Nothing else matters ...

No more hot weather. Please! I can handle mildly warm weather. I can handle the cold. For the love of Pete, I don't want to sweat any more.

Randomly, I went to pick Cole and Hailey up from school today and both of them had after-school activities going on. Huh? I wish I had known that before I went to pick them up.

Awesomely random: malkovich03 is making plans for us to head up to San Francisco on Saturday for my birthday. I found out today that Cherie Priest (author of the amazing Boneshaker and Dreadnought) will be signing at a bookstore and it looks like we're going to incorporate that into our afternoon. Also, I plan on having a drink or two.

Book stuff:
Book #214 - Hara's Legacy (Resonance Mates #1) by Bianca D'Arc - Sexy sci-fi foursome with aliens and ... sex.
Book #215 - Serengeti Heat (Serengeti Shifters #1) by Vivi Andrews - Sexy lion shifters, hormones and bad-ass Alphas.

30 days of books... Day 31 - This book sounds a little Nora Roberts-esque. I am intrigued.
Waiting on Wednesday - Ghost Town - Book 9 of the Morganville Vampires series and I want it BAD!

Okay. I'm done.
Later.

I have had an insanely productive day. If by "insanely productive" I mean a day that's all about books. As many of them have been lately. But before I get into that ... PICTURES!

So, yeah. The decorating is mostly finished. I still have to assemble the graveyard because there was a teeny, tiny duct tape emergency. As in, I totally ran out. And the table scene will have a skeleton as soon as I wire up the poor guy's joints so he can be posed.



Okay. Now onto the books.
First off, I cracked the 200 book barrier. That would be 200 books that I've read this year. Not counting same-year re-reads. Because I have rules about those sorts of things. I'm excited about this. I don't think I've ever read this much in one year. It might be vaguely annoying to people reading this poor journal, but I'm kinda thrilled.
Onward.
Book #199 - Unholy Magic (Downside Ghosts #2) by Stacia Kane - I am bat-shit INSANE for this series. I adore it. I don't know how I'm going to contain myself until Book #4 comes out.
Book #200 - City of Ghosts (Downside Ghosts #3) by Stacia Kane - Seriously, guys. I bought this around 5 last night and stayed up until 2 am to finish it. Yes, it's that good.
Book #201 - Weaved for Pleasure: Sinclair by Stella and Audra Price - It can't hold a candle to the Downside Ghosts but I still enjoyed it.
Book #202 - Wolf Signs (Granite Lake Wolves #1) by Vivian Arend - A free e-book through Borders. Perfect because I'd been wanting to read this series and this gave me the perfect opportunity.

30 days of books... Day 25 - One thing I like about this meme is that it's bringing a lot of books I'd let linger on my to-read shelf to mind. Now I want to read this one.
Booking Through Thursday - Books and Travel - How many books do you pack on vacation?

Randomly, I was chatting with the Bree half of Moira Rogers on Twitter (@moirarogersbree) and I ended up winning one of her books from her. Lovely. Plus, one of their newer books is a free download through Borders so I scored 2 new Moira Rogers books for nothing.

So. Good day? I'd say so.
Gotta get the kiddo to finish his homework.
Later.

It's been kinda cold and overcast today (which I love!) and my mom made split pea soup. Yum. Well, it was yum until I ate too much and now my stomach hurts. Boo. I have a sad face on right now.

Okay. I'm going to keep this short.
30 days of books... Day 22 - More free books. Seriously, if you own a Kindle it pays to check out the top 100 free books. I get a lot of books through that.
Spotlight on... Moira Rogers' Red Rock Pass - Werewolves on a mission. Check it!

Cole asked me to help him re-write an essay. The kid who corrected it for him told him that he should use a word other than "we". Like, what? 'We' need to get food. 'We' need to buy alcohol so I can think up a synonym. Seriously, what can you substitute in its place?

Anyway. I got my hair done this morning. My hair lady wants to do some funky stuff to it. And I'm like, please don't give me the Justin Bieber.

Okay. I'm done. Done done done done done. And done.
Later.

It's hot and I'm on the edge of grumpy. Enjoyable? Not so much. So I'll keep this short.

I read a book.
Book #193 - Winter's Kiss (Vampires Realm) by F.E. Heaton - Very, very good. Plus, I totally won it through a contest, so I got a good book at no cost. Love that!
30 days of books... Day 15 - The last of my Scott Westerfeld books. I promise.

Ruby is giving me puppy dog eyes right now. Why? I have no idea. But it is starting to freak me out a little. Does she need to go outside? Does she need a belly rub? What? Tell me, dog! Tell me!

And that's all I got, people.
Later.

I ended up having a pretty amazing writing day. I attribute this to the kids going back to school and the ABUNDANT amount of uninterrupted time I was graced with to stare at the computer screen while thinking deep thoughts. Write or Die might have a hand in it as well. Awesome.

So.

For those doing the math, that's over 5K words since my last post. A little under 2K last night and the rest throughout the day today.
Say what you will, I'M STOKED!

The downside of cranking out words like this is that I'm not going back and doing any editing. I'm imagining dire word combinations already. I know for a fact that every freaking paragraph starts with a name, which bugs the crap out of me, but that's something I'll smooth out in a few days. It's also possible that I rambled just the tiniest bit. That's another something that I'll look over in a day or two and smooth out as needed.

The upside to this? FIVE THOUSAND WORDS! And? And and and ... I can see things coming together. I've moved my spy to a position of trust and given my female bodyguard a guy to boink. Perhaps that last one isn't so important in the grand scheme of things, but it made her happy. Or me. Whatever.

I'm pretty much sold on Write or Die, if you hadn't guessed. I'm even contemplating ponying up the $10 for the desktop version. On the other hand, the free internet version is totally working for me. Why mess with a good thing?

Enough writerly talk.

Cole and Hailey started school today. Somehow Hailey became convinced that I wasn't going to pick her and Cole up after today. Which made me laugh hysterically because, hello! it's a mile to their school. I'm not leaving them to walk that. And when I say a mile, I don't mean a mile through a residential area. Oh, no. It's a mile that's mostly past commercial buildings and empty fields. Because I live in the country, guys. The country. We have cows. And hawks. And dead skunks in the road. And turkey vultures that eat the dead skunks.

You've never really lived until you've seen a turkey vulture dragging a squished carcass into a field.

For serious.

Okay. Enough out of me. I still haven't watched Sunday's True Blood. My Eric Northman fangirl card is about to be revoked.
Later.

Sometimes my mom is a machine. A full-on cybernetic organism. Possibly, that makes me a 2nd generation Terminator, but don't quote me on that. The point of this is that my mom gets this insane urge to do things and she'll go wildly out of control and somehow rope me into helping her and all of a sudden I'm hauling empty pots off our patio to put into storage. I kid you not, this morning at 8 she had me out on the patio pulling our nasty tomato plants out of the pots so we could "tidy up". This is after she had already called me down for the annual cleansing of the garage freezer with ritual fire and sacrifice. Of course the freezer really did need to be cleaned (as shown by the deer meat we had in there from 2003 - in my family's defense, one of my uncles is a hunter who wastes no part of the animal he kills. However, that little aside doesn't excuse the fact that we've had that meat in there for SEVEN YEARS. Hell, we had to move it from one house to the next.) and now we might actually be able to put things into it again.

Maybe.

Now, I did think the sacrifice part of the morning was taking things a little too far, but since my mom is currently a Terminatrix I was forced to go along with her diabolical plans that will somehow probably help overthrow the weak humans and allow the MACHINES TO RULE SUPREME!

Also, we went to a barbecue today.
The end.

Ohmigod! Guys, I almost don't know where to start with this post because I have SUCH AWESOME THINGS TO BLOG ABOUT! To the journal, posthaste!

First and foremost, the earlier conversations I posted to the journal this morning did indeed take place. Mostly. I might have added in the speculatory parts about what the noises were that my mom and Heather were making. I mean, they made the noises, I'm just not sure what they were intending the noises to convey. Also, I had to add some backstory into the first one. Because you wouldn't have understood it otherwise. That's really beside the point, though. Those conversations took place. Just not exactly as written. It's called creative license. Or something.

Secondly, I posted a crap load of pictures on Twitter this morning, mostly of my socks and shoes. Somehow the correlation between my polka dot shoes and a hooker who services Minnie Mouse fetishists was drawn. Don't ask how. I have now been asked to provide a Venn diagram showing how finding my niche in writing werewolf porn is not so different from being a Minnie Mouse impersonating hooker. This is as far as I got:

Well, I did manage the circles. That must count for something. I should have hand drawn them, though. Shaky, not-quite-round circles would have made my failure so much more complete.

Third, as long as we're talking about werewolf porn:

I suck. What's that? 300 words. Maybe. In my defense, I didn't plan on doing any writing today what with the birthday party and all. But I was half-napping and the opening for the next chapter just popped into my head. I HAD to write it. HAD TO. So I did.

Fourth, I've been having the freaking weirdest dreams lately. Like, whoa. In one of them I was investigating a group of people who were using eugenics to create a superbreed of humans. Honestly, I had a vague understanding of what eugenics were (or is it "is"?) so I went and looked it up:

The study of or belief in the possibility of improving the qualities of the human species or a human population, esp. by such means as discouraging reproduction by persons having genetic defects or presumed to have inheritable undesirable traits (negative eugenics) or encouraging reproduction by persons presumed to have inheritable desirable traits (positive eugenics).
or
The study of hereditary improvement of the human race by controlled selective breeding.

OMG! I used the word properly in my semi-conscious state. My brain is way smarter than me! Also, I see the beginnings of a story. Love!

I think I need to stop now because I'm going to use up all my creative mojo for the next few weeks in this one post of awesome! That would be unwise.
Later!

Hey! It's Wednesday evening and I'm currently sweating myself into my chair. Nice? Not so much. In fact, what the hell happened to that perfectly mild summer we were experiencing up until this point? Come back, breezy weather! I'm make you cookies!

Dudes. Four ginormous cups of coffee today. Fear me. Maybe it was only three. No, I'm pretty sure I'm on the fourth. Rock on!

I did some of that writing stuff that I sometimes do.

I know that it doesn't look like I wrote a lot today but I'm pleased since I ended up cutting a nearly 1000 word scene for later use. By my calculations, I wrote almost 2000 words today. Not too shabby. Plus, by cutting the scene in question and moving it I get to spend more time making my bad guy even more despicable. To make a long story short (ha!), it turns out that at the pace the main part of the story was moving the kidnap victim would have been in the bad guy's clutches for a couple of months. She's a tough chick and everything but I just don't think she would survive that long. So, she'll be kidnapped later and I'll have the chance to build up the bad guy's character a little more. Sweet!

Today: Revamped the kidnap scene to make it a failed kidnap scene with the added bonus of the bad guy getting shot in the ass with buckshot. Ha! Laid out the ground rules for my girl's time with the werewolf pack.

Tomorrow: Hopefully, I'll add a few more choice tidbits in the backstory about the bad guy's unsavory morals. And, dammit, I really want to get to the night of the full moon. That must be just around the corner. I'm sure of it.

Oh, I also finished a book. I love my Kindle.
Book #132 - Dark Succession (True Mates #2) by Teresa D'Amario - I kinda skipped the first in the series, but I don't think it hurt my understanding too much overall. There were things I liked quite a bit here (the mystery, a broken heroine who has to find her own strength, a Pack Alpha who is trying to clean up the mess left by the previous Alpha) and then there were things I wish could have been done a little better (the tie-up to the mystery was almost too pat with a lot of converging pieces coming together all at once-yes, I'm being vague, but I think it was very coincidental that all this stuff was happening at the same time, the heroine's emotional journey could have been given more depth-I'm not all about the angst or anything but when someone has gone through what she has gone through you'd think it would have been harder for her to accept it and move on). Overall, it was a fun little ride and it dealt with some of the things that are canon in werewolf books a little differently than normal. Which was nice. The story? Ryland's been cleaning up the mess the previous Alpha left behind and he has the feeling he's never going to have a healthy, well-balanced Pack. Nora's dealing with her capture and torture at the hands of humans (in book #1) and isn't expecting to find her True Mate. She doesn't think she can handle the life he's had forced on him, he doesn't think he can live without her. Then the wolves in Ryland's pack start being murdered and they both have to try their hardest to figure out who would want to destroy the pack before she becomes the next target.

I do seem to go on lately, don't I?
Later.

Ooh! Another day of nonstop reading with a little writing thrown in. Awesome. I'd say that this Kindle is destroying my social life, but I didn't have much of one to begin with. I did take a few breaks from reading to do a couple of loads of laundry (the last of which is still in the dryer but since it's only socks I don't really care if they end up all wrinkly and stuff. Plus, I don't really wear socks, except for my awesome over the knee socks and those don't get washed with the normal socks because they're just that spectacular) and take the dogs for a walk or two. I'm pretty sure I ate at least two of the three square meals recommended.

*shrug*

Anyway.

Another not-great word count day, but I like what I managed to write. I'm just so happy that I managed to write past that block I was having on the opening for this chapter. It was painful. I must have started that damn chapter 15 times before I saw where it needed to come from. Annoying.

Things that have happened in those few hundred words: The guy and the girl will be spending time in close proximity to each other for the foreseeable future. A low ranking Pack member begins to see that not all things are as they appear to be.

Things that are going to happen when I get back to writing (aka: as soon as this post is finished): Bitchy Omega gets her ass handed to her by the low ranking Pack member. The bad guy gets to twirl his mustache. The kidnapped girl might make an appearance. Or she might stay chained up in the basement. It's hard to tell with her.

And then we have the books.
Book #113 - Last Hope (Mystic Valley/Carnal Powers #1) by Moira Rogers - Yes, I have been devouring all the books by this author. I really like the dynamic she gives her characters and the different worlds she creates with each new series. They're all close enough that you can see similar themes running through each, but they have enough differences that you're always on the lookout for what's coming next. So. In this series universe, shifters, psychics and spellcasters all live more or less out in the open. Kiara is an empathic nurse who gets involved with an Alpha wolf after a group of supernatural haters start attacking supernaturals in their small town. Adrian finds himself protecting Kiara when she becomes the group's next target. Once again, solid characters and an interesting story line kept me reading.

-and-

Book #114 - Tales from Mystic Valley (Mystic Valley/Carnal Powers) by Moira Rogers - Three short stories set in the Mystic Valley universe. The first, Moonshine, hooked me from the start. It was really the entire reason I picked up book 1. Claire is a dominant female coyote shapeshifter who's tired of acting human. On a whim, she heads out to the local supernatural bar and ends up going home with Lars, a dominant male coyote. The two battle it out in the bedroom and end up finding a balance between them. Both Claire and Lars play fairly pivotal roles in book #1. The second story, That Old Black Magic, was good but not quite as compelling as the first. Max is a shapeshifter who's goal in life is to bring down dark wizards. Polly is the professional thief he runs into during a job one night. Cue sexy music when they get locked in a closet together and have to give into their explosive passion. Not a bad story, it was just left very open ended and I'd like to know where it's ultimately going. The third story, The 13th Step, was a big departure from the previous stories in that there's not a whole lot of romance. Lots of heaving and thrusting, but it ends on a downer note that I found a little jarring. Once again, if the story of Black and Ella is going to be explored further, it could out to be a very interesting ride. What? I like to know what's going to happen to characters that I find interesting. Overall, it was a great introduction to this series and I hope some of the dangling threads get picked up in later books so that my curiosity won't be left unfulfilled.

I also read another short story, but I'll put that up tomorrow. Or not.
I'm done. My werewolves are calling to me.
Later.

This morning while I was babysitting the old lady (aka: Heather, who has to use a WALKER! HAHAHAHAHA!) I added a bunch more pictures at Twitter on things you can do while wearing fingerless gloves. I think my favorite is the one where I'm attacking Hailey. I just love that you can see my arm, her hands, her knees and the top of her head. Ha!

Completely randomly, we think that one of our neighbors moved out today. Seeing as how my family moved in before any other families and we've only been here a year and a half ... well, it just seemed odd. Of course, the guy is weird so maybe he's just getting rid of all his old furniture and buying new stuff. I don't know.

I finally finished my book. Finally. It took me, like, two whole days!
Book #98 - Dark Fire (Carpathians #6) by Christine Feehan - There was nothing terribly significant in this book plot-wise. It's the classic story of Vampire Hunter meets girl, is hunted by fanatics, makes sweet love. Yes. Classic. Unlike the last book that seemed to progress the overall story arc quite a bit, this one didn't so much go there. The story of Darius (Desari's brother, Book #5) and Tempest and the trials and tribulations they have to face as she is forced to admit that supernatural creatures exist and he is one of them. I liked the book, don't get me wrong, but it felt like it as lacking the big revelation that peppers the other books as to how the Carpathians are going to fight their way from the brink of extinction.

Since I decided to watch the Hellboys the other day on a whim, I ended up watching Serenity yesterday and Pirates of the Caribbean today. Fine, I slept through most of it. I'm telling you, sharing my room with one kid and 2 dogs makes me sleep like crap. The point of this is that I'm having a good time with these random movie watchings.

My brain is now empty.
Later.