I'm too sexy for my cat

Daily Stats:
Words: Shazam!
Caffeine: morning cup
Evil Calories: chocolate covered pretzel thingys
Reality TV: ANTM reruns

So, Sexy Beast arrived yesterday, and I'm one happy little bunny. Did I mention that it's sexy? It's so sexy, it almost makes me look sexy, and I have on fuzzy pink slippers and drawstring pants. And it does fun things like this:















Okay, I'm no Twiggy, but I bet Andy Warhol would still be impressed.

and this:















That's me with a mutant super hero from planet StinkyPants. If you don't hand over all of your Nilla Wafers, he'll rearrange your face.

Oh, yeah, it it works great for writing too. But, okay, as sexy as Sexy Beast is, it feels a little strange writing on a new computer. I was so used to my old PowerBook, with the feel the of keys and the look of the screen, that Sexy Beast feels a little foreign to me. Plus, I don't have my Office: Mac software yet, so I'm writing on text edit, which is just bizarre. I have a little OCD when it comes to writing. It must be a word document, magnified to 115%, font Time New Roman (not Times...Times New Roman. If I try and write with Times, I start twitching), and the document must be pulled to the left of my screen so I can still see a little bit of my wallpaper (which is currently a picture of Princess Leia pointing a blaster). I also can't wear socks when I write because when I sit and ponder plot, dialogue, etc., I like to fiddle with my toes. I probably need some sort of medication, but for now I'll just self medicate with peanut butter M&M's.

Does anyone else have any odd OCD writing quirks or am I the only weirdo?

Dead inside

Daily Stats:
Words: computerless
Caffeine: morning cup
Evil Calories: therapeutic chocolate chip cookies to cope with computerlessness
Reality TV: ANTM reruns

At approximately 4:15 pm yesterday afternoon, my PowerBook G4 had a massive brain pause and died right in my lap. Right before it left this world, it let out a strange sound reminiscent of baby pigs being run over, and then, poof. The screen froze and when I tried to reboot, I got nothing. Just a grey screen. I'd prepared myself for that moment. I backed everything up on an external hard drive, backed it up again on our old demonic beast of a desktop upstairs. But still, when it happened, I couldn't help but feel a sense of shock and loss. I've had that computer for over five years. It helped me write my first book. Granted, that was a tumultuous time in our relationship. It liked to crash a lot back then, and once it didn't auto-save and I lost a whole chapter. That was the closest I ever came to beating it with sticks and chucking it through a window.

Actually, there were several times I wanted to get medieval on it. I believe there are several posts within this blog where I vow to run it over several times with my car then put it in a blender.

Wait a second...I'm glad that piece of shit is dead!!!! So long, sucka! You've been replaced by this sexy beast:

Except, I'm forced to take a short sabbatical until it arrives, which sucks rocks because I'm so close to being done with After Charlie. But I don't trust demonic beast of a desktop upstairs. I'm convinced it feasts on the souls of small children.

RIP (soon please)

Daily Stats:
Words: yes, yes and yes
Caffeine: morning cup
Evil Calories: Easter M&Ms
Reality TV: Project Runway reruns

Did I mention that my computer is dying a slow death? S-L-O-O-O-O-O-O-W, meaning, not completely dead yet. It's only mostly dead. It needs to hurry up and run into the light already, because it's totally vamping out and scaring me. Yes, I'm scared of my computer. This can't be healthy. I'm already afraid of my toaster oven, and I have serious trust issues with my hair dryer. I don't need to be manic about another inanimate object. The scary thing about crap-on-a-stick (pet name for my computer) is the noise coming from the hard drive. It's not just channeling my old Plymouth Arrow. It's also making this horrid, high pitched, nails-on-a-chalkboard sound anytime I pick it up. I'm so afraid it's going to implode or burst into flames or slime me or something. That sound can't be good. Anyone ever had their hard drive go poo? Does it make this sound? Or should I be throwing holy water on it?

Random

Daily Stats:
Words: yes
Caffeine: morning cup
Evil Calories: those waxy frosted animal cookies with the little sprinkles
Reality TV: Top Chef reruns

Well, it's happened. My computer has caught the plague, and is dying a slow, painful and alarmingly loud death. I'll just be tapping away on it and all of a sudden the hard drive sounds like the engine of my old Plymouth Arrow (which, by the way, was my very first car when I was a teenager. It was a hunk, wouldn't go over 35 mph and I had to drive fifteen minutes out of the way to and from school because it couldn't make it over the big hill on Las Positas, and then some asshat broke into it just to get his hands on a Night Ranger tape). Anyway, my only hope now is that Apple lists some non-cringeworthy priced refurbished MacBooks, or else I'm stuck trying to write on the demonic shitbox of a desktop upstairs. It eats files for breakfast and has a passion for kernel panics. That is not good for my calm.

On another note, just peek, PEEK, at my word count meter for After Charlie (don't stare, you'll make it uncomfortable). I'll say no more lest I throw a monkey wrench in my groove. Groove being the key word, in that, yes, oh, yes, it came back and now we're groovin'.

And lastly, I realized something yesterday. As I was writing my first book, I was sure, and could feel, in every nook and cranny of my bones, that it would be published. Which is probably why my life sucked rocks for a little while when I couldn't find an agent and had to bury it my "poo smells" folder. This book, I feel the opposite. Though of course I have the occasional delusion of grandeur, I'm fully aware of the fact that it probably won't be published, nor will it land me an agent. I can't figure out if this is good or bad. I'm still writing it with the same passion and fervor and when it comes time to query I'll give it my all. But, I don't know, that whole process just seems like an afterthought to me right now. Call me crazy.

Wuv, twu wuv...

Daily Stats:
Words: lots
Caffeine: morning cup
Evil Calories: nope, must weigh in today
Reality TV: Bad Girl's Club

Love at first sight is easy to understand; it's when two people have been looking at each other for a lifetime that it becomes a miracle. - Amy Bloom

We cannot really love anybody without whom we never laugh. - Alice Reppler

Nothing takes the taste out of peanut butter quite like unrequited love. - Charles M. Shulz

Love is a snowmobile racing across the tundra and then suddenly it flips over, pinning you underneath. At night, the ice weasels come. - Matt Groening

Sexiness wears thin after a while and beauty fades, but to be married to a man who makes you laugh every day, ah, now that's a real treat. - Joanne Woodward

Put your hand on a hot stove for a minute, and it seems like an hour. Sit with a pretty girl for an hour, and it seems like a minute. That's relativity. - Albert Einstein

Men are from Earth. Women are from Earth. Deal with it. - George Carlin

Confess

Daily Stats:
Words: 3000+
Caffeine: morning cup
Evil Calories: pretzels with melted hershey's kisses on top
Reality TV: Biggest Loser

I have to just get this off my chest, and I apologize to any of you who have never read the book, or have never had an interest to read the book, or who think the book is fluff and wouldn't come near it with a ten foot pole, but...what the crap have they done to Confessions of a Shopaholic?

Now, before you out click on me, just listen. I don't care if you only ever read historical-sci-fi-erotica-YA-romance, if you're a chick and at ANY point in your life you've chosen a pair of shoes over groceries, you should really read this book. To this day, it is one of the funniest books I've ever read. (And let me specify that I'm ONLY talking about the first book. By the second book I wanted to push Becky Bloomwood out of a moving cab.) But now the movie is coming out, and every time I see the trailer for it I want rip my head off and throw it at the TV. They have totally destroyed this poor book. They made Becky American (weird because the girl that plays her is actually British), they put her in NY instead of London, they made her this muffy, airheaded fashionista who pines for a job at a fashion magazine, and, the biggest kick in the nards, they have Luke Brandon "speaking Prada". And she works for him or something, and they appear to get along, ugh, I mean, COME ON!!!!!! The best thing about the book is that she spends most of it hating him. Oh, and they gave Suz black hair. OH THE HUMANITY!!!!!!!

You know where my mind immediately goes? To Sophie Kinsella. Did you know that she was already a writer under her real name, Madeleine Wickham, and when she wrote Shopaholic she queried her own publisher under the name Sophie Kinsella and she sold it without them knowing it was her. And now she's sitting there watching her book get dismembered. That cannot be a pleasant feeling. And this could happen to us one day, peeps. These books that we're pouring our souls into could be miscast, gutted and rewritten beyond recognition. How would you handle it?

There is no spoon

Daily Stats:
Words: yes
Caffeine: morning cup
Evil Calories: Taco salad last night for dinner (not good for my muffin top)
Reality TV: ANTM reruns

For my WIP, I have a full, long-winded layout, character outlines and even visual references for specific places/objects in the story taped all over my desk. (I also have a picture of The Brain from Pinky and Brain. He represents my evil, smelly, hairy knuckled inner critic. I've taped a Barbie dress to him and stuck tacks through his eyes. That way when he says things like, "that sounds like a bucket of smashed a-holes", I can't take him seriously.) However, even with all these elements to guide me through my writing, there is a huge difference between knowing the path, and walking the path. (I also have a picture of Morpheus. He's my inner Buddha, because I think everyone should have an inner Buddha who wears bad ass clothes and knows kung-fu.)

Now, I'm not saying this is a bad thing. Just because it comes out different, doesn't mean it comes out wrong (although The Brain thinks so, but he does the cha-cha like a sissy girl, so he can go suck it). But it got me thinking about how I write, and then curious how other people write. I always see the story first, so it's almost like watching a movie and then translating the moving images into prose. My writing becomes the distinctive voice narrating the images.
But what about you?
Does your voice stream directly from the images of your story, or do the words come first and the images follow?

Sleep. Oh how I crave those little slices of death.

Daily Stats:
Words: coffee
Caffeine: yes
Evil Calories: cheesecake bar that tasted like feet mixed with armpits (but I still ate it. It's cheesecake. C'mon. I'm not made of wood.)
Reality TV: Top Chef reruns

I officially hate winter and think it should be banned. I have been very understanding thus far of the ongoing butt-ass-cold conditions, but this morning I'm sleep deprived and have no capacity for being positive or uppity. In the last two months, I believe we've had TWO days where it's actually gotten above 20 degrees. You know what would be awesome? Walking outside and NOT feeling like your face is going to fall off. I know. I'm a dreamer.

So, back to the sleep deprived thing. The boy has had croup (funky cough that sounds like a seal being bludgeoned to death) so I've been on night duty. Last night was the third night and this morning I actually think I can see through time. Sleep deprivation is a strange thing. It messes with your brain. You begin to ponder strange things. Like, why hasn't anyone invented the tractor beam yet? Someone should get on that. It would be very handy. And why doesn't Donald Duck wear pants? Why did they give him a shirt, but not pants? He should at least have shorts or a loin cloth or something. And was there a bathroom on the Millennium Falcon? And why aren't the children on Sesame Street afraid of Mr. Snuffleupagus? I gotta tell you, if I was eight and saw a twenty foot brown hair ball with a trunk, I'd bust ass home. I certainly wouldn't try and play with him. What if he turned on you. A chihuahua turns on you, no big deal. A twenty foot brown hair ball with a trunk turns on you, you're screwed.

Pray for me. There isn't enough coffee in the solar system to save me now.