My Crazy Summer

A LOT has happened this summer. Mostly of the not-so-good variety of happenings. The kind of stuff you don't want to blog about as it's going on but can list out objectively, without the pain of being so close up on it anymore.

Lost My Day Job for the second time this year. I should see this as a freeing experience but I'm so preoccupied with replacing that income stream that it's been hard to enjoy anything about this time off. I need to take advantage of all this time for my writing. I want to have something concrete to show for this time off. But I feel catatonic, listless.

Dad Has a Brain Tumor and is majorly depressed. He had a major seizure and when he was hospitalized, the doctors discovered the tumor. The question now is whether he should have surgery or follow a wait-and-see approach. Wait to see if it turns aggressive. Wait to see if it turns malignant. It's been a grueling ordeal for him and the family.

Health Issues of My Own. I have had my own health scare and hospitalization this summer. And coupled with the job loss, I soon won't have health insurance. I'm not so much worried about the state of my health moving forward. My doctor was fantastic. I'm just going through some residual head trauma.

And there are the edits to my WIP. I am sooo hating my work right now. I just want to throw it out and start on something new.

Edit Hell

I'm editing my MS and it's weirdly enjoyable. It's like I'm back in grade school and been gifted with the teacher's red pen. Yes, I always tried to be the teacher's pet.

I am getting to some scary sections that really need to be rewritten. But I knew this was coming. I needed to have thrown whole scenes out months ago bit I was a coward. I didn't want to waste a single word but bad writing is not worth keeping ~ even when it inflates one's word count and ego.

I guess that's a newbie mistake ~ clinging to writing that is no good.

Well ~ as soon as the day job let's out for the day, I'm back over to the red pen!

First Time for Everything!

I printed out a my complete WIP today ~ all 278 pages! That's amazing to me. I can hardly believe it. Now ~ it's not that I'm done but rather, I need to get my hands on the pages to actually do some editing. Yikes ~ the pages are coming out and I realized that I don't have numbers at the bottom. Crap. I gotta keep this thing in order or at least hand number.

That's the quick check-in. I've been dreading this moment for a long time but I really need to edit!

When Insults Had Class...

I received one of those pesky forwarded messages but this one was very "writerly" so I decided to share. And if, like me, you have a finely tuned sense of schadenfreude, you should enjoy these...

The exchange between Churchill & Lady Astor: She said, "If you were my
husband I'd give you poison," and he said, "If you were my wife, I'd
drink it."

A member of Parliament to Disraeli: "Sir, you will either die on the
gallows or of some unspeakable disease." "That depends, Sir," said
Disraeli, "whether I embrace your policies or your mistress."

"He had delusions of adequacy." - Walter Kerr

"He has all the virtues I dislike and none of the vices I admire." -
Winston Churchill

"A modest little person, with much to be modest about." - Winston
Churchill

"I have never killed a man, but I have read many obituaries with great
pleasure." Clarence Darrow

"He has never been known to use a word that might send a reader to the
dictionary." - William Faulkner (about Ernest Hemingway).

"Poor Faulkner. Does he really think big emotions come from big words?"
- Ernest Hemingway (about William Faulkner)

"Thank you for sending me a copy of your book; I'll waste no time
reading it." - Moses Hadas

"He can compress the most words into the smallest idea of any man I
know." - Abraham Lincoln

"I didn't attend the funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying I
approved of it." - Mark Twain

"He has no enemies, but is intensely disliked by his friends." - Oscar
Wilde

"I am enclosing two tickets to the first night of my new play; bring a
friend.... if you have one." - George Bernard Shaw to Winston Churchill


"Cannot possibly attend first night, will attend second... if there is
one." - Winston Churchill, in response.

"I feel so miserable without you; it's almost like having you here." -
Stephen Bishop

"He is a self-made man and worships his creator." - John Bright

"I've just learned about his illness. Let's hope it's nothing trivial."
- Irvin S. Cobb


"He is not only dull himself, he is the cause of dullness in others." -
Samuel Johnson

"He is simply a shiver looking for a spine to run up." - Paul Keating

"There's nothing wrong with you that reincarnation won't cure." Jack E.
Leonard

"He has the attention span of a lightning bolt." - Robert Redford

"They never open their mouths without subtracting from the sum of human
knowledge." - Thomas Brackett Reed

"In order to avoid being called a flirt, she always yielded easily." -
Charles, Count Talleyrand

"He loves nature in spite of what it did to him." - Forrest Tucker

"Why do you sit there looking like an envelope without any address on
it?" - Mark Twain

"His mother should have thrown him away and kept the stork." - Mae West


"Some cause happiness wherever they go; others, whenever they go." -
Oscar Wilde

"He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lamp-posts... for support
rather than illumination." - Andrew Lang (1844-1912)

"He has Van Gogh's ear for music." - Billy Wilder

"I've had a perfectly wonderful evening. But this wasn't it." - Groucho
Marx

Teenage Angst Continued...

My life is under a cloud. Have you ever had to live with a long-term house guest? Well, that's what we've been going through since the day before Easter. I think at first, we thought it was going to be a great adventure, maybe even our own sitcom plopped right down in the middle of our mundane, suburban lives.

But well, it's more like two urban, childless yuppies have an insto-presto teenager moping about playing video games and constantly complaining and whining about his life.

So, the hardworking, young urban hipster couple are now parents to one recalcitrant teenager and all the attending angst and hormones.Punchline though ~ he's nearly 30!

Ok ~ comedy is not my thing and the novel is more dark than comedic.

In Love with Twilight

Let me start out by saying that I am a ridiculously slow reader. Not because I have reading comprehension issues or anything like that. But rather, I really like to savor my books. I like to read a few pages, then sit and let it sink in, spend time with the characters in my head. Continue the story. Develop plot lines for them on my own. Then I'll read a bit more.

But not with Twilight. I barely wanted to turn the light off at night. I read it in record time and now I'm *dying* for Book 2. I've sent my Sig Other to the bookstore to pick it up. He better come back with the right thing or else... or else I'll have to go get it myself.

It's been quite a while since I've read a book that's left me breathless for more. Oh, I've like the books that I've been reaing but this was love... love like Bella has for Edward: amped up, hyper-hormoned, achey teen stuff.

To read it is to love it!

Penelope

A friend invited me to see Penelope with her the other evening. I was tempted to stay home. It's cold. I'm a homebody and, well, I should be writing, as another blogger so aptly puts it. But this movie was so adorably cute that I was glad that I went.

For all of us romance readers, it was a neat little twist on a classic story of finding true love ~ despite everything. Add a dash of James McAvoy and you've got a nice little movie indeed.