Repost of My Funniest Posts 2

When it's NOT ok to use your cell phone: 

Posted originally on January 29 2009

I get it. I really do. We live in a society where we HAVE to be in CONSTANT communication with everyone.

However I think we've crossed a line.

Today I was going to use the public restroom. I walk in an mentally groan because someone else was in the other stall. I HATE having to go to the bathroom when someone else is there. In fact in my own house I will walk upstairs to pee if my family is downstairs.

So I go into the stall and start to, you know, do my thing. When I hear the woman next to me say "Oh great" followed by universal sound of urination.

So I assumed that whoever is next to me needed some encouragement to pee.

Then I hear her talking about moving money around and the hushed sound of another voice.

SHE WAS ON THE PHONE.

WHILE I WAS PEEING!

I don't like it when my husband hears me pee, now a stranger on the phone can hear me!

Then it dawns on me that whoever is next to me is talking on the phone while SHE'S PEEING.
So clearly she doesn't have my issues but still...

Now here's my other problem. I'm done. I finish up... now do I flush or wait her out?

Screw it--- I flush, I don't have my time where I can pee, and I've got stuff to do.

Then she flushes too.

I wash my hands.

Turn around and SHE GIVE ME A DIRTY LOOK.

Like I was the one who exposed the fact that SHE was peeing and talking on the phone by my flush.

People there is a line that should NEVER be crossed.

Today that line was crossed and I don't know how or if we can ever go back.

You may file that under TMI.

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Time for  the second installment of guess the craft:

Nanowrimo- GOOD LUCK Week 2

Ok Have you lost any steam?  Did real life filter in to your creative zone?  Did you have great plans to sit down and 10k this weekend vanish the instant  your best friend called you with a much cooler option then sitting alone in a quite room playing with imaginary friends?
It's ok if you didn't hit your writing goal this weekend, you still have PLENTY of time to write.  At this point in the game you can still afford to be social.

Go check out your local chapter of Nanowrimo and see if there's a Write In going on.

Writing doesn't have to be a lonely adventure.  Nope you can be sort of social while still getting your work done.  YAY.

You may be that lonely antisocial person talking to themselves, but if you do it at a Panera with other writers, you don't look nearly as creepy.

Also you can have fun little writing games,  how many words can you write in 10 minute blocks?  Compete against other writers.  The winner gets the prize of know you're better than everyone else.   Isn't arrogance the best prize of all? 

The following people are doing Nanowrimo, and you can read about it  here:
Go MO!   Click for her blog here 
Alicia doing it too.


By the way this week is featured theme is guess the art project.  My daughter (2) and myself (31)  did an art project, all week I'll be posting pictures of it.  Try to guess what it is. 

Fun Friday

Last weekend it was the Rally to Restore Sanity.  It was the first rally I ever WISHED I had been at.  Now that I saw all the signs,  I'm really bummed I wasn't there.
You can see LOTS more here:

Here are some of my favorites:

You know what the very BEST part about being American is, we have a sense of humor.  It's our 6th sense, since most of us can't tell the future... yet.  Get on that science.  And I'm still waiting for my Puppy Sized Elephant. 
Happy Friday everyone

Rewrite Update

So I had Tuesday off for Election Day.  Thank you home town for using the elementary schools as polling places.

Draft 13
328 pages 73K words
My plan was to start rewriting and working on draft 14

I have outlined what I need to do and cut a whole bunch.

I have two new idea's--- I sort of love them, but I'm not sure if they are going to make it into the latest draft.

I started at 268 pages and 64K words.

After writing my new word count is: 

280 pages and 68K --- . 

4k is a respectable amount.

I rewrote the first 30 pages and have really ampped up the characters.  At this moment I'm pretty pleased with it.  But we'll see how the week goes.  I wrote for a good 4 hours.

My goal is finish the rewrites by December.

Road Trip Wednesday- If I ruled the world.

If you were made supreme ruler of the publishing world, what would be your first ruling?

hmmm, supreme power, huh?  Yeah I don't handle that well.  

 First order of business-  get rid of stupid girls as your protags.  Characters who have no inkling about the sort of danger they are in or even value their own lives enough to aviod the situation.   Bella and main character from Hush Hush, (she was so forgettable and unlikeable I can't even remember her name). 


Second order of business- NO MORE TEACHERS BEING THE PORTRAYED AS THE BAD GUYS. 


I posted about this a while ago and it's one of my biggest pet peeve.  Teachers, principals, guidance councilers, we're all there to help students not to make them feel bad.  It's LAZY writing on the part of the writer if the best anotagist they can come up with is a mean teacher.  


I'm not saying that there aren't bad teachers but for every one bad teacher you had, you had seven good ones.  


Third order of business:
Writers CAN NOT submit their sh*tty first drafts for publications.   All the crazy queries written in crayon, and or in the POV of the main character or whatever, it makes the people who work EXTREMELY hard look bad.  So do the blogs that make fun of them.

Forth order of business:
EVERY AGENT and EVERY Literary agancey MUST HAVE A WEBSITE--- the internet is NOT going anywhere people, time to jump on that bandwagon.

Fifth order of business:
NO ONE is allowed to query more than 30 agents for a single project.  Let's stop flooding their inboxes with crappy queries.  Let's not give them a reason to make fun of us.

Sixth order of business:
Let's have a bigger variety on the book shelves.  Borders should not have three shelves FULL of Paranormal romance.  More male protags, more original plots,  let's take some risks out there. 

Seventh order of business:
Let's not forget to be awesome.  Remember Do the Write thing for Nashville?  The writing community raised nearly $50k in 10 days.  Awesome.  Remember Writeoncon?  A totally FREE online writers conference?  Awesome.  Let's do more. 

It's time to get off my power trip, I tend to lose my luggage every time I travel.

Repost of My Funniest Posts

I decided to repost some of my personally favorite blogs of the past year.  Yep, I'm that lazy for this month. 
This one was written on 11-12-09 

Resume's and Big Breaks 

Ok I get it, you're a struggling actor, you've been on a thousand auditions, you live in LA and you're constantly on the search for your "big break". So you see an ad, or your agent sends you out on a audition for a musical. That's great. You can sing. You can dance, all be it, neither can you do very well. But that won't matter.

Congrats! You get the gig. YAY you. Here's the catch, it's on Nick Jr. The name of the show is call The Fresh Beat Band. It's about 4 people in a band and they sing to small children.

Click on the link to see a clip

Ok. So you're not one of the leads. Nope, you're a background dancer, more then an extra, but not quite worthy of being in the credits.

So here is my question to you, do you write this on your resume? Do you tell your friends? Yes, it's a paying gig. And it's not as shameful as doing porn. But is this the moment when you give up on your dreams of winning an Oscar? Do you ponder if your life took a wrong turn somewhere? Or are you grateful for the chance to do what you love and get a paycheck for it?

We've all had crap jobs, jobs that make you question everything you thought you knew about the world.

I spent two years working in a comic book store, where I met a Zombie, someone I think might have been Kevin Smith and an assassin. And that wasn't even the worst job I've ever had.

The worst was what I called "death camp". I was the camp director for 3-5 years old. I taught them about nature and took them on hikes during the highest summer on record. It sucked ass. That's one of many reasons why I waited until I was in my late twenties to have a kid. That job scared me sterile.

So my friends, tell me, what was your worst job? How much of your dignity did you sacrifice for a dollar?

Nanowrimo- GOOD LUCK

For the month of November Monday's will be CHEER ON NANOWRIMOS

My life isn't really Nanowrimo  friendly.  For me, November means, end of the first marking period, grading hell, parent teacher conferences, Thanksgiving, and the fight with my husband about how I will NOT wake up at 4 am to go shopping on Black Friday. 

No, for me it's National Rewrite A Book for an Agent who May Be Interested In It.

So yeah.  My goal is to get the rewrites done in November. 

But for most of the rest of the writing community they are starting a first draft of novel. 

To all my nanowrimo friends:

Week 1-  you're excited, you've got an idea, you know your characters, you might know what your plot is going to be.  You've opened that blank Word document and it's filled with untapped potentional. 
Could this be your single greatest work of all time?  Maybe.   Will it need a year of rewrites? Most likely.   Should you query it on December 1?  HELL NO. 

But that's too far away in the future.  Right now you've got writing to do.  Those 50K won't write themselves. 
I"m sure it's going to be a very very very very very very very very very smooth and seamless process.  See what I did to up my word count.  I'm a genius.