Revision Gems, weekend edition

I Wordle'd my novel last night. I realized that I hadn't done that since I finished, so I thought it might be fun to see my commonly used words.

Interesting results.

Here are the PG-rated words, most commonly used:

One: 553
Like: 306
Hand: 294
Back: 274
Time: 227
Around: 197
Know: 162
Looked: 140

Tom (MC's love interest): 364
Julie (MC's aunt): 204
Jim (MC's uncle): 190
Lily (MC's name): 75

********************

The non-PG words:

F*ck: 146
F*cking: 75
Love: 75 (I know "love" is PG, but I thought it was funny that fucking and love appeared the same number of times)
Sh*t: 62
Damn: 45


My MS is only 153 pages long, so "f*ck" appears on almost every single page. Can't say as I was surprised by these numbers.


Fun times! Now to delete, delete, delete...

Blast from the Past, part 1

A while ago I was talking with one of my CPs, and she made the comment that she didn't believe I'd ever been a bad writer.*

I assured her that this was definitely not true.

But a picture's worth a thousand words, right??

****************** On Bold Prologues ********************
Part One
The Guild of Blood and Water not as good as blood & swash 


Jonah would never forget the affect the night of March 8, 1998 would have on him, or the people it would lead him to love, hate, and kill. This sounds like a query for Nathan Bransford! 


Even now, he could see the looks of terror on the faces of the Ensly family. Father, Mother, older sister, younger sister, younger brother, baby paternal aunt twice removed, third cousin to maternal grandmother's step-sister, rabbi of next-door neighbor's uncle's niece's boss's cousin...even the parrot had to be killed. Oh god no! Why the parrot??? Jonah did not pretend, even now, that he had known why they had to kill so many innocent people in one family. He'd better not pretend. 


It was all about making Mason Ensly come out. And she had come out with a vengeance, cunning, and ill will.Oh, really? This was all about making her come out? Poor parrot... 


guessing circa '98? Twelve years old. 

********* On Awesome Character Description ************


Raine laughed and picked up the menu. She had let Tony and Blanche convince her to go to Pulse Beat, the new restaurant, with Chase. She even let them dress her! 


She had on huge, baggy, white jeans with large rips all over. Under, she was wearing royal blue tights that matched her T-shirt. To top it off, she had on bright blue Nikes with green laces that glowed in the dark. 


Her hair was done in a cresent shaped twist that was held in place by a green band that matched her shoelaces. 


Chase was dressed more mildly with black jeans, green shirt and black hightops. He had his black hair slicked back.


Raine thought he looked very cute, but she would never tell him she thought so. 


I'm not even sure I can comment on this one. 
In my defense, the circa is 1995, and I was nine years old. Yes, ladies and gents, this is an excerpt from my first novel. 


OMG! Let me put my hair in a neon green scrunchi before I read more! 


I think that's enough interwebz humiliation for one day.
But methinks there will be more of this feature in the future.




*please don't think that I think I'm an awesome writer. But I know I've made improvements since...y'know, these times. 

All About Underwear

Underwear is important.

It can make you feel secure, make you feel put-together--or the lack thereof can make you feel sexy...or skeezy. Whichever you're going for at the moment.

I've never liked the word "panties," though I'll use it in mixed company. It's always just been "underwear" for me.  In writing my novel, there are several scenes in which my MC...ahem...loses her panties. And I write it as panties. Somehow the cumbersome "underwear" just doesn't belong in a sexy scene, y'know?

Yesterday, my friend called out of the blue and asked if I wanted to go to the pool with her. I jumped at the chance, as we haven't spent much time together in the last year and have recently been working to correct that.

I hurried into the bedroom and donned my swimsuit, then decided I needed to use the facilities before leaving. Once that was done, I snuggled the kitties goodbye, then headed out.

When we got to the pool, I laid my towel on the chair, stripped off my shirt, then dropped my shorts... only to realize that, um, I forgot to put on my swimsuit bottoms.

And I'd just bared my light-pink underwear to the entire (crowded) pool.

My reaction? "Oh shit, Haley!"

Then like a drama queen, I snatched my towel off the chair and sank to the ground, which only drew further attention to me and put me in the added conundrum of how to gracefully put my shorts back on without everyone realizing I was in my grundies.

Answer: there is no graceful way to do that.

So I just stood back up and pulled up my shorts.

Honestly, if it's been a different color, I probably would have rolled with it, but light pink and slate blue obviously don't mix.


Have you thought about your MC's underwear? Boxers or briefs? Panties or thongs? And when's the last time you publicly humiliated yourself?

Standing By...

I will have a post just full of camping stories (obvs, I survived).

But first, I'm baby-proofing my office for these latest fosters:

They are 4 weeks old. 

Magoo, the female. 

Maverick, the male (who just bit my toe as I typed this)

They just got their morning bottle, so I'm going to try and hurry about my gym and cleaning before it's bottle time again... 

If You Never See Me Again...

It's because for the next three days, I will be doing this:

at Tate Branch Campground on the Tallulah River, just outside of Clayton, GA.

I'm a camping virgin and somewhat dubious about this whole no-shower, sleeping-on-the-ground thing. How will I sleep without my memory foam mattress, down-alternative comforter, and 2 fans? (Benadryl)

I'm planning on bringing a notebook and pens, as it's no doubt pointless to lug the netbook for its paltry 3 hours of battery life.

Revisions are going well. I've written the introductory scenes to both my main characters. Something a bit odd did happen, though. I've never been one of those writers who feels like their characters "talk" to them. No stories pounding to get out of my head. I am firmly in charge.

However, when I sat down to write Tom's introductory scene, it came out in present tense. And once I realized what I'd done, when I tried to put it back into past tense, it felt all forced-like. So I'm rolling with it.

Hopefully the amount of bug spray I'm going to have to bathe in to survive a weekend in the woods won't kill my writing brain cells.

And if I survive that, hopefully the camping trip won't end like this...

OMFG! 

Happy weekend! 

Revision, Day 1

I can't believe that I'd not found this blog before, but yesterday, in a roundabout manner, I stumbled on Alexandra Sokoloff's blog.

Holy mine of information, Batman!

Just a few posts in, I grabbed my notepad and started scribbling like I was in class again.

If you haven't checked out this blog, I highly recommend it can't recommend it enough! She's both a screen writer and a novelist, and her writing and organizing advice will appeal to anyone at any stage of the game.

After several hours soaking up her brilliance, I spent the rest of my day writing scene index cards and brainstorming. It was rather against my pantser nature, but since the novel is complete in my mind already, it's a little easier to get organized, y'know?

In a very rough form, I've indexed the first Act:

It all seems to happen so fast, but that right there is 20 scenes, folks. Twenty! And if each of those scenes is only 1,000 words, that's already 20,000 words--just in my skeleton outline.

 I'm not worried, though. Because after reading Alexandra Sokoloff's blog, I thumbed through an older issue of The Writer and found an interview with Audrey Niffenegger, who of course is the author of The Time Traveler's Wife and Her Fearful Symmetry.

Her advice for writing:

"Turn off the TV, get off the computer, and read a lot of whatever it is you hope to write. The more you read, the better your innate sense of character, story, rhythm, and style. Don't worry about publishing until your manuscript is excellent. Take pleasure in the writing itself and be willing to listen to criticism."


I'm going to embrace this advice as hard as I can!

What's at Stake?

Over the weekend, a good friend from college visited us with his cousin. I haven't seen this friend in a year and a half; he moved to Michigan 2 years ago for grad school and has only made it down to visit twice. We first met in Japanese 1101, where I sat behind him; we then discovered that we lived about a quarter-mile apart on the same road, and we took the same bus to campus every day. He bailed on that professor for the second semester of JPNS, but we met again in the third semester; later that year, I got a job at Borders, where he'd been working for some time, and we worked together there until graduation, marriage, and moving into adulthood.

He's also a writer, and he was the first friend I had with whom I felt comfortable talking about my writing. At the time we met, he'd already finished 2 novels and was slogging through ideas for his third (which is now in re-writes).

This time that we meet, we're on equal footing: two finished novels, slogging through revisions. There's a sense of camaraderie in that, and also a sense of shared desperation.

How is it that writing a novel "isn't that bad," but the prospect of a massive revision--oh God, it's crushing? As Lola calls it, Revision Hell.

I'm planning on diving into Revision Hell today. I'm feeling quite overwhelmed, as there's a lot that I need to do, and I'm not quite sure where to start.

In this month's issue of The Writer magazine, there's a short article called "What's at stake?" in which the author recounts a meeting with an agent who just couldn't understand what was at stake in her novel. He explained patiently--pulling down books he'd agented to prove his point--that on each page and in each paragraph, the reader must be aware of what's at stake for every character.


'Every character?' I repeated. 'Not just the protagonist?' 


'Every character,' he said. 


So she wrote "what's at stake?" on a post-it note and planted it in full view on her computer monitor.

I'm thinking this is good advice, and I have my yellow post-it all ready to go...


Any tips for a revisions n00b? 

Giveaway WINNER

I realize that I didn't put an end date on my giveaway entry. And I realize that less than a week isn't much time, isn't standard in these giveaway deals, etc.

But, like Fate, I'm a fickle bitch. Also, on Monday my husband has a meeting with the president of the college about getting some dough for my nursing school cost, so I could use some good karma.

While I was cleaning house today for the impending weekend visit of my best dude friend from college (and his cousin), I found the other thing I bought for the giveaway: a nice-sized pack of (recycled) Post-It notes. So there's also that.

Yeah, yeah, tell the winner already, right?

FINE! 




I put the 138 entries into Randomizer.org, and the number it spat at me was

108 


which correlates to

Simon C. Larter*

!!!!!

And because it's Simon, I'm going to send him a little something extra. Don't worry, it's nothing dangerous. And it will only slightly encourage his alcoholic habit. Slightly.

I would never waste chocolate like that. 

I swears that I didn't rig the contest just because Simon was in my dream the other night. I mean, the picnic wasn't that good (lies. It was.)

It was just like this, only not so effing creepy. And there was liquor. And no grass. And a table. And a baby.

So, Mr. Larter, you can email the address to which you'd like this package delivered. My contact info is up there in that page that says...Contact. Yeah.

*Guess this means you better hurry the hell up on that novel, Simon. Cuz this prize is for REVISIONS. 

How Much is Too Much?

Most people who know me have been regaled by accounts of my crazy dreams at least once. For pretty much as long as I can remember, I've always had incredibly vivid, detailed, interesting dreams. Not always in a good way, but usually something memorable.

Last night I had a dream directly influenced by Blogger.

You'll have to forgive me on the fuzzy details, but...


There I am, approaching a generic shopping mall at night. The mall is closed, obviously, but for some reason I have to get inside, because I have a meeting. Also, I have a baby in one of those snuggly things (I don't have a baby in real life), and I'm carrying a picnic basket.

I go through some shenanigans getting inside, and then I'm all running through the empty store (like Dawn of the Dead without the zombies) until I finally get on the uppermost floor and find a roof entrance...

And....guess who's there? Waiting for me?

Simon and Sarahjayne! And some other faceless, nameless person who doesn't matter.

We are having a picnic. So we all open up our picnic baskets on this patio table conveniently set out on the roof of this mall, and what a spread! Watermelon, grapes, cheese ball, and several varieties of alcohol (of course). We sit around shooting the shit, eating, and Simon plays with my imaginary baby, who is a boy.

Then something happens--maybe security is coming--and we have to escape! For some reason, this escape involves various ninja-esque moves, and at one point I had to hand the baby over to SJ in order to slide down this complicated rail on my feet. Far too dangerous for a baby, obviously.

Then we make a new picnic on the ground.

FIN

Is this a sign that I've been on Blogger too much lately?


Also, I finished the painting yesterday:

W-I-P Wednesday

Today's work in progress is a bit different than past entries.

Since I'm still giving myself a break from writing before diving back into revisions, I decided to dust off another part of my creative side, a side that's been slightly atrophied for a while.

This is my little homage to pop art great Roy Lichtenstein. I've always liked juxtaposing 2 seemingly opposite pictures, and I think this one will work well together.

I started the whole thing yesterday morning; penciled the top cell, ruled out the framing. I finishing painting the top cell around 8pm, then immediately penciled the bottom cell. Basically just got the black on the plane and the flames before collapsing into bed at 1am.

I'm hoping to finish this afternoon, probably around 3-4pm.

The woman's face still looks wonky to me, but there's not much more that I'm willing to do to fix it at this point. I'd have to paint all around her white and start all over, and...yeah, just not going to do that.

It's been fun to paint again, and it's giving me lots of time to think about my novel while I'm listening to my ultimate 90's playlist.


How about you? Any progress on the WIP? Anything new in the works?


And Don't Forget to Enter My Giveaway!!

Giveaway!

As you may or may not be aware, last week I completed the first draft of my second novel, Saving Me. I thought it might be fun to do another giveaway to celebrate, and it also ties in nicely with being at almost 250 followers (wow!)

Since the novel is set here in the dirty South, I really wanted the little giveaways to represent that, but then I figured that nobody really wanted a jar of red clay, mosquitoes, and a bottle of 100 degree/100% humidity air.

So I thought I'd do something revision-related.

I'd love to give everyone a pony, but Evan and I are still pinching pennies, so here's what the prize be:

Sorry the photo is dark, but the flash kept glaring out some of the stuff, so here's what's what:

1. Eats Shoots & Leaves by Lynne Truss
2. A cute little "Great Ideas" memo pad
3. A plaque that will no doubt speak to all of us...
4. And a bag of Green & Black's organic dark chocolate (70% cacao)--because we could all use some chocolate sometimes, right?

I will use randomizer.org to choose the winner. Or maybe I'll number all the grass in my yard, then see which one survives after the mowers come. Or...maybe I'll let a kitten pick. That would be awesome.


Here be the Rules of Engagement:

1. Must be a follower
2. Must be a human*
3. Must be in the US/Canada (sorry)
4. Must agree that Picard was the best Star Trek captain*
5. Must like cheese*


Here be how To Enter:

1. For ONE point: be a new follower! As in, after today!
2. For TWO points: be an old follower! Don't be fooled--the scent of mothballs is SEXY!
3. Tell me what you'd do first if HOLODECKS were real!
4. Pet a fuzzy kitten--if none is available, pretend.
5. FOR FIVE POINTS: tell me something about the Deep South, whether or not it may be true

What NOT TO DO:

1. You don't have to pimp me on Twitter/Facebook/your blog. But please feel free.
2. IF you win, don't eat all the chocolate at one time.


I'm not fancy enough for a Mr. Linky, so just do it...in the comments. Group-like.

Yeah.

Also, I don't have a fancy giveaway title. So if you DO decide to give me pimpage, please give me an awesome one. Thanks.

PS: Stay tuned tomorrow for a special photo op of ME and this guy:

*These aren't really necessary, but kudos if you meet these parameters! 

I Haven't Forgotten

The shopping I did over the weekend failed to yield all the contest goodies I was hoping to score, but today I have to go back down to one of the Atlanta 'burbs, so I'll see if I can't cajole my M-I-L/shopping buddy into dropping by Barnes & Noble for a bit.


And for those of you who've been following this, I finally have my Functional Capacity Evaluation at 10:30 this morning. The test will determine my percentage of disability and hopefully spur this agonizing Workers Comp issue into its end days. Keep your fingers crossed for me!


Try to have a not-too-terrible Monday, y'hear?

Charleston

On Wednesday night, I finished my latest WIP, Saving Me. She rang the bell at 75,404 words, 153 pages (single-spaced), and 20 months.

Actually, that's not quite true.

The idea was born on November 1, 2008 (NaNoWriMo). I wrote about 32k, then stopped. Over the next year, I dabbled here and there at it, added about 10k, then stopped.

November 1, 2009, I started Eternal Spring, which you now know, and I finished that draft in March of this year. Pretty much a few days later, I decided I'd finishing Saving Me once and for all.

I cut down to about 23k and started from there.

So I guess it really took me around 4 1/2 months to write, if you added together the times I actually wrote on it. Once I had my breakthrough with Evan this past Monday, I really hauled ass and wrote 12k in two days. That's a big deal for me. :-)

Anyway!

I'm happy and content, but no great feelings of excitement this time, not like when I finished Eternal Spring. That was the first book I ever finished--the moment where I could look someone in the eye and tell them that I'd written a novel.

With Saving Me, I wasn't going to take no for an answer. I knew I'd finish, I just didn't quite know when.

Don't get me wrong--I'm excited. But more like this:

than this:

I finished writing around 10:30 Wednesday night, and what did I do? I immediately picked up the book I'd been reading (Where the Heart Is) and finished it. That's what I call celebration. :-)

Maybe because this idea's been with me for so long, niggling at the back of my head, compelling me to write it, the feelings are more subtle.


But anyway.

In continuation with tradition, I will be hosting a giveaway to celebrate finishing Saving Me. I'm afraid it can't be as fabulous as I'd like, since hubby and I are still basically poor college students, but I'll do my best. :-)

I'll have more details on the giveaway next week, but I can tell you that the prizes are all going to be writing/revision-related.



PS: Wondering about the name of this post? "Charleston" is the last word of the novel.  :-)

Have a fab weekend!

Garden Updates! (and something else...)

Since it's Thursday, and I let Thursday be my cheating day, I thought I'd share some recent pictures of the garden, since it's been a while.

Sadly, we lost both the squash and zucchini to squash-borers. We were quite upset.
Tomato hornworms got ahold of the cherry tomato plant, but we spotted and removed them before they could completely kill it.

The weather has been wonky this summer; all of June was rainy, it seems like, and for the last 3-4 weeks, it's been dry as a bone. Blossom end-rot has not been our friend.

Now that pretty much everything has come and gone, Evan and I have made some plans as far as how we want to rearrange the beds this fall. And even though it goes against all the gardening rules, we bought some more plants last Sunday (the 4th) and put them in.

Stargazer lilies. They smelled so good...but only lasted for about a week. 

Cosmos! They're so happy looking. Really glad these seeds panned out--they were the only ones!

Took out one of the lychnis and put in this cone flower instead. 

The part-sun bed, or as I like to think of it, the Frankenstein bed. This poor thing's been though all kinds of work. Right now, we're letting the elephant ears take over the far left side. The gardenia is nice and revived, we moved to the meadow sage to the center, and planted garden phlox on each end (the pink flowers). Some mounding perennials in the middle (sandwort). Once fall comes, we'll dig up the dwarf calla lilies and put them over here. 

Display by the door. 

It was really bright when I took this, but the roma tomato plant is finally perking back up a bit. It's producing fairly well, and the fruit tastes great. 

These are the zinnias that I won in Lola's wolfpack contest! They were an extra prize. :-) 

This one is even prettier now--these pictures are from the 4th. Two blossoms, and they're fully opened. 

The third set of seeds that I planted got a nasty bug attack, but they're actually recovering from it quite nicely and should be blooming soon.

Well, now that you've looked at my pretty garden, I guess I can tell you the other thing:

I finished my novel! 

details tomorrow

I Fancied Myself Faulkner (and then I learned better): WIP Wednesday!

A much more exciting WIP Wednesday report this week, friends! Thanks to the (ridiculous) goal I set myself over the holiday weekend, I was able to boost my wordcount quite spectacularly (for me).


Saving Me
genre: women's fiction
wordcount: 68, 316
goal: somewhere in the vicinity of 75,000 words


General Thoughts:

Bear with me.

As anyone who read my colorfully illustrated post last Friday knows, I had quite a week last week. A lot of it was WIP worries--as I drew closer and closer to my resolution, I began worrying about the plot, the conflicts, the characters--everything. I was valiantly trying to just keep writing, and I barely managed to keep the hounds of doubt at bay while I typed.

And then Monday night everything came to head.

There I was, pacing frantic circles in the office, practically shouting my issues with the book at my husband.

I was going for so much--so much that probably would have been lost on many readers. I was going for parallels, adding in subtle elements of the grotesque here and there, mirroring instances, Biblical allusions, several themes woven throughout, and TWINS! By Mjolnir, I wanted TWINS. And even the better, the grotesque was going to be IN THE TWINS. Flannery would be SO PROUD of me! And all this was getting so convoluted in my head that I couldn't even decide if I wanted my MC to scratch a freakin' lottery ticket without thinking of all the possible repercussions this lottery ticket could have, depending on what she revealed.

Evan let me rant and rave and generally sound like a crazy person (Faulkner), and then in his easy, logical way, he began to point out things in my plot that for him didn't work. And then he took my metaphorical hand and pulled back the curtain, and together we gazed on a land BRIGHT with possibility!

"Look!" he said. "THERE is where your story lies!"

And he was right. He's not a writer, my hubby, but he loves movies. And I'm starting to think that those who watch a lot of movies may be more in-tune with solid plotting than me, at least, who doesn't watch a lot of movies.

So I kept Evan up far past his bedtime, making him repeat our previous 30 minutes of conversation so I could type it. Then I threw bunches of questions at him, and we worked out my revised direction together.

It was beautiful. And then, friends, I slept. Soundly. And I woke up eager to get to the keyboard.

So here I am. When I started writing this morning, I had my new direction in mind, so maybe the last 10k won't need complete overhaul. Then again, it still might. Who knows? All I know is that I'm loving the WIP again, and that's enough for me!!


In other news:


Remember how I told you that I ordered my proof copy of last year's NaNo novel? Well, guess what came in the mail??

I didn't design that cover myself, but I'm still pleased with it. 

Let's just hope that I'm never the one to write the blurb for my books...

whee! I found a typo. 

How is everyone's writing going? I'm seeing lots of new ideas whispering to bloggers! Start a new project? Finish an old one? Have a new vision? Eaten some cake? Share!

Write Goal Check-In

As of 10:47am, Eastern Standard Time, on this Tuesday, July 6th, 2010:

Word Count: 64,005 


Technically, I wrote an extra 1,037 words, but I ended up deleting them and going in a different direction.

Honestly, I can't believe I actually made my goal.


Lots of thoughts on the project going on. Details tomorrow.

Waxing Sentimental

I realize that I'm a little behind the times, but last night Evan and I watched Julie & Julia. When I first started blogging and getting around to others' blogs, I noticed several folks attributing their blogs' beginnings to this movie. Very curious, I thought at the time.

So we watched the movie. It was lovely, truly lovely. A beautiful story of success, inspiration, and of course, love (and cooking!)

Evan also loved the movie.

I think my favorite thing about it was the relationships between the women and their husbands. I have a husband like Paul Child (was portrayed in the movie), with a bit of Eric thrown in. He's kind and sweet and funny and incredibly supportive. He's never doubted for one minute that I will publish a novel (or a series); he's my rock in turbulent times. He reads anything I ask him to, even though he's not much of a reader, and certainly not in all the genres I like to write.

At the end of the movie, when Julia opens her mail package and pulls out the copy of her cookbook, I teared up. Evan squeezed my hand and said, "That's going to be you soon, hon."

I didn't need Julie & Julia to inspire me to blog--obviously, I've been doing that on my own for 6 months now. I also didn't need it to inspire me to cook--while I'll never take on the art of French cooking (for health reasons, and I could never kill a lobster), I do enjoy the kitchen, and I take pleasure in creating something from many nothings.

The movie inspired me to always keep that love connection alive--that my husband is my best friend, the butter on my bread, and the breath in my life.


I didn't mean for this to wax so sentimental, but we watched this movie at the end of a wonderful day spent together, doing the things we love doing in our little home. It was simply a beautiful reminder of the things I already hold dear.


If you haven't seen the movie, do check it out some time.

And if you have someone in your life who's as supportive as mine and theirs, do make sure you show them the love and appreciation for everything that they do for you.

Indy Pen Dance

Hope everyone's getting their holiday (or regular) weekend off to a great start!

This morning, Evan and I went to see The Last Airbender, which was beautiful (I didn't watch the series, so I can't judge, but Evan wasn't thrilled.) But it was sooo pretty!!! Special effects are so amazing these days.

Our itty-bitty town of 2,000 has an annual Fourth of July festival right in the 300-yard strip of "downtown"--which basically meant that every side road, including the one we live on, was double-parked with cars. When we got back from the movie, we sauntered down the hill to check it out. It was totally lame, as always, but I did get some boiled peanuts! Yummmm. Then I gorged myself on them and took a nap.


Anyway.

Thanks for all the supportive comments on my self-indulgent post yesterday. Though the feelings were there, I did mean it to be humorous, and I'm glad that came across. :-) I'm in higher spirits today--so high, in fact, that I'm making myself a little public commitment:

Current wordcount, as of 5:05pm EST, July 3rd: 57,952 words

Wordcount as of Tuesday AM, July 6th: 64,000 words.


I'm really hoping to be done before July 15, but that is my cut-off date.

As in holding tradition, I'd like to have a contest to celebrate the completion of my second novel. Details and such to be provided at a later time.

So, I hope everyone has a fun and productive weekend, and if you're nearing the end of your WIP, try not to give into this temptation:

My Crappy Week

I'm struggling this week, friends. On many levels, but the highest level is my WIP. I'm so close, but so, so far...And this week's shenanigans haven't helped.

So in order to vent, I made you pretty pictures showing you how I feel.

I hope they make you smile! I smiled. :0)

Hope everyone has a happy holiday weekend! Let's blow some shit up! 

Dream Speak?

For the most part, I'm the crazy sleeper in this relationship. I flail, I sing, I sleepwalk, I have conversations.
But from time to time, Evan can have some fairly hilarious nocturnal emissions.*

Not too long ago


Me: zzzzzzzz
Evan: *in creepy sing-song voice* hmmmmm.... sassafras....

Me: zzz..huh? *somewhat awake*

Evan: Sassafras and rum... Sassafras and gin... Sassafras and....sassafras and....zzzzzz....

Me: *whatev* *zonk*


I wonder what that dream was about.



*not that kind