Dear Eamon and company

at the moment Eamon(wouldn't Paul Bettany make a YUMMY Eamon?) and the gang and touring about so I'll be moving back to my other WIP until the vampires start talking to me again. they can only go so long without barging back into the front of my mind. I hope they'll let me finish FUNdraiser because I enjoy writing it but I never get very far with it because the dang vamps won't be quiet. and they've got some problems. but they'll just have to deal for now. I need to finish this before I finish the third installment of The Primigenio Tales.
it's kind of hard switching focus like that. after being immersed in the minds of my characters for so many months, it's hard to switch back to reality. I was telling a friend about my WIP and he was stunned to find out that there wasn't one single paranormal element in it. yep, that's true but my story isn't run of the mill by a long shot. could you imagine me doing run of the mill? no. all I'll say about it is my MC is living my dream. unfortunately it doesn't pan out for her and causes a big ol bag of trouble but it's a fun read along the way. if I can't write paranormal, I write edgy and funny.  so now I'll head back to the world of SEC universities and trying to be a success in a thankless job the normal way. that never works so you know it's gonna have some spice. and I think even Eamon would dig it. I know I'm being vague and stuff but I'm not ready to talk details about FUNdraiser yet. when I am, you'll wish I'd shut up!

more karma cleaning and The Demi Monde Winter

I usually don't make jokes about HH but this is funny because it's true. I think HH would laugh. so more karma cleaning happened. yay! so things are going well. and when I went to my mail box, I had a FABULOUS surprise!Look!

I wrote a letter to author Rod Rees about how excited I was about the release of his awesome book and he graciously sent me a copy!!SQUEE! I can't wait to start reading. check out his blog and check out the book on Goodreads. it hasn't been released in the US yet so I feel super duper lucky to read it.YAY!

getting rid of my bad karma

I'm uber spooky and superstitious and whatnot. lately with all the time I have on my hands, I've been doing a bunch of pondering. I never come up with anything earth shaking but yesterday while driving, I came up with something. I figured out the root of whatever has spun my karma out of control. oh yeah, I believe in karma. I've seen it work. BIG TIME. there is one incident and possession that is the jump off point from my problems. I asked my mom what she thought about my revelation but she just kind of meh'd me. which means that she thinks that if I think it's true then she will just nod and go along with it. but that was good enough. my discovery seemed to make sense and gave me a new outlook on how to approach things.

and then I heard this song on the radio while in the process of trying to repay my karmic debt and I knew I was on the right track. p.s. I love this video and song. if I ever got married, I'd probably do something like this. this is so awesome even though it's kind of old now. still amazing!

Happy Vladurday!

Well here's how it went...it all started fine until

last week was the Warrior Dash. it was kick ass and it kicked my ass. the pic above is me crawling thru mud and gravel under barb wire.I'm the one on the far left hunkered way down. all in all it was a terrific experience. if it had just been running 3 miles it would have been okay but the obstacles...that's another story. there were 3 in particular that hold a ahem special place in my heart. the first were these 3.5 foot walls we had to climb over. yeah. I'm only 5 foot blah blah so this was an adventure. next was crawling thru a tunnel of mud. this would have been fine if I HADN'T SUNK UP TO MY ELBOWS on all fours.I felt like a dinosaur stuck in the tar pits. I had to hoist my pudgy ass up and out of the mud 10 feet each time sinking back in. I kept picturing those adventure movies where someone gets stuck in the quick sand and tells their friends to just leave them and go on without them. then I got mad and grunted out. the final obstacle from hell was the god damn rope ladders. apparently there is a secret to these. I didn't know it and just got frustrated and threw myself down them. yeah. the officials I'm sure are STILL laughing about it. anyway. I did have fun. I finished. I jumped fire, ran thru mud and palmettos, high stepped thru tires and did half a dozen other crazy things. it was a great time. I spent the time catching up with my friend John from high school and I did something I had never done before, proving my tuff chick status. it only took me until tuesday to recover. triathlons have NOTHING on these extreme races. there is no fire or mud crawling. and no beer. btw, I finished AFTER they stopped with the beer!!!I got cheated out of my beer! but I finished and got my medal! so there's my story. back to reality and my other rants. but enjoy these pics.

me heading to the finish line. you can see where I sunk in the mud. I felt like I was hiding from the Predator.

lol. clean from the back!

the bruises don't show in the pic. all the spots are bruises.

this one I have no idea where I did it. It's kinda green in this pic.

this bruise is the best. it's from the rope ladder incidents. it wraps around my arm and is about 4 inches wide.lol. my elbow from my surgery a couple of years ago was not happy.

happy vladurday!warrior dash edition (I'm doing the Warrior Dash today!)

the good news in bad news

I love The Bad News Bears. this version. not that crapbag version with Billy Bob Thornton. if you've never seen the original with Walter Matthau and Tatum O Neal, put it in your Netflix queue. it's worth it. anyway, I got some bad news in my email today but it was so awesome. it made me sad but at the same time, it gave me the most empowered feeling. it was like yin and yang dropped into my GatorLink Webmail. it had to do with my writing but that's all I'm saying. oh I will say thanks to the awesome person who sent me the email. you totally rock! I did the whole fist pump YES! thing after I read it.

6 days until Warrior Dash and about 1k words until done

yep 6 days until "the craziest frickin day of my life" next saturday is the Warrior Dash. I'm running with a pal from high school and it should be a blast. if you are unfamiliar with races like this, basically it is a run combined with hellish obstacles designed to test your endurance both mentally and physically. there's barb wire, mud, climbing and fire among a few of the perils. at the end, there is free beer, a medal and a nifty hat.I AM STOKED. it looks like a giant fraternity party with running so I should have no problem. they thing that drew me to it was it's name. the WARRIOR DASH.  WARRIOR. lately I've felt warred upon so I plan on making this the angry zen warrior dash where I vent all my frustrations. if all the things that have gone wrong in the past 5 months haven't beaten me then no 3 mile run will. I know the top pic looks kind of benign but you end up looking like this.

well that after you do

so yeah it's awesome!and I'm getting excited. even more so than with triathlon! this is a whole different thing. and there was never beer at the finish line of triathlons!
in the mean time, I am closing in on the finish of my ms. about 1k words to go. like one more scene.good for me!

happy vladurday

research is fun

I always love the research part of novels. even though I grew up in Tampa, I haven't been there in quite awhile so I had to do some research. it was awesome and it made me appreciate the history of Tampa and Ybor City that I basically blew off when I was younger. I had to relearn all of the cool areas and bars. when I lived in Tampa three thousand years ago, I loved Ybor because of the awesome new wave/punk music and vintage clothing stores. I can remember one of the stores, La France. it was like Mecca for a wannabe new waver like me. so cool. as a teen in the 80s I never had money for cool stuff from there but it was fun to take a day off from school and go explore. yeah, I took a lot of days off. I got good grade though. I had AP classes and did just fine thank you, even with my days off. but doing all my research, I saw how much things had changed, some for the better and how much things had grown. wow. I only live like 2 hours from Tampa and I keep telling myself I'm going back and reacquaint myself with the area. I'm drawn to it now. It has a homey feeling that it didn't have before. I want to go back for the Gasparilla Invasion which is like a big pirate fest in february named for a real pirate named Jose Gaspar but I don't think I'll make it. next year, definitely!

little sir echo and the dreaded word echoes

does any kid still sing this song? I loved it as a kidling! I asked Maddy about it and she looked at me like I was crazy. I guess they're too busy learning songs about not liking candy corns and so on. but I am already off track. this morning fab author Allison Pang was on Savvy Authors sharing her wisdom about word echoes. you know what those are. the words that we apparently love so much that we cram them all over our manuscript and don't realize it until we analyze our manuscript and see them. they weaken a manuscript and show a skimpy vocabulary. my big word is like and all of its benign forms. I though I was being mindful of echoes but I wasn't. go figure. I've got like all over the place. I'm in like with like. (echoes!) but when I go through and weed them out, my manuscript works much better. there's less Shaggy Speak (with all the likes) and more evocative dialog and prose. although Shaggy Speak is kinda cool, just not in my manuscript. I have another word that I love to stash in my draft like a hoarder so I'll be busy getting rid of them. it's work but definitely worth it. go check out Allison's tips for echoes at the link above!

so what's up with Putin?

a bunch of people have asked me what the deal is with ol' VP. honestly, I don't know. probably part of it is his name is Vladimir. anyone named Vladimir is gonna get my attention. also, when I was a theatre student, I did a Scenic Design project called Mr. Putin's Neighborhood. it was all very creepy and evil and steampunky. LOVED IT. doing the research for the project, I had to research the guy and just found him interesting in a despoty and sinister way. consider that he probably killed people for the KGB back in the day but still loves to cuddle with a puppy. that's character dichotomy. I WISH I could write a character like him.
God, I hope he doesn't have some sort of tracking device so he knows all the people who say stuff about him. what am I talking about? I know he probably has Google Alerts so I'm so very screwed when he takes over the world. maybe I'll retitle my saturday posts to  Happy Vladurday, he's the uber emperor of the universe. hmm.

happy vladurday

the pain of moving

I have always wanted to find an old historic house and move it onto a bunch of acres. for some reason I have a fascination/ obsession with house moving. maybe I did it in a past life but anytime I see a poor old neglected house I immediately think "Man, I could buy that and move it." just like this house. but the moving I'm talking about today isn't house moving (I wish). it's chapter moving. I hate doing this and I often think moving houses is easier. I've been trying to rewrite a new first chapter because while my current first chapter is pretty awesome, it's not really in the right place. it should be the second or third chapter. so I've been killing myself trying to find a new hook/ catchy opening that is more appropriate. ha. finally today I had an idea and tried to crank it out. I think it will work or at least I'm hoping it will. it better because I can't think of another way to open the novel lol.
I still think house moving is easier. and more fun too!

fighting the fight (scenes)

well, it's that time again in my writing journeys. the fight scenes. I hate em and have put them off until I can't anymore. I forced myself to write two of the required scenes. I have two more now to do so I am half way through my hell. let's face it, they just aren't my thing. I would rather write anything else. anything. I just have no knack for them. they're boring to me. not to read I guess but to write. so I'll continue my battle and write the dang things even though it feels like torture. it's the only way I'll get the manuscript finished.