Three Nights

First off, we found out what happened to my car. Evidently the timing belt snapped, so both it and the timing belt tensioner have to be replaced. I don't know what these terms mean, but I do know that it's going to be hella expensive, and I'm pissed. But what can I do? Piss and moan. That's about it.

I'm going to get a horse.

***

This week, I basically have the entirety of yesterday, today, and tomorrow to myself. Husband has work and night class, and tomorrow is going to see Godspell with his mom. I opted out because I loathe Godspell, not because I loathe spending time with my husband.

I have a few goals for this time, even though I squandered a lot of yesterday. Here are the goals:

• Read and critique short story for Lainey.  Finish line edits. Get ready for crit group meeting on Saturday.
• Finish "A Tender Touch" (my short story) 
• Finish reading through Four and write part of another chapter. 

Not too many goals, but I'll be surprised if I can accomplish all of them. When I sat down to write "A Tender Touch," a had a good, solid idea of where it was going. I didn't think it was going to be over a thousand words. Now that I'm actually working on it, it's becoming a lot deeper and more emotional than I'd expected. And a lot longer. I doubt it will be over 3k, but we'll see.
    Wondering what "A Tender Touch" is about? (Of course you weren't, but I'm going to tell you anyway. And please don't recall that I said it was an awesome story idea, especially if you think it's dumb.)
 
   The basic idea is this: a ghost who has made it a personal mission to eradicate disruptive poltergeist realizes it is about to become a poltergeist itself, and must decide whether to destroy itself or become a poltergeist and live in hypocrisy.

   That's a horrible description! Ah, well. So that's what "A Tender Touch" is about. How did I get the idea? Funny you should ask... I was riding to my in-laws' house with Evan and randomly thought out-loud: "How weird would it be if there was a ghost-killing hunter who salted and burned a body, only to find out that the body was its?" Yeah, I watch too much Supernatural, I get it. And don't worry, it's not some sort of Sixth Sense-type thing--you know it's a ghost from the beginning.

I don't know how many of you follow The Blood-Red Pencil, but there was a good guest post today about easy self-edits. Check it out!

Also, all of you already probably follow Shannon Messenger, but she's having an awesome give-away contest. I'm not entering, I'm just pimping for kicks and giggles.


Award!

The fantabulous Kimbery Franklin and Christine Danek gave me this award the other day!

 

So sweet! I'm supposed to list 7 random facts about myself. We'll see how far I can get:

1. When I was in 11th grade, I got knocked unconscious by a stray flying discus. I was on the track team: wrong place, wrong time. Had to go to the ER and get a CT scan...No concussion, but I did get whiplash from it! (My husband's been after me to tell this story on here. He thinks it's hilarious.) 

2. I once hairline fractured my knuckles trying to punch my older brother. He ducked out of the way, and I punched the wall instead. I had some temper problems back then. 

3. One of my favorite authors is Ray Bradbury. I really wish he was my grandpa. 

4. I kick ass at Scattergories. 

5. I can't stand to kill any living creatures, including bugs--EXCEPT for cockroaches. Death to all cockroaches. 

6. My neck curves the wrong way. Like: ( instead of: ). I was born this way. My neck is extremely weak and I have poor range of motion in it. It's not as severe a curve as the parenthesis--mostly straight with a slight backwards curve, but it's enough... 

7. My middle toes are shorter than the toes around them. 

Okay, enough weirdness about me. Now to the fun part! I'm going to pass it on to some fairly new-to-me blogs that I really enjoy:

-Christine at Christine's Journey.

       *I'm a complete bumbling idiot! When I wrote this post, my car-related brain-mush let me forget that Christine actually gave me this award too! How stupid and redundant of me to give it back. Jeesh! But I'm leaving her name up because I love her blog. :-)

-Sarah at Falen Formulates Fiction 

-Tiffany at Tiffany Neal 

-Anne at Piedmont Writer 

Check out these lovely ladies and follow them, if you don't already. 

I leave you with this funny cartoon: