02/03/2010
I attended the Space coast Writer's Guild
conference and it was fabulous, as usual. Last year I bought a huge armful
of books, both traditionally published and self-published. I still haven't
read them all. This year I only bought one book:
The Night Watchman by Mark Mynheir.
He's a local cop and I always enjoy his lectures on the cop's life. I had to
bypass a lot of interesting reads, but the stack on my dresser is still
pretty high. We can't read everything, I guess.
I'm studying like mad to take the Aerobics and
Fitness Association of America's group exercise instructor certification, so
I haven't written as much as I'd like. I can't wait until this test is
behind me!
01/02/2010
Welcome to the new year! I finished the two books on my schedule last year.
I have three books planned this year with a fourth working in my head. Maybe
I'll get them all finished.
11/17/09
Check out the Oxford word of
the year. Mostly check out the comments section in which a lot of people
(much like me) argue over whether it's defriend or unfriend and over the
true meaning of the term: teabagger. Nuts.
Don't yell at me, but I've decided to go back to
teaching Zumba. I originally stopped teaching because I felt I spent too
much time practicing when I could be writing. But, as it turns out, I am an
afternoon writer. I did write a few mornings, but I spent most "gearing up"
for the writing session on Facebook and Farm Town. Well, I'd rather be
dancing! So, I'm back to "having it all." (Not to mention the fact that I
regained 10 pounds after quitting Zumba. And now here it is a week before
the holidays officially start and I have to lose 10 before I can, in good
conscience, gain the holiday 5. Dang it.)
My latest novel is almost complete! I should be
sending it out next month. I really enjoyed this one: zombies! The
zombie/vampire craze may be over, but when you have a book in you that wants
to get out, well, you let it out.
10/20/09
Wow, I haven't updated this site for a long time. Yes, I've been playing
Farm Town. But I've been writing quite a bit, too. I'm nearly finished with
one of my YA titles and I've got a couple of short stories completed for the
Space Coast Writer's Guild contest. I'm
certain I'll enter one, but I'm not sure about the other. Either way, wish
me luck!
07/10/09
Curses upon the man who ever thought of the app Farm Town! Arghh. I've never
spent so much time being virtually productive in my entire life.
06/14/09
Web
2.0 is not a word. That sort of makes me curious about all the other new
words they've added over the years. How many of them are truly words? Just
because I can type it and use it in a novel doesn't really make it a word. I
suppose I can't adequately define the word word, but like art, I know it's
not when I see it's not.
Writing is going
well. Progressing on the two main novels I'm working on. I still have the
middle grade story in the back of my head as well as an adult fantasy. I
feel like I could write more. After some great advice from
Kristine Kathryn Rusch in
her blog, I've given up Zumba so that
I can write in the mornings as well as the afternoons. This was something I
was already battling with. Sometimes it takes another person to tell you
what you know in your gut to get you to take action. And yet, I still feel
that I could produce more if I was more disciplined. So the next two weeks
will be devoted to discipline.
05/25/09
Today is Towel Day, by the way. So
sad.
I spent last week at
Florida Tech's Creative Writing Institute.
All in all, it was fabulous. We started it all off with a keynote by
Philip Deaver. I sat in on two
lectures, one on writing historical fiction and one on monsters in film and
literature. We had lunches with David
Johansson,
Robert L. Shearer, and Martha
Powers and an evening coffee hour with
Anna Flowers. If that weren't
enough, we had three-day classes. I initially signed up for a sci fi class,
but it was canceled. I opted for a mystery writing class with Martha Powers
instead. And I took a fiction class and an advanced fiction classes, both
with Florida Tech professors.
I learned a bit and had a great week. But, I ate
too much, and didn't take a single Zumba
class. I feel fat today. Tomorrow, I'll pursue skinny again. And I've come
away with a renewed enthusiasm for writing full time. Two novels are up
front in my mind. One was a story I had all but given up on. But I took it
to class for a bit of critique and got some great responses to it. I think I
can pull it off. And the other is percolating very nicely. Between the two,
I think I have enough work to keep me occupied full time.
And I got a
Roomba! Ooh, I love my Roomba. The floors are always the worst thing,
don't you think? Now I can sit in my office and type all day and let Rosita
Roomba vacuum for me. (Yes, I realize it's a bit discriminatory, but it's
the name that fits.) And I'm going to train my cats to do
this.
05/09/09
I've decided to read Doctor Zhivago again. This may come as a surprise, if
you read my earlier review, which basically stated, 'this is the worst book
I've ever read.' But, yes, I will read it again. I think I may be able to
appreciate the book a lot more after a review of Russian history, now that I
think I know what it's actually about.
I
was finally able to see the film and I liked it very much. But the film is
not like the book. The film is the story of a quiet, emotional man,
struggling against the revolution and between the two women he loves. The
film is a love story. Man marries woman, man meets soul mate, oops. That
sort of story. And in the end, of course, we learn he has a bad heart (aww)
and he sees Lara! He tries to get off the bus! He manages! He chases after
her! He collapses! (kind of funny collapse) And dies! Oh, the sadness.
Well, that's not at all like the book. The book
is about, in my opinion, a weak man--an opportunist, in the way that a
person floats from one opportunity to the next--a man struggling against a
changing world. He's married with a family. Then he takes up with a
beautiful woman. There is no mention of love or desire. We find out he's
been sleeping with Lara almost offhandedly, and at the same time we find out
he plans to end the affair. Zhivago is conscripted into the Red Army, and
after he escapes, he only takes up with Lara again because his wife and
family have been deported. He sends Lara away to save her life.
Then Zhivago, growing weaker and weaker, takes
up with another woman and has another family. He dies getting off a bus. His
death is in no way meaningful or monumental. There is nothing romantic about
it.
And that is why I think I will read the book
again. I have a suspicion that Pasternak did not intend to write one of the
greatest love stories of all time, simply because he clearly did not do
that. I think Pasternak may have written a book about a man never being
allowed to become what he could have become. Pasternak's story isn't about a
beautiful soul and love, it's bare, tedious, melancholy, downright
sad--it's, frankly, human. And that's the kind of book I'd like to read.
04/21/09
I was over at the
Lipstick Chronicles reading about
Lisa Daily's crush on Shaun Cassidy (snork). I was going to reply but
there were already 68 responses and they all sound like they know each
other, don't they? I guess part of me is still stuck in wallflower land.
Anyway. I was going to reply about two things.
First, she only had one poster of said crush? Pfflbt. That's childish. Every
inch of my wall space was plastered with posters of Donny Osmond. His eyes
moved and followed me around the room. He watched me dress and primp and
pick my nose! Oh, Donny. All we've been through together! Donny was only
four years older than I was (still is, I suppose), so my chances of marrying
him were much greater than Lisa's of marrying Shaun. I had a little record
player over in the corner of my room and my mother had a little collection
of fancy bottles. I mean a collection of fancy little bottles. And I used to
turn this particular one upside-down and use it for a microphone and pretend
to be a singer, just like Donny (only female--wait, no, uh, yeah).
And, I was going to reply about the PG-13 film
that she wouldn't let her six-year old daughter see. Child. My youngest son
was 2 1/2 when he would beg us to let him watch 'great big T-rex get out the
boat and eat the guys', aka Jurassic Park 2, The Lost World. And he's
not warped a bit. Strange. Sarcastic. Possibly devoid of true compassion.
But hey, he gets that from his father, not Hollywood. (snork)
Let the kid watch the movie. She's too young to
understand the things she shouldn't understand anyway. But that's me and my
weird family. Maybe it's a good thing that our weirdness doesn't spread too
far. Then what would the world be? I mean, I might have to be sociable if
everyone was cool like me, right?
03/16/09
Announcing the winner of Dianna's Next Top Cat
Model! JJ!
JJ easily beat out his competitors: Squeakers,
who was too large and black and looked like something out of a B-rated
horror flick; Rice Cake, who kept giving the photographer 'Southern Madam'
instead of intellectual feline; and Tiger, who wanted nothing whatsoever to
do with a book or a seat by the window...until the shoot was over, of
course.
So, congratulations, JJ (also known as Jeffrey
Junior, to his owner, Jeffrey, who clearly has something of an ego). Your
reward is fame, such as you can get here on my little website.
I still have a bit of work to do on the site,
but thank you for reading as it is!