Shanna Swendson's Blog, page 297

Virtual Vicarious Vacation Friday: Oxford

Harry Potter in the morning, then burgers and frozen custard for lunch (separate courses, not together) -- the makings of a lovely day. Now, though, I'm utterly exhausted for some reason.

I liked the movie. I tend to be a bit of a purist when it comes to film adaptations, but I've decided for the purposes of this series that the movies and the books exist in separate universes, and I appreciate them separately. With that in mind, I think the adaptation worked, for the most part. I was wondering h

The Travel Bug Strikes Again

I didn't get to break in the new swimsuit yesterday because there were people hogging the pool. It's a community pool, but it's about the size of a regular backyard pool, so two people on inflatable rafts pretty much fills the whole pool and makes swimming laps impossible -- and these people were there for nearly three hours. I'm not sure how they survived without heat stroke, given that they weren't actually in the water and it was over 100 degrees.

My current writing project involves digging ou

Finding Books (and swimsuits)

You'd think it would be easy to find a swimsuit in July. But no, not if you're at all selective or wear the wrong size. Granted, I only went to Target and didn't bother shopping around, but still, I'm not sure how much luck I would have had elsewhere. If I'd been looking for a string bikini I might have been able to find something, but that's what I already have that I wanted to avoid wearing. In general, they should rename them and call what they had on sale "hanging around by the pool/on the b

The Timing of Book Reviews

As part of my Ongoing Quest for World Domination, I've been trying to optimize my schedule for maximum productivity. That includes time management as well as figuring out the best timing for sleeping, eating and writing that takes the best advantage of my biorhythms (which then feeds into the time management thing). My latest experiment: Last week, I started eating my big meal of the day for lunch. This strange waking up early thing has actually cut into my working time because I don't seem to g

Weekend Movies and Television

I'm plunging back into a more serious work schedule this week (aside from the mandatory time off to see the new Harry Potter movie, of course) after a somewhat light schedule last week. I'm happy to report that my house has remained mostly clean for two weeks now. There are a couple of spots of situational clutter that would have to be tidied for company, but I've also done some maintenance cleaning, like dusting, vacuuming and cleaning the bathroom, since the last major cleaning. I still need t

Virtual Vicarious Vacation Friday: Washington, D.C.

This schedule adjustment thing is getting ridiculous. Today I was up at 6:30. That may have had something to do with the fact that I went swimming yesterday, which meant I slept really well last night. The annoying thing is, there isn't much I can do with the extra time when I get up that early. The library doesn't open until 10, and although I'm awake, I'm not really in the frame of mind to write. Today I did some yoga and read the newspaper thoroughly.

It's another Virtual Vicarious Vacation Fr

Girlfriends Cyber Circuit Welcomes Jennifer Banash

I did get to the end of the book yesterday! Now all that's left is to give the book one last read-through. I'm checking my agent's schedule to see if she wants it right away or won't be able to look at it for a while, and that will determine whether I do that last pass this week or wait until next week. The longer it rests between passes, the better.

The night after I finish a project is usually kind of weird. I feel like I'm at loose ends. I have things I could be doing, but it feels weird to be

Conference Tips

Still not done with the book, but closing in on the ending. I can't add more than 2,000 words, though there are a lot of existing words that will likely be replaced. I hesitate to say I'll finish today because that will just mean that at the end of the day, I'll still have about 2,000 words to go. I just have a couple of big scenes to write.

The Romance Writers of America National Conference is next week, and summer is also a prime time for writing conferences, so I thought I'd share some tips fo

More on Happy Endings

I feel like I've been working on the ending of this book for weeks. I wrote about 3,000 words yesterday, most of which are total replacement for what I had, and I think I have at least that much more to go. Maybe I'll get it done today, but it seems like it keeps expanding as I get closer to the end. I know I'll have to do some tinkering with what I've done because right now I'm mostly focusing on the choreography, just the who did what, when and where. I'll need to add things like description a

The Holiday Weekend

I hope everyone who had a holiday weekend enjoyed theirs. I ended up giving myself the holiday because I was suddenly very tired, but that just means I really have to work today.

I did most of my celebrating the night of the 3rd. We went to the big festival/fireworks display that night. The cool thing about that event is that the park where the festival is held is across the street from the municipal airport, so part of the event always includes fly-bys of vintage aircraft. This year, they also h