Jeez, it is Friday again.

Remember yesterday ,about selling my antique bed. The lady backed out, she was supposed to pick it up today. Better she back out then give me a bum check. I'm still going to have money to go to the dentist, my sister is sending me some of my inheritance money. For now I still resemble the Beverly Hill Billies, and I'm glad I did not go to the dentist first...but the money should be here maybe Monday or Tuesday..and then I will call the dentist. The bed still needs to be sold. So, the antique dealer will probably look at it over the weekend or early next week. The monster bed will cost between six and seven hundred dollars to ship between where it is in Cali and here in Vegas. It is worth in the area of 1500 or more bux. The closest I can date it is between 1870 and 1900. Any bidders?
Yesterday, was a fun writing day, I wrote five pages just like they were flowing through my fingers. Good funny stuff, I laughed out loud. Kind of a section where the character says, "There take that!!" So by the time I wrote myself out I had about 10 pages finished. The story is around 150-175 pages now. Overall I think it is good, a little more humor in it than the first one with the Rocky persona.
I could not get the damn pictures to load on the blog. All was not lost, I finally got the photos to email feature to work. I spent many too many hours yesterday trying to do the impossible dream with Mr. Clunker Computer.
Happy Friday, write lots, and just try smiling with your mouth closed.

This and That/Soaping and Antiques

I promised when I started blogging there would not be pictures on my Blog. The big reason is that my Digital Camera did not appear after the move to Las Vegas. The small reason is that the blog is about writing an adventure story. What shall I photograph today, my hands typing or me looking for inspiration on the ceiling?
Today, I am going to attempt to post some pictures of my soapmaking. Good thing I'm a better soapstress than a blog photo tech. I'm willing to try anyway.
I need to make a batch of peppermint soap, I am down to almost no peppermint soap. I make two peppermint soaps, the one I want to make is the Creamy Honey Mint. A mixture of three mint essential oils,honey and yogurt. If I have whipping cream in the freezer I'll use that instead of yogurt. Lovely soap,refreshing with the mints,smells so good and clean. The moisturizing of the honey and cream does not leave the skin gooey like slathering on the moisturizer or body lotion after the bath.

I sold my antique bed. My older than the prairie, been in the family for a lots of years bed. Cast iron, weighed a ton,the conciever of children,comforter of mothers,well earned rest stop for husbands,refuge for reading under the covers kind of kids old bed. Why did I sell that bed? I broke my @#$%^ eyetooth off at almost the gum line, and the bed will pay for the dentist. Am I angry? #$%^& do bears sleep in the forest? Wouldn't it have been nice to sell my old bed and take a cruise or better yet buy the new computer I really need.Did I mention that I was angry?

I have procrastinated long enough, the coffee is almost ready and I can not think of another excuse to wiggle out of posting pictures. Please do not hold your breath.I will not take responsibility for any holding breath deaths.
Have a wonderful day. Write lots.

I'm from Grizzly Country

The weather is turning nice again, and I decided that I had no excuse for not getting back into the walking routine. I hitched a ride over to the neaest big casino, early, and planned to play video poker for awhile, have coffee and walk back.
I have a favorite machine to play, actually I have several, but I like this machine the best, though the love for the most part is not returned. When this machine pays, it pays. But getting it to that point is a pain in the butt and expensive pain. Like a colonoscopy. So I settle in with my coffee and drop in my limit. You have all ready finished the sentence. Yes, she just wanted to play nice yesterday morning. Every three of a kind, she seems to follow with a full house, and then ditto, ditto. Every time the score was racked up, the machine would let out this little growl,snarl,hum noise.Finally, after being growled at for about fifteen minutes, and also not being intimadated by most machines, I let it know that I felt it was being quite rude. This machines are supposed to flash lights, make music, jangle bells when they payoff, not this growly thingee ma doosy. Next time it did that, on three of a kind, I bent down and whispered into the area that was grumpily humming. I whispered, "I'm from Grizzly country, missy, you don't scare me. The next hand I got four kings,paid 150.00 and the machine did not growl at me.
I walked home with 200.00 bucks, breakfast,two coffees, and a diet Pepsi. The machine was still growling when I left. I was not pressing my luck.
So this morning I am back to writing. I have not written since last Friday morning, I have pooped around with some maintenance and editing but nothing new on the board.

Pulled Up Them Socks

That is what I did yesterday, I pulled up my socks, rearranged my flip flops and told self, that any more Drek outta my fingers was not getting the bacon earned. I mean I chewed a new path through ego, work ethic,talent and any other thing I could chew on. The result almost 5000 decent storytelling, plot advancing,edited,spellchecked and revised words. I know that is not a lot of word production. Hah, that was three quarters of what I had produced the five days before. To speak nothing of the words being usable. I guess I'm back in the writing flip-flops and as soon as I finish my salad snack I'm back working on this new technique that I learned. I was reading a famous mystery novelist latest book for the second time, I really like the way she writes, when out of the blue I saw the composition of her book, how she wove that character around. Wow, I went to Faye Kellerman, Jonathan Kellerman and Tom Clancy and somewhere in each of those books they used that same technique. I had never noticed it before.I tried it and shoot, that works really good.
Technically the manscript is one third written to the first draft stage, but I'm probably going to throw out at least ten pages and/or rewrite them .So let's just say that by the end of business today, I will be one third through the sequel to Mrs. Got Rocks.

It is Friday

It is Friday and I'm glad, and I do not know why. This morning's production includes one load of laundry, not even put away, one man's shirt ironed, and 1330 new words written. The laundry is cleaned, but still not trained to fold and put itself away. The shirt is all ready out the door covering the youngest son, and each and every one of the words is drek,crap,junk and I'm going to puke boring.
Then while producing that junk it occurred to me that I cannot spell the easiest darn words. I can spell some extremely darn words that no one uses in every day life, but not something as easy as the word "difficult". Paradigm, I can spell. Have you ever, ever heard anyone in normal everyday conversation say paradigm. Me either, I rest my case. Thank God, it is Friday.

Coffee is dripping.

Yesterday the Yarn Harlot gave her blog the news that her lap top had failed over the weekend. Her manuscript with a deadline two weeks away was on the laptop. The new bookette was not lost because Stephanie Pearl McPhee had run a backup the week before she went on tour. Well, I'm here to tell you that there was smoke coming out of my feet as I raced into the supply desk for a ream of paper and did a print out of my new manuscript.
One might ask, why I didn't just do a backup disc or all those other wonderful ways to save data. 'Cause little old Hewlitt Packard is pushing ten and he don't do backup discs no more..well, he does but they are unreadable, when he is finished. He writes backup discs in a language from another galaxy. So I printed out my seventy-seven pages of new stuff and breathed a sigh of relief.
The sun is almost up and the coffeemaker has stopped singing "Pufferbellies", so I can go to work.

Write Lots of Ideas on Bits of Paper

The air conditioning is repaired, life is returning to as normal as it ever gets here. I have a half page of closely hand written adventures to put into the Rocky II story. I was watching a DVD with a horrendous navel battle and suddenly I got this whole scene for Rocky to do just reeling through my head like another private DVD. I did not wait, ran for paper and pencil and got the idea down. By the time the naval battle DVD was done, I had ideas for six chapters on the paper and ready for filling out or writing today and tomorrow.
That is so much more classy way to get ideas than my usual answer, when someone asks me "how do you know what to write?" or "where do you get your ideas?" My answer is usually a sheepish, "they just fall out of my fingers." Now I can hold up my head and say, "Watch Tora,Tora,Tora and you will get the idea for a baking biscuits chapter" LOL
Have to get the fam- dam-ily up and on to job, and then to my job of getting this stuff onto the word processor before I forget the details.
Have a wonderful week, write lots.

The Air Conditioning is Broken.

No air conditioning, we are suffering for 1.5 days now. Repair is scheduled for today between noon and 4 this afternoon. Got no writing done, got nothing done more than going to the big neighborhood casino for breakfast and hang out for awhile in the a/c, then sat surrounded by fans for hours. Read,battled migrane,and thought up some cool stuff for the main character to do.
DS2 finished the first edit of Mrs. Got Rocks last night. Now there is stick to activity. Editing your mothers book in the 85F heat inside and with lots of humidity. Overall he liked the story, made some really good suggestions regarding Callaghan that are going to go into the next book. He found no major rewrite sections. He liked the all ready re-written ending. He liked Deputy Tony Dixon,Rocky and Margie. He is not totally as gaga about Devlin as I am. He thought Callaghan was a supreme jerk, who Rocky should have shot while she had a chance when he was claim jumping. He is now likeing Callaghan better when I explained the long range plan for him, he likes him better as a character, but as a person he doesn't like Callaghan. I haven't told him what is going to happen to poor Deputy Tony Dixon, other than he has been renamed in the re-write.
We sat in my room, (which for some reason is the coolest in the apartment) and talked for a long time about weaving the characters more intricately together.
He also guessed that Callaghan stole Mom's chairs.
I now have all the hard copy of Mrs. Got Rocks and that means it is my turn to sit down and read her again as a "book" and then start the rewrite. I am not doing that until the gosh damn air conditioning is working and the apartment is anywhere in the temp range of 75 or cooler.

If This is Wednesday, I Must Be in Las Vegas

Book word count 22000, actual count 12579. I'm crowning myself the Queen of Excuses. I hardly wrote anything yesterday. What I wrote yesterday was really cool. Excuse one: Two emails from Family=Migrane, that I finally have almost on the edge of control. Wish it were that easy to control the family emails. Excuse two=spent time tracing down oldest son, who is in "will of the whisp" phase and I'm always one stop behind where he was day before yesterday. Caught him yesterday. We had a good talk and he is doing okay. If you know me fairly well, you may remember that the eldest son was supposed to be going to India for the gem mining company, this was about 3 years ago. The Indian company pulled out of the deal at the last minute, after the company Craig worked with built this gem mining dredge that was big as a very large houseboat. Anyway, they said that they lost their financing and they ended up stiffing the company for fifteen grand that they still owed on the dredge and stiffed Craig personally out of about 4 grand in wages. Well, last week their check for 15 grand cleared the bank and the India project is back in the works. Craig hasn't seen his 4 grand yet, but the head honcho will be there for a meeting on Thursday or Friday. Craig will be back on the payroll to finish the last minute stuff on the dredge and see that the big beastie gets on the ship to India from Portland, Oregon around the end of Oct. Anyway, I hope that they come through with his back pay, and I hope that he does get a chance to go to India. He will be teaching the Indian mining people, underwater dredgeing. The mining claim or business in on some river in Southern India (Madras River?) that I can't think of right now, anyway some of the best gem mining in the world is there. Especially nice colored diamonds. Craig not only will get paid(?) he gets a cut of anything(gems and the by product of gold) that the miners get. If he wants to, he can putz around on his on down there and get his own gems.
So anyway, after talking for a long time about that, and the house he is trying to buy, I still had the migrane, but happy to talk to him.
Then DS2 Brian got a promotion, he is going to be a straight out designer, not a CAD person. Much less tension and stress, use a lot of more of his talent, and bigger bucks. So I'm extremely proud of him. He has come a long way in the past two years, Vegas has been very good for him.
But all this good and bad stuff didn't get the writing done.
DS2 is reading the Mrs Got Rocks in parts..he finished the amputated finger part last night..I think that I actually impressed him. He did have a suggestion for one line and I will work that into the second re-write. He is so much better at dialogue than I am.
Since I had about 3 hours sleep last night, I might be able to nap this morning, if the headache monster stays further back in my head. I will not write anything today that will be worth a hoot. But if I can sit still that long, I will write something. I'm thinking a rain storm might be a good thing, since Rocky just got the new roof on the cabin. Yes, she did, a bright blue roof. She didn't hurt herself, fall off the roof, step on a nail, or bash her finger or drop a shingle on someones head. Need a good rainstorm to roll some gold down into Rocky's claim.
I'm hungry, ohh, that is a good sign, going to toast a waffle. Have a great day.

Uncle,Uncle!

In the race between myself and, well, myself...one of me is not doing well. My competative person says that I should have 15400 completed words in the manuscript. The person, doing the thinking and typing has racked up an paltry 11326. One of us is just going to have to concede and cry Uncle,Uncle.
Today or tomorrow I will begin the second and hopefully final draft of Mrs. Got Rocks. I have already rewritten the icky ending so I'm in good shape there. What happens is that I read the entire story in print version and start making it better if I can. I walk around hollering "Icky Poo."as I read. This can take months or not. The Blackberry Project took several weeks and that story was much more complex than Mrs. Got Rocks.
So if it takes doubling the time for the Rocky sequel, I guess I can live with that.
Put on the coffee, I'm off to write a couple thousand words then, and start re-reading.

Did I Do the Math Correctly?

I wrote my brains out yesterday, plus I edited over 200 pages of Rocky I. I think I'm still behind. Did I screw up the math? As of right now I should have a word count of 8800 words. The actual count is 8442. Hummmm,that means the score is still Jackie minus 358. Shoot, I was only minus 400 yesterday. That math is too depressing.
Perhaps I should have added a quality bonus round. Extra points for having a person reading it as you write it and they laugh or snort in the right places.
Having cut myself a big piece of pie to complete today, I better get to it. This is housecleaning day, so I am going to have to put the pedal to the metal to be able to do both.

Reached the top of the mountain yesterday.

The goal is a first draft manuscript in 5 weeks. Yesterday at this time, I was 1000 words behind in the race. Yesterday, I achievd my goal writing and another 400 words before I fell exhausted onto the couch. Just kidding about the "fell exhausted" part; but not the 400 part.
This morning the score is minus 600 for me.
Today, I should have no difficulty making my extra words and the goal. I have a new human character to introduce and three new animal characters.
Cannot spend any time dawdling however, as DS2 is taking me out to breakfast.
Have a great day, I'm going to do my best to do that.

Chasing the Lead Dog

If I have to do anything; I need a goal to accomplish the task. I'm always competing with myself. Life says that I'm always second dog on the team, but that doesn't preclude me from running over the rear hocks of the lead dog now and then. In addition to that, you know what they say: If you aren't the lead dog, the scenery never changes.
As of right now, I'm about a thousand words back from goal for the past four days. The goal is that in 5 weeks I can write a full manscript and it can't just be a bunch of crap either...75000 and's, but's ,and the's do not work around here.
So let's lay on the excuses: yesterday I didn't feel good, the weather is changing and I woke with a snarling sinus cavity, the dog ate the computer, what do you mean I can not use that one, just because I don't have a dog. I ran spell and grammar checks as I went. I can't think of anymore. If I divide the missing 1000 words over the time until 8pm Sunday night, that comes out to an extra 200 words per day. I can probably do that. But the race results right now look like 5 weeks and 1.5 days. Manuscript 1, Jackie 0.
Have a great day...Hi ho, hi ho,off to write I go..

Just Apply Pressure

I calculated last night that if I wrote consistently every day for 5 weeks, I could have the next book written to the second draft stage.
I did not take into account mornings like this, when I have had coffee, and the only thing I have written is what I'm writing now.
The only excuse is that I slept in and I was looking at the Sisters in Crime webpage and the Sisters in Crime Guppies Chapters page.Then somehow that transpired into reading all the Stabenow newletters back to 2004. Am I crazy? I have writing to do, not reading someone elses writing.
I think I'll have another coffee warm up. Looks like 5 weeks and one day.
I discovered that Bless His Heart Old Computer can and still does have the grammar check feature. Ran through about 100 pages yesterday, until my eyeballs were about to drop out. Had a refresher for the eyeballs watching a DVD from the Horatio Hornblower TV miniseries.
All right ,I will fill up the coffee and write my own stuff.

I'm writing again.

Last night I made three pages of the opening for the new story of Rocky, what is probably going to have to be series.
This morning I did a total rework of the ending of Mrs. Got Rocks. Much, much better this time. But dang his hide I still cannot get Deputy Bashful to grab Rocky and do what is in his head.
Maybe I will have better luck in A Pile of Rocks, or a Bag of Rocks or a Load of Rocks..whatever it is..Deputy Dixon is in the second book and he is going to be working his buns off. So far the dogs and Thumper are back. I like Thumper alot, so she is going to be doing some cute things, that I have written down just for her. There is a new character introduced on the first pages.
Yesterday, I made soup in the crockpot, it turned out fairly good, but I think I put in too much chili powder and cumino. A south of the border type Yankee vegetable soup.DS2 liked it.
Back to the story, break is over.

Rocky round two-no promises

Apparently, I have not finished everything I was going to say about Rocky S. Clancy(Mrs. Got Rocks). While researching for the projected next story, I was sitting quietly doing a timeline on the action scenes. I kept writing sidebars that were chapter headings that had nothing to do with the planned novel. They were suspiciously like the situations that Rocky would get into.
Then I went out for breakfast ,while waiting for my yummy mushroom and spinach omelet, the main situation popped into my head. Must have been my brain waiting for fuel, the synapes all snapping their little syn-fingers.
Now with two timelines to work, the next year should prove busy and interesting. There is also a plot note sitting in the Projects file. This takes place right here in Las Vegas and puts us right back into the mystery/crime genre. When I mentioned it to the writing partner he did get a big grin. I think I do not have the brain power to have three storys writing all once. If I did try it, I would have to put in 8 hours or more daily to make it work and that is a lot of sitting. I have a problem with three hours.
This morning I'm going back and write a new do on the ending of Mrs. Got Rocks. I will log onto the computer all the chapter headings in the new Mrs. Got Rocks, so I don't lose them. I will have to check a couple of things out for what can be done with some of the situations. I will log into the Vegas library and see what I can find. I also decided what kind of airplane that Rocky owns, I skirted around the whole issue in the manuscript just because I did not want to get too techno..but now I think I should put it in and describe that better. She has a Twin Otter...the Alaskan workhorse.
Working title: A Pile of Rocks...well, probably not permanently, but that may be it for right now.

They Did What to Pluto?

Poor, poor Pluto. That darling little planet sitting out there with just three moons or is it two moons to keep him company. All these eons of time, just sitting knowing he is a planet, a small ,taking care of business,erratic obit, debris sweeping kinda guy. So what do Those Who Decide Planets do to poor little Pluto. They make him a dwarf planet! Like being a Great Dane one moment and the next you are a weinie dog. Someday years from now, they will change their minds and you dear sweet 9th planet,Ceres,Cheron and that lovely Xena will be renamed to your rightful place.

That was Sticker Shock!!

I did what I tasked myself yesterday. Around the seven loads of laundry,dishwasher and the other mundane junk. I went online and looked at three university online education programs. Deleted two because there was not a course offering I wanted to take. Then, I did find an interestng course and went to the bottom line knitty-gritty. I almost croaked, the cost was very close to an entire months pay, fer pete's sake.
There will not be an MFA degree in the future of this old lady.
Well, I may revise that.I'm checking out U of Nevada Las Vegas regular courses. If there is a huge difference in cost, I could almost take a taxi to class and still come out ahead. Too far away to take a bus..would be about a six hour round trip. Now that would be stupid.
Editing Mrs. Got Rocks...no, of course I am not finished with yapping about it. I got this brainstorm about the time the second load of jeans came out of the dryer. I don't like some of the characters names, next week, Justin is going to be something else,Justin just sounds to nice and probably Deputy Dixon will have a more Dudley DoRight first name. Margie,Devlin.Rocky,Talltree,Doc Martin are fine. Next week the ending will be rewritten, not changed in content of Rocky and Tony riding off into the sunset, but I do not like the way I said it. I can do better.

Mrs. Got Rock is Finished

Whew, I did it. I finished it at 7am Pacific time. My goal to finish was today at 8am. Hee hee..talk about your anal writer.Actually the goal was the end of September ,so I'm really ahead.
There are some hours of houskeeping things to do, such as page numbers and chapter breaks. Actually, make that chapter breaks, then page numbering. It finished out at 78890 words, 339 pages. As I wrote yesterday, I'm tired of it. So, the Rocks is getting to sleep for awhile. Now is the time for the writer to become businesswoman and start in on the long nasty process of getting someone to publish it. Then I can stop calling it a manuscript and call it a book.
I have three of my A list publishers to start with. My sister has a friend who started his own publishing company to get his book printed, and of course, she wants me to send him a copy. I will send his publishing company a letter this week. I googled the name and got no hits.
Well, I'm going to go celebrate the completion of my second novel by loading the dishwasher and mopping the kitchen floor.

Other book news, I got a chance yesterday to go to my local used book store(and also the closest bookstore) where I found a signed copy of one of Dana Stabenow's book. Cost me an arm and leg, but I got it anyway. Small world squared, the owner of the bookstore is a personal friend of hers. Isn't that peculair since we are in Vegas, and she lives and writes in Anchorage, Alaska.
I'm looking into the Harvard University Online Education program. This is a program I believe that Harvard started last year. I would like to work on an MFA, but getting around is getting more difficult for me. An online program would be a real life answer. U C San Diego has a MFA also, I might hop over there today, and check out the online courses.
Just too much to do, I think I will need another lifetime to squeeze it all in.

I Love this Monday Morning

Why? There are only 35 pages of Mrs. Got Rocks left to edit...yay. I'm taking a Pepsi break and then back at it. My goal is 8AM, tomorrow morning.
I have an interesting book by Barbara Tuchman on General Joe Stilwell to read. I do not usually read books on military history but it counts as background for the next manuscript.Tuchman also wrote Guns of August so I know that this book will be interesting.
I'm not going to get Mikey's hooded sweater knit before they move. Dang it. I'll will finish it and give it to Paige. She is almost as old as Mikey, and the color will be cute for a little girl in jeans.
Have a wonderful week, everyone, I'm back to my search for the run on sentence.