Warped Sense of Humor

I work under a ton of stress. Fast paced office, phones ringing on end, dealing with the dramas that are inevitable in an office environment, salesmen always trying sell me on the newest and greatest things that my company cannot live without (We usually can.) are just another thing that keeps me from doing ‘my real job’. And that's just the day job, not the mother and wife stuff or the writing stuff which is truly a second and third job. So what do I do to relieve stress?


I find things to laugh about. I have a completely twisted and warped sense of humor, including an odd way of looking at things that just adds to my cynicism. Everyone around me knows it. And most of my email/ blog/ internet friends get glimpses of it. At least I hope they do!


So my BD was a week and a half ago and my sister mailed my present. There were some problems with the shipping and it arrived here yesterday. I opened the box and it said knife set. I was SO upset. Hubby got me a really nice one for Christmas and I felt horrible trying to find a way to tell my sister I already had one. She knows how I like my cool kitchen gadgets. But I hated the thought she spent money on something I didn’t need. So I go through and opened the box that it’s in and find a delightful surprise.





Isn’t that too funny? It's called The Ex Knife Holder. Completely in line with my sense of humor. I love it so much that I don’t think I’m going to take it home. I want to keep it in my office. Maybe a warning to the salesmen and the guys that like to come annoy me?

What’s one of the funniest gifts you ever received?

Reward

The work front has been interesting this past week. It seems that anything that I actually have plugged in went on the fritz. It’s been a hassle and after today I’m finally seeing the light at the end. I have office staff issues, and then we have some litigation issues that are ‘no brainers’ for anyone with common sense, but that is the beauty of bureaucracy, you don’t have to have common sense. Plus I'm still trying to work out the bugs in my new database system. So I guess I'm juggling a lot right now. :)

The writing front was good. I’m a bit behind though. My BD was this past weekend and my husband threw a party for me. It was a blast, I hadn’t laughed so hard in quite a while. But it did cut into my writing. I had two really productive days and then nothing. But that leads me into my next thought.

I’m about ready to hit 25K words and I want to treat myself, very big into Positive Reinforcement. (I have a child; let me tell you Bribery works!) Now I don’t want anything fancy or big, just a little something to push myself, something that I can use to drive me to hit the next 25K.

A couple of years ago my friend Candace Havens talked about how she decided to treat herself to songs on her iPod. I have to say I like that idea. I haven’t taken my iPod out of my truck in months. So I really could use some new songs.

What do you do to reward yourself?

Inspiration?

My new website is up and running. It is beautiful, absolutely beautiful. Thank you Leah for doing yours and inspiring me to get off my duff and do mine. Rae Monet has created a truly inspiring piece of work. I’m telling you, it has totally kicked me into gear about my writing. I put up my word count on the blog and I can’t wait to write more and account for how much I’ve written.

So this week so far I’ve only written about 500 words. Last night I was really stuck on the scene structures. And I’d already skipped over this bit once so now I really have to do it. Not pretty writing, but nuts and bolts placement type of thing. I knew where I wanted it to go, just not quite sure how the characters where going to get there. They really do have minds of their own. And the story elapses in just a week to ten day period, so a lot has to happen in a very short amount of time. I was having problems getting the tidbits of information out in the best order.

As I sat there and pondered the scenes I got frustrated. Deciding I needed sleep, I went to soak in the tub. I typed up about five or six questions I needed worked out really big and propped it up next to the tub faucets. As I sat in the tub I just looked at my page and magic happened after that. The scenes just flowed in my head. Maybe it was the water. Maybe it was the list of questions. Who knows, I just hope it happens again the next time I get stuck.

What do you do when you need the muse to help you along?

Sunday Progress Report

It’s Sunday here and Little Miss M is watching “Alvin and the Chipminks” while I’m in my office trying to catch up on my writing. Real job got in the way a lot last week. Margie Lawson’s class is over and I’m frustrated with myself for missing most of the last half. No matter how much I tell myself that my WIP still isn’t ready for that deep of scrutiny yet.

I found a couple more courses that I’m going to take in the next month. Both are given by very good writers. The first is April 14 , 2008- May 11, 2008, "Getting it Right. Real-Life Detail for your FBI Law Enforcement Hero/Heroine" with Rae Monet. Here is the link if you are interested: http://www.occrwa.org/onlineclassApr08.html

Rae is an extremely talented woman and versatile. She designed my soon to be website! If you are in the need of a new site, you should look at her work. Beautiful doesn’t come close to describing her work. http://raemonetinc.com/

Oh, the other class I signed up for is Writing Erotica with Angela Knight and now I can’t find the link, but here is their website: http://heartofcarolina.org/about_hcrw.html. They offer online courses all year long. If you get time check out her blog: http://angelasknights.blogspot.com/. Truly inspiring.

Now for something completely different. (Can you tell I like Monty Python?)

My real job has me hip deep in business all day. And it happens I know quite a bit about accounting, business legal, taxes, banking and general day to day operations. Now I’m not a certified accountant or anything but if you need someone with general information for a story you are working on feel free to send me your questions. It turns out I know quite a bit. I just never thought of it like that until I was helping one of my crit partners. So ask away!

Writing Front

Well, it’s been a week since I last blogged and a nice little reminder came from my dear friend Leah telling me it’s time. :-)

On the ‘real job’ front we got to write a radio ad for the first time. It was wild to see how much of my ‘writing life’ influenced the cutting necessary for the time slot. Now if I can only do that to all my writing rambling.

I’ve written about 2,500 words this last week. Not what I’d like to put out, but it’s a start. My life was chaos over spring break and I’m slowly starting to catch up. I’m about 18,000 words into it so I’ve got a long way to go and some major editing. I’ve taken two courses this spring and I have to tell you it was the best $60 I’ve ever spent.

Understanding and Crafting Sexual Tension by Mary Buckham and Empowering Characters' Emotions with an Introduction to her EDITS system by Margie Lawson. Both course are wonderful and have taught me SO much. Margie is doing a full Deep EDITS course in May and I truly want to take it, but I don’t know how much the ‘real job’ will let me.

So for now I need to keep writing and get the story fleshed out. Hopefully, I’ll be able to apply the wealth of knowledge presented to me in these two courses. I completely rewrote the first chapter and I have to say it is much better, still needs editing, but I can start seeing a light at the end of that tunnel. I think my CPs will be happier with me too!

Any writers out there that took a course that completely changed how they wrote? Or how they looked at writing and were able to move forward by leaps and bounds?