Updates

Someone's actually updating her blog two days in a row. It's a freakin' miracle.

Just finished emailing Tia about our beta-reading arrangements--she finished Starcaster, and I'll be finishing my current masterpiece (she said with a hint of sarcasm)* within a month. I love how we're practically on the same schedule! I also heart my beta readers, especially Tia, who's always so insightful and eager to help. Thank God for the Internet--without it, we'd never have met!

So, here's where I'm at after this long-but-it-felt-short, crazy-and-it-felt-crazy summer...

• I'm working part time now, as I said yesterday. Sort of. They keep pulling me in on my days off, but I don't mind so much. I like my job, I like the guys I work with (yes, it's all guys--practically the story of my life), and I like my projects. Tech writing is never the most fulfilling occupation,** but the guys make it fun.
  
  
• I finally settled on a book idea for the long haul. I'm about 45k words in, with probably 15-20k more to go. I hope to have it finished by November 1, so I can participate in NaNo with one of the other ideas I came up with in that frenzy of creativity last winter. After that, I have yet another idea lined up, in addition to all the editing and submitting of the other two. I know how to keep busy, that's for sure. Or make myself crazy. One of the two.
  
  
• And another reason to finish my current project soon...I've decided to submit it to the Golden Hearts. I think it fits the description, although I'm torn between paranormal romance and YA romance. I'll probably go with paranormal, though. Fingers crossed, everybody! I'd be happy just to make it into the top 100--the GHs are so big and well known in the industry, that's a major accomplishment in itself...and certainly a nice addition to my query letter.
  
  
• Whenever I actually have time, I'll load up some of the pictures from this crazy, crazy summer. It's been quite a time, between visitors and festivals and parties. I think we overcompensated for last summer's loneliness and boredom this year. I don't think we were bored or lonely once. And I'm not complaining!

That's about it. Boy, it doesn't seem like so much when it's displayed in such an organized fashion...but trust me. It's been...a lot. And here's to more!



*I had a professor in college who frequently added parenthetical dialog tags to his own speech, just like that. After I graduated, that little quirk, oddly enough, was one of the things I missed the most!

**You can always tell I'm back at the tech writing by all the bulletted lists in my blog posts.

Anniversary

No, not my wedding anniversary. Not the anniversary of anything writing-related. Not even the anniversary of when we got Shakespeare the Bitey Cat.

No, tomorrow is what I call the Dispatchiversary. Four years ago tomorrow, I traveled to Boston with my brother and about 15 of his closest friends to see our favorite band, Dispatch, play their very last (at the time) show. It was a crazy, crazy weekend, with no less than three near death experiences, some exhaustion-related hallucinations, balloon animals, a water bottle war, and a lovely, 2 a.m. visit to the Mass. General Psych Ward.

Yes. It was crazy in more ways than one.

And one of these days I'll get around to telling the story in some permanent form, like I've been meaning to do for years. Not today, though, and most likely not tomorrow. Busy, busy, busy!

So instead, here is a video from the aforementioned bottle war, during a gorgeous song called "Past the Falls". Being in the middle of that was a fairly insane, wondrous experience--and sometimes a bit scary, too. At about 1:06, the craziness begins. Enjoy!