Blast from the Past

I'm anxiously awaiting the second disk of Rescue Me's Season 1. I love Dennis Leary. Love. Him. I think he's incredibly smart and I love his rough edges. I grew up with a lot of guys like that.

So I dug up this video. Still cracks me up.

Liquid Silver Blog

I'm blogging at the Liquid Silver Blog today! Come join me!

Whew!

Christmas is over. I'm exhausted. Fun but tiring. Lots of good food. Even my little guy is tired. He's a social butterfly and even he's had enough. One more party tonight, but it'll be small and casual so that'll be cool.

My fella and I are going without the little guy too, so it'll be like a date! Woohoo!

I hope everyone had a nice holiday. I'm doing laundry and puttering around today, taking it easy.

May even open the document of A Sudden Frost. Hmmm.

Have a great day all!

Temptation

Baking. With a gas stove I'm not all that familiar with. ARRGGGGHHH!!!!

This is the second batch of chocolate chip cookies from scratch. The first were too flat and the edges bled. So I've adjusted the heat of the oven and added more flour. So far, they are behaving. We'll see.

I used to make killer cookies. But I've always used an electric stove. My muffins turn out fine with this one, but cookies are less forgiving, it seems.

Our Christmas luncheon at work is tomorrow, and dammit, I'm bringing homemade chocolate chip cookies if I have to stay up all damned night.

Just checked on this batch. Yeaaaahhh. We have success! Victory is mine! Muhahahahaha!!

Golden brown on the tops and fluffy. Yes.

Can't have 'em though. *Sigh* You know when you look at something you really, really want but aren't supposed to have? Yeah. Gettin' that feeling. How much harm could it really do? Just this once?

Come here, you sexy, hot thing. We're all alone. Nobody has to know. Oh, baby, you are sooooo hot and you smell sooooo good. Just let me run my fingers over you. Mmmm.

Just give me a little taste. Let me brush my lips over you, feel your taste melt on my tongue. You know I want you, baby. Molten desire rushes over me just looking at you. My heart is pounding. My legs are weak. I'm trembling with my need for you. Just a little nibble.

I've wanted you for so long. Dreamed of you. Of this moment between us. And now here you are, in front me me. Ready for the taking. I must have you. Now! Ooooh. Ooooh God, yes. Yes!

Can't do 'er.

*Double sigh* Okay, I'm off to tease myself some more with the cookies.

Odds and Ends

I'm almost done my holiday shopping. I'm doing quite well this year, considering that every single year I'm still shopping for last minute things on Christmas Eve. I do most of my shopping online, but some things, like stocking stuffers, are easier to buy in the store. I usually just grab things as I go. I even managed to beat the crowds each time. Shopping during off hours.

Been thinking about A Sudden Frost and chomping at the bit to get back to the story. I have a blog due for Liquid Silver Books on Dec 30th, which I did a rough draft of. Just need to polish it a bit. Once the holidays are over I'll get back to the routine. Finally almost over the third cold virus in a month and a half. Trying to stay away from sick people but they are everywhere!

Decorated the tree on Sunday. My little guy was handing me ornaments. SO CUTE. Made tree decorating fun.

I do love snowglobes. Thought this one was cute.

Busy Busy

Getting to bed early tonight. I wanted to wrap gifts but can't find the wrapping paper. So I'm going to buy more tomorrow morning. I'm getting up at an ungodly hour to go shopping in the a.m, in hopes of missing some of the mad crowds.

I'm going to bake cookies! Okay, so they're the kind that are already pre-made and you just have to break them off and slap them on the cookie sheet. But I'm still baking cookies! I actually used to bake cookies from scratch all the time, and I may do that sometime before Christmas, but . . . egh, probably not. Ha!

I do bake muffins from scratch, though. So there.

Anyway, lots to do. It's making me twitch. Shop. Clean. Cook/bake. Wrap. All in this cold blast. It's insanity!

Somebody sent me this today, and it cracked me up, so I leave you with it.

Bie Mye Bukez. I Rite Reel Gude

I just had the biggest laugh, reading through last night's long, barely coherent post. I spelled "reckless" as "wreckless." Yes. To be a wreck is different from being reckless, I'm afraid.

This is what happens when I indulge myself to blither stream of concsiousness on the cyber page. I'm fixing it right now.

No, I'm fixing it write now. Rite now.

Yeah. Ryte now.

Aimless Meanderings

Well, I was just getting over the last one when my little guy was hit with his. Staying up all night with him weakened the immune system. Bang! Hit with another. It's kind of unavoidable though. There are a billion different cold and various other viruses waltzing through the air. Everyone is stressed with the trying to get prepared for the holidays too. So we're all getting hit.

Anyway. I was thinking today about why people do what they do. Why we all do what we do. You ever do or say something on impulse, then sit there, open mouthed, wondering why you just did or said what it was you did or said? I know that the writing makes me more susceptible to impulsivity. So do they holidays, when I'm feeling kind of ungrounded anyway.

But I'm a firm believer that we are where we've been. We are everything that ever worked to shape us from the day we were born. Good and bad. You can be armed with all kinds of knowledge about human behavior, but what shaped us is so ingrained in us, we can still react in ways that make us uncomfortable when looking back at them.

I know that the way I grew up makes me crave both stillness and chaos. It's a double edged sword. I grew up with chaos all around me, and learned to be still in the midst of it. I search out calm people. People who are grounded. But sometimes I'm still attracted to chaotic situations that aren't the best for me.

Even the four years of fairly intense Psych training for the Social Work degree doesn't save me from this. It's a psychological blue print in my brain that is very hard to modify. I also still want to rescue every lost cause I come across. I can still change from still and calm to white hot fury when I see somebody being bullied. If I'm bullied, I dig my heels in. It's not the way to get me to do anything. And I feel protective of anyone who is bullied.

Water seeks its own level. When I'm feeling a little sad or lost, my weakness will find and turn to its mirror image. Like a compass. I can sense it. The sense of loss or sadness, or emptiness in somebody else will call to me. It's like a magnet. Then I want to rescue and soothe.

I've never been all that much for alcohol or recreational drugs. They don't do a thing for me. I search for escape and distraction through other means. Writing and exercise being a couple of those ways. Soothing a wounded spirit is another. Being reckless is another. This is part of the craving for chaos. I reach for this method of soothing myself much less these days. Every once in a while it'll seem really attractive to me. Impulsivity. Which is odd for a person like me, who usually thinks out everything.

I'm full of contradictions.

Something reminded me yesterday of the one male role model who was really good in my life growing up. My older brother. He's also full of contradictions. He's a hard ass military man who is also has an incredible artistic talent. He can draw a portrait, having no formal training, the likeness being close to a photograph. He can design and sew costumes for halloween or theater endevours. He's was also amazing at set design and is an incredible carpenter. He can cook like a mo-fo. And he's had decades of various types of marshal arts training.

He'll go off by himself for days, get lost in the woods and find his way out again when he's good and ready. Yet hes' the guy that everyone loves when they meet him. He's friendly and funny, and sensitive, yet I've seen him back down a group of very scary guys in our rough part of town, with the look on his face, the tone of his voice, and the 'don't fuck with me' stance. He stepped in and rescued a guy from a very bad situation. Told him to run and kept the other guys standing there with just his stance.

He's only five-foot six. Short and stocky. But he's not one to mess with. Yet he's a peacemaker. A man ready to go to war, who is the first to stop a fight.

He also caused me more bruises and a nose bleed or two making sure I was tough enough to kick ass if I had to. "Get up little sis. Come on! Show me whatcha got!" I still smile thinking of this.

We don't talk much. Maybe once a year or two. An email here and there. We really don't need to. Our history is such that we are painful reminders to each other of where we've been, which wasn't always a nice place to be. So we are comforted by our blood ties while simultanously withdrawing from each other. He's still the coolest guy I know (Aside from my fella. Who is ultra cool. But that's another post).

Why do I think of my brother now? Christmas. Of course. Do I make that awkward call? Or do I skip it because it's uncomfortable for both of us. Do I wait to call until it's late enough in the evening that he's had enough holiday cheer to be able to have a conversation with me? It's how he gets through Christmas. Lots and lots of holiday cheer. Then he's okay the rest of the year.

I skipped it last year. I just didn't have the energy or the heart.

Yeah. I'm rambling. And I don't care. This is my holiday cheer, folks. This is my escape and my distraction, and my way to soothe myself.

This is me being reckless.

Draggin'

I'm dragging today. My little guy was sick all night with a fever. He's better now, though still warm, but still not all the way better.

Mondays are my insane day. So it'll be a long, looooong day for me. Running on a couple of hours sleep on a day when I need all my wits about me. It'll be a trick.

I got some reading done on A Sudden Frost. It takes longer for me, I think, to revise than to write the first draft of a book. It's funny, too. I always think that what I'm writing isn't good for much other than lining the cat box with when I'm first drafting. But when I go back and read it, I think, Hey! This doesn't suck! It's actually pretty good! I'm my own worst critic. I'll go through the self-doubt thing again and again before and after the book is completely done.

But I think that if you really care about what you're doing, the self-doubt demons come to visit you. It's just the nature of the beast.

More coffee needed.

Scrambling

Baby is sick :(

He is feverish and has a runny nose. Poor little bean.

Doing laundry and washing floors. Ugh! Maybe I'll catch up on the other stuff tomorrow. Today is merciless.

To bed early tonight.

*Snort* I always say that.

Better to Stay Dirty

This is a blog post by Justine Musk, which I love so much I decided to post in its entirety. I'm struggling with this now, telling a truth which leaves me feeling raw, and which is keeping me up at night. But I refuse to flinch in the writing of this story, because I believe in what it has to say.

You need to tell the truth. Justine says it beautifully. I can't say it any better than she:

by Justine Musk
1
Nina Sankovitch decided to read and review a book a day for an entire year — and blog about it.
In this interview, she observes: “The traits of great writing are genuineness, truth, fearlessness. Say it out loud: no fear.”

To tell the truth, your truth, as you understand it.

Or, if you’re a fiction writer: to tell the truth through lies.

‘Honesty’ is one of the traits that psychologist and creativity specialist Eric Maisel lists as being key parts of the successful artist’s personality (the others, in case you’re curious: intelligence, introspective stance, empathy, self-centeredness, self-direction, assertiveness, resiliency and nonconformity).

“Standing apart, holding your own counsel, attuned to both the beautiful and the moral, you are the one able and willing to point out the naked emperor, the stench coming from the closet, the starvation right around the corner, the colors of the far mountains as the eye really sees them.”
Art becomes witness. Your work is your testimony.

If you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all. The mantra of the Good Girl.
People only want so much truth. We spend our lives developing mechanisms by which to bleach and sanitize it. We deny, distort, minimize, shift blame, ignore, feign ignorance.

As Sue Monk Kidd put it, “The truth may set you free, but first it will shatter the safe, sweet way you live.”

So often what appears to be the truth is only a mask or image: the kind we all learn to create, some of us better than others.

When you write fiction, you give yourself over to a dream-state. If you’re any good, you’ll let the truths that you didn’t even know you knew — about other people, about yourself — rise from your psyche, expressed through symbol and fantasy.

And then go and show them to others.

“I don’t know if you realize,” a friend told me once, “just how exposed you are in that novel.” He was talking about my book LORD OF BONES, a dark urban fantasy about magic and demons that on first glance wouldn’t seem autobiographical at all. And it’s not. Except my friend is right; I am exposed in that novel, my dying marriage and consequent attraction to the distraction of chaos.

But I realized, as I wrote it, that the story was coming from a deep place. I emerged from periods of dream-state feeling raw, vulnerable. Which is also when I knew, after two drafts and lots of struggle, that the book was getting good.

There is a thrill to taking yourself on the edge like that.

I have learned to be a thrillseeker.

But why does it feel dangerous, more so for women than men, so dangerous that one woman’s truth might “split open the world” (Muriel Reksayer)? Why are women rarely so fearless that someone like Arianna Huffington wrote a book to exhort them to become so?

Men as a rule don’t suffer from Good Girl Syndrome (as one of my blog readers called it). And a Good Girl wants to be — needs to be — is desperate to be — liked.
She lives and dies by the approval of others.

If you can’t say anything nice…

The truth tends not to be nice.

The constant need for approval chokes off the good girl’s inner, intuitive voice, her truth-telling voice. In order to be nice and get along and not risk conflict she has to deny it over and over again, until self-doubt becomes her natural, reflexive state.

Creative paralysis sets in. How can you tell the truth when you no longer know what it is?
When you can no longer separate your true, inner voice from the voices around you?
By relying on the esteem of others, good girls sacrifice an essential truth about themselves. It keeps them tamed and compliant and smiling, unwilling or unable to penetrate the superficial. It puts them at the mercy of someone else’s agenda; sweeps them along in directions not their own.
Bad girls, on the other hand, don’t give a damn.

They prize their inner voice. They listen hard. They know it is their most important guide through the wild, uncharted territory of an unconventional life. Then again, a bad girl’s life wasn’t particularly safe or sweet to begin with. She doesn’t have those illusions to lose.

“When a woman is cut away from her basic source, she is sanitized.”*

A bad girl knows that it’s better to stay dirty.

*Clarissa Pinkola Estes.

Gettin' Her Done

It's creeping up on two weeks since I finished the first banged out draft of A Sudden Frost. You're supposed to let the thing breathe for a while while your mind clears of the story. It's true. I always get some perspective after a little time away from the book, and I see things that I didn't see before. This will especially be true this time, because I had hardly any time to think about what I was writing. I was on a strict deadline.

This weekend I'll open the document and start reading what I've written. I'll start jotting down, on my mind map, the areas that need fleshing out, scenes that need cutting, scenes that need to be added, characters that didn't do much and need to be cut loose, plot threads that were dropped and need to be picked up or cut entirely.

I've been cheating a little. Of course. I can't stay completely away. I've been thinking about certain plot threads and further research that needs to be done, so that I really know what the hell I'm talking about. So I need to do more research.

Research helps to drive the plot and characters forward, too. So I'm excited to really get into the meat of the story now.

However, I need to wash the floor, do laundry, take my little guy for a hair cut and absolutely go to see The Lovely Bones with my pal, Deb. She wants to see it as badly as I do.

Off to work for me.

Oh, one last thing. In my research thus for of one of the subjects of A Sudden Frost, I came upon this quote. Too accurate:

Find out just what people will submit to, and you have found out the exact amount of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them; and these will continue until they are resisted with either words or blows, or both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress. – Frederick Douglas

A Nice Review by Just Erotic Romance Reviews :)

I'm not sure who the reviewer was, but I think it was L.T Blue, because she reviewed several of the Hearts Afire installments. So thank you, whoever you are, wonderful reviewer :)

Burning Souls by Tracy Sharp
Rating: 4 Stars
Heat Level: H

Reporter, Mia Nolan has had her issues with fire as a young child. As an adult she is beginning to have visions of fires in the local area, allowing her to save children. Mia has never forgotten the firefighter from her childhood, Josh Waters. Mia has blamed Josh for years for saving her instead of allowing her to perish with her sisters.

When Mia sees Josh again she can't understand the feelings of lust and anger within her. When a serial firebug threatens the town; Mia's need to be near Josh burns hotter.Burning Souls is the perfect ending to Hearts Afire: October anthology. I enjoyed Mia's character and could understand her anguish of surviving.

Josh was a bit more difficult to understand, but I thought he was a nice guy. At first I thought the age difference would hinder the couple, but once Mia and Josh come together they are a perfect match. As the story progresses we find that Josh and Mia both have issues in their lives that ignored until it was almost too late.

The growth in both Mia and Josh changes their relationship for the better. While the sex is there it wasn't hot and spicy but a coming together of two lost souls, very sensual. Granted I would prefer the spicy sex but in this story sensual works best. There are plenty of secondary characters that leave you guessing to the identity of the arsonist. I enjoyed Burning Souls and look forward to reading more from Ms. Sharp.

Retro!

I'm staying in today, making a stew-like concoction in the crock pot. Got a cold, so I'm kind of nesting. Check this old video out.

Stoked

I am so jazzed! I can't wait to see this movie. I've been waiting patiently, and now it's almost here! Woohoo! Just reading the book now. Alice Sebold is an amazing writer. Here is the trailer for The Lovely Bones.

Wowza

166,700 people signed up for Wrimo this year. 32,000 made it to the end. That's a 19%+ win rate, which is higher than last year's 18.2% win rate.

Coolness!

It was snowing earlier. The first snowflakes of the year around these parts. It was very pretty to look at. I'm glad I have a window to gaze out of here at work when I take little breathers.

It feels like winter now. C-c-c-cold. But we're due.