Nothing else matters ...

Yo! I had a ebook talk-thing, or maybe they referred to it as an e-publishing seminar, at the Morgan Hill library that I was planning on going to tonight. Then I found out that Rachel Caine (author of the outstanding Morganville Vampires series) was going to be doing a signing in Palo Alto, which is about 45 minutes away from where I live. So I blew off the e-pub thing and went to the signing.

Oh.my.fucking.god. I loved it! First off, it was a panel with three authors. At first, I had some issues with the etiquette involved when there was more than one author present. Like, do you just go to the author you know? Do you buy a book from the other author/s? Do you ignore them and hope they don't make eye contact? These were questions that were gnawing on me.

When I got there (extremely early, mind you), I took a look at the books by the other authors but I didn't know which were the first in the series or anything. So I just settled myself in and decided to play things by ear.

First off, Rachel Caine also got there early and she not only thanked me for being there, she gave me a hug for being so damn early. Yes, I tweeted that. It was cool. I was like, dude. Then, one of the authors was cracking my shit up. Cracking. She writes Zombie books of the humorous variety and she was all decked out with a Zombie shirt and a clutching hand hair clip and severed hand earrings. She was basically wearing the most outstanding outfit EVER. And she was funny. Deeply, nonsensically funny. So I bought the first book in her series and the first book in the other author's series and had TEN BOOKS signed by Rachel Caine. Plus I took pictures.


The one with Stacey Jay (the Zombie author) is a little blurry, but you get the point. Isn't Rachel Caine just awesome. She signed TEN BOOKS for me. TEN! I also scored a new bracelet (from the other author who I didn't take a picture with) and some bookmarks. Sweet!

Best day ever? Maybe. More exciting than an e-publishing talk at my local library? Oh, yeah.

Anyway. Book stuff that doesn't have to do with hugging and/or Zombies.
Booking Through Thursday - Skeletons on the Bookshelf - Where I somehow start babbling about how I don't like LJ Smith. Umm, yeah. That totally wasn't the topic, Kel.
30 days of books... Day 46 - Arrgh! Plunder on the high seas! Now with virtuous maidens and lusty captains!

Umm, that coffee I drank earlier was possibly laced with some sort of drug. You know, like caffeine. Or something. *blink, blink*
I'm out.
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.

Damn, my room is hot. Yuck. Sweaty, sticky hot are not things I enjoy being.

Okay, so I mentioned that I cut my hair the other day. Here's proof.

You can probably tell that I hate having pictures taken of me. I hate even more when I'm the one taking them. So, you get a side-ish view because the front on ones weren't good. And you couldn't see how short I cut my hair.

By the by, I think everyone should give me creative props for my purple bra with a green tank top. I'm totally not a fashion follower, yo. Yeah, I'm a rebel! A rebel with a purple bra! A rebel who isn't afraid to shout to the rooftops that she's got mad color matching skills!

(Psst. You'd almost have to say that a purple/green combo like that makes me excessively awesome.)

Anyway. Writing talk.
I got through the scene I was working on last night. I totally know where I need the next scene to end up. Getting from where I am now to where I need to be is more difficult than you'd think.

I'm inching along at this point, but at least I'm still moving forward. The really sad part? most of that was written after last night's journal entry.

So. One big fucking revelation later and we've got a few answers to a few questions. Now I just need to get from point A to point B before my head explodes!

There you have it.
I'm done. 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.

I've always been one of those people who wakes up disgustingly early. Like, crack of dawn early. Like, what the hell's wrong with you? early. All of a sudden I've been sleeping in every day. It started with me sleeping until 7 and it sort of plateaued with me getting up at 7:45 every morning. Today? 8:45. I feel like the apocalypse is nigh!

You might be thinking, "No one wants to hear about how you can keep your unemployed ass in bed until normal people get up!" While that might be technically true, I actually had a reason for mentioning it. See, Heather has been off work since her knee surgery and she goes back to work next Monday. Uggh. That means I'll be back to getting up at 5:45-ish so she can drop Hailey-bug off before heading out. Add that to the fact that the kids go back to school the following day and you can probably guess that I'm going to have a bitch of a time getting back into the swing of things.

Plus, there's that whole job thing where I'll probably have to get up early for. Which I'm still not looking forward to. I mean, really! Who needs to work? I mean, besides needing money for such basics as food and my mortgage and my disturbingly overwhelming book addiction, who needs it? WHO? I ASK YOU!

Have I mentioned how easy it is to buy books for my Kindle? TOO EASY! It's like, oh, I haven't read a book today about shapeshifters who have a space ship and need to have copious amounts of sex while navigating an asteroid belt. Let me browse the Kindle store ... Look! A book about shapeshifters in space! How fortuitous! *click* *buy* *too easy*

Speaking of books ...
Book #163 - In The Warrior's Bed by Mary Wine - It's been a long time since I read a full length historical. I liked the overall feel of the book, the writing was good, the characters were well developed, but I've been immersed in shapeshifters and their ilk for a while now and it was hard for me to change gears and jump into something so mundane. That said, I'm not sorry I picked the book up and I could easily see myself re-reading at when I'm more in a brawny Scotsman sort of mood. Story? When Cullen McJames is accused of defiling a rival clansman's daughter in the King's court, he takes the high road and decides to kidnap her and marry her to protect both of their names. High jinks and sexing ensue.

Book #164 - The Diamond Heartstone by Leila Brown - A very uneven story, with a heroine that acts one way in one scene and then has a complete turnaround in the next. If it had been expanded and better plotted, I could see it being a worthwhile read, but as is it really didn't do anything for me.

Book #165 - A Chance Encounter (Fae Encounters) by Leila Brown - Laid out better than the last book I read by this same author, it still stuttered a bit with the introduction of some concepts that weren't fully explored. Admittedly, this feels like the beginning of a larger story, so that could be addressed at a later date. A sex Fae meets twins who have the ability to control air. She's fleeing from those that would use her unique talent to enslave her, they're looking for a mate. Explosive sex occurs.

I'm currently reading 3 books. One is the next in the Carpathians series and it's taking me FOREVER to get through. One is a novella that's a follow-up to Boneshaker and I feel like I need to reacquaint myself with those characters before I can really dig into it. The third is this story that looks good on the outside but every time I sit down to read it my brain freezes up and I end up reading a chapter or two before setting it down. *sigh* I also have the 11th book in Kelley Armstrong's Women of the Otherworld series sitting here staring me in the face.

I need to lay off the 99 cent Kindle reads for a while and get back to the good stuff.

Okay. I've rambled and babbled and spewed my awesomeness across the internet enough today.
Later.

I had an entire post planned for this morning and somehow I got totally distracted by nothing and never got online to put it up. Is that weird or what? Don't worry, though, I'll recap the good parts for you now!

I was reading the Morgan Hill Times this morning and there was a itty, bitty mention about how the King of Jordan was hanging out in one of our Starbucks. Now, this would not normally be something I'd mention here except that I suffer from An Excess of Awesomeness Syndrome and reading that made me imagine how awkward it would have been to be in that Starbucks when he was there. You'd be trying to order your grande non-fat raspberry mocha with no whip cream and all these secret service guys would be standing around glaring. They'd probably want to frisk you because that's what happens when you're in the presence of a King. And you'd be like, "I just want my mocha. Please. No, King-guy, that's my mocha. Bad King-guy. Put it back. You ordered something else. That's mine. Oh. Okay. I guess you can just drink it since you've lipped it all up and stuff. Thanks. It was fun. Have a good time on your Harley. I like tattoos!"

Look, I don't know why the King-guy would totally take my mocha. He must have forgotten what he ordered. Yeah, you'd think that since it's my Excess of Awesomeness, I'd be able to answer some of those burning questions but one of the drawbacks of the Excess of Awesomeness is that it totally goes off on it's own tangents. I'm really just along for the ride.

Anyway. That was the highlight of the post that would have been but wasn't.

Onto writing type stuff:

I'm having a really tough time breaking the 40K plateau. I was struggling with a scene that I've been hinting at for the past few chapters and it's just not right. The way the revelation is being presented isn't right. The reactions to the revelation aren't right. I've written and re-written it a couple of times and I'm not feeling it yet. So once I finish here, I'm going to get back to that and try my hardest to at least get a rough draft of the revelation down and move along. And break that 40K plateau.

I also read a book.
Book #136 - Beyond the Darkening by Kerry Allen - This was so much better than the last piece I read by this author. It felt more complex and complete. I liked the characters. I liked the backstory the characters were given. The even like that the injuries the main guy received weren't all magically handwaved at the end. However, I wasn't keen on how quickly forgiveness was given for the betrayal that happened years ago. Still, the plot moved along quickly and I'm interested in where the clues that were dropped will lead in later books. The story: Infiltrating the Society for the Preservation of Humanity wasn't easy for Amanda, but she's immersed herself in the role to help the vampires she grew up with. When the vampire who broke her heart is captured and brought to the compound to be tortured, Amanda has to decide where her priorities lie. And whether she can trust herself to not fall in love with Nathan all over again.

Okay. I am done!
Later!

You know, whenever I decide that I'm going to try something new my mind goes into overdrive and suddenly I'm not just trying something new, I'M EXCELLING IT AT SO AWESOMELY THAT THE WORLD STANDS IN AWE AND CAN'T TEAR IT'S EYES AWAY!

I like to call this "An Excess of Awesomeness Syndrome".

To illustrate:
If I decide I'm going to teach myself how to cook, as soon as the thought takes root my mind decides that I'm not teaching myself how to cook so much as spontaneously becoming the BEST COOK ON THE PLANET WHO CAN CREATE THINGS OUT OF NOTHING AND MAKE IT TASTE GOOD AND EVERYBODY WEEPS WHEN I DRAMATICALLY UNCOVER MY LATEST DISH! Nevermind that I'm completely aware that it's not going to happen. We all remember the time I cooked the frozen pizza with the cardboard still attached to the bottom, don't we? My mind has built this whole scenario where I'm standing in the kitchen while the pots and pans dance around me and cook everything to my exact specifications and it turns out perfectly.

Which makes me kind of awesome.

Example no. 2:
Now I'm going to write a book! This book is going to be awesome. There are going to be werewolves! And fighting! And people dying! And it's TOTALLY GOING TO WIN THE NOBEL PEACE PRIZE BECAUSE ONCE PEOPLE READ IT IT WILL END WORLD HUNGER AND UNICORNS AND ELVES WILL FROLIC IN THE FIELDS AND EVERYONE WILL BE HAPPY AND BLISSFUL! Now, one part of my mind is like, "Kelly, I really doubt your porny werewolf novel is going to be picked up by Oprah and make the world a better place." But the other part, the part that suffers from an Excess of Awesomeness, is like, "Fuck that! It's going to win the motherfucking Nobel Peace Prize and the world will grovel at your feet and you will be Supreme Ruler of All Things That Live!" I try to temper the Excess of Awesomeness side but it leaks through constantly and I'm like *steepling fingers and cackling diabolically*, "Supreme Motherfucking Ruler of All Things That Live!" Then I go back to writing my Nobel Peace Prize winning novel.

Which make me kind of super, duper awesome.

So, yes. I suffer from An Excess of Awesomeness. The only way I figure I can tame it is to write the Nobel Peace Prize winning novel so that I stand on top of the world while the pots and pans dance around me and make a magnificent meal.

The end.

PS: Please note that I'm still listening to the same song I was listening to yesterday. This is probably all part of the Excess of Awesomeness Syndrome. I'm not sure how, but I'm sure it all relates. Somehow.