Realms of the Raven

So, despite my qualms to the contrary, I entered a small contest held by several authors I hold as personal idols. Results came out this week - nada for me.

I struggle with this in some ways because it’s like I have some weird multiple personality disorder with it.

I was excited and knew I had good stuff and thought I might be good enough to win.
I knew I had enormous competition in published authors and my scene wasn’t nearly as hot or edgy as theirs.
I “knew” I probably didn’t stand much of a chance - but I was still holding out hope.
The contest got drawn out more and I kept holding out hope.

We got the results and nada. So I was bummed.

I hope I remember this next time I get the bright idea to enter a writing contest. Now I’m sorta depressed and feel crappy about the project as a whole.

Sigh

Obviously I should just swear off any kind of contests.

No - not THAT kind of hardware. The computer kind!

Today I was bemoaning the fact that the pages I was printing for my critique group meeting were taking forever. Now, I have a very nice little Deskjet 880C printer that can do glorious color printing and even photo quality. But it’s definitely set up for that and NOT speedy black & white printing.

We won’t go into the fact that, had I actually thought about it, I could have started to print said pages last night instead of this morning. Sigh….

But the lovely C and I were talking and he was having to endure my bitching so he suggested we look into what a small laserjet printer would cost. Since he was going to Costco with Morganator while I was at the critique group AND he’s the resident hardware guru, I asked him to look into it.

And off I merrily went to the meeting.

When I get home, I tell him how things went and ask him how Morganator did. All was well. Then I ask if he looked at the printers at Costco and found anything suitable and how much….

He says “Did you look on the stairs?”

I was boggled. Usually it takes C a while to determine what hardware is the best deal/best option. But the man did deal with a LOT of printers and printer companies for a while….

On the stairs was the lovely box for a brand spanking new HP LaserJet 1160Le. Up to 20 ppm and a decent paper tray capacity!

I just got it all set up and drivers installed, I’ll have to make another trip to fetch its paper so I’ve not printed anything yet.

But what a loving hubby!

Got RWH to 65% and was sitting last night and thinking of the oddities of this author gig.

There are some days when I think I have to fight for every single word and sometimes it takes multiple passes to get a sentence on the screen.

Yet some days I start to write and I suddenly realize it’s two hours later and I’ve written 2500 words.

At first I thought it was because of the actual scene I was working on but it seems to be more a conglomeration of everything from how much I’m thinking about the DJ (Day Job), how tired or not I am, what time of the month it is, heck - even what phase of the moon it is or the weather that day!

I’m a very pattern oriented person so it’s quite natural for me to be looking for a pattern in the behavior. But I don’t think there really is a pattern that is discoverable without the use of multiple spreadsheets, trending charts and maybe some divination!

I think I’m going to put it down to the mysteries of the creative brain and let it go. Otherwise I’ll drive myself (more) crazy!

We spent the Easter weekend with C’s parents and, despite my fears to the contrary, it wasn’t bad at all. It was fun and no one got yelled at or yelled.

Morganator had a good time playing with his cousins’ dog that G&G were babysitting (a blonde lab named Jessie), taking walks in the woods with Grandpa and Jessie and wrestling a bunch.

We went to the community egg hunt and Morganator was highly disappointed that he only got 2 eggs but he was in the 4-7 age group and there were a LOT of kids and not a lot of eggs. He didn’t cry or excessively whine, though, which was good.

We had a nice brunch out at a local place that makes fantastic dessert and meal crepes and Morganator’s eyes absolutely LIT up when a strawberry crepe was put in front of him. He even managed to eat quite a bit more of it than I thought he would be able to.

Weather was nice too!

All in all, a nice weekend though I feel like I didn’t get much time off and the weekend just disappeared. And, of course, despite my hopes to the contrary, I didn’t get any more work done on RWH…

Sigh

On into the busy week!

permission to foward was obtained and this is great news!

————————————–

To all readers and supporters of eXtasy Books:

Extasy has reached an agreement with EbookAd. Until the new website is completed, eXtasy Books will be temporarily available for purchase on the original site, http://www.extasybooks.com

Any customers with a bookshelf on this site prior to the closing can access all previously purchased books. Please make a record so that when the new site is up, old libraries can be rebuilt on the new site. The new storefront will be located at the same URL, and is moving along nicely. A gala reopening party is planned for its debut. We will give all customers fair warning before redirecting the URL and shutting down the original site.

On a personal note from The EEE. (Stefani V. Kelsey, Executive Managing Editor)

This was one of the worst things that can happen to an ebook publisher–Down time. We want to thank our business colleagues for their full support.

As for our readers, Thank you for understanding this situation, stressful though it was on both sides. We wouldn’t be here without you.

And, of course, the wonderful authors in our house. Their faith kept us going through long hours and many high stress situations, and we can’t thank them enough.

It is our hope that all parties can now move forward and conduct our business without any further incident.

In closing, thanks again, and we love you!

Tina Haveman, President and Ownerextasybooks@telus.net Stefani V. Kelsey, Executive Editor-in-Chief and Ownereeestefkelsey@yahoo.com

Or maybe schizophrenia….

Trying to finish Raven’s White Hart - really. Now at 64% complete. But going slooowwwly. Not quite sure why… I got on a good roll with the long outdoor sex scene and fixed it up a bit more when I realized (and my test reader concurred) that I had too much he/she going on.

But my muse really wants to talk about other characters. Or other books entirely….

Sheesh. Between that and my periodic bouts of suckitis, it’s hard to keep going sometimes….

Too bad there’s no Ritalin for muses….

I feel very alone. Suddenly I seem like the only person in the world who hardly watches ANY network TV.

We watch the Science Channel, Discovery, HGTV, DIY and a few other cable educational type channels. Plus Noggin or Sprout for the Morganator.

But I don’t think I’ve watched network TV since the Super Bowl!

I absolutely HATE reality TV. I’m not hooked on any TV shows in particular (I have a stock of craft shows and such on TiVO).

Of course I have friends and aquaintances that talk tv shows to me and all I can do is stare blankly. American Idol results … ummm…. whatever, guess I could Google them. Survivor … gimme a break… I refuse to even Google that!

Sigh - even my mother despairs, especially since I seem highly unlikely to change.

Raven’s White Hart is at 62% now! Yay!

Just had to celebrate! LOL

I just got a copy of this new book by Alison Kent. I’ve been a fan of hers from her early category romance days and have been waiting for this book for a while. This time I was lucky enough to win a copy from her hubby’s giveaway and it’s the first thing I’ll be reading this week!

Stay tuned for a review of it and if you need to order a copy, the link to Amazon.com’s page for it is here.

This week sucked with a double-birthday week. My birthday on Wednesday and my youngest son’s on Thursday. It’s very hard to resist birthday treats, especially when the Morganator was literally feeding me bites of his yummy cake. Sigh

Challenge Start = 238
Today = 237.5
ToGo = 74.5
Down From Last Week = -3.5

Probably doesn’t help that I’m bloated from PMS and crap.

Ah well - back on the wagon…. At least the cake is GONE.