Nothing else matters ...

I have an hour until I'm being picked up for the great birthday extravaganza planned and executed by the fabulous malkovich03. I've picked up an extra copy of Boneshaker to have signed. I think I'll give it away on my blog. And if they're selling copies of Dreadnought at the bookstore (which I can't imagine why they wouldn't be) I'll buy one and get that signed also to give away. This is on top of my personal three books, mind you.

Anyway. I have a few book things to clear out.
Book #218 - The Bite Before Christmas by Heidi Betts - A fun collection of Christmas-themed vampire stories of the shorter variety.

On My Wishlist (week 6) - Delilah Street, naughty covers and the awesome Morgan Kingsley. Oh, and I don't think I've managed to put up a short wishlist post since I started this weekly meme.
30 days of books... Day 34 - The ghost of Jane Austen takes up residence in a young girl's head and helps her with her romantic life. I know. It's not my usual type of book. Just go with it.

For the record, I froze my ass off this morning during Zombie watch. I could barely type. (That's my excuse if you come across any typos. *nods*) No, really. It was very cold. And foggy. And slightly damp. Hailey scored a goal. Yay!

Okay. I do not promise that I won't be dong any drunken tweeting tonight. I also don't promise that I will.
Later.

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.

Oh, Twitter. You and I have become such good friends since I bought my smart phone. Now I can post stupid and annoying pictures of myself doing things that no sane person would normally do at all hours of the day and night. I can take pictures of my shoes and socks and fingerless gloves. You never mock me for doing this, Twitter, and for that I thank you. You take my pictures and you put them up on your website and let the entire internet gasp in awe at my over-the-knee socks.

Now that it's almost Halloween I can post pictures of me decorating my house. Like this:

If you can't tell, that's a heart dangling on the side. Oh, man, I love Halloween. I glued all those spiders on by myself. There was a whole glue incident and I've been peeling glue off my fingertips for the bulk of the day. Maybe I'm down to skin now. I don't know. Does it really matter?

One thing I've learned from all this, dear Twitter, is that the bulk of authors I follow are all as sadistic as hell and they like to torment their creations. This is somewhat like a mad scientist, I think. Which is interesting since it's October and I've just hung a heart from the table outside. I kinda feel like I've found my place in the world. And that's all thanks to you, Twitter. You've made me realize that wearing at least one piece of skull-adorned clothing everyday and liking tattoos on men and saying "fuck" often and loudly are normal. Well, normal for people who talk to themselves and write about imaginary people.

Yep, I fit right in.

Speaking of which, tomorrow's Zombie Watch should be starting around 10:30 or so. Bring it!

Okay, enough about my Twitter love.
Books. Things that go book in the night. All things bookish.
Book Blogger Hop - I posted this last night but I'm kinda in love with the banner I made and I want everybody to look at it and tell me how utterly awesome I am. No, really. Tell me. I won't mind.
30 days of books... Day 19 - A series I wanted to read but couldn't get into. Yet I still have one of the books. Go figure.
An awesome contest held by one of my favorite authors! - Moira Rogers and Vivian Arend are teaming up to give out a virtual ton of books. You don't have to do anything but tell them you're interested. Free books, guys. Free books. That is all.

Okay. Enough babbling. I have to get tomorrow's early morning post put together so I can go out and make sure the Zombies don't invade Morgan Hill any more than they already have with a clear conscience. Which reminds me: I'm writing motherfucking Zombie Apocalypse fiction with the outstanding oddmonster. That girl has some mad writing skillz.

I'm out.
Later.

I did a whole lot of nothing today because I was exxxxcccccited about seeing Resident Evil: Afterlife (which I will henceforth refer to as RE4). Cole decided he wanted to see it, so I had to wait until he was out of school, but we did the whole 3D thing and it was fun!
Proof:
3d glasses are so flattering, aren't they?

Anyway. I enjoyed the movie. It was loud and fast and there were Zombies and Wentworth Miller had to stage a prison break. There were a couple of little things that made me cock my head and go Wha? Namely: The world is ending, people! How do the girls all manage to find/have time to apply flawless make-up? How? Yes, Milla and Ali looked fantastic, but it's the Zombie Apocalypse! Make-up wouldn't be high on my list of priorities. In fact, I think it would rank somewhere under underwear. I'd totally expect fresh panties before hunting down foundation and lipstick. Not that they weren't wearing panties. I mean, I assume they were. I was just using that as an example.

Thing #2: How much fuel is one going to be able to find for a plane during the Zombie Apocalypse? Just curious. Speaking of which, I'm impressed that so many survivors have had flight training. You know, if I found myself in the cockpit of a plane/helicopter/whatever, I'd be frozen with panic over all those buttons and levers. I wouldn't know what to do! I'd die. Horribly! It would not be awesome. It would be bloody and gross and there would probably be fleshy bits of me strung from one side of the flying contraption to the other. Yuck.

Honestly, the movie isn't going to win any awards for being Very Important Cinema or anything, but it was fun. I got to see the lovely Milla Jovovich kicking ass and there were some very cool scenes with rain falling and broken glass that looked pretty neat in 3D.

In conclusion, I'm going to watch RE3 tonight. Just because I can.

I'm following in katikat's footsteps and posting my 30 Days of Books list over on my book review site. These are the books that are languishing on my To-Read shelf over at Goodreads. Those poor books. Maybe this will prod me into picking one or two of them up.
30 Days of Books - Day 1
Join me. Here, there, anywhere. Tell me what you're not reading!

Okay. I'm done.
Later.

Oh, these kid-free mornings are a little bit blissful. I did some writing, although not as much as yesterday because that was A LOT of words I cranked out. The good news is that when I went back and re-read it, I ended up liking the direction the story was taking. I had the tiniest bit of fear that everything I wrote yesterday would be a nasty ramble fest and I'd have to scrap it all and go back to the drawing board. But no.

Without any further ado ...

I was aiming for 2000 or so and although I came in a little short, I'm very happy with where things are going. The night of the full moon, which I've been DYING to write, comes up in the next chapter. Exciting! Werewolves+full moon=oodles of fun!

Randomly, I have a potential job in the pipeline. I need to send in my resume tomorrow but one of my old co-workers (okay, okay, it's actually my work BFF) made me sound like a peach to the hiring recruiter so hopefully I'll be able to get a foot in the door one way or another. Of course, then I have to make sure I don't act like a total dork during the interview, but that's neither here nor there yet.

Alright. I'm done. Done, done, done.
Later.

Wow. Amb and Phil went out to some downtown Morgan Hill gathering (kinda a music in the park type thing, I think, except they block off part of downtown instead of the park) and Ryan's here right now. The poor kid is going through the lovely separation anxiety stage of babyhood. There's a lot of crying and big, teary eyes. It's heartbreaking.

Okay. I did some writing today. Not a huge amount and definitely not the amount I'm trying to work myself up to daily, but I can't complain since I've written a pittance over the last few days.

Got some more kissing and inappropriate comments by our guy's sister when she walked in on them. There might have been some groping also. Because stuff like that happens.

I'm not sure what I'm going to get done tomorrow since kimbrchick and jenah and her son are coming over for a visit. Which reminds me that I need to clean. I should probably get on that. Probably.

Okay. I read a book.
Book #143 - Speak of the Devil (Morgan Kingsley #4) by Jenna Black - I'm still digging this series. Morgan's having a crappy week. She's been suspended by the Exorcism Board. She's fighting a lawsuit. And now someone is sending her severed body parts in the mail. Fun? Not so much. Good thing she knows a few good demons that don't mind kicking butt and taking names. You know, I'm not 100% behind the whole Morgan/Brian thing. Mostly because I really can't see why he puts up with so much shit from her. She lies to him constantly and keeps him out of the loop every other time she's in danger. I don't know. I'm just not feeling it. However, I love the dynamic that Raphael and Saul are bringing to the group, especially when they start going for the jugular. Demons, ftw!

More writing!
Later.

Let's get this party started, shall we ...
Happy Birthday, heather13!
May all sorts of shiny, distracting things ... distract you!

Today's going to be one of those hard and fast posts. Why? Because I've been reading and I've been writing. And that's about it.

On the writing front: I finally poked and prodded myself through the beginning of the next chapter. I knew where I needed it to go, but I had a really hard time seeing where it started. Honestly, that's not a problem I normally have. If anything, the beginnings are usually easy for me. I love finding that one line that captures the attention and drags you in, kicking and screaming.

However, I worked through it and managed several pages of things happening that I've been working towards for the past few chapters.

So.

Not a huge amount of words, but I did go back and fix a few of the things that were bugging me. Most of them were little things (how close it was to the full moon, how many people died in the opening scene, wording on one scene that read so awkwardly that I'd cringe every time I came across it) but they were things I kept telling myself I'd go back and tweak. Now, on one hand I don't want to get so obsessed with writing everything absolutely perfectly the first time around that I start tweaking and tweaking and tweaking and give up on the actual writing, but these were things I knew I'd have to go back and change eventually. These were the things that I started out writing one way and figured out halfway through that in order to move the plot forward they'd need to be altered. Sometimes slightly, sometimes a lot.

So, it's done. For the most part. Let's just say that I'm happier with it now and move along.

Onward to the books. Are you ready for this?
Book #110 - Sanctuary's Price (Red Rock Pass #3) by Moira Rogers - One thing I've found myself really enjoying with this series is that the main characters from prior books are brought back and we get to see them in a slightly different light. Dylan, the wolf who helped Abby escape the clutches of the mad Alpha in book #1, finds his relationship with Cindy, the town doctor, falling apart after the events at the end of book #2. Drawn to Sasha, an apprentice witch trying to help the Pack in their struggle against the Helena wolves, Dylan has to let go of a decade of being abused to help her overcome her terror at finding herself thrown into a full on Were-war without her mentor. This was a nice slow ride after Brynn and Joe's tumultuous coming together in the last book. Dylan's not a strong wolf, more a middle of the pack kind of guy, and Sasha is a witch who doesn't quite know the full range of her power, having lost her mentor before she was fully trained. I'm not saying it wasn't hot, because it was. I'm just saying that it was very different from Brynn's moon-crazed coming together with a highly Alpha wolf. If you can't tell, I'm seriously enjoying this series.

-and-

Book #111 - Sanctuary Unbound (Red Rock Pass #4) by Moira Rogers - We finally get to meet some vampires. Adam Dubois, the lumberjack vampire from Maine, friend of the Alpha, who Dylan, Sascha, Brynn and Joe go to recruit to their side (book #3) takes center stage when he comes to Red Rock to help the wolves with their Helena problem. He falls for Cindy, the town doctor, but he has a deep dark secret he's not thrilled to let out. She's kinda screwed up too. Apparently, being secretive means you'll have hot sex. Often. First off, did you see the part about a lumberjack vampire? Awesome. Secondly, this book gives us some pretty solid resolution on the whole Helena issue. We learn who's pulling the strings and how far their willing to go to get what they want. Although the main story arc has been resolved, I'm still hoping for more in this series. I'm not holding my breath, but I think it would be really, really nice to see how things work out down the line.

-and-

Book #112 - Short Stories from Red Rock Pass by Moira Rogers - Two short stories set in the Red Rock universe. The first was Becoming, which I read (and reviewed) the other day. It was a very good glimpse into Sam's life when she was first brought to Red Rock and how she becomes one of the forces behind allowing the town to grow into the sanctuary we see in later books. The second story was Little Things, which starts with Gavin giving young Keith some advice on courting the ladies as he prepares to ask Sam to marry him. 40 years later, Keith uses that advice to show Abby how much he loves her. Surprisingly complex for a short story, it ended up being sweet and giving you a bit more insight into the Alpha males of the Pack.

-and-

Book #112.5 - Honor Bound by Moira Rogers - I've honestly been impressed with the level of story you get with Moira Rogers' short stories. I never once felt like I was being slighted with the amount of story I was given. The characters are well developed (sometimes more so than characters in other full-length novels by other authors) and you want to know what happens to them. Amaia is a demon who betrays her people to save a child werewolf. Returning her to her Pack puts Amaia in the path of the child's brother, Orion. He agrees to help her escape the death sentence she's put herself under and ends up mating himself to her after a night of hot sex. Honestly, I would go for more in this universe. It was fun and different enough from the Red Rock universe to keep me interested.

Wow. That's a lot of books I read.
Later.

Umm, where did my evening go? I mean, whoa. I was sitting here, innocently reading some short stories of the naughty variety before I settled in to work on my epic masterpiece and somehow I got sucked into trying to figure out some of the finer points of Word so that I could transfer some of my guilty pleasures to my new Kindle (YAY!) when it finally arrives. Suddenly it's almost 11 and I've done no writing today.

Good thing I had all that coffee earlier and don't have a problem with staying up late. Right? Right.

Speaking of the epic masterpiece (aka-The Burning Plot Bunny), I was talking about some of the names I'm using in it with Eric earlier and how I'm doing research on those names and the various ancestries and meanings. It got me thinking along a path that looks promising. Not in this story because I'm afraid this story is going to get out of control if I don't start reigning myself in a little bit. I'm looking toward the horizon with this line of thought. I'm looking at how things evolved in the Werewolf Packs that stem from different cultures. I'm thinking about how my heroine doesn't know who she is and there could be a perfect opportunity there to explore that. For the record, I know who she is. I've known since early on. I don't think I'm going to spill the beans in this story, but I do know.

Am I starting to think too big? Is the story going to become a monstrous thing that scares me and gives me nightmares? Maybe. I'm okay with that today, though. Ask me again tomorrow and we'll see if I have the same answer.

Anyway. I have to write. For serious.
Later.

I went with malkovich03 to her mom's house for a barbecue today and I might (or might not) have done some drunken tweeting. I'm just saying. Once again, I'm not actually saying this happened, but here's the proof on both my twitter and Mal's (the latter was when I totally stole her phone and tweeted without her knowledge).

I'm extremely tired right now, so this is probably going to be short.

I wrote another 500 or so words this morning on the burning plot bunny. It's definitely moving forward with leaps and bounds. Hopefully tomorrow I'll close out chapter 3 and get a start on chapter 4. Lacey was given the first half of chapter 1 to read just because I needed someone to share it with. Hopefully she'll remember that it's in her car.

*blink, blink*

Tiredness setting in with a vengeance. My fingers are beginning to refuse to hit the correct keys. That's never good.
I'm out.

Last night was a bad night. Heather was violently ill and being that all our rooms are packed together on the top floor of our house ... well, listening to someone heaving endlessly in the bathroom next to you every couple of hours isn't easy to sleep through. She's feeling better now but the 3 or so hours of sleep we all got did not make for a pleasant day today.

I've had a lot of coffee to make up for it. *blink, blink*

Of course, a lot of coffee means that I'm mentally all over the place. Seriously, I have an idea for a fingerless gloves picture I want to put up on Twitter and I can't sit down long enough to make it happen. Ha! Dudes, I'm twitchy.

You know, I'm still reading the same book I've been reading for the past few days. I have no idea why it's taking me so long to get through. Actually, I do. It was those long ass stories I was reading online. Huh. Well, there you have it.

I have a little project for bangaboomerang I'm going to try to start tomorrow. I was aiming to start it today, but the day just kinda collapsed on me. Not in a good way.

You know, I'm tired. I'm going to go watch something non-brainy.
Later.