Back to writing...

I'm giving it another shot. A wonderful friend of mine (who writes under the name Sarah McCarty... you really should read her stuff) told me that Harlequin opened a new line called Spice Briefs. Short erotic, romantic interludes. I've already sent them one submission. A short historical I wrote a while back. I wrote this as a short follow-up to a submission I'd sent to Ellora's Cave, who has yet to respond even though I submitted to them over two years ago. I wanted to be able to send something quickly, but, of course, they never responded.

Not good business practice. Oh sure, they acknowledged receiving my submission. But they never got back to me. Trust me, I understand overworked and underpaid, but to never get back at all? Definitely poor business practice.

So I sent off my historical to Harlequin's email address. Now, them I expect to take time to get back to me.

In the meantime, I've got a contemporary done. I sent it off to a friend to read just to check the ending. I'm not sure. Seems a bit contrite and way too neat to me. But if she likes it, I can deal with it. I have several different ways that I can write the end, so that can be adjusted, though the end result is always the same.

Lastly, I'm working on a short paranormal. Not sure they're going to like this one, though. It's not romantic at all. Erotic and need driven is more like it. Lots of lust. Lots of sex driving the whole story. Hard part is that, to stay true to the idea, one of the characters has to die in the end.

The good thing is I want to show them that I can be versatile. They've already got a historical (and I have at least one other idea for another) and then I've got a contemporary and a paranormal in the works. Basically, I can write just about any genre or time frame. Tell me what you need and I'll write to specification. I used to do that way back in the days when I wrote for Penthouse. (Yup, another dirty little secret... ) Had a couple features and quite a few letters. Paid really well, too. It just got old really fast. I wanted to write more than just sex. I like a little story to go with it.

Anyway... what else is new? Graduations are over. At least for the university. Still have my daughter's high school graduation to get through, but that won't be until next month. Prom was last week and both girls looked absolutely gorgeous!

I've started to work on my gardens. One down and eight more to go... See if I can get another done today. My arms are killing me. Had to get out the manual hedge clippers and trim back a few bushes. They were attempting a coup on the whole yard, so I had to nip them back and put them in their place. My arms are screaming at me now. Telling me that they're used to knitting and typing. What's up with this clipping cr@p?!? >

Monday is Memorial Day. Can't believe it's already here. Mark has informed me that he doesn't want a picnic this year. I don't blame him. He wants a quiet simple day at home with no pressure. No jobs. No list of things to do. Frankly, I don't blame him. We'll have a picnic later in June. Invite everyone over ... er, just because. But now just give him a day of rest where he can do what he wants or nothing at all if that's what he wants.

So I'm just going to make pasta with good fresh bread and invite a few (very few) people over to sit on the deck and relax.

Hence the reason to get the yard in shape. So it's off to work...

Have a terrific day!!!

Forever and Ever...

Since I updated this poor thing. Course, the job is the reason I haven't been around. Had to get through May Weekend. It's that last weekend before college students get into studying for finals and, let's face it, they try to see how much liquid they can contain... Trust me, they end up losing a lot of it through Olympic hurling (no, not curling, but hurling). They drink lots. They throw up. They replace all the liquid they lost and the cycle continues... LOL!

So why would that affect a woman who's old enough to be their Mom? Easy. I get to work 12-hour shifts. I got through it. 99% of all students survive. And most don't get arrested either. We won't discuss the kid who got into a fight so he was told to leave campus. Where does he go? He comes over to the off-campus dorms where I work. Hmm.... not his most brilliant idea since the university owns it and that makes it university property. What happened? Second arrest in the span of about five hours.

How some of these kids actually make it into college amazes me.... ;-)

Anyway... long hours.

Add to that all the high school stuff for my girls. Oldest is a senior, so we're into the prom stuff which means shopping -- dress, shoes, accessories, all that girl stuff. And what do we add to the mix? A friend of hers asks her sister. Now I've got two doing prom stuff... Yikes!

How are we going to top this, I ask you? My youngest went to the junior prom as a freshman. This year, attending the senior prom as a sophomore. Can we somehow find a way to top this for next year? With my luck, she'll take a weekend and visit her sister on campus next year and meet some junior in college...

What can I say? Popular. That was always her goal, so I guess she's achieved it.... LOL!

Did the hair thing for the oldest today. Just a trim and a few suggestions how to arrange her hair to best advantage. She's easy. Tomorrow is prom night and I get to take the youngest at 3:30 for the hair thing. I just know she's not going to be that easy. She'll want it straight. I'm hoping for some curly-type thing....

In the meantime, I did finish my End Zone socks from Gypsy Girl. They're spectacular. Have to get a pic of those and add to the site. (BTW, thanks so much for the tip on how to put it where I want it! I'm already braindead because I read the tip about 3 mins ago and I've forgotten the lovely woman's name already. I'll just bang my head against the wall a few times when I'm done and pray that she accepts that as an apology.... )

Poor Ava, my spinning wheel. She's SO forlorn and lonely in her corner of the living room. She's neglected and feeling totally like an outcast. My fault entirely. I hope to make it up to her starting next week. I have lots of fiber waiting to be spun. I just haven't had time to do much more than come home and drop into bed. Now that the school year is almost done (one more graduation to go and then I'm done for the summer), I can't wait to sit and fondle her. I figure it would be nice to make friends again first before I ask her to create her miracles for me. Lord knows she does more for my spinning than I do... LOL!

Let's see... what else? Business has dropped off the face of the Earth for the moment. Again, haven't had time. Another thing I have to get back to. My commission checks show my lack of commitment right now... Yikes! But I have no one to blame except myself.

House? We won't even discuss that. Trashed. Just a quick example of how much help my wonderful daughters have been. Came home today and saw that the youngest had made herself a sandwich. She polished off the cheese and left the wrapper and ziploc bag just sitting in the middle of the table. She was done with it, so she walked away. Yup. Story of my life lately.

Cut my finger the other night on a tin can. Stupid mistake, but it was good enough that it took me 20 mins to stop the bleeding. I yelled for help because dinner was in final preparations. Oldest daughter came in and helped me get dinner on the table. I commented before I got up that doing dishes wasn't exactly in my future. Not unless they wanted blood all over everything. I think the same dishes are still in the sink...

So I've invested in tons of garbage bags. I figure I'm going to take maybe a half hour every day from now on and simply take one room at a time and toss everything that gets in my way. (I sure hope the cats move fast... )

Okay, that's enough for now. I have to get back into the habit of writing more often. I'd make shorter entries and they'd be a lot more timely... LOL!

Soooooo Unprofessional... Oops

Yup, that's me. Unprofessional me. Remember the theater? I won't go into the hairy details, but I walked out on the production. It was a royal nightmare. The director gave me three days to set the lights and get it all ready for the audience. No way in creation that can be done. Well, I might have managed except we ran into some technical glitches the first night and weren't able to accomplish one blessed thing. Everything had to be redone on Tuesday night. Then there were personality differences of monumental proportions that simply couldn't be ignored. Let's just say that someone's ego tried to beat on my daughter, the stage manager. Mama Bear simply jumped out of me, ran him to ground and clawed the tar out of him.

No way to salvage that one. So I walked. I might have continued to fight it out, but they don't pay me. And there's no way I was losing precious sleep for something that wasn't going to work at that point.

Anyway, I won't belabor. It was a mess. I probably contributed to it, but what's done is done. I'm not one to hold onto grudges or savor the anger. The only one who suffers when that's done is me, so I've learned to cut my losses and let go.

Let's see... other stuff. I have about 40-60 rows left in my shawl. I need to knit another 3 patterns (each "pattern" is 20 rows) and then see if it's big enough. I meant this baby to be big and comfy and something I can truly wrap up in. And I'm not going to shortchange it so I can be done with it. I'm tempted, but I will resist that temptation.

Other news... Only 5 weeks left of work. I can't wait for it to end, but I'm also seriously tempted to work some extra shifts. Last year, I was able to bank about $4K to carry us through the drought of summer without the job. This year, I haven't been able to bank anything. And I still have deposits to make for college next year and prom dresses to buy and all that kind of senior stuff. Extra shifts would surely help the budget and it's not like I have to do it for three months or so. With only 5 weeks left, I can see that tiny, itty bitty light at the end of the tunnel and I could probably manage a few extra shifts just to get over that hump. We'll see on that one.

A friend of mine who's sold about a dozen books to Harlequin said they have a new e-line they're introducing--Spice Briefs. 5K to 15K words specifically to be sold on their site. My problem in writing was always the fact that I write short and concise. I write brief and to-the-point. No (scuse my English ) farting around. And it's an erotic line. Yup, I can do erotic. After all, I used to write for Penthouse. How many people had a senior editor call to ask if you could write more? Yup, I did.

I even have a short that I'd begun a number of years ago, but I never seriously worked on it because I knew it was short. This wasn't a story that I could expand into a full book. Heck, the one full book that I wrote that was sharp and concise was only about 55K words. Darn thing was tight and compact. Lots of action with the clock ticking in the background. But there was no way that I could expand it beyond what it was and there wasn't a market for the book. I tried expanding it into a erotic story, but it really doesn't work for that book. The small elements that were erotic had to stay small. Really only three scenes. To expand it lost the momentum...

Anyway, so I'm going to try to finish up the story I'd once started. And I have a couple new ideas that I could write up and see if Harlequin is interested. Another way to use my limited imagination and see if I could finally make the switch from editor to author.

Hmm.. I'll have to write to Pete (Parke Godwin who is one of the most lovely people I've ever met through the computer and I have Carole Howey to thank for that friendship!) and tell him. He does write short stories and some of the best I've ever read in my life. Right up there and memorialized in my mind with The Lottery and The Rocking Horse Winner. He's never above making a few bucks and I bet he could become a regular writer for them if he put his mind to it. He's a real wordsmith and Harlequin would be lucky to get him.

I have a bathroom to clean. A spinning wheel that's crying for attention. A shawl that's begging to be worn. And stories to write... or at least attempt to write.

Yet another day in the trenches.....

Once Upon A Mattress et al

I can't believe I haven't posted in over a month. Yeah, real life got in the way, but that's besides the point. I should have been more proactive about keeping my little diatribes on a roll.

So, you ask, wazzup?!?!?

Let's start with work.... oooo, er.... nevermind. Who wants to talk about work?

I've become involved with my daughters' high school theater production. Don't get all excited. They don't act. My oldest is the senior stage manager and the youngest is training to take over once the oldest graduates this year. So they're both backstage. But, as some may know, I have a B.A. in Theater. I was a lighting designer and the high school group have no one with any experience in lighting, so I roped myself into it because, as usual, I couldn't keep my mouth shut. (Someday, I'll be missing an entire leg. I'll be chatting along and simply swallow the foot right on up to the hip... ) If I remember correctly, I'd stopped in to grab oldest daughter's books to carry home for her and made some sort of typical comment like, "You call that #*^@ lighting?!?!?" Next thing, I'm digging into a file cabinet for colors and crawling around the catwalks, inserting gels. Mind you, this was just a few days before the show went live, so it wasn't pretty. The next night, I'm refocusing lights and setting light cues. The results were worth it.

But now I'm sort of doing it every year. We won't mention the t-shirts, but I've been doing those also for the last couple years. This year was... er, interesting to say the least. I was actually beginning to panic that we wouldn't get them, but they're out being made as I write so that's another thing off the list.

What else? Ooo... I'm knitting this absolutely fabulous shawl! I tried taking a pic of the thing. IT's a real simple basketweave design, so it's reversible. Natural alpaca (think llama) colors and I found the steal of the century. 600 yds for $27.00. So I bought 3 hanks, wound them up (the balls are so big, they durned near fell off the ball winder ) and I've been working on that at the full-time job. It's going to be simply dreamy! I tried taking a few pics this morning, but you couldn't see anything more than a big blur. I think I have to play with lighting and stuff to get it to come out. Hmm... I have an Ott light. I betcha that would do the trick. Since I plan on doing some spinning later this morning (before I head off to the auditorium this afternoon to work on this year's production), I'll see if I can aim the light at the shawl and get a decent pic.

Oh, and I just returned from St. Louis. We had the big TEAM national convention. 35,000 people in the Edward Jones Stadium (where the Rams play football, I take it, since football isn't my game). Wow! If that doesn't convince me that I'm in the right place at the right time, I surely can't think of a better indicator. So I came back with some new goals and some new ideas on how to network this business all the way around the country. Oh yeah, I'm going to take this thing and run with it like they've never seen before. I can't wait for the semester at school to be over so I can hit the gorund running and never look back.

Today is exciting. Payday. Gee, I get to pay bills so we dole out the money before it's even settled into place in the bank. Lovely thought... Argh! Tomorrow will be a bit different. Shelby is finally getting her fibularsesimoidectomy. IOW, they're finally removing that dead bone from her foot. I'm sure we'll have to be at the hospital in the wee dark hours before the rest of the world realizes it's time to get up. And we get the pleasure of doing this on Mark's birthday. Oh boy. What did you want as a present? For my kid to have surgery on her foot!

Course, my birthday is just around the corner on Monday. What will I get to do? Go back to work!

Pfffffftttt! (think big, hairy raspberry )

Way behind...

Okay, I'm trying to upload some pics. It's not working yet. The good news is that I did get some pics. I'm really pleased with how my Tainted Love socks came out. Yarn is called Tainted Love and created by Gypsy Girl over at www.stonebarnfibers.com. Some of the most gorgeous yarn I've worked with in the past two years.

Frankly, I'm trying to keep it a closely guarded secret because if others find out how wonderful her yarn is, they'll overload her with orders and she won't create any new fantastic color combos and she won't have time to keep up with me and my Mom. Mom just ordered a dozen colors so she can create a stash to get her through those rough days.

I told her to get the yarn, bring it over and we'll wind it up into balls and tuck the balls into little ziploc bags. Each bag will have two skeins all ready to cast onto needles. Then you toss all these little ziploc bags into a big brown paper bag so you can't see. When you're in need of a new pair of socks, you just reach in and grab the first bag that feels "right". Boom... instant pleasure... LOL! I started doing this about six months ago and it's wonderful. If you keep a few skeins in there, you never know what yarn will come out and it's always a nice surprise to see which pair of socks you'll be knitting next.

Okay, let's try to get that pic in here again... Yup, uploaded this time. I haven't figured out how to move the pic to a specific part of the page. I wanted it here -------->

but it loaded to the top of the page. Even worse, it's now the second picture. The one with the pink and red. (If anyone knows how to move a pic from the top of the page without having to figure code and computer language, please help out and either post or email me.)

But those are the socks. I'm going to send a copy of the pic to Cathi so she can see how gorgeous they turned out. My next pair was a pair I called "Parrot". (yup, the yellow and green, which is now posted first at the top of the page... Yikes! ) Koigu yarn (another lovely "find") but they don't name their colors and I simply refuse to call my socks by a number... I picked the colors because they reminded me of a colorful South American parrot. I've always wanted a bird, but my husband flat-out refuses that one, so this is as close as I'll ever get to owning a bird...

I have a feeling this will be a long post because there's so much that's happened in the last few weeks....

Tomorrow I get to meet the Second Sunday Fiber Artisans for the first time. A lady on the Spin To Knit group lives over in Madison and she invited me along. Considering I'm still getting my act together when it comes to spinning, I'm going to meet the ladies and try to watch and learn. Bring my latest socks (Lorna's Laces in Flames) so I can keep working while attempting to keep my mouth shut... yeah, like I've ever been good at that. I find the older I get, the more I talk...

Last night my boys lost to Dartmouth. I missed the game because of a business meeting. I was the one slated to show the plan and pass along the info, so I couldn't miss it. But everyone "bagged" on us. I had two people who were going to come and bring another two new people. But they had good reason to miss, so I'd hoped that others would bring some new people. Uh huh. Everyone they had also bagged. So I was real tempted to run out the door and see if I could catch the end of the first period, but that would be totally unprofessional and so I stayed. We put out heads together and made some more plans, but my night was really made when Mark came home and said that one of the players had, through gesture, asked him where I was. Yikes! My boys noticed that I wasn't there. Damn, they definitely pay too much attention.

OTOH, I'm going to make it up to them. I've already made arrangements so I can get a coffee cake back to them on Tuesday night when they next play. I just have to remember to make up a small plate specifically for the coaches. Last couple of times I sent a coffee cake back to the locker room, Rand assured me that the cake was gone before the tray hit the table... Hmm, think they like my grandmother's recipe?

So I hope that'll be enough to make it up to the boys for missing last night's game. Mark says it's my fault they lost. I wasn't there to cheer and yell and rant and rave. They couldn't get excited without my loud and obnoxious cheering to spur them on...

Tomorrow is fibers and fundraisers. Monday is work at the second job after I'm done with the first job. Tuesday night is race to get home so we have a coffee cake to deliver to the boys at the hockey game. I'll try to get back on Wednesday for an update on more shenanigans....

Dedication weekend...

Have to be at work in less than 6 hours. The new combo basketball/hockey athletic center is done and today is the big dedication. Yes, the building is state of the art. I don't think there's a center in all of the country that matches this one. (When Quinnipiac decides to spend money, they definitely do it right... ) But there's a double header basketball today with both men's and women's teams playing, followed by women's hockey tonight. Tons of crowds. Lots of press. And they want a whole slew of security around the place. So I'm going in this afternoon to work the second basketball game and tonight's hockey game. Probably won't get out much before 9 or 10 tonight...

Other news... I booked my flight last night. Going to St. Louis for the TEAM National Convention in March. Yup, it's that "business thing" I'm involved in. I still get looks like I'm crazy for what I'm doing, but they're expecting 30,000 to 40,000 people at this thing, so I'm definitely not alone in believing that this business is my one chance to not have to work for someone else for the rest of my life. This trip won't be cheap, but I learned way back with the publishing business that you have to invest what you earn back into your business to make it work. I know this is true. OTOH, the first year in publishing, I took an $8K loss in income. And that business began paying for itself after three years. All the bills were paid, the authors earned their royalties and we showed a profit. I honestly believe this business will pay for itself after just one year (sooner if I get off my tush and work the system) and the growth should be exponential.

I started one business on a shoestring budget. This one isn't much different, but this one has a system. Though I loved saying that my publishing company was a business I owned, let's face the reality. It was a company that owned me. TEAM isn't like that. Once I get my business rolling, it won't need me to keep going. That will be refreshing. I'm tired of being what they call a 95%er. And to get into the 5%, I need this trip and I need the exposure to thousands of people who are just like me.

Okay, moving on. I need to hop in the shower so I can sit and spin a while before I have to go to work. Today is a day I need to sit and spin a while. Realign my thinking and maybe watch "Miracle". Meant to watch last night and got halfway through, but I was tired, so I conked out.

Have two new pairs of socks to put on the site. One was made from Stone Barn Fiber's Tainted Love. Came out really pretty. The other is Koigu. Haven't got a clue what the number is (why don't they put names on their colors? ) I call them my Parrot Socks because the colors remind me of ones you'd see in a parrot's feathers. You know you've got too much time at work to do nothing else when you can knit an entire pair of socks in four days. Yup, I started and finished my parrot socks in just four days...

BTW, made a deal with younger daughter. She got a new camera for Christmas. (Have I mentioned this before? ) I get her old camera and will use that for pics. ('Bout time, Bon!!!! ) So pics are coming once she teaches me how to get them from the camera to the computer.

In the meantime, I'm off. Have a sparkling day!!!

It's a New Year...

...and this is my first post? Oops. I guess I've been busy. I have gotten back to spinning on a more regular basis. I took some gorgeous merino top fiber I'd gotten from Lisa Souza in her Wild Things color and spun that into a beautiful skein. Now I have to set the twist. This will be my first time setting the twist so I hope I don't screw it up.

I joined a spinner's list, hoping to pick up some hints and tips (which I did save on how one woman "washes and whacks" her yarn to set the twist ), but right now the ladies are talking about how to knit two socks on one vs. two circular needles... Yikes!

Me? I like my dpns. I knit both socks at the same time (knit a cuff, knit the other cuff, turn the heel, turn the other heel, work the gusset, work the other, etc.) I can carry one sock with me or I can carry both.

Course, after two years of almost exclusively knitting socks, I'm making myself a pair of mittens. They were on my wish list for Christmas and the only thing I didn't get, so I'll make them myself. It's going to be a slow process but they'll be gorgeous. Lisa Souza's Sock Merino in Mars Quake on a size 0 needle. Yup, it'll take a while, but these babies are going to be gorgeous.

I did finish the pair of socks in Gypsy Girl's Tainted Love. Mom had gotten the yarn and kept trying to adjust the pattern so the color variation would work, but she just wasn't happy with how they were turning out. After frogging the socks three times, she gave the yarn to me.

Oh, I'll finally have pics. Youngest daughter got a new camera for Christmas, so I'm going to confiscate her old camera and she is REQUIRED today to show me how to go from taking a pic to loading it here on my site.

I got all the pics out to the family. Had some really great pics of my Dad, so I sent copies to my brother, my aunt, my uncle and my dad's cousin. Also have one pic of Dad with his Mom and one of his Dad (both of them had died before I was a gleam in Dad's eye, so these pics are the closest thing to having grandparents for me). Anyway, I did get all those in the mail as I had promised, so I'm happy about that.

The business is growing. There's some "fallout" with the new year. People who lost faith (or never had it to begin with) with how the business can grow, so they didn't renew their franchise fee. Their loss because this year is going to be a great year. My goal is to be Platinum by the end of the year, which means a lot of work on my part but I'm prepared, and all the bonuses that come with that. If I can reach that goal, I can quit my day job and concentrate 100% on the business. Imagine having the ability to quit your day job in a year and a half of time investment? If your boss told you that you could retire in two years if you gave him a few hours of overtime every week, wouldn't you give him the overtime? Well, that's the promise and I'm holding to that promise.

Lastly, in a huge fight with oldest daughter. I've forbidden her to have any contact with her now _ex_-boyfriend and she hates me. Oh well, I have big shoulders for my size. I won't tolerate a relationship I know is destructive and denigrating.

HAve to come back later with some pictures. I keep promising and never delivering. It's about time I delivered.