kind of like—well, I guess I'm conflicted about—is that Lilith has been introduced as someone who wanted Sam way back when he was a kid. I don't like the details of it, what she's trying to do, and a lot of the worldbuilding in the comics doesn't jibe with the worldbuilding of the show. I mean, sure, if Kripke had the budget, he'd totally have a demon build a monster out of shattered train parts and have it go after the Winchesters. You can do more in comics. But the creation of a semi-sentient hunk of autonomous, killing metal? Doesn't belong.

Anyone else bothering to read them? Liking them, or not?

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So we got a phone call last night. I didn't answer, and I was asleep when J came to bed, so he didn't tell me about it, and we don't really cross paths in the morning until he's in the car. I found out from one of the moms at the bus stop that the call was an Instant Alert from the school superintendent, telling us to check the website and our e-mails. Apparently, there's a guy in a white van with brown curly hair and a tattoo trying to pick up kids. He tried at the high school and at one of the elementary schools. Not the one my kids go to, but one friends of mine have kids attending, and those schools are only two miles from my kids' and less than five from my house. Easily expandable territory.

This is where the balance of parenting gets so hard. I walk Number Two to the bus stop, but not Number One, and they both walk the half a block home on their own, with the other kids from the bus. That's the only place they'd really be vulnerable, and now I feel I have to meet them every day, or at the very least go outside to watch them get off the bus. I don't want to let Number Two practice soccer in the front yard, or walk up to her friend's house. Yet I don't want to make her a prisoner or be overprotective, either.

We were talking about this the other day, a group of us, about how when we were kids, we left the house in the morning and roamed the neighborhood all day. Parents didn't know where we were. At my cousins' house, we were often deep in the woods (probably not as deep as it seemed, but out of calling range) or way up the street and around the corner. We came in when the streetlights went on. No way can any of us let our kids do that now. There are more cars on the street, driving faster, and the risk of abduction just seems too damned high.

I bet it's not. I bet that proportionately, the risk is the same as when we were kids. What's changed is the information society. When a child in Florida gets abducted in a car wash parking lot, we hear about it almost instantly in Pennsylvania or California. With video. So 20, 30 years ago, if we didn't know someone it had happened to, it wouldn't affect our behavior. If we did have a personal connection, if we knew someone who'd been taken, it would scare us into taking precautions. Now, though, we know everyone. Everyone could be us. And we live our lives accordingly.

And we try to find a balance between giving our kids some independence and protecting them from the horrors out there, knowing that we don't really have that much control.