Nothing else matters ...

Do you guys see what happens when I don't have access to LJ for a few days? I lose my journal writing momentum and then days and days and DAYS pass without a journal. I even wrote a list up yesterday of things I wanted to get done while at work and update ye olde LJ was on it. Yet, it didn't get done. I did everything else on the list. Just not that.

I am horrible.

But now I'm going to get right back on that momentum horse and not let my slackerish tendencies control me. Because I'm strong like that.

Since we're talking about momentum and other scintillating things, I'm having a crisis with my Epic Werewolf Masterpiece #1. I originally had great plans to add a bunch of stuff to the narrative to expand the time frame of the story and then link the new writing back up with what I wrote way back when. The thing is, the more I add to the story the less likely it looks like the original scenes will be able to merge with the updated timeline. It's just not going to work. I can see the main female character changing as I write it. She's growing in ways she wasn't able to in the shortened timeline I wrote originally. This is a good thing because the entire reason I decided to add narrative was to make her growth more realistic. Yet, now the growth she's experiencing makes her later actions out of character.

What a conundrum!

I think I'm going to cut the entire end of the book and just let this new story unfurl. Of course that'll mean that EWM#2 will have to be completely rewritten as well. *face palm* Still, it's better for the book and for the characters that it plays out this new way. I can handle some hardcore rewriting. Or just, writing.

Anyway. I have a lot of bookish stuff to post. You know, since I haven't been good at updating recently.
Book #294 - Earl of Darkness (Heirs of Kilronan Trilogy #1) by Lix Rickloff - Decent enough but the ending was so abrupt that I kept looking around waiting for the next bit of action.
Book #295 - Amaury's Hellion (Scanguards Vampires #2) by Tina Folsom - Tina Folsom can write some steamy vampire sex. For serious.
Book #296 - Warrior (Blades of the Rose #1) by Zoe Archer - I loved the way the author brought the landscape of Mongolia to life here. It was so vivid and bright.
Book #297 - Awaken Me Darkly (Alien Huntress #1) by Gena Showalter - Not the best book I've read by this author, but still entertaining. As a plus, there's great setup for the later books in this series.
Book #298 - Sons of Apollyon by G.A. Colin - Bloody, gory fun. With vampires! Sweet!
Teaser Tuesday (07/26/11) - Warriors, monsters and vampires. Lovely.
Book Blogger Hop & Follow Friday (07/29/11) - Books I'm looking forward to, t-shirt slogans that represent me and one sexy, sexy back.
In My Mailbox (07/31/11) - A lot of fabulous free books!

Dude. How the hell is it almost August? I honestly didn't realize it until I typed the date in that last link. Whoa. Just, whoa.

Alright. I vow to be a better blogger and post more than once a week. Also, I might be relocating to Dreamwidth and crossposting those posts over to here. I don't know. I'm very torn about giving up on LJ as my main blogging place. I've been here for quite a while, you know. Quite.A.While.

I'm done.

What the fuck is up with that LJ navigation header? I realize that the end of the world is nigh and everything (hey, I saw it on a billboard it must be true!) but this kinda feels a little to rapture-y to me. I don't care for it. I don't want to look at it every time I'm preparing a post.

Today at work I think I saw a total of 7 people all day. And one of them was the girl who does the grounds keeping. Yeah. It was crazy. I almost couldn't handle it.

Anyway. The slowness of the day (every Saturday, I swear!) means that I read and put up a few reviews. I know. Shocking.
Books #190, 191, 192 - Moon Trilogy by CL Bevill - Three separate stories that I think could have been easily combined into one book. But they weren't and I'm trying to keep my totals here on par with my Goodreads books. So, there.
Book #193 - Windfall (Weather Warden #4) by Rachel Caine - Seriously, this series just keeps getting better.
Book #194 - The Warlord Wants Forever (Immortals After Dark #1) by Kresley Cole - Wow, this was one steamy novella. And I read it at work which was amusing because I kept blushing when I had to put my Kindle down to answer the phone.

Cole and I are randomly watching Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Not my favorite Indy movie but still a lot of fun.
Okay. I'm done.

I've missed a lot of blogging days this month. I find that amusing because I used to be super gung-ho about blogging every single day. Like, WOE! if I missed a day or something. While I admittedly blog more for myself (because I have a terrible memory and need all the help remembering the little things that happen that I can get), it seems that lately all the people that I used to interact with on a daily or weekly basis are transitioning away from blogging.

I have several friends that post on Facebook but I can't stand the way FB is set up so I avoid it as much as possible. I like Twitter but everything you write there is so fleeting. I wonder how often people take the time to check out tweets that came in while they were offline. Once it's off page 1 of your timeline do you even see it? Plus, when people respond to a tweet hours after I've written it I usually don't know what they're talking about. Maybe that's just me, though.

I don't get Tumblr at all. I just... don't. Every time I've followed a link over there I have no idea what anyone's talking about. It's like there's this whole other language on that site that somehow just passed me by.

I love my book blog but at the same time I hate the way comments are set up there. Unlike LJ, Blogger doesn't let you respond directly to comments (you know where it nests the response under the original comment) so replying over there is a mess.

I guess I'm trying to say that I love blogging. I love the act of writing out a (mostly) daily journal and knowing that if I need to know what day Cole and I went and got delicious fro-yo it's there for me. But at the same time, it's a little depressing to think that no one will ever see the genius of my posts anymore. I'm a bad commenter, btw. Probably one of the worst. So I guess I can't complain that peeps aren't commenting here and letting me know they're visiting when I never do either.

I really don't know what I'm saying. I love blogging but I'm feeling a sense of ... I don't know. I'm feeling adrift right now. Maybe it's because I don't have all that much to talk about. Maybe I'm just having a weird day.

Maybe I need to stop reading a shitload of books a day and get back to my writing so I can talk about other things besides sexy paranormal romances.

Speaking of which...
Book #119 - Dragon Warrior (Midnight Bay #2) by Janet Chapman - Frothy, fun and magical. This is the type of book you read when you're not looking to tax your brain too severely.
Book Blogger Hop, Follow Friday & Tagalong Friday - When I get to talk about books with sexy Fae warriors, pooping out gold babies, and cosmic middle fingers And I get to put up pictures of a shirtless Jason Behr... well, you know you're going to be reading a crazy post.

Now that I've vented my discontent all over you, I'm going to go watch TV.
You're welcome.

You know, I'm usually so good about blogging here, even though I'm not sure how many people actually use LJ anymore, but I've already missed two days this month. TWO! Seriously, I think I've posted every day this year except for *maybe* 10. And that includes the two this month. All that blogging is nothing to sniff at, admittedly, but I think I could have done better. Hell, it's not like I have anything else going on right now.

So. Yesterday. The fam went to see Hailey's 2nd grade Holiday performance where all the 2nd grade classes sang Christmas carols. It was cute. Except! Except that the fucking parents behind us talked through the entire thing. And when they weren't talking they were singing along... loudly. Okay, seriously? I know it's all supposed to be fun and such and I shouldn't get bent out of shape but at the very least SING IN KEY! And then shut the fuck up. Because I don't want to hear what Betty at the office is getting your boss for Christmas. I don't.

Okay. I'm done now. You can all come back. I promise to keep my swearing to a bare minimum. Hopefully.

I caught up on all the shows on my DVR recently. A bunch of them were shows that Cole watches and he cleared those out on his own. I had a few episodes of Fringe which is a show I was honestly thinking of giving up on until I got caught up. Wow. All of a sudden it's good again. Or maybe I just understand what's going on. I don't know. I just know that I watched three episodes back to back and enjoyed them all.

I'm also up to date on Vampire Diaries. Holy hell! Does anybody else start drooling when Tyler strips off his shirt? It can't be just me. That's not possible. The guy is a Fucking hardbody with a capital F. Considering the guy is, like, 25, I feel like a total perv for saying that. But then again, rock hard abs cross all age barriers. I'm pretty sure it's a law of nature. And if it's not, it should be.

Okay. Book stuff. Two days worth so I'm all caught up...
Book #256 - Candy Houses (Grimm's Circle #1) by Shiloh Walker - I decided to go back and start this series from the beginning. You know, since I read the last 2 books first.
Book #257 - No Prince Charming (Grimm's Circle #2) by Shiloh Walker - Finishing off the series with book 2!
Book #258 - Tempt Me With Darkness (Doomsday Brethren #1) by Shayla Black - Engaging fluff. Which I thoroughly enjoyed.
Book #259 - Explosive by Beth Kery - Not my usual type of book, until I throw in that part about the dominant man and his penchant for tying up his lady. Which I forgot to talk about, come to think of it.

Book Blogger Hop & Follow Friday - Why I like book blogs and under appreciated authors.

I also cobbled together a page for all the series reviews I've done. Guys, I called it... wait for it ... Series reviews. I know. I'm brilliant.
The next task I'm setting for myself is to get an About Me page up and running. So everyone can be all... Ohhh! So that's Kelly. Or maybe they won't say that. I don't know.

Okay. I'm done. I have The Descent 2 to watch. It seemed appropriate since I just watched the first Descent. Hopefully that'll mean I can easily figure out what's going on. Hopefully.
I'm out.
Later.

Today I got up early, cursed on Twitter (Fuck you, 6:30!), went to Hailey's soccer game, went to the new Halloween store, finished a book, wrote up some bookish things, napped, got dinner for Cole and his friend, went to two more Halloween stores and checked out the costumes at WalMart. Whoa. That was a lot of Halloweening.

Now Cole, Hailey and I are watching Resident Evil 3.

Randomly, after using LJ for so many years where I put in my own coding for italics and such, Blogger kills me because I automatically do the < > tags while typing without thinking about it.

Bookish stuff:
On my wishlist (week 2) - Zombies, Werewolves and Alien Princes
30 days of books... Day 6 - It's a red letter day!
Book #184 - Guns Will Keep Us Together (Bombay Assassins #2) by Leslie Langtry - Where I liken finishing that book to Frodo's quest for the ring. My precious ....

I haven't picked out my celebratory Kindle book yet (for finishing my novel by the deadline I gave myself) but I did start reading The Hunger Games. I'm only a couple of chapters in but I can already see why people are so enraptured of it.

I know that everyone was horrified and otherwise completely grief-stricken that it was possible that the POST OF COMPLETE AWESOMENESS yesterday was the pinnacle of journal writing for me. You were wrong! Because I feel another awesome post coming on!

Unfortunately I have to just jump in and get all my feet wet because if I take the time to decide what order this needs to go in, it will be lost for all time! To the journal, gentle readers!

Guys, I took THREE showers yesterday! Three. Only they weren't all actual showers. The first one was. It was early, I needed to bathe. I did. Then we had Hailey's party and there was swimming and when I got back from that I had to jump in the shower again because I DON'T WANT MY BEAUTIFUL RED HAIR TO BECOME NOT RED! So, I rinsed off the chlorine and conditioned my hair. Nice. Then it was later and I was sweaty and uncomfortable because my room has zero airflow in it and I was gearing up for the Night of Epic Tweeting while watching a bad SyFy movie. So I jumped in the shower again.

Which leads to the Night of Epic Tweeting. I don't even know how to explain what happened there. I had salsa and a bad movie and all of a sudden I was tweeting constantly and I COULDN'T STOP! I'd apologize to all my followers for that but when I went back and re-read it this morning it was entirely accurate. Like, I could get a job writing up pithy, scene by scene comments on movies and people would be all "Whoa! That was entirely accurate. Did you see that? It was exactly as she described it! This girl is gooooood!"

And I thought I'd found my calling in life when I started writing werewolf porn. It's like I'm multi-dimensional now or something.

Finally, I don't know how many peeps have seen this already, but this song is catching my fancy right now (I think it was originally featured on SYTYCD, FYI). This is a live version so it's a little different from the single (a little rougher, still good) and I can't stop listening to it. I even broke down and purchased it from iTunes.


That's it. I make no promises that I won't be back later. And I may just Tweet the shit out of something in the meantime. Fear me!
Later.

I'm a little bit in love with my new layout over at bay12_fic. Lovely!

I don't like lime flavored candy. However, I have a serious weakness for lemon flavored. I also don't like most strawberry flavored things. I like real strawberries, but strawberry flavor tastes so fake to me. Blech.

My mom and I took Hailey and Cole up to the pool today. It was a little too much on the breezy side for me. I had the towels draped over me trying to keep from shivering. Cole tells me that the pool was a nice temperature, but I'm not sure if I'm going to believe him.

I read two books today ...
Book #53 - Swallowing Darkness (Meredith Gentry #7) by Laurell K. Hamilton - This book closes out the story arc that's been driving the series since book 1. Merry is pregnant. According to the rules her Aunt set down for her, she will become Queen of the Unseelie Court. ( More, more, more )

-and-

Book #54 - Divine Misdemeanors (Meredith Gentry #8) by Laurell K. Hamilton - Having taken her men and voluntarily exiled herself to LA, Merry gets caught up in the middle of a series of murders of a group of demi-Fey. The wild magic is still riding her and causing her consorts to gain power at every turn. Some of the humans she saved while escaping the Unseelie Court have gained power as well, something that's nearly unheard of. Not quite as tight a story arc as in the previous books, but still engaging and fun to read.

I did write today, but not much. I wrote a page or so at the pool but I couldn't sit comfortably in the chair. It just didn't work out well.

I think tomorrow is going to be Verizon day. I'm ready. I'm ready to get myself a new phone. Wish me shiny, techy things.

And now I'm done. I have to get started on all the lovely shows that I watch on Thursday.
Later.

I've washed my hair twice since I had it dyed and the color still looks gooooood. I'm such a happy girl. It's funny how I always seem to roll back around to the reds with my hair. I might dabble in the blonds and browns (not the black, though, because my coloring just wouldn't work with it) but red has a siren call that keeps me coming back for more.

Book. Me. Book. Reading is good.
Book #34 - A Fistful of Charms (Rachel Morgan/The Hollows #4) by Kim Harrison - When word comes around that Rachel's old boyfriend is in trouble, Rachel does what she does best and drops everything to rush headlong into danger. Her rescue mission draws her from Cincinnati to an island populated by several packs of werewolves who want what Nick has stolen and who aren't afraid to kill to get it. This is the book where Rachel begins to accept that her ability to kindle demon magic isn't bad. If she's not hurting anyone to twist the curse and she's not hurting anyone by casting the curse itself, it doesn't make her a black witch. It just makes her someone who likes to play with dangerous things. Bringing the storyline with Nick back around helps tie up some loose ends and put his betrayal behind her. More or less. There wasn't enough Trent/Rachel interaction for my liking, but I can wait. I can wait.

I was re-reading what I've written for Chapter 5 of my multi-chapter epic (*ahem* chapter 4 - read it. Please. *ahem*) and although what I've written in it so far it something that both needs to happen and needs to happen now, I'm kinda stumped as to where the rest of the chapter is going to go to. Does that make sense? The point of the chapter has played itself out and I'm only 500 or so words into it. That's not a chapter. That's a ... something smaller than a chapter. Now I have to have a long look at what's going to happen in the near future with Maia and her ghosts and decide what I can move forward without making the chapter either excrutiatingly long or incoherent.

Speaking of which, I kinda see why some people wait to post until they have a couple of chapters written (whether it's fanfic or original) because as I'm getting deeper into the story I see that there are some things that either should have been expanded on at the time or simply laid out a bit differently. Yes, I can go back and make changes, but ... oh, bother! That was me expressing mild frustration. I can also see a difference between the first chapter and the following chapters in regards to my writing style. Since the first was supposed to be a completely contained story, I wrote Maia's voice a bit differently than I wrote her later. Bother, again. Once again, fixable. I know that. It's just that it would have been nice to present a story in it's entirety that I wasn't constantly going back and thinking about fixing just so.

Those are my writing woes.

Do you all feel so bad for me? Yeah. Don't. I'm unemployed, I get to read all day long and write until my eyes hurt and my fingers cramp. It's kinda the best time I've ever had!

I'm done now.
Later.

I have no idea what has put in this almighty pissy mood that's hovering over me, but there it is. Clawing and screeching and making me glare. This mood has ensured that the kids are driving me bananas, Cole especially. Yes. I do remember how much I missed him when he was gone, but his "I'm so helpless" act is getting really old. I swear to you that when he acts like that I believe he couldn't find toilet paper while he was sitting on the pot. Arrgh! Maybe I've been too lenient with him lately, but I've had it today. Had.it. I've reached the point where I've told him that if his attitude doesn't magically fix itself he's not going to go to Gamestop tomorrow to pick up the Pokemon game he pre-ordered. We haven't paid for it yet, just put down a deposit, and I'd be willing to lose the deposit just to prove that I'm serious.

Kids.

I did manage to get a book read. Well, a book and a short story ...
Book #24.5 - Infusion by Kelley Armstrong - Another short story set in her Otherworld universe, this one following the events leading up to Pack leader Jeremy Danver's birth. Not as enlightening as the last SS I read by her, but (if I'm looking at it honestly) it's harder to get to know a character who you haven't met in a previous book in a few short chapters. Still, it was interesting, well written and raised some questions about who Jeremy's mother was and what her endgame was in having a child by a Werewolf. I'd be interested in finding out more.

-and-

Book #25 - Black Magic Sanction (Rachel Morgan/The Hollows #8) by Kim Harrison - Awesome, another series that I'm feeling to urge to go back and re-read from the beginning. Where am I going to find the time? I think this might be one of my favorites in the series. I liked that Rachel is finally accepting that she can twist demon curses. Is she a demon? Not exactly, but she's not strictly a witch either. She can do things that both can do and that makes her unique. It also puts her in the sticky situation of being wanted by both the governing witch coven and the crazy as a fruit-cake lead demon. Throw in her demon mentor, an ex-flame who's betrayed her more than once, and a potential new man who can twist a curse faster than she can and you've got a pretty jam-packed book. I would have liked to see more Trent, but I'm content to wait and let those two play out in later books (what? I can have a twisted pairing if I want to).

Umm ... I've read 11 books so far in March. On the 13th. And and and I read two of those books more than once. Cover to cover. One part of me feels like I should slow down but there's another part that's yelling "Fuck, yeah! Read those books!"

*face palm*

In other news that isn't "read a book, feed the soul" related ... I've been backing up this journal over at Dreamwidth. I do it every other week or so, plus I have this entire journal dl-ed to a LJ Archive file on my comp. Is that a bit much? I just keep thinking that the reason I'm writing this stuff is so I can remember it. Not just the books or anything because I can remember books pretty well. It's all the other stuff. The stupid little the things that make me smile or snarl or whatever. And the not so stupid or little other things that I just want to remember. Like working at the bank. Although it's not something I want to dwell on day in and day out, I want to remember how miserable I was there so I can remember that it's not something I need to be stuck with for all eternity (in the event that I do have to get a job soon and the only one I can get is at another bank).

Does that make sense? I want to remember that there are always options out there.

Okay. Getting maudlin, here. Going to go. Don't want to ruin the fun.
I might have part 3 of my multi-chapter epic up tonight. I might not. It depends on whether or not I can shake this funk off.
I'm out!

I was having a thought earlier about blabapalooza and something new I'd like to incorporate there, but then I started really thinking about it and I'm not sure if it's too much overlap with what we already do. Hmm ... maybe I should run it by jenah and see what her feeling are on it.

For those that don't know, Blab is a movie review site run by Jenn and myself. The whole idea is to give people an idea of movies that are worth skipping or those that are must-sees (I tend to focus on the bad SyFy channel movies, while some of our reviewers go for movies that are still in the theater). It doesn't see a huge amount of traffic or anything, but we have fun. In the past I've done reviews on "special edition" movies on DVD that don't have enough extras to warrant shelling out the bucks, especially if you already own the original or theatrical copy. I've been toying with the idea of a "movies to watch even though I don't have time to review them" type of thing. I have a list of over 10 movies that I've been trying to review for a couple of weeks. You'd think that not working would give me the time to do those reviews. Umm. That does not appear to be the case.

I've kinda lost the point I was trying to make here. I guess I'm just wondering if it's worth it to post a list of decent, little-known movies without a detailed review. Would anybody be interested in watching a movie based on a "I think this movie is grand!" recommendation without knowing what it is about the movie that I think makes the movie worth watching?

Does that even make sense? I've thought myself into a tizzy here! I really don't know what I'm trying to say anymore.

Okay. I guess I'll just move on.

Cole spent the day up in San Francisco with his dad at the Academy of Science. It sounds like he had a good time. He took pictures of a giant cockroach just to gross me out. Thanks, Cole!

I do believe I'm done now. I'm seriously tired of having to correct all of my spelling mistakes. I'm not even going to proofread this anymore because I DON'T WANT TO!
Later!