Shanna Swendson's Blog, page 288

FAQ Update

I'm currently trying to talk myself either in or out of going grocery shopping, and I'm still not sure which I want. It is a nice (but cold) day, and tomorrow we're supposed to have snow all day, but there isn't anything I absolutely must have in order to make it through the rest of the week. I do need to get a new strand of lights before I can put up my Christmas decorations, as one died on me last year (it was only ten years old, so I don't know why it wasn't working), but that's not crucia...

Technology and Plots

We started the day with snow, but then it went back to raining, and as it was above freezing, the snow was soon washed away. I might not have even seen it if my mom hadn't called to alert me while I was making breakfast. I still had the blinds closed and hadn't gone out to get the newspaper yet. There's more snow in the forecast for Friday.

I did discover a decadent trick for cold mornings: While I'm brushing my teeth and washing my face, I throw the clothes I'm planning to wear in the dryer f...

Girlfriends Cyber Circuit Welcomes Back Laurie Faria Stolarz

My effort didn't quite match my ambition yesterday, but I did re-read all I've written so far of that project (aka The Misty Idea) and while I can see some areas where it could be improved, I also still really like the story and the characters. In fact, I was planning to revise as I read, but I got caught up in the story. Today I plan to do the actual revising. It's a cold, gray day, so it will be perfect for curling up under the electric blanket with my laptop.

In the meantime, I've got anoth...

Back to "Normal"

Now my "vacation" (such as it was) and holiday are over, so it's back to normal. Actually, the plan was to be better than normal. Last night, I was so gung-ho about what I wanted to accomplish going forward. I made lists and an ideal schedule for the day and planned everything out.

And then I woke up this morning.

It was cold, and I was so cozy all snuggled up in bed. I was having pleasant daydreams. So I was about 40 minutes late for my idealized schedule and haven't really caught up. It didn'...

Dealing with Rejection

The Internet was really buzzing last week with the announcement that Harlequin, a well-established major publisher, would be starting a vanity publishing venture and marketing it in rejection letters to people who submitted to their usual publishing lines. The legitimacy and worth of vanity publishing is its own topic, but the part that bothered me the most about this announcement was the fact that they'd be advertising in rejection letters. In other words, they'll be telling people whose boo...

Vacation Book Report

First, a little housekeeping note: If anyone has been following me on MySpace (or knows someone who was), they've "updated" their site to the point that I can no longer access it with my current browser. I can't upgrade my browser without upgrading my operating system, and I can't upgrade my operating system on my current computer. Since everything else I need on the Internet seems to work perfectly fine with my current computer, I don't see the need to buy a new computer just to access MySpa...

A Blast from the Past

I continue to fail at vacation. In fact, I've given up on calling this a vacation. It's more of a rest/regrouping. The only thing I've managed to cut out of my schedule is the fiction writing. Otherwise, the business end of things keeps coming up, with stuff to deal with. Some of that was because of just coming off finishing a book, so it had piled up, but otherwise it's just bad timing of things coming up while I'm trying to take time off.

So, basically, "vacation" has meant business as usual...

Vacation Fail

I'm starting to see why I haven't taken a real vacation -- as in extended time off, without any work -- in forever. I totally fail at vacation. I'm not even really vacating yet. Part of it is that this comes right after crunching a book, so that I shoved everything else aside, which means I still have a lot of work and personal stuff to wrap up before I can really relax. Yesterday, I did one set of radio scripts (the writing I know I'm getting paid for, so that can't slide) and the research f...

Done! (Really!)

Now I'm really done. In a new record (I think -- at least since I broke out the stopwatch -- I logged 9 hours of work time yesterday. I read the entire book out loud. I don't know that I'd recommend that for the future, as I have next to no voice left and will have to remain almost entirely silent today so I can sing at choir rehearsal tomorrow. Normally I do the one-day read through and the read out loud as two different passes, so I don't try to read the whole thing out loud in one day. The...

Done! (sort of)

The latest draft was finished shortly after 1 in the morning on Saturday (so it was a very late night Friday night).

And then my next-door neighbor's clock radio alarm went off at 4:50 Saturday morning. Which explains why one of my grand success fantasies is selling the townhouse and getting a house where none of my walls connect with anyone else's. Or else finding a way to soundproof the connecting wall (because moving would be a real hassle, and I'd have to do a lot of work on this place to...