Weekend to-do

Things to try to squeeze into the next 3 days (including today)
1 - write the last 4 scenes for Secrets of Desire. That should get me at 25,000 words (I've been hovering at 18,000 for the last week as I chop and add - err, edit - the original). I want it done by May 1 so I can work on something for the Dorchester American Title III contest. Deadline is June 1 - not sure I'll have it done by then, but I'm going to try.

2 - Yard work, and more yard work. 'nuff said

3 - Chat online tonight at Romance Divas, with Beth Orsoff. If you've ever wondered about books to movie rights, pop in and see what she can teach you.

4 - Sleep. Samantha has skipped nap, swam herself to a 6:30 exhaustion passout, then been up at 4am the last 3 mornings. I can't keep up with her much longer....

Calgon! Take me away!

Tagged I am

Elisa is spreading the love (hey, not that kind of love!) with the tags today. So, here we go... 6 things about me.

1 - I love chocolate. The taste, the smell, the feel of it sliding down my throat. I didn't like chocolate all that much until about 6 months through my first pregnancy, and then wham! those hormones kicked in and they never really stopped. Hormones 1, Karen 0.

2 - I like rain. I also like snow, and clouds, and thunderstorms, and even the occasional severe weather warning gets me all excited. Not quite as much as chocolate though. Sunny days get old after about 30 minutes, but give me some good meteorological disturbance and I'm a happy camper. (Not literally; if I ever camp I do want sunny weather. So that was a terrible metaphor.)

3 - I don't like judgemental people. Which is rather judgemental of me.

4 - I had to get a brake job today, and it cost more than the new lawn mower and the hot tub repairs combined. So the new lawn mower and the hot tub repairs are being put off til May.

5 - I'll read anything from cereal boxes to war and peace. But if you come to my house and see a book in the bathroom, and a week later that same book is in the bathroom, it's probably not a book I'm liking very much. It's a desperation book. "Hey, there is absolutely nothing else to read - I'll carry this in here with me, but not bother to carry it out with me when I leave." If you come to my house and find YOUR book in my bathroom, don't pout to much - I do eventually finish the books in there. It just takes a while.

6 - I'm not so big on talking about me, so #5 was probably in the category of TMI (To Much Information). Aren't you glad I'm done?

So I'm torturing tagging Deborah, Annalee, Laine, Shawn, Zinnia, Lauren, and Carla. Last 6 posters here. (See, you DO get noticed when you comment!)

What does this picture say to you?

View from my window 1
Originally uploaded by ksteele2.

1 - Someone really needs to clean her windows.

2 - Why are you inside doing dishes on a beautiful day like that?

3 - are those two lizards on the inside of the screen or the outside?

They were on the inside. We seem to be having a lizard population explosion this spring. My non-scientific theory is that the warm winter (we never got a freeze at the beach), and early spring (hello - 90 in early April?) has the lizards reproduction in hyperdrive. The babies, which are usually only an inch long this time of year, are already 2 inches and some of them longer.

It's not unusaual to have lizards on the outside my kitchen screen - that wall gets the afternoon sun, so there are sometimes a dozen or more running around on it. But usually only one or two a season find their way through the tiny gap at the top to the inside.

Guess that picture is saying something else to me...

4 - It's time to get a new kitchen screen.

Friday's are for relaxing

Feel like I was more productive today than I've been in weeks. Probably has something to do with seeing Samantha laughing and splashing in the pool (brrr... water is still only 73 degrees... not warm enough for me!). Or with the yard and patio being watered, blown free of leaves, and looking GOOD for the first time since last fall (only took 2 hours and a trip to Wally's for a leaf blower and 2 dozen bags). Or with the kids being mostly happy - thank you Papa John's. Or with the two rum and oj's I drank with / after the pizza.

Probably it mostly has to do with the rum and oj's. But I'm ok with that.

Sean's out of town for golf tournaments, so my weekend will be more yard work, paperwork, and probably a few hours driving Montgomery way across town to work on a school project he sprung on me at 3 this afternoon. He goes to a great school, but the kids are pulled from all over a city that is 840 square miles. We live on the east edge of that, the other two kids are on the west edge of that. Makes for some long commutes when they have to get together.

We're getting the hot tub fixed (it needs a new pump) in early May. Sitting here looking at it now, wishing it was working... Think it will be a bubble bath night after Samantha is in bed.

So that's my relaxing Friday. Hope yours was too!

Happy Wednesday

Just popped over to the Writer Babes blog, and found out I am a random winner of a book download, Enforcer by Lauren Dane. Lauren did a chat with us at Romance Divas a few weeks ago, so I'm looking forward to this one - I love reading books by authors I've met, either in person or online.

Thanks Lauren! Can't wait to read it.

When Dell met Alienware

Yumm.

Link.

"Dell tips its hat toward its new acquisition, Alienware, as it releases its XPS M1710 Gaming Laptop. Available in Formula Red or Metallic Black, it's packed with an Intel Core Duo processor, NVIDIA GeForce Go 7900 GTX 512MB graphics, 4GB of RAM, SerialATA hard disk and a 17-inch 1600x1200 display.
Doesn't look too bad, either. Heck, it even has a backlit touchpad. Nice. Pricing starts at $2600, $3400 loaded.[Dell]"

Billy Crystal (Harry):There are two kinds of women: high maintenance and low maintenance.

Meg Ryan (Sally): Which one am I?

Billy Crystal (Harry): You're the worst kind. You're high maintenance but you think you're low maintenance.

Whenever I start to drool over something like this, I realize I'm high-maintenance wannabe. I don't expect to ever have that particular laptop sitting on my ... well, my lap. But damnnnn. It sure would be nice!

So how about you? Low maintenance, hight maintenance, or just a wannabe?

Easter Happiness

Happy Easter to you!


















I had my easter goodie waiting for me when I woke up this morning. An email, from the Stroke of Midnight contest, notifying me that I am a finalist in the paranormal / FSFF (that's futuristic/sci-fi/fantasy ) division. Yay!! Winners to be announced in Atlanta this July.

This is the werewolf story that I had let gather dust since entering it. Lucky they only need a hard copy of the entry itself, not the entire ms, by Monday!

Hope your Easter contains lots of love, laughter, and at least one moment to remember with happiness the rest of your life.

The view from Buckets

The view from Buckets
Originally uploaded by ksteele2.

Days like today are why we live near the beach, even though neither hubby or I are beachy people. Give me a clear pool over murky water and jellyfish anyday.

Buckets just reopened after closing for three months to remodel, so this was my first time back. We got there just before noon and were one of only a dozen tables, but by the time we left the crowd was starting to line up at the door.

It was just under 80 when we got there, and Buckets had all their walls open. (It's a newish decorating style here for restaurants - they put garage doors where the walls would be, and roll them up on pretty days - which is most of the year from March to October. Makes pretty much an open air restaurant.)

The fence keeps people from walking straight in to the restaurant off the boardwalk, but there was a steady flow of bikini clad babes and droopy trunked boys (most of the "babes" and "boys" were in their teens) flaunting their already sunkissed flesh. With the schools closed for Good Friday, it seems most of the city hit the beach today. Just over the sand dune, lies the sand and surf.

The food was good, not great. Very average food actually - wings, burgers, salads. Shrimp, oysters, and crawfish. Full bar if you want a drink. What we got all came out well prepared, if unimaginative. To give them credit, for a beach front restaurant where you're paying less than $10 a person, well cooked in a great atmosphere is about the best you can ask for. And they do that very well.

I miss First Street Grill (our old 'sunny days are here' lunch break). It's sad to see the condos going up where there used to be the best restaurant at the beach - great views, AND great food. But Buckets does have one thing First Street didn't - boardwalk views. The boardwalk offers a chance to see all of mankind, and all of his beauty - and warts - without leaving the comfort of your dining seat.

But to the man who walked by picking his oversized nose, and to the woman who walked by right behind him in her undersized shirt (complete with black bra hanging out the sides) - I'd really prefer to see less of your warts, so up close and personal to my lunch.

Looking at the squishy thing.

Looking at the squishy thing.
Originally uploaded by ksteele2.

Almost Easter

It's almost Easter - just a few days away. I spent the morning trying to decide what the kiddies were going to find in their baskets this morning. What happened to the days when you threw in some jelly beans and a chocolate bunny, a few peeps, some malted eggs, a Reeses peanut butter egg or three, and called it a day?

Oh no. Not anymore. Now, even Easter has to be healthy. But not too healthy. Because lets face it, an easter basket with no candy at all isn't much of a basket when you're 11. Or 3.

It took me almost an hour, but I finally found just the right balance of candy treats and non-candy treats to say "Happy Easter". And hopefully, it also says "I love you so much I wanted you to have a few sweet treats because I know you love them, but don't smuggle them into your bedroom when I'm not looking and eat them all after bedtime." And definately, I hope it says "brush your teeth after you eat them". A movie each, sunglasses, Barbie hair sets and Yu-Gi-Oh cards for the appropriate munchkin. One small chocolate bunny each, one Reeses egg each, and one handful of loose candy each.

We'll color eggs on Saturday (which the Easter Bunny will ignore in favor of hiding penny stuffed plastic ones, since he evidently comes so early in the night he worries that the eggs would go bad). And we'll have dinner at the in-laws Sunday night, not without the usual serving of family strife and drama (this year, it was my husbands lack of intrest in family dinners that instigated the angst - go figure!). And on Monday we all get a day to recover - no school for the kids, and I've cleared my calendar of work as well. Happy Easter to us!

So what kind of goodies will be in your baskets this year?

Fan Faire Atlanta pictures

Fan Faire Atlanta pictures
or, Geeks at play.

I was, for several years, a pretty 'serious' gamer. I don't think I watched tv at all from 2001-2004 (Buffy excepted), unless it was during dinner or while I was working / gaming. Good times, good times... but eventually, staying up til 2am to kill another dragon got to me. Because you know, that dragon was just going to pop up alive again the next day. Or five days later, depending on his spawn cycle. Anywho.

I don't game much at all anymore (and yes, the verb is game, not play - gamers don't really take themselves casually enough to describe what they do as play). EQ, EQ2, and several other games are still installed on my pc, but I haven't logged on in months. I found out a funny thing about myself - I'm much too competitive to "play". If I can't be the best, I really don't want to be in that other world. Logging in for 30 minutes between finishing work and picking up the kids wasn't making me happy at all.

I still have some great friends that I met through gaming though. Some of them were/are guild mates. (For the non gamers, a 'guild' is an online family. And you wouldn't believe how closely you feel, how well you know someone you've spent 14 hours clearing VT with until you've done it yourself. Shard farming, anyone?) Some of them are people I met while I ran a fan site myself. But the really cool thing that hit me while I looked over these pictures was how the parts of my life have overlapped.

This is the same hotel that RWA is holding their conference at this summer. So while I skipped Fan Faire, I'm eagerly looking forward to spending 5 days in July listening to workshops in these same rooms, and drinking a few refreshments in these same bars. If only they'd have that same game room set up, I'd be in heaven...

Thanks for the pictures Merry. Hope my conference is as fun as your faire!
Karen
member of Relic, guild of Unrest

Summer registration

Went to register Samantha for the summer session at preschool today. Had the shocking news that they only have space on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Rah-roh.

So there will likely be much more mommy time this summer than I had originally planned on. Since every sentance out of her mouth these days starts with the two words "Mommy, why..." this could be a painful period of adjustment for the two of us. For me, while I learn to take a deep breath before explaining why we have to drive on the roads instead of on the sidewalks. Again. For her, to understand that mommy loves you even if she sometimes doesn't want to answer 1,512 questions before breakfast.

National Tartan Day! and Conversatons about God

It's Natioanl Tartan Day!
I'm not sure why this makes me so happy. I don't claim a family tartan; my only experiences with wearing tartan involved generally icky school uniforms.

Of course pictures like this may have something to do with it...




Conversations with a 3 year old.
I'm driving home from grocery shopping with Samantha today, and she's humming some little happy happy song in the backseat. Not really paying attention to what it is, but I'm happy because she's happy, and then out of no-where-land comes the question "God makes the flowers grow, right Mommy?"

Being happily non-commital on others views of religion (as long as these hypothetical other people aren't imposing their unwelcome views on others), I was temporarily stumped on how to handle this query. In the knick of time came an NPR news brief on happenings in Washington today, inspiring me to do as the politicians do - don't answer the question, redirect! "Did Mrs. L teach you that?" (Mrs. L is her very sweet, likely Methodist pre-school teacher. Lovely woman.)

Sending my child to a Methodist preschool, I probably should have been ready for questions like this, but my son escaped his 3 years of Methodist preschool blissfully uninspired to question me.

"Yes. And she said God makes the rain fall. Does God make the rainfall Mommy?"

Oh boy. Now, this same teacher has given lovely lessons this year on planting seeds, zoology, insects, and rainbows. All of these lessons involved actual science, at an appropriate preschool level. So how do I tell her that no, it's not so much God making the flowers grow and the rain fall as it is the forces of nature at work?

"Did Mrs. L teach you that too?"

"No. That was Miss B." She hums a few bars of the same song as before. "But I can't remember the other two parts. Only the flowers and the rain."

Suddenly it clicks for me. "Samantha, is there a song about God making the flowers grow and the rain fall?"

"Yes Mommy. What's the rest of it?"

Whew. Theological crisis averted. It's all just a song. A song that makes me cringe with it's less than correct message, but as long as it's just a song I can live with it.

But next time my baby asks me if God made the flowers, I'm going to have to have a better answer ready. Hope she gives me a year or two to think about it. Three would be better... I could tell her to "google it".

30 boxes

Someone sent me a link to a nice web based calendar. I played around a few minutes today, and it has some possibilities.

30 boxes

I don't like that it won't give me a mini-calendar badge to put in a web template, which would then show a month-at-a-glance. It will generate a month list, but ... it doesn't LOOK like a calendar.

It would work great for people who need to share a calendar and want to be able to see who's doing what/when. I can't get Sean to even make a schedule; the chances of him making one, writing the information down, and then actually keeping with it are ... Nil.

My search for the perfect online calendar continues...

Monday morning notes, delayed til Monday afternoon

It's National Library Week (April 2-8) - take the time to love a book.

My busy weekend - writers conference, getting Sean packed and organized for both a tournament and an overnight trip last night - had me sleep deprived. I crawled back in bed this morning. Good timing I found out, since it's also National Nap Day. Yay for naps, and sisters who recomend them.

Eighty two degrees here in April feels so good. Another few weeks and we'll be in the 90's, and I'll be ready for fall... If only we could skip the broiling months of summer. And the hurricane season.

After a year with ESPN, Sean and Chris ended their contract and have moved to 1010 here locally. They're excited about the move for several reasons - come fall, 1010 is putting up a much larger tower, and the signal strength will be literally 25 times what it was at ESPN. So their show will be heard in a much larger market. They're also looking forward to bigger support from the station for big events - with ESPN, they were forced to do their own work 100 percent on getting credintials, and had no station support. To many bigger fish in the pond. The show will still be Monday's, moving up one hour (6-8pm instead of 7-9). You can listen online at their website. This happened pretty quick, so the station site isn't set up with any promo's yet, but we're hoping to get that going over the next week weeks.

FCRW Conference

Back from my first writers conference... here are the details. Warning - long post ahead!

Friday night was an introduction dinner, followed by a panel and Q&A with the 2 editors and 2 agents who would be with us for the weekend. There were between 50 and 60 people there for the dinner, and it was a great time to say hi and meet the people around you. I had the good fortune to blindly sit next to Carla Swafford, president of the Southern Magic (Birmingham) chapeter of RWA. Wonderful person, and we talked a bit about the Birmingham area and what we write. She was a finalist in the Beacon (the writing contest that goes along with this conference) - good luck Carla! Also at my table was a woman named Catherine, who had just found out about the conference through Sisters in Crime - I've never checked their website out, but she was quietly intrested in everything going on.

Met a woman named Ellen who lives only a few miles away from me, and we chatted about local coffee shops, shopping, and living at the beach. One published local author, and her agent (Caryn Johnson, who was one of our weekend agent guests) also sat with us. Another member of the local chapter, then Mardis, agent from NCP, filled out our table.

Short Q&A pannel after dinner with Madris (New Concepts), Caryn (Firebrand), Vivian Beck (Vivian Beck Agency), and Melissa Jeglinski of Silhouette. Melissa was very warm and down to earth - somehow I had pictured her as this powerhouse take charge woman, and although she definately had an air of self confidence, she was also the most approachable of the four. If I were to pick one to sit down with at a bar, not knowing who they were, she would be it. Caryn was very funny. Sharp, witty, a bit of New York in her speech patterns - quick and to the point. Vivian was more slow and thoughtful in her resonses, but came accross pretty much exactly as in her chat here last week. "Write a good story that wows the readers, and you'll find an agent / editor". She's from the south and has a slow, thoughtful way of speaking. And Madris was also very southern... detailed, open, and thorough in her responses.

Joan Johnson is the Keynote speaker, and she said hi briefly. The comment of the night that stuck in my head was when Melissa was talking about how profitable it can be writing for Silhouette. (The conversation was about authors making the break from category to mainstream fiction.) Joan (commenting from the audience) said "I haven't written a book for Silhouette in 10 years, and I made still $150,000 from them last year." That will perk your ears right up...

Saturday morning started off with a worksop by Joan Johnston on "Writing the Unputdownable Novel" at 9. Great tips and information. There were only about two dozen people there for it - quite a few of the people who stayed at the Marriott for the night had made very good use of the networking time, and had ... ahem... fun after the workshop ended Friday night. Those of us that made it to the workshop had a great hour!

At 10, there were two different workshops available, so we had to choose. I picked a POV workshop being given by Tracy Montoya, and brushed up my skills. She was very sweet in person - gave a great workshop in spite of having been given "the plague" by her husband. She sat down next to me for the following workshop, and I had a chance to once again rub elbows with the published.

I picked an editing workshop at 11, which ended up being almost directly quoted from a book I've already read. I hit the coffee table a few times during this one.

Lunch was actually really good! Buffet style, and the food much better than the night before. Carla, Catherine, Anita, Ellen and I shared a table again - this time Vivian Beck (the other guest agent of the weekend) and Melissa (from Silhouette) joined us. We had quite a long table talk about the south, since there were so many true southerners there (Georgia / Alabama / South Carolina) - and that somehow evolved into a discussion of sheep farming ... and all I've got to say is, if you ever raise sheep, you should evidently dock their tails. That's all I've got to say about that.

There was a book sale the hour after lunch, and a book signing as well, but I took the time to go to a quiet corner with my cup of coffee and prepare my pitch. I was starting out the afternoon with a pitch to Madris of New Concepts Publishing. Either I was over prepped or she was trying to hurry things along; when I finished in two minutes she didn't have any questions at all, but asked to see the full manuscript. Yay!

Since the pitch went so smoothly and quickly, I was able to make it to a 2:30 workshop. This was the only one of the day where I really wanted to go to both workshops, so had to make a decision. I think I choose wisely - the plotting workshop talked about several things I've had problems with (that "sagging middle", the middle part of a book, especially), and I think I got a lot out of it.

And then the last workshop I went to was a panel on Sexual Tension. Four very different authors (Christian / Inspirational, Suspense / YA, Historical, Erotic Romance) gave us a update on how sexual tension is handled in the different genres. And yes, there needs to be sexual tension, not just sex, in erotic romance! Great talk, and we were able to ask questions at the end, so pretty much anything we wanted was there for us.

That was the end of the workshops, and my first conference was wrapping up. Except... raffles! There were a ton of gorgous baskets donated by authors and agents, and a whole table with critique offers by authors / agents / editors as well. I had gone light with the raffles, only buying 5 tickets at first - then two more right before the end, when I saw two more critiques that I wanted a chance at. And I ended up with 2 out of 7 winning! I can't say for sure if it was the last two tickets I bought or not, but anyway... I won twice!

Marianne LaCroix will be critiquing my first 25 pages. And Jaci Burton will be critiquing my synopsis and first 3 chapters! I met Marianne at the conference - she's a wonderful person, and I can't wait for her to read something I'm targeting to Ellora's Cave, since she writes for them. Jaci I haven't met in person, only online - she was a guest at a chat a few weeks ago, and I had several emails with her while setting that up. Another great author I'm happy to have read my work soon.

So that is the bare bones of the conference. I loved meeting some fellow writers, both pub and pre-pubbed. Hearing about some of the other's struggles made me feel a lot better about my own. Hearing about their sucesses inspired me - I've got so much I want to get done this year, and feel all worked up and ready to tackle it.

I'm more excited than ever about Atlanta, and made plans with a few people I met to hook up and compare notes on what we get done between now and then. And my biggest goal, reinforced from the weekend, is to have something ready to pitch at Nationals to Silhouette.

So that's what happened at my first writers conference! How was your weekend?