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Running out of Days

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Disney world at Christmas

I woke up this morning and realized I’d lost 12 days. My sweetie has been getting us ready for our next races, so it’s write, run, sleep, repeat. We did take a day to zip down to a caption theater in Appleton for a showing of Zootopia. It was one of those nifty theaters that have recliners for seats so we basically drove 3 hrs roundtrip for a nap. (you may recall I’m hearing impaired so I live and die by the caption) Okay, we didn’t sleep through the whole movie. Just bits and pieces. Despite it being adorable. It’s just that those seats are dangerous and I know that one day I’m going to wake up and discover that I’ve snuggled an innocent seat mate.

So, what races are we readying for? How sweet of you to ask. On the 20th of this month we have a 10k down near Milwaukee and on April 17 we’re running the inaugural Star Wars Half Marathon – the Dark Side at Disney World. (think villains) I have no idea what to wear for that one. I’m toying with a t-shirt that reads something like, ask me about the light. Or, have you accepted Yoda as your savior? We’re still deciding.

In the meantime, I’m pushing hard to finish How to Sex Your Snake this week. (yeah, my sweetie doesn’t believe me either) One of my kids is prepping for an IT test and we have a personal challenge going as to who will be done first. The deadline is Thursday at midnight, so we’ll see. Loser takes the winner to the movies. Which is perfect. Cause, come Friday, I’ll be ready for a nap.

Keep track of your days and Write On,

Melissa

ps

Disney World is our go to spot for relaxing and we’re counting down the days till we’re Florida residents again and can renew our annual passes at those lovely local rates. What’s your go to spot? To be perfectly honest, if we had the money, we’d buy a place in Puerto Rico or one of the US Virgin Islands. So, how about if money was no object? Where would you be?

 

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Vacuuming Greyhounds

 – Spoilers for House of Cards, so tread lightly – 

So, I lost two weeks, thanks to my son asking, “hey, have you seen House of Cards?” I’d been about to head to town to write but hell, I’m weak. I figured, what would it hurt to watch while I have some cereal? As you can guess, I never made it to town.

In fact, I chowed down the first season in three days.

And the driving force behind my hitting play before Netflix could count down to the next episode, was Frank, the house majority whip who wants to be President and will do pretty much anything he has to to get inside the oval office. We, the audience, are swept along as he breaks the fourth wall to let us in on a strategy or throw a snide comment or look our way.

Characters have broken the fourth wall in the past, and in some cases, we expect it (I’m looking at you Deadpool) but when Kevin Spacey turned to the camera, at the end of an early episode and spat out, “what are you looking at?” I actually shrunk back into my couch cushions and squealed. And stayed glued to that spot for the next week and a half wondering what Frank was going to do next. And if he would actually get away with it.

Now, the downside of watching an entire season(s) in such a short span of time is that you see all the problems with the show much clearer than you would if you were going week to week. If this had been on network tv, I might not have noticed that Frank stopped confiding in me so much somewhere in season two and that the show had turned into a dry version of the West Wing.

But, because of the strength of season one, I kept at it and suddenly Frank was back, sneering at me and barking out, “where have you been?” I squealed and sunk into my couch cushions once more, giddy with high hopes that the Frank of old was back.

He wasn’t.

While he did take us into his confidence again, it was all too little, too late. The schemer from season one was gone and in his place was some guy trying to force a boring jobs bill through congress. I was still trapped in the West Wing. And without Sam, CJ, Toby and Josh, it just wasn’t a place I wanted to be.

A new season of House of Cards premieres on netflix March 4 and I’m not on pins and needles. Frank’s goal was to be President but they gave it to him much too soon. Once he was in the oval office, there was no more danger. It’s hard to have a late night meet up on a partially deserted train platform when you have a secret service detail.

For this show to have worked over multiple seasons, we needed to wait till the last minutes of the last episode for him to get what he wanted. Think of how much fun it would have been to see Frank, a newly minted President, pausing in the door to oval office to whisper to us, “now let’s have some fun.”

So, what have you lost days to on Netflix? I’m currently without anything to watch.
Recommend away and Write on,

Melissa

p.s.

What does a greyhound being vacuumed have to do with House of Cards? Nothing. But look at how happy that dog is. I’m partial to Greys. My Roxie was with me for 9 years and was the inspiration for Cyrano a Greyhound in the book I’m currently writing, How to Sex Your Snake. If you’re looking for a low maintenance, lazy-ass, sleep all day on the couch kind of dog. Greyhounds are the way to go.

p.p.s.

Yeah. That Grey is a tad chunky.

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Hitchhiking

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A couple of weeks ago, it was nice enough to run outside. I think it was 17 degrees that day. You don’t know how much it pains me to say that 17 degrees was nice.

The other day I decided to play hookie and drove down to Appleton for the day. Since I was in no hurry, I took the long meandering way, through the backroads, only getting lost once when my map software stopped working, swinging by the casino for a quick break, and two hours later getting back on the road forty dollars poorer and only halfway to my destination. At one point, I was passing through one of the tiny villages en route, and I saw a guy hitchhiking. He had three or four plastic shopping bags dangling from his hands as he stuck out his thumb and for half a second, I thought about how cold it was and how far he might be from home. And then I was past him and my momentary twinge of guilt was replaced with an image of Ted Bundy.

That’s not to say I haven’t stopped for hitchhikers in the past.

In Arizona, my son and I picked up a rather tall man and his adorable red headed toddler one scorching afternoon. The poor man’s car had broken down and he told us that the two had already walked several miles as cars zoomed past and ignored them. We dropped father and son at the first gas station we passed. Years before that, I stopped for a couple at the entrance to an airport. They were next a stalled car, with suitcases beside them. I don’t know why I picked them up. Maybe it was the desperation they oozed. They jumped in, professed their love for me and I got them to the departure area with just enough time to make their flight. I always wonder what happened to their car.

So what makes us stop and what scares us away? If you think about Mr. Bundy, everything about hitchhikers should scare you away. Things are not always as they seem. That father could have kidnapped that small boy and been on the run. That couple could have simply found a stalled car and posed next to it, their suitcases empty and waiting to be filled with the dismembered body of a gullible driver.

My days of picking up strangers are probably over. I’m not as adventuresome as I was in my younger days. How about you? Have you ever pick up a hitcher? Were you the hitcher?

Leave your story in the comments and Write on,

Melissa

p.s.

If you can find it, watch The Hitcher starring Rutger Hauer, an absolutely terrifying movie. Don’t bother with the remake. They changed the story and completely ruined it.

 

 

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Lovin’ the Quickie (book update)

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A common symptom affecting readers of my Sunday Word Count category.

My 11 month experiment with tracking my writing has bored me to epic proportions. I can’t imagine what it did to others. From now on, I’ll keep infrequent updates to a 30 second read. (don’t worry, that’s only for updates on my books. I will still ramble endlessly on all other topics)

How to Sex Your Snake – I may have found a cover artist. Waiting to hear back. Manuscript goes to my editor soon.

My horror series, currently in outline mode, is based on a disturbing monster from a screenplay my writing partner’s and my agent submitted to the X-files. They passed on our script but the concept is too cool not to pursue. Possibly, my writing Scully almost completely out of the script was an issue. Also, they had just moved the series from Vancouver to LA so they only wanted “city” scripts.

More another day.

Write on,

Melissa

a ps cheat (not included in those 30 seconds)

Sunday Word count will move to this category but remember, anything below this entry will require lots of caffeine and probably lead to issues experienced by Mia in the photo above.

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Fosterdog Mia

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I love my hat so very much.

Take a look at that face. That’s foster dog Mia. She loves that hat so very much. She came to live with us when a cousin decided to take a year long trip around the world. (think mostly Asia and South America) In the 13 or so months that she’s been with us, she’s learned to love snow, kill voles, chase chipmunks, annoy her 15 year old doggie second cousin Stitch, and generally snuggle her way into our hearts.

She lectures us when we’ve been gone too long, insists on playing squeaky football before breakfast, and has carved out a permanent spot between my husband’s calves when he reclines in his favorite chair.

In 9 days and a wake up, she goes home. A small part of me is devastated. She’s personality times a zillion. Most of me is relieved. She’s tiring. But in a good way. Like a toddler. I will miss her tons but be happy knowing that she’s home again with her human mom and dad and four legged brother and sister. (cat and dog and I’m guessing on their sexes)

I’ll probably post more photos and videos as I ready myself to let go.

Snuggle your babies and Write on,

Melissa

ps

Tell me about your fur babies in the comments below. That might help me overcome my sorrow.

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New babies!

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Two of the babies peeking out.

 

The clutch is finally hatching! These silly babies are like a month over due. Have I mentioned the babies before now? I don’t recall and I don’t feel like looking back over previous posts. I think these are green rat snakes but I could be wrong. I’m just an innocent bystander, they’re my husband’s hobby. Though, for a year, I was mom in charge while he was stationed in Turkey. At that point in time, he had a collection that, including babies, topped out at about 100. It would take me an entire Saturday to feed everyone. Then I had to play with new babies to get them used to humans. And by playing I mean holding the little rascals, letting them crawl all over my hands. If I had a nickel for every time one of them bit the skin between my thumb and index finger….

I hope everyone had a lovely Hanukkah and Christmas. I took too many days off work and played with company. Any weird gifts? The strangest thing we got was…well, I don’t think there was anything strange this year. We discovered a nifty video game called Never Alone. It’s a gorgeous 2 player with fascinating stories and history of Alaskan natives. Check out their website and read up on how the game came to be. A great lesson on not letting someone tell you something can’t be done.

I suppose I should do a quick word count. (as I’ve mentioned before, this is more for me to keep track of my progress as I can’t imagine anyone being all that interested!)

I think I mentioned that I didn’t like the ending to the A story and cut about 7 thousand words giving myself a mini heart attack. (that’s 23 pages at 300 words per page) Well, I finished 3 new chapters, ended up ahead in the count and love the new direction. I was so happy with it, I almost stood up in Mcd’s to read what I’d wrote. At least, I would have cut into the crazy old man collection that was bashing the President. (by 10 at night, the place is pretty empty. Just the crazy old man club and me. We always nod to each other but keep our distance)

How to Sex Your Snake

Genre – Mystery
New this week – 2,436 words
Total Count – 46,962 words 
Release date: Early 2016

Chapters 1-17 are done. (I rewrote 15-17) Ch 18 needs some work but is completely outlined. Ch 19 is done. Ch 20 might be done. Ch 21 needs a bit of work. Chs 22-24 are just in outline stages still. My editor has me giving her daily updates with the goal of sending her the manuscript on Jan 2. We’ll see. It will be a push because I have commitments on new year’s eve and day. No, not the drinking kind!

Stay safe if you’re doing the drinking kind of things. Use Uber (or the like) or stay home and as always

Write one,

Melissa

Ps.

Did you get something weird for Christmas or Hanukkah?

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Naked with Wet Feet.

I’ve been writing all day in wet feet. Which begs the question, why do we say in the nude? If you’re naked, you’re not in anything. That’s the whole point of the word.
I’m currently sitting in my car outside of Mcds about to start on my second 5 hr writing session of the day and I foolishly put on the seat heater. That makes it especially difficult to shut off the engine and brace the rain as I dash for Mcd’s front door.
I guess it’s just as well that I didn’t change my socks. My feet are about to get wet. Again.

Word Count- not much change in totals. Still working on the ending’s rewrite. The end is in sight. Of the book. Not the rain.

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Holy freakin’ wipeout Batman Scrivener saves the day

middle finger to PCWell, I finally got fucked by my computer. I was writing at a mcd’s and closed my little PC to go meet my huband at the gym. He was running (I’m still recovering from a cold) and I was going to write while I clicked off his laps for him. There’s a lovely chair with a foot rest in the corner on the upstairs track and I got myself all setup, opened my laptop and stared at a blank screen.

Now, I’ve always been one of those people that is a little too liberal with the F word. I like to say it. Alot. It’s my favorite word in the whole fucking universe. But, as I stared at my computer and silently begged for the screen to come to life, I was stangely calm. This continued even when the computer finally started up and I opened up scrivener to discover that two chapters had been wiped clean. Maybe it’s the lack of energy thanks to my cold or maybe I’ve found some unknown inner peace but whatever the explanation, I didn’t use the F word a single time over the next 90 minutes as I tried to recover what was lost. In a way, I feel kinda cheated.

Scrivener is a really neat program. It has lots of backup features. And if you have dropbox, you’re even luckier because that program keeps old versions of files for 30 days. So, I had 4 places to look for the lost chapters. And that’s what I did for most of those 90 minutes, patiently working my way through tons of rtf files.

In the end, I recovered all of one chapter, thanks to the rtf files and 2/3rds of another thanks to snapshots, one of the lovely features in scrivener which creates uneditable copies of your work. If you rewrite something, and you’ve saved the previous version in a snapshot, you can revert to an earlier version or just use it as a reference. If I had taken a snapshot of the chapter when I deemed it officially finished, I’d have been able to restore the entire thing. But….I stupidly shut my computer without doing that. Or without creating a pdf of the entire book and emailing it to myself, which I always do when I change locations or go home for the day. Hopefully, I’ve learned my lesson and today’s writing will end with snapshots and pdfs.

Did I learn anything else? Why yes I did, thanks for asking. I learned that PC’s are unrealiable. Well, I knew that. You see, last night wasn’t the first time this computer has crashed. Twice before, it failed to turn on. I wasn’t as concerned though, because all my writing is stored in dropbox. I figured, if the computer was dead, I’d just go buy another. My husband, who uses a MAC and has always used MAC, has never had his computer crash. Ever. So, until I can afford to buy my own, I’m stealing his Macbook Air. Well, starting tomorrow. Today, I grabbed my PC as I was walking out the door. Fuck. I’ve really learned nothing, have I?

Learn from your mistakes and Write On,

Melissa

PS

My word count hasn’t changed much. I’ve been working, but most of Nov was lost to nanowrimo ( I wrote the outine for my next book) and to our annual trek to Disneyworld, a 10k on the east coast and some touristy stuff. I’ve been sick since we got back and it’s hard to write when you’re constantly sneezing. And cleaning the drippy stuff off your keyboard. And screen. And the table around you. And your pjs when you’re holding your laptop. The dog took care of herself. Now that I’m almost back to normal, and my next book is outlined, I’m ready to finish this sucker. My daughter comes to visit in ten days so that’s my new deadline. This time, I think I can do it. I tell you, I can zip out an excellent feature length script in no time at all. Well, 1-6 weeks and when I did a webseries I was writing a 22 page script a week for production. Switching to prose has almost been the death of me. And my husband. He’s tired of me saying fucking almost when he asks if I’m done. So am I sweetie, so am I.

PPS

I didn’t use fuck in the title because I grew up watching reruns of Batman and Robin and I just couldn’t see that Dick Grayson cursing.

PPPS

Fuck. Imagine that repeated about a zillion times. Okay. Now I feel like myself again.

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9-15-15 Tuesday Word Count

dogs sunning on porch
when we move, the surviving voles and chipmunks will thow a block party.

Today marks day three of my Harvey Fierstein impression. At least I managed to get up off the couch, stuff a few tissues in my pocket and head to breakfast at the casino. I used lots of hand sanitizer and tried not to stand too close to anyone. Right now, I’m out on the patio at home, basking in some of the last rays of sunshine before winter hits. This time last year, we’d already had snow. I think. I remember it coming early.

I managed to get some work done on the book this week, despite being sick. I tried to think of a completely non writing related post and failed beautifully. I’ve already written about the trees and the occasional bear and that’s pretty much it.

Nothing else interesting. Oh, I got 4 out of 5 double 7s this am so I won 45 bucks instead of 7K. Thank goodness. I don’t know what in the world I would have done with all that money. On to the word count.

How to Sex Your Snake

Genre – Mystery
New since Thursday –  664 words
Total Count –  38523 words
Release date: Pre-orders mid October

Goals from last week: edits on the fixes to the crime scene. I’m almost done with that. I’m feeling pretty good so I might have the energy to sit out here for a while. Uh oh. I just saw husband give me his I’m starving look through the sun porch (snake room) door. I might get sidetracked here shortly.

I wrote a couple of drafts of fixes to ch 2 and 3. One more pass and they should be good to go. After that, I need to get back to a my second and in some cases third drafts of 13-18. Though, chapter 18 might get absorbed into 17 and 15 might end up being split into two. In any event, I still have quite a bit to do to finish. If I can get a good two weeks of work in, I could still be done end of September. Maybe. Probably not though. If the next couple of weeks are like the last couple of weeks, I’ll still be plugging away come Halloween. I just hope my beta readers don’t get bored and wander off.

This log has definitely been helpful to me in analyzing my work flow. If you haven’t kept track, it sucks. I think I write 3 to 4 days a week, usually for 3 hours but sometimes for up to 6. I am making continuous notes though, so when I do sit at my computer, I work continuously. That’s something I suppose.

Goals for next week: as usual, finish. Other than that, finish. Oh and I’d like to finish. Realistic goals? Final draft of 2, 3 (with the changes) final drafts of 12 and 13. We’ll see what happens. Have a good week and enjoy the warm weather if you’ve got it.

Write on,

Melissa

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9-7-15 Monday Word Count

maple leaf
Winter’s on the way.

Got woken up a bit after 5 Sunday morning and had to drive to the next town over to pick up the kid from his night shift job. We’ve always told him, if he’s too tired to drive, call and we’ll pick him up. So we did. (living in the boonies sucks sometimes) The rest of the day was spent being exhausted while some pretty intense storms kept the house dark and dreary. Tried waking up with a movie, Star Wars, but we kept konking out and then rewinding to the last point we remembered. I’m not sure we ever saw the whole film. After napping off and on all day, we were surprised to actually sleep through the night. I’m working from the living room today. It’s a bit cold at my desk, and this table has a nice view of the golf course.

Last week, or so, I finally got around to having an expert look at a very small scene that I knew was full of all sorts of errors. I figured it would be an easy fix, once I found out what would really happen in that situation.  Boy was I wrong. The changes rippled all through the entire friggin’ book. So, since then, I’d been rewriting and making notes of what still needed to be fixed. (I’m pretty mad at myself because I know better than this. Always check with your expert first.)

walking dogs
Hurrying through mosquito loop.

Then two days ago, I needed to clear my head so I took the dogs for a walk. We didn’t get far before I realized I could easily fix everything with the next scene and nothing after that would have to change. Now, I’m going through and doing some restorations. I’m anxious to finish this and get back to work on the edits of the last couple of chapters.

Once all that’s done, the manuscript still needs to go back to the editor for a last look and then onto the folks checking for formatting and missed errors.  (I keep finding extra spaces at the end of sentences. This is so much easier to see on a printed sheet) Because of this, I’ve updated the approximate release date.

Onto the word count.

How to Sex Your Snake

Genre – Mystery
New since Thursday –  3389 words
Total Count –  37859 words
Release date: Pre-orders mid October

Goals for next week: keeping up with the edits and then actually writing a post next Sunday. That’s a huge goal. I’ve been terribly lax about keeping track of my week’s work.

Things will be much easier now that the golf season is winding down. I have my last day in the bar cart soon, probably this Saturday. For the rest of September, I’ll still follow Mark over to the bar on his nights and write at a back table. The course closes at the end of the month so it won’t be long until I’ll be able to get into a writing routine for winter.

Hope it’s sunny where you are.

Write on,

Melissa