Ready or not, here it comes . . .

Oh yes, my friends. Christmas gets closer and closer each day. And am I ready? Nay, I am not. But from reading some friends' blogs, I discover I'm not the only one. However, some of them are much more prepared than I am.

Each year I am determined to have all the gifts purchased, wrapped, and under the tree long before now . . . but each year things don't fall into place until the last minute. Why? Heck, I don't know. If I knew the answer, I'd be able to get it together and meet my goal.

But things will work out. The presents will get wrapped and placed under the tree . . . well most of them. My oldest has yet to make up his mind as to what he wants to receive. Maybe he'll decide before Christmas . . . yeah, that would be nice.

I'm still debating the whole baking and delivering of goodies to friends and neighbors. And I only got a few of the Christmas cards on my list sent off. I'm hoping to pop more in the mail tomorrow.

Yeah, I'm ready for Christmas to be over. Are we done yet?

I've worked on a few more crits this week, but have had little time for improving my own work. But my time will come . . . hopefully soon. :D

Write on.

Contest

Lisa Schroeder, author of I HEART YOU, YOU HAUNT ME, is celebrating the release of her upcoming YA novel, FAR FROM YOU, and hosting a contest with LOTS of great prizes!
For three days leading up to the book’s release date of December 23rd, you can watch VLOGs and hear some excerpts read from the book. The VLOG schedule is as follows:
Sunday, December 21st – Liv’s Book Reviews - http://livsbookreviews.blogspot.com/
Monday, December 22nd – What Vanessa Reads - http://whatvanessareads.wordpress.com/
Tuesday, December 23rd – Lisa Schroeder, author - http://lisa-schroeder.livejournal.com/ AND http://myspace.com/writerlisa
Help spread the word, and you might win a fabulous prize!
Copy and paste THIS entire blog entry into your blog between now and December 21st, then come back to Lisa’s blog at either Livejournal OR Myspace and leave a comment with the link to your blog and you will get TWO entries to win a number of prizes.
Wondering what you might win? Here is the list (there will be multiple winners):
~ An Advanced Review Copy of THE FOREST OF HANDS AND TEETH, by Carrie Ryan
~ An Advanced Review Copy of SOMETHING, MAYBE, by Elizabeth Scott
~ Young adult novel GIRL, HERO by Carrie Jones
~ Young adult novel, THE POSSIBILITIES OF SAINTHOOD by Donna Freitas
~ Young adult novel, UGLIES by Scott Westerfield
~ Pair of YA fairy tale retellings by Cameron Dokey (BELLE and BEFORE MIDNIGHT)
~ TWILIGHT movie soundtrack
~ $15.00 Barnes and Noble gift card along with some Harry & David’s chocolate moose munch
~ And of course, a signed copy of FAR FROM YOU
For more chances to win, watch one or all of the VLOGs and leave a comment on that vlogger’s page, and you get another entry. That means if you post the schedule on your blog AND comment on all three VLOGs, you can have FIVE entries for the contest!
A live drawing with winners announced will be done by Lisa Thursday morning, December 24th, in a special holiday VLOG.

Working on it

My bosses sent work home with me this week because they are going out of town. I found I actually get more work done at home . . . what's up with that? Maybe it was a fluke, I don't know. But if I can get more done at home, maybe I should work from home all the time. I'll see if I get as much or more work done from home tomorrow and maybe I'll talk to my boss about working from home from now on.

I had a birthday on the 9th (as some of you know) and thought I'd share a moment. My youngest child (five years old) crawled into bed with me Tuesday morning, wrapped his arms around my neck and said, "Happy Birthday, Mom. How old are you?"

I replied, "I'm thirty-seven."

He hugged me tight and said quite seriously, "You're really old and will probably die soon. I'll miss you." Then he went on to ask me if he could have my stuff when I died.

Such a sweet child.?

In writing news, I've been spending my free time revising my Nano novel and critiquing work of my fellow writers. I'm enjoying it all, though I wish the revisions would go faster.

Write on.

Christmas, Christmas time is near . . .

It's true. It will be here before long. I'm not prepared. But I promised the monkeys we'd decorate the house today and I've procrastinated long enough. I must keep my promise. It wouldn't be that bad if I didn't have to CLEAN the house in preparation for the decorating. *sigh*

And the last two days have been chore free since I spent the majority of both days at the monkey's school running a booth at the Holiday Store. The house is a mess . . . and I'm not kidding. To let you know how bad it is, we don't have any clean forks, plates, or cups. The kitchen sinks are piled with all the dirty dishes waiting to be washed. The living room is a mess of boxes of decorations, baskets of clean clothes, papers pulled out of backpacks, and more. The dishes need washed, the clothes need folded and put away, the decorations need to be strewn across the house so the boxes can be put back in storage, the papers need sorted through, and the floors under all the rubble need swept and mopped.

I earned some extra cash for gifts so I suppose participation in the Store was worth it. Unfortunately, all this housework/decorating makes it unlikely I'll get any writing done this weekend. Even though I already anticipated this, I'm still a bit disappointed.

Then again, my yearning to write will be good motivation to get the cleaning and decorating finished quickly.

Hope you all have a great weekend.

 

Write on.

I have a face . . .

I gave in to the pressure and joined Facebook. I'm still trying to figure out how to use it so be patient with me, please.

I spoke to my boss today and we determined I will need to work five days a week in order to finish the archiving portion of the project by February. I told her I would give it a try, but she agreed I don't have to continue five days a week if it starts to stress me out. I love flexible bosses . . . but at the same time, I'm really going to try my best to stick to five days a week because I want this project finished as soon as possible, too.

I think I'll miss it when it's gone . . . and not just the extra money (which is always nice this time of year), but the learning about the "characters" in the lives of Fran and Irene. And boy did they know some "characters". *grin*

But it will be hard working five days a week and only having the weekend for my writing . . . and the kids are home on the weekend so it's quadruple hard to get writing done.

And where am I going with this? I'm trying to prepare you for the possibility of not having good news as soon as I'd hoped. I think I may have to wait until May/June to submit things.

Why? Because I want the writing time I do have to be spent in revising my new Nano novel. If I can revise AND prepare submissions, I'll do both, but the majority of my efforts will be thrown into revision.

I hope you'll forgive me, dear friends . . . but don't lose all hope for the possibility still exists I shall have good news by April/May 2009 (or was it May/June or June/July? *grin*)

Write on.

Creatures of the night, be quiet!

Which creature of the night are you? Your Result: Vampire   You are a social pragmatist, as likely to kiss as to bite. Your sensuality and social pragmatism is the counter-balance to your existential angst and your tendency toward depression.
Sorceror
Cthulu Spawn
Demon
Incubus/Succubus
Ghost
Werewolf
Which creature of the night are you? Quiz Created on GoToQuiz

Monday mopes

I'm going back to work today. Part of me is happy because the sooner I go back to work, the sooner I can complete the project and be finished. But the other part of me enjoyed the child-free writing time I had five days a week. *sigh*

But I keep reminding myself I'm only working Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday and will have two days of child-free writing time. Plus, the extra money will be a bonus this time of year. *smile*

The kids only have three weeks of school before Christmas the two week Winter break (they're not allowed to call it Christmas because not everyone celebrates). This means I will only have three weeks of work as we don't usually work when the kids aren't in school . . . but since it is a two week break, I may beg and plead to come in to work to escape the madness that is my children.

My oldest is fifteen so he can watch the younger three while I have a few hours of work, right? *grin*

In writing news, I stayed up late and finished doing the crit for my friend, Meg. I hope some of my comments and suggestions will be helpful to her. I enjoyed reading her MS and look forward to seeing what kind of changes it will go through on it's journey to publication. I'm looking forward to some other crits that should be coming my way soon (eh-hem, Tolk *grin*).

And while I will be unable to work on my MS this Thursday and Friday (already volunteered to help at the school), I will be able to dive back into revisions on my Nano novel next week for sure. After school today we will be decorating for Christmas . . . the kids are more excited about it than I am. LOL

Write on.