where to start?

First, the hair. What do ya think? I'm very pleased. Thanks Justine from Curl Up N' Dye!



Second, the new car. Yep, I bought a 2009 Toyota Yaris in beautiful black.

I love it almost as much as my hair. This came to me in my quest to lower my debt to income ratio. With this car, I have a slightly lower monthly payment, the car is in MY name and ONLY my name, I'll save on gas because of the sweet mileage, and I have a three year warranty that I didn't have before. I really liked my previous VW bug, but it was time to move ahead and make some serious choices about the future.

That said, I went to my NACA workshop concerning purchasing a home and found out how awesome their program is. Their goal is to get as many people into realistic, legitimate mortgages as possible. They require you to make goals about what you want and how you plan to get there, along with demonstrating how you will make it happen. That is the tough part. You have to have patience. Since, I want to get into a condo and get into it the right way, I'm willing to take the time. They say roughly three to six months. And though my living situation isn't the greatest, I'd rather make sure I'm set for the future once I'm out of here. I don't want to be in this position ever again!

Other than that, my cellulitis on the tattoo cleared up and its almost back to normal skin. I can't wait to get the next two!

My writing has been put on the backburner in all this car and home mess, but my schedule is starting to clear up and I'm aching to get back into it. I'm hoping to get out to RWA's conference and push the novel, like Maura is going to do. I noticed in the RWA magazine, that its possible to get a scholarship by writing in. I may just do that. Then I'll only have to worry about airfare and lodging. We'll see. I'm keeping my fingers crossed. Honestly, I hope to have the novel done in the next couple of months, and ready for an agent. Obviously, my January goal sheet is on my mind, but hey, things happen and goals can be rearranged. :-)

Quote of the Day: Let me walk through the fields of paper
touching with my wand
dry stems and stunted
butterflies....
~Denise Levertov, "A Walk through the Notebooks"

jerry springer here I come!

Isn't it funny how just when your life begins to get into a nice groove, something comes along and throws it right off track? Actually, it's only funny if you have the ability to stand back and look at it from behind. For those knee deep in it, it's a whole different story.

Here's the deal. My boyfriend's ex-wife and daughter are moving in with us. Yes, they will be living in our small two bedroom home. This situation may have worked on TV shows like Friends, but for me it just screams Jerry Springer. Granted, we all still have our teeth, none of us are strippers, and my boyfriend's daughter (who's 12) isn't pregnant, but who knows what could happen in the three months we gave his ex to stay here. My boyfriend is extremely generous at times, and in this case, he is a saint. But mostly, he's concerned about his daughter living in a dangerous environment back in CA with his ex and her pyschotic mother, so I understand his decision.

And I'm proud of myself. Because the first thing that came to mind when I was informed of this was not "Holy Crap, this is absolute insanity and I'm going to kill myself," but "Where will I write?" I'm used to coming home after work to an empty, quiet house with three hours to rest, relax, and write like a fiend. A recent RWA Chapter meeting at a local library got me thinkin' if there is one thing I've come to admire about Las Vegas it's the fantastic library system. There are at least ten libraries here that are amazing. After some research, I was able to locate one right on my route home from work. So, I know where I'll be with my laptop when the work day is over. I think it will be good for, too. Sure, there will be tons of books to distract me, but at least I won't be lured by TV, food, or heaven forbid....chores.

Anyway, I'm kinda looking forward to this new writing environment. And I'm glad I immediately looked for ways to get around this curve-ball that life threw at me in order to keep writing. It's proof that I'm committed and that I'm not letting go of my dreams no matter how many twists and turns life chooses to send me on.

I'm holding on tight, baby!

grand total: 80007

Quote of the Day: When once the itch of literature comes over a man, nothing can cure it but the scratching of a pen. But if you have not a pen, I suppose you must scratch any way you can. ~Samuel Lover, Handy Andy, 1842

muse online writers conference and more....

Meandering through my list of online groups I came across something I thought I'd share with all the writers out there.

The Muse Online Writers Conference will be the one of the first of its kind: an online conference for writers that is absolutely free! I want to say upfront that I have no affiliation with this conference, I just stumbled upon it and thought it was a wonderful idea, especially for writers who cannot attend the rather expensive and distant conferences around the U.S.

Beginning October 13 and running through October 19, participants will have access to a whole slew of workshops, lectures and information, from a ton of presenters. The presenters range from authors of all genres, to specialists, motivational speakers and people from the publishing industry. Even Las Vegas' own Lynn Crain, member of our local RWA Chapter, Cactus Rose, is presenting. Her lectures on erotic romance are loads of fun and helpful.

I recommend registering for this conference, even if there is just ONE piece of information you get from it. I mean, it's free. I wandered through their site and was really impressed with everything they have there. Registration ends September 1, so get moving to the link provided.

With that said, I also wanted to give you a glimpse of a dream I had that turned into a novel idea. I was watching Fear Itself the other day (kind of a neat show, a combination of Amazing Stories & Twilight Zone, with a little Stephen King thrown in), and the protagonist was a young dark haired guy that looked somewhat familiar. He had a very Christopher Reeves-esque look. Then I thought, "Hey maybe he played Superman in one of the series?" Come to find out he played Superman in Superman Returns.

That night I had a dream about Superman, aka Brandon Routh. The details of the dream were sketchy, but let me just say, it was a romance novella in itself. Heh Heh... Upon waking, I began tweaking the dream into a workable idea for a novel.

What if a young man meets the woman of his dreams, sharing an amazing, fun-filled evening with her and finds out the next day that she died three days prior?

I'm sure something similar has been done before, but I am anything if not unique when it comes to twisting the norm. That's a different story for a different time. It's early enough that I can do some writing on my wip today.

grand total: 51587

Quote of the Day: A metaphor is like a simile. ~Author Unknown

i'm back

I have a habit of doing this. Creating a blog and then letting it go until I forgot where the blog was, what it was about and how to retrieve it.

Not this time. I wrote it down. On something permanent. Yep. I'm learning.

I had to post today, because I'm moving forward and I feel good about it. And well, I read that one of my gurus, Holly Lisle, says that creating a blog formalizes your goals and makes you more responsible for getting the things you want done. I'm hoping she's right.

I've got goals, but nothing specific as of yet. That will come as I see how this new system I'm implementing works. Today, it worked. And quite well, may I add.

Holly practices Ten Minute Magic. Which means she does almost everything in ten minute increments. What this does is break down big things into manageable and focused periods of time to move yourself forward on a project, or anything you'd like to complete.

Today I wanted to try this out. I had laundry to do, scheduling to input and writing to complete. So I set my nifty little computer timer to ten minutes and did the laundry until the timer went off, which was plenty of time actually to get the load folded and the next batch loaded into the washer. I set it again and did my scheduling. The timer went off and I was done with that. Then I gathered all my story notes, read through them and set up my computer to begin where I was next in the story. I set the timer. In ten minutes I had two paragraphs. Ok so it doesn't sound like a lot of words, but it's two paragraphs more than I had written in a month. Put that in your perspective and smoke it! I ended up setting the timer roughly 10 more times and got a couple loads of laundry finished and guess what?? 876 words written! If I can do this daily, I can get 22,776 words written by May 17, which is the next Cactus Rose meeting (my local chapter of the Romance Writers of America). I put a dollar into their goal journal, saying I would get 20,000 words written on my manuscript by the next meeting. More importantly this is another couple of steps to getting my novel finished. Hooray!

What I'm hoping will happen is that I'll get faster in my ten minutes and more prolific, getting more quantity as well as quality done. I won't get my hopes up. But I am a dreamer.

Anyway, I had to tell someone. And you're it.

Also, if you had a moment, check out Holly's site. She's got lots of cool things there in regards to writing...free plotting courses, helpful writing tips, great character, plotting, world building, etc. courses for a fantastic price and a newsletter that comes out every week detailing what she's working on and a section where she answers questions from people like me. I like her because she's a real person, making a decent living as a writer. www.hollylisle.com

Until next time...