Melani Blazer

Today, I’m at work, lunch hour blogging, how’s that?

I’m a bit envious of all those at RWA, except for those little twitter excerpts I’ve seen about the frigid temps (no, I haven’t caved to temptation, I’ve simply read Angie’s sidebar). While you’re visiting Angie, the Executive Editor at Samhain Publishing, please take a look at what Mandy, Jaci, Shan and I have found while perusing the boxes and files in and around her blog. OMY!!! There’s more to come, too. You wouldn’t believe what else we’ve found, but we’re debating when to unveil it. We’ve got to see how the world reacts to the news about her evilness to see if they can HANDLE THE TRUTH!

Anyway, in between working, being envious of conference goers, writing and digging through Angie’s basement, I’m visiting the workshops some really grand and talented people are putting on this week.

Here’s some people I know and have visited already, but there are many more, and I’m intending on bookmarking them in the least so I can hone my craft, learn and grow as an author. That’s what it’s all about, right?
Jaci Burton- Work shop entitled the Anatomy of Sex. Whoo hoo! Hot topic, indeed, but OMG is she spot on!
Shannon Stacey- Work shop entitled “When only the Right Word Will Do” about punching up those first drafts. Great topic!!!
Emma Wayne Porter She’s hitting the self editing issues, which is SOOOO important, and one of the least FUN parts of writing.
Mandy Roth–is doing a neat bit on covers. She’s such a talent with graphics. I love her stuff!

All three of these hit on really important aspects of the writing craft–and I can’t wait to dig in and see the topics of all the other workshops. I’m sure there’s stuff for all writers, from beginners to the experts. After all, this is a “job” in which you can never stop learning and bettering yourself!

Now, back to Angie’s box of photos, bwahahahahahahahahha

ON SANTA’S NAUGHTY LIST has a cover!!!

This features my Christmas story, WHEN I CLOSE MY EYES, which is an erotic, romantic paranormal story about finding the one who speaks to your heart.

It’ll be available in November, but you can pre-order it NOW!

The kitchen is still….not a kitchen. Since everyone who’s working on it also holds a regular job that’s not necessarily only 8 hrs per day, I understand we’re going to be doing this for awhile.

Saturday? Killed down at the local garage, bs’ing and hanging out with the guys (I tagged along with the hubby, but I consider them my friends too). The Chevelle’s up on the lift, getting a new gas tanks and some suspension work, so there was some fiddling with that. The garage owner has a similar Chevelle (year older, much more radical) and he did a number on his U-joint, so there was much discussion over how and why and then often four or five of them stood around attempting to fix it. Yeah, it got done.

Did anything get done in the house? er, no. Nascar race came on soon after we got home. I wished I could have gone to Chicagoland. It’s a fun track. I think Kyle Busch wants to break every record in one year. Gibbs and Toyota have got to be proud of him. (And Shan’s short-kid, too)

Sunday we got up and decided to head a coupla counties over to see the over-the-water Air show. Cuz you know, we didn’t get enough of the FA18 on July 4th. It was awesome, the weather was perfect, a great breeze, crisp visibility (I never realized how clearly you can make out the Chicagoland skyline from there) and of course, some excellent performers. Nothing got done in the kitchen again, but hey, the show was free save gas and optional $6 parking, so….not a bad way to spend a Sunday.

Now the hubby’s gotten himself selected for jury duty, despite being taken off work for ripped ligaments in his shoulder. Which means, of course, he can’t work on the kitchen by himself anyway, at least anything that’d require use of his right arm. (He’s been measuring and computing, marking studs, mocking out where electrical boxes and switches will go, just basics, but hey, it’s all gotta get done, right?)

Sigh, and I’m trying to write. I’m really loving the story I’m doing. I forgot how much I love writing a NASCAR themed story. Some (a lot) of the characters from Trophy Girl are in this one, but I’m not finding the heat level as the last one. Hope that doesn’t disappoint too many people. Sometimes forcing sex on the characters would ruin the story. This is one in which I believe that. Their issues and challenges are way beyond lust, though don’t get me wrong, there’s plenty of wishful thinking…

Off to do something useful, like type in the 30+ handwritten pages I’ve done. At least my wrist has gotten a workout!

Actually, it began over a month ago when plans fell into place to remodel the kitchen. We hadn’t planned on it, at least in 2008, but here we are.

Today, the remainder of the cabinets (I’d lost upper cabinets and have been living out of rubbermaid totes for the last month or so) went buh-bye. That means my sink did to. As did many outlets.
Oh, and drywall, yeah, we’ve got exposed studs, capped off has and water piping and…that’s about it, along one wall of the kitchen.

It’s going to make it interesting to survive. I’ll see if I can take a pic or two or three and post the progress. On the hope and prayer that progress is made VERY, VERY soon.

I’m off to shop vac up the dust and take any/all exposed dishes to the bathtub for a wash, er, bath.

Oh, oh! I’ve no stove either, btw…and it appears I’ll have to unplug the fridge in order to run the microwave. Welcome to hell.

Well, soon as I wrote the title I was reminded the F18 fly-by for our Fourth of July parade was truly one of the highlights of the weekend. It was a good one, by all regards, even the near misses and inability to sleep due to 96 hrs of nonstop fireworks. Even I bought a zillion bottle rockets, but 4am? Please.

For the third time, I wrote a scene into a corner from which there was no escape. At 2/3rd into a story, you cannot make resolution even more impossible (okay, you can, but in this case, it’d take another 40K to resolve it, unless you want something completely contrite and will make even ME wanna throw it against the wall.). Anyhoot, I wrote, I deleted, I backed up, wrote, deleted and last night I finally didn’t even reread what I’d written, just scrapped it all (still on paper) and started from a different point.

Guess what? My characters didn’t have a blow out and say irreparable things to one another but I still managed to have a both say things they didn’t want to. Oh, they meant them, but it was neither the time or place.

I picked up a newspaper on Sunday at my mother in laws and on the back, it had one of those “Dear ___” columns. The letter was admonishing this advice columnist for encouraging confrontations. The columnist replied very aptly, stating that confrontation was often the word other people suggested, and she would use conversation, discussion and confrontation interchangeably. Arguably, there’s a difference, but I realized I was being too harsh in my writing. I didn’t need them to be cruel to one another to say what they felt, they could do it more subtly, and in the end, realized it made a big difference and hopefully hit a more emotional tone.

Now…to get them OVER this–compounded by all the other things preventing that lovely little HEA, and things will be good. But I thought 14 handwritten pages for one night was really rocking. YAY!

Can I shoot off one bottle rocket to celebrate?