Friday 5

1. Though I'm stuck working all weekend, I am off on Monday...and this is where I hope to be: The TREMONT GREEKFEST.



I've been dreaming of Greek food for a week now, and what they serve at this festival is phenomenal! Yes, it'll be 91 degrees, but hey, there are tents and ice cold beer.

2. Another great review for THE UNQUIET from DANA'S YA BOOK PILE:

"The way the author takes her work at a psychiatric hospital and gives Rinn some very real problems was something that made this book special. The ghost element combined with the enigma of mental illness was a compelling mystery that unfolded like a complex piece of origami. If you like ghost stories or are a fan of Ellen Hopkins and her edgy real life issues, this is a book you will enjoy."

Can you tell I'm kind of some kind of Serious Love with book bloggers lately? <3 <3 <3

3. I've read 30 books so far this year, most of them YA, and I'm keeping track on my GOODREADS page. My goal is a book a week. Big whoop, right? It's not like I win a prize. I WANNA WIN A PRIZE!

4. Will you look at this lineup for the Northern Ohio SCBWI Annual Conference? And yes, I'm on the list! I will post more information as the time (September) draws nearer.

5. You know how you might see a book cover from a distance that catches your eye, so you have to stop what you're doing, get up, and walk all the way over to see what it is? This was mine today:



Freaking cool cover! A WIDOW'S STORY: A Memoir by (the amazing!) Joyce Carol Oates.

Have a safe and happy Memorial Day Weekend! I'll eat some baklava for ya.

BACK AGAIN, LTNS

I have not been abducted by aliens. I've just been insane lately. More than usual, that is.



Part of it's the weather. Most people looove the springtime, right?. Sprouting flowers, warm weather, blossoms on tree, etc. I, on the other hand, prefer the fall. Death and decay actually energize me. :-) I do my best writing in the fall, while spring seems to suck me dry.

Also, Grandma was in the hospital for three weeks. She went in with a UTI and ended up on IVs, an O2 mask, and various tubes I'd rather not describe. She's home now (only because I insisted on it) and doing 100% better. But I've been busy with that, and not in the mood to blog. Or write. Or much of anything else.

Now that things are looking up, here I am. THE UNQUIET will be released in less than two months!!! It's already received some excellent reviews, like this one from NOVEL NERD:

"Lets talk about that ending. THAT ENDING. What in the world? What does it mean? Does it mean what I think it means? I just don't know. That whole ending was kind of weird. In a good way, but weird. The very last words made me want to yell in protest. That can not be the ending. There must be a second book! Right? I sure hope so. I would love to dive into Rinn's world some more. There are still some unanswered questions such as-Where's Lacy? What's gonna happen to Meg? What does that ending mean?! The Unquiet isn't even out yet and I desperately want more. I will cross my fingers and toes and hope there is another book."

How awesome is that???

READ THE FULL REVIEW HERE

KINDLE SPECIAL: Before, After, and Somebody in Between

BEFORE, AFTER, AND SOMEBODY IN BETWEEN is now available on Kindle for $1.99! LINK

SEE YOU AT HARRY'S by Jo Knowles

READ ABOUT "SEE YOU AT HARRY'S" on Jo Knowles's blog! Release date was May 8th. 



SEE YOU AT HARRY'S at Amazon:Twelve-year-old Fern feels invisible. Her dad is always busy planning how to increase traffic to the family business. Her Mom is constantly going off to meditate. Her sister Sarah, who's taking a "gap year" after high school, is too busy finding ways not to work; and her brother Holden is too focused on his new "friend" to pay attention to her. And then there's Charlie: three years old, a "surprise" baby, and the center of everyone's world.

If it wasn't for Ran, Fern's best and oldest friend, there would be nowhere to turn. Ran is always calm, always positive. His mantra "All will be well" is soothing in a way that nothing else seems to be. And when Ran says it, Fern can almost believe.

But when their lives are unexpectedly turned upside down, Fern feels more alone than ever, and responsible for the event that wrenches the family apart. All will not be well. Or at least, all will never be the same.
As a HUGE fan of Jo's writing, I am so excited and I can't wait to read this!

CONGRATS, JO!

Auto-Reject

From (April's link) A way to get a rejection before you actually submit anything. You know, to build up your endurance. To thicken up that boiled-egg-membrane you call a skin.

Here's mine:

Dear Writer,

And for your next trick, you’ll … what? Make a human turd turn into an ursine one? No? Create a maggot-vomiting cat? Do tell. We expect wonders.

The Editors

Considering I already have a maggot-vomiting dog (well...worms, not maggots--but that's a mere technicality) I guess nothing is out of the realm of possibility.

Midnight Cravings

Last night at 2:30 a.m. I wake up out of a sound sleep.



It doesn't have to be cookies.

Me. WANT. SHOOOOOGARRRR!

Problem is, I don't keep it around. Well, I kindasorta do: I buy Little Debbie and Hostess crapola treats for my husband for the simple reason that I don't like that stuff. I like fresh, donut-shop donuts. I like homemade pie ( "homemade" defined as anything I have to, yanno, actually bake in the oven; in the Garsee household, the fact that it came out of a box does not make it any less homemade with the exception of pizza). I especially looove ice cream.

but there's nothing to be found in the freezer, the fridge, the cupboards, under the couch cushions...in the trunk of my car on the neighbor's back porch (sorry, Bob--that was me). Ab. So. Lute, Ly NOTHING!!! Not even a crummy cookie unless you count a box of Milkbones.

Elijah: Those are cookies.

Me: No, they're not.

Elijah: YOU call them cookies! All the time, you say: "Elijah! Wanna cookie? Come get your cookie!" blah, blah.

Me: Elijah, those are not "real" cookies.

Elijah: ??? You--you've been lying to me all this time?

Me: OK, let me rephrase that: Those are dog cookies, Eli. Not human cookies.

Elijah: ...whimper, whimper...sniff.

Me: WHAT?!

Elijah: I--I'm not human?

Anyway, I settled for a bowl of sugary cereal (though less sugary than I remember from childhood), watched 30 minutes of a Lifetime movie (Tiffany Theissen is married to some peeping Tom and just found out she's pregnant), and finally conked back out.

Seriously, am I the only person who jolts straight up out of a perfectly sound sleep with an uncontrollable sugar craving? Raise hands if you do.

(And throw me a cherry pie)

Friday 5

1. Grandma is 88 years old and still going strong, though she is now in the habit of forgetting my name (she can't remember the dog's name, either, so I'm not the only one left out). At least she remembered she loves Chinese food and birthday cake.

2. I just hit "send"--and you know what that means.

3. Sick of the never-ending trolls, the heavy-handed moderation, and, in short, the whole toxic environment over at my favorite writer's board, I just sent a PM to the PTB to delete my account. It was a time-suck anyway. I feel positively cleansed!*

*This should not be misconstrued as an endorsement for BOWTROL. Prunes work just fine.

4. I'm working day shift this weekend and already spazzing out over the idea of waking up at 5:00 a.m. especially now that I'm out of Benadryl. I also learned the other night, after taking care of a very elderly gentleman and schlepping him back and forth to the john 12 times in 8 hours, that I'm much too old to be doing this for a living.

5. My new favorite show (after The Big Bang Theory) is VEEP!

A Little Night Ghost Story

We have a camera in the TV room at work, with a closed-circuit monitor at the nurses’ station. I like to call it a spycam, though we’re not exactly “spying”—we just want to make sure no one is

A. Engaging in illegal coitus, or

B. Engaging in anything else they shouldn’t be doing.

Though the monitor has a record button, it has never, to my knowledge, ever recorded anything. There’s no tape, for one thing. So that’s a dead giveaway.

We keep the TV room open till 11 or so at night. The door locks automatically when it closes. The only time we lock it up early is if certain people insist on engaging in either A or B (see above). Frankly, we nurses get tired of breaking that stuff up.

So imagine my surprise when patients start coming to desk, asking why the TV room's locked. The first time I figure someone closed by accident. The second time I have to unlock it, I figure some smart*** is playing games.

The third time I have to schelp down the hall to open the room it occurs to me: We're always watching that TV room on the monitor. We also make rounds every 15 minutes. Whoever's shutting that door most certainly would've been spotted by now.

Note: The door cannot close by itself. There's an automatic latch when the door is opened.

Still, I continue to toy with the idea that a certain someone finds it brilliantly entertaining to force the lazy-do-nothing-sit-behind-the-desk-all-night nurses (HIS opinion, of course, which is in no way grounded in reality) to jump up to unlock the door every hour on the hour.

Then, shortly before 11p.m. I glance at the monitor. There's a patient sitting alone in the TV room, staring intently at the TV. Bummer that the TV's going off in a few minutes…

M, arriving for night shift, does go down to turn off the TV and shut the door. But a short while later, when I look at the monitor again, the same patient is STILL THERE, sitting in the same chair and still watching TV. The TV screen, I notice, doesn't seem to be moving.

“Who is that, back in the TV room?” I ask. “I thought M locked it up.”

Several of us huddle around the monitor. On closer inspection, we see it's a female patient—slight build, African-American, wearing a light-colored shirt with short sleeves. This description, however, does NOT match any of the patients we currently have on the unit. And with only two female patients--one a very large black lady, the other a smaller white lady--it's not like we can’t keep track of them.

“I know I shut that door!” M insists.

Back down the hall we go. And yes, the door IS shut and the TV IS turned off. But--back at the desk--the mystery woman remains on the monitor, sitting quietly in her chair, staring at the TV.

A still picture. A photograph. Now where it came from or how it popped up on the monitor, none of us have a clue. Could it possibly be of a patient who’d been discharged some time ago? Maybe. But if the damn thing doesn’t record, if there’s no freaking tape in it…how is this possible?

A reboot of the monitor gets rid of the picture and resumes a live stream of the TV room. But the question remains: Who was the woman watching TV?

The same one who kept closing the door all night long?

Saunda Mitchell: THE SPRINGSWEET

Congratulations to Saundra Mitchell, for today is the release date for her novel THE SPRINGSWEET!



Amazon description: Heartbroken over the tragic death of her fiancé, seventeen-year-old Zora Stewart leaves Baltimore for the frontier town of West Glory, Oklahoma, to help her young widowed aunt keep her homestead going. There she discovers that she possesses the astonishing ability to sense water under the parched earth. When her aunt hires her out as a “springsweet” to advise other settlers where to dig their wells, Zora feels the burden of holding the key to something so essential to survival in this unforgiving land. Even more, she finds herself longing for love the way the prairie thirsts for water. Maybe, in the wildness of the territories, Zora can finally move beyond simply surviving and start living.

This is the follow-up book to THE VESPERTINE which Saundra worked on during YES! GRAPEMO! (and was so generous with her teasers!) and also the book I'm currently reading. How lucky am I to get to read them in quick succession?? TOTALLY lucky!

Best of luck to you, Saundra! xox

Monday, Monday

Laaaaazy day! This weekend was unreal.

Saturday: 1. A funeral service for my "adopted" sister Ruthy's dad. He was in his 80's and fairly recently (last year) widowed after his wife (of 63 years!) died. He passed away peacefully after a very brief illness. Every nurse who took care of him came in to kiss him goodbye.

2. Immediately after that, I had the pleasure of being part of the Hudson Ohio Author Book Fair in Hudson, Ohio. How cool is it to meet people who love to read? Who like your books? Or to hang out with OTHER WRITERS who don't glaze over when you talk about writing, and--better yet--are more than happy to share their own experiences?

Lisa Roeker, me, Mara Purnhagen, Linda Gerber, Melissa Staehli

Sunday: Orthodox Easter. Because I didn't think far enough ahead to request the whole weekend off, I had to drag myself to work in the morning, then zip off to my sister Karen's right after work. Ruthy, who at first hadn't planned to come because of the funeral and all (and out-of-town family) sprung a surprise visit on us after all I LOVE YOU, RUTHY! Family, friends, a whole evening of gossip and great food.

Today I was also supposed to work, but a last minute schedule change (THANK YOU, JANIS!) gave me the day off. I'd planned to spend it writing--yanno, the thing I'm supposed to do whenever I have a spare moment?--and instead spent it alternately napping and finishing up on some reading:

This one, a stunning novel-in-verse, I read this in one sitting.

And my "adult" fix for the month--


--which I finished up while waiting for the guys at the gas station to change my oil.

This one I finished reading on Saturday after the book fair, because spending time around books only makes me want to read more.



5 stars for all of them!

FOR THE RECORD

 Cheesy



Cheesy



Cheesy



Cheesy



Cheesy



Extremely cheesy



NOT CHEESY!

Libraries

Libraries love me. Libraries love me because I can never get my books back on time. Sometimes I think my fines singlehandedly support the whole system.

But I love them back. I've ditched Panera. Now I'm sitting with my laptop in a blessedly QUIET environment, with no need for headphones to block out the racket.

Plus there's nothing to eat here.

Plus I'm surrounded by books.

It doesn't get much better.

In This Passover Season

HAPPY EASTER!

HAVE A GREAT WEEKEND!

RIP

She was the kind of nurse I often wished I could be. And maybe, some time in the distant past, I was a bit like her.

Even-tempered. Caring. Always upbeat. Never once did I hear her make a snarky comment. Never heard her complain about the amount of work, the idiocy of management, the ingratitude of the patients for whom we bend over backwards without expecting anything in return, other than respect. Which nurses often don't get.

Compassionate. Soft-spoken. Always smiling. And none of this changed when she became so very sick. Sick to the point where she once, discreetly, held a basin under the desk in case the chemo treatment she'd just undergone might cause her to vomit.

It was a long, fierce battle, one she never complained about. As the sole carrier of the health benefits for her family, she worked nearly up till the very end. This alone proves she's a far better person than me, to not want to saddle her family with medical bills. I would have said, "Tough--I'm dying! I am not dragging myself to work."

The heavens are now shining a thousand times brighter.

We Need to Talk About Kevin

I just read WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT KEVIN by Lionel Shriver, and discovered two reasons why I'm so bad at book reviews.

First reason: I'm inarticulate.

I collapsed in front of my husband after finishing the read. "WHAT THE ****?"

"What?"

"JEE-sus Christ!"

"What?"

"Omigod. This is one ****-ed up book!"

That's as far as I got with explaining anything.

Second reason: I never know how to rate something I both love and hate.

When I started reading it, I thought: This is gonna be 1 star. Initially, I hated the writing. It's Thesaurusville. It's literary. I hated the naval gazing, the endless introspection. I found myself skimming. I also hated everything about the main character except that she wasn't as utterly-and-unbelievably-stupid as her husband. I would have left the dumb-ass and there would've been no story.

Then, halfway through, I mentally upped it to 3 stars. After all, I'm the one who thrives on stupid, unlikeable characters. I've invented some myself. They kind of grown on you. Who wants to read about brilliant and lovable all the time? Plus I'd been sucked into the story by then, though I still wanted to reach into the pages and slap a few people. More importantly: I'd stopped skimming.

I ended up giving it 5 stars because I could NOT put it down, because I did NOT anticipate the twist, and the ending--right down to the very last sentence--BLEW ME AWAY!!!!!!

Awesome, awesome, awesome!

Now, of course, I must see the movie!



Booklist *Starred Review* In a series of brutally introspective missives to her husband, Franklin, from whom she is separated, Eva tries to come to grips with the fact that their 17-year-old son, Kevin, has killed seven students and two adults... Guiltily she recalls how, as a successful writer, she was terrified of having a child. Was it for revenge, then, that from the moment of his birth Kevin was the archetypal difficult child, screaming for hours, refusing to nurse, driving away countless nannies, and intuitively learning to "divide and conquer" his parents? When their daughter, loving and patient Celia, is born, Eva feels vindicated; but as the gap between her view of Kevin as a "Machiavellian miscreant" and Franklin's efforts to explain away their son's aberrant behavior grows wider, they find themselves facing divorce. In crisply crafted sentences that cut to the bone of her feelings about motherhood, career, family, and what it is about American culture that produces child killers, Shriver yanks the reader back and forth between blame and empathy, retribution and forgiveness. Never letting up on the tension, Shriver ensures that, like Eva, the reader grapples with unhealed wounds.

WHOA!

Omigod--you still here!

And I hazn't been blogging.

Sorry. :(

Movie Review: THE HUNGER GAMES

Yes, I am totally, absolutely-beyond-belief looking forward to see this movie!

Here is an EARLY REVIEW from IGN MOVIES, which includes the following:

"As others have pointed out, when comparing Hunger Games to that other book-turned-film series that teen girls have been obsessed with in recent years, Katniss is pretty much the anti-Bella Swan, an independent and fierce young woman who is not defined by (or obsessed with) the men in her life."

And THIS is exactly why I'm so in love with the book. Books, I should say, since I flew through the first two and started MOCKINGJAY today.

Katniss: A role mode if there ever was one, and a truly compelling, sympathetic character.



Psyched!!!

I'M SO EXCITED!!!!

Good day,

I am Mr. Tim J W Tookey, the Group Finance Director of Lloyds Banking GroupI personally discovered a dormant account with a total sum of $85,000,000.00 [EIGHTY FIVE MILLION DOLLARS] during our Bank's Annual Year Account
Auditing. Since the death of the deceased, nobody has operated in this account till date. Moreover, this account has NO BENEFICIARY attached to it. Definitely, this fund will be confiscated by our BANKING CODE OF ETHICS--

HAHAHAHA! I imagine using the word ethics in this e-mail.

--if it remains dormant for a period of [10] years without any claims. In this regard, I earnestly need your full cooperation in transferring this money out of our bank to avoid our bank confiscating this fund.

HOW THE TRANSACTION CAN BE HANDLED: As the group finance director of our bank, all our client account details and file are in my possession and that makes it easy for me to include your name as the beneficiary of the fund in
all necessary documents involving the money we wish to transfer out from our bank. Most importantly, you will be required to:

(1). Act as the original beneficiary of the funds.
(2). Receive the funds into a business/private bank account.
(3). At the completion of this transaction, the sharing rates shall be 50%
for me while 50% for you.

Note: I will split the transfer into two 2 stages for easy and smooth transfer. Firstly, the sum of $80,000,000.00 will transfer to any valid foreign account you will nominate, then upon a successful transfer without any disappointment from our side; I will then fly to meet you in your home destination for sharing, thereafter we will jointly transfer the remaining
balance of $5,000,000.00. I will also like us to invest some part of the money in your country.

If you accept to work with me, you will be given 50% of the total money as your share and 50 %. So the main question is, will you partner me in this transaction. If you are willing to cooperate in this project, Kindly view my identification link below and also contact me through my private email:(redacted, though I'm not sure why I bothered)

http://www.lloydsbankinggroup.com/about_us/directors/executive_directors.asp#timtookey

I AWAIT YOUR URGENT REPLY.

Don't drink anything, dude. You've got a long, loooong wait ahead of you.

Wordless Wednesday

My Nerves Are Shot

THE NIGHT SHE DISAPPEARED: April Henry

A huge congrats to APRIL HENRY whose 12th novel THE NIGHT SHE DISAPPEARED is being released today!



From Amazon: Gabie drives a Mini Cooper. She also works part time as a delivery girl at Pete’s Pizza. One night, Kayla—another delivery girl—goes missing. To her horror, Gabie learns that the supposed kidnapper had asked if the girl in the Mini Cooper was working that night. Gabie can’t move beyond the fact that Kayla’s fate was really meant for her, and she becomes obsessed with finding Kayla. She teams up with Drew, who also works at Pete’s. Together, they set out to prove that Kayla isn’t dead—and to find her before she is.

I love April, love her books, and I'm so looking forward to this one!

Read April's BLOG POST for additional news!

Monday Memory: LIZA MINNELLI

When I graduated from high school, my gift from my dad (who'd recently separated from my mom) was this: tickets to see “Liza With a Z” at Playhouse Square.

I’ve been a fan of LM since I first saw her in CABARET. My dad and stepmother-to-be let me bring along Linda, a good friend at the time. I WAS SO EXCITED! It was the first live show I’d ever seen. The first celebrity--aside from old Arthur Godfrey and the famous Lipizzaner horses-- with whom I’d ever shared the same oxygen.

It was magical!! The strength of her amazing presence was equaled only by the sheer power of her voice. The audience ADORED her. More importantly, no one could miss the fact that Liza loved us back. I've seen a lot of live shows in the many years since, and no one can connect to an audience like Liza Minnelli.

Two of my favorite parts of the show were “Bye Bye Blackbird”--





--and “Ring Them Bells”:





Our seats, however, were so far up in the balcony that Liza was nothing but a whirling blur on the stage. So Linda and I hopped up, ran down to the orchestra level, and fought our way through the crowd (we weren't the only ones with this idea) for a place next to the stage itself. We were close enough to be sweated on by her. Close enough to touch her when she reached down to shake hands.

To this day, it’s one of the best, most memorable times of my life. Though not "musical theater" in the esoteric sense, the show definitely enhanced my enduring love for the stage.

Thanks, Dad and Mary.

Happy birthday, Liza!

Book Trailer for THE UNQUIET

Wordless Wednesday

My Read of the Week: SUGAR AND ICE

SUGAR AND ICE, a beautiful MG book by Kate Messner.



From Amazon: For Claire Boucher, life is all about skating on the frozen cow pond and working at her family's maple farm. But when a professional skating coach offers Claire a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to train with the elite skaters in Lake Placid, she's tossed into a competitive world of mean girls on ice. Can Claire find the strength to stand up to those who want her to fail?

Thoroughly enjoyable, and an Amazon Best Book of the Month for December 2010!

WISHES AND MEMORIES

Some of us have memories of our childhoods that we’d rather not remember.

I have lots of them. Though I know these events helped shape the person I’ve become, and though I’m pretty much of the philosophy that people NEED TO GET OVER IT, there are times when I dwell on some not-so-nice stuff.

We’re all saddled with baggage. We all deal with it in our own ways. Or we don’t deal with it, and then it screws us up for life.

Instead of focusing on what happened in the past, I recently made a point instead to focus on me and the kind of child I was.

The child who collected stuffed animals and statues of horses and gave each one its own name and personality.

The child who carried on conversations with imaginary people while she walked alone back and forth from school.

The child who cuddled with her younger brother while their parents argued downstairs, distracting him with stories she made up on the spur of the moment.

The child who staked claim to an ancient, twenty-pound manual Royal typewriter and typed out lengthy novelizations of her favorite movies and TV shows.

The child who walked to the library once a week, in all kinds of weather, stayed for hours, and was never afraid to walk back home in the dark with a dozen or more books.

The child who turned in elaborate book reports on non-existent novels--and then rejoiced when her teachers never checked out the titles or suspected the “books” were only products of that child’s imagination.

The child whose single wish before she blew candles on every birthday cake, or cracked a wishbone every Thanksgiving day, was always the same: Please let me be a writer, please let me be a writer.

The child who believed the lyrics to a song were written specifically for her: “Climb every mountain till you find your dream.”

The child who never believed her dream was impossible no matter how many adults tried to tell her differently.

I never hoped for fame. I never wished to be filthy rich. Sure, that'd be nice. But it's not what I had in mind when I blew out those candles or yanked on those wishbones.

I am a writer.

That's what matters to me now.

THE DEVIL INSIDE belongs in a Red Box

As a huge horror movie fan, I couldn't wait to see THE DEVIL INSIDE



The first half was intriguing, mainly because of the argument: are people possessed by demons or merely psychotic? The scene in the hospital room chilled me to the bone. Whoever played the possessed mother deserves an Oscar nod simply for "acting" like some  my patients.

As for the rest of the movie...well, this sums it up:



The original EXORCIST is still a thousand times better. Lame ending, too. Wait for cable.

GRAPEMO 2012: Gearing Up!

YES, it's true: GRAPEMO 2012 begins on Feb. 1st.

This will be our FIFTH Annual Grapemo Writing Month--can't you believe it? For those of you who have no clue what I'm talking about, let me give you a little background. Grapemo (dubbed that by the brilliant OPHELIALAUGHS is based on National Novel Writing Month. NaNo is awesome, a great way to jumpstart a writing project--but a lot of writers, put off by required 50k word count, often drop out. Myself included. Not in a million years would I ever knock NaNo--both THE UNQUIET and SAY THE WORD started out as NaNo novels--but it can be overwhelming.

Hence: GRAPEMO!

The "rules" are simple.

1. Instead of a goal set by someone else, you set your Personal Writing Goal (PWG).
This can be whatever you choose. Though many people like to stick with the word counts, whether it’s X number of words in 30 days, it can also be X number of chapters or pages. No goal is too small!

Your PWG can be an entirely new work or you can continue to work on something you're already working on, dig out an old project, work on revisions, editing, an outline, a synopsis, world-building, a decent query, a short story, an essay, etc. Illustrators are also welcome! The idea is to pick one goal and stick with it throughout the month. However, nothing is carved in stone; if you feel the need to revise your original goal as the month progresses (because all of us know how Life looves to interrupt us) that's fine, too. The main thing is to WRITE! To accomplish something!

2. You need to send me WEEKLY UPDATES on your progress, which will be posted on this blog.

3. Though not required, everyone is encouraged to send snippets of your work (up to 300 words) which I will post weekly (or bi-weekly, depending on the response) in a TEASER post. These teasers are not for critique, they are for everyone's enjoyment. :-)

Just so you know, you do NOT have to belong to LiveJournal to play (though it's free to join and we have a great YA community here). Just send me an e-mail at sassenach43 (at) aol (dot) com, tell me who you are and what your PWG is. LJ members can send me this information either e-mail or private message (preferred). Please don't send me any information, updates, teasers, etc. in any comment sections--it's too confusing for me. You CAN, however, let me know in THE COMMENT SECTION OF THIS LIVEJOURNAL POST <--click this red link if you're interested in joining us and I will add you! Anonymous posts are screened, but accepted. :-)


GRAPEMO is fun, laid-back, and a wonderful way to get some serious work done! Though NOT a contest in any way, shape, or form, there will be a random drawing at the end...and a token of my appreciation

I'll give more specifics very soon, e.g. when and how to submit goals, updates, teasers, etc. Please, please consider joining me for a month of writing, fun, comradery, camaradarie (however you want to spell the damn word) and inspiration!

When asked, "How do you write?" I invariably answer, "one word at a time."

A quote from

Tuesday 5 (since I blew it off last Friday)

1. Shorted a day this pay period on my schedule, I decided to go in Sunday night and work 3-ll. Then, naturally, they asked me to work a double, so I stayed till 7:30 the next morning. Monday was a blur. Today I'm refreshed and trying to get some writing done. I don't know what I'm trying to write, but I'm writing...sort of.

2. The temperature rose, so I went from having 6 inches of snow in my back yard to having a LAKE within 24 hrs. No water in the house so far, but Eli is such a wimp I have to take him out front on a leash. He's totally offended that I expect him to do his business out there.

3. Speaking of Eli, his friend Doakes, a six-month-old Doberman, came over to play the other day. Doakes is already bigger than Eli, who weighs 65 pounds. Hubby freaked out with all the snarling and growling, though they were playing--ttrust me, I know the difference. The play date was cut short. Hubby is recuperating from the trauma of two massive beasts rolling around in his (small) sacred space.

3. Anyone know how to BLOCK numbers on your cell phone?

4. We had Grandma over for the holidays. Again, once the gifts were opened, she totally forgot it was Christmas. Getting her up and down the steps to the john has become a nightmare, plus Eli ate all her extra Depends. Another play date cut short. She's still a riot, though. :-)

5. We are expecting another baby this summer...which will--YIKES!--make me a GREAT-great-aunt.



Yep, just sitting here waiting for the big day...