End of Year (sort of) musings

I was reading some friends' blogs recently and was reminded that the end of the year is indeed here. I have finished a complete novel, 55,000+ words - pretty right on for a YA/middle grade story - and have been very busy with work. Over the Christmas weekend holiday, it seemed no one was working. Our work has gotten backed up and it will be a miracle if we get to Christmas day or the day after Christmas by the end of Sunday night. So you know what I will be doing on New Year's Day? - Working as I did on Christmas Day and the day before Christmas and the several days before and after Christmas (even traveling to my parents house and spending some time with family, and traveling home, I worked). Do you think I will see a bonus for not skipping out on the holiday weekend and taking advantage of it being a holiday? Probably not, although it would be nice since my supervisor even admitted that not many people worked the weekend or even Christmas day. And it shows. We have reports right now that are 100 hours out of turn around (what that means is that we are still working on dictation that was done on the 22nd of December and everything has a base standard of 24 hours turn around, so once it hits that 24 hours, it goes out of turn around and thereby is considered late. So now we are working on items dictated more than five days ago and tomorrow, they will be 115 hours late (because all the while we are clearing dictations, the facility is dumping more work on us. Not that I am complaining because lord only knows I need the work and need to get my lines up to over 10,000 every pay period (I'd like to hit a few 11,000 and 12,000 pay periods but so far in six months I have hit only one 12,500+ pay period) I am hoping this will be another (but of course this goes on the new year since this pay period ends the 10th of January).

Okay enough about my musings on work. The holidays are almost over, a new year is upon us and we will soon be given a chance to make new resolutions or set new goals (as I like to see it).

So before I forget to write my resolutions down for the upcoming year, I will share them with you all:

1. Lose weight/start exercising a bit - walking or joining Curves are my two choices. I don't do well by myself so exercising within a structured environment would benefit me.
2. Write more often, not just when the urge hits me. Maybe start a "wild diary" as a friend calls it so that I write something every day, even if only for 5 minutes a day.
3. Post more often on my blog with updates on everything. Share my family's doings with you all.

As you can see, I don't have too many resolutions/goals but they are doable and reasonable - the losing weight/exercising one will be my toughest so it is my number 1 goal. --

Hope you all have a blessed and wonderful year. Hope all my writing friends and buddies have prosperous and profittable years and that contracts for publishing are only a few days away for you all. Signing off for the year - see you all in the postings - E :)

Christmas favorite movies

Okay, now my all time favorite movie is "The Sound of Music". The reason this one holds up for me is that it is the first movie I ever saw in a theater and I saw it with my mother and grandmother. It was awesome to be only about 7 or so and see this movie in a theater. I had never been and to be sitting with my mom and grandmother was unbelievable. My grandmother loved the theater, whether it be a movie theater or an opera house or live performance theater - she loved to go.

I can remember seeing an interview with the real Maria Von Trapp several years after first seeing the movie and it was pretty cool to go - wow - what trials and tribulations she went through. She worked very closely with Julie Andrews to perform the part and get everything correct, lol. But I have to say, Julie Andrews is pretty awesome in and of her own right.

So no matter what, I try every year to catch The Sound of Music on TV when it runs in December (although this year I have a feeling I have already missed it and so may end up watching it at my parents this weekend sometime - if they have the DVD or if it is playing - I need to check the listings soon).

If you've not seen the movie in a while, watch it - you will get some true family values from it; you will get some laughs and some tears but you will definitely walk away from it feeling good about yourself.

So ends my journey on the virtual advent calendar - sharing memories, favorites, food and such - see you all in the postings - E :)

Christmas food/recipes

Now I'm not one to cook but I love to eat (and it shows, unfortunately). In our house when we were all coming together for the holidays, my mother always made lots of things. One of my favorite things she used to make was those dessert bars - the layered ones with the graham cracker crust, the chocolate chips, coconut, Eagle's Brand Sweetened Condensed milk, and usually pecans. My mother would do two batches some years, some with butterscotch, some with chocolate - so we had a variety.

Well as I've gotten older, guess what, I can't eat those bars any more - seems I've developed some food allergies and yup, you guessed it - nuts are big on the list. And those bars are not any good without the nuts for some reason - lol - but alas, if someone makes them without the nuts, I'll eat them.

another thing we do foodwise is ham - we always have ham on Christmas and Easter and turkey only on Thanskgiving - we never have turkey on Christmas which is good because I'm not a turkey fan. So we have all the fixings that go with ham and lots of them.

But as with everything, food should be taken in moderation - because in the end it will haunt you - I know - over the years, I've enjoyed too many good meals that my parents have fixed and now am in a world of hurt - bad knees, bad back, achy shoulders - you know all the things that come from being overweight - probably have some other health issues that I don't know about yet - oh well, hopefully soon, it will change -

So enjoy the food, family, and merriment but please do so in moderation - see you all in the postings - E :)

Christmas Traditions

Being that we moved a lot during my formative years, we didn't really develop too many traditions in my family. We always had to wait until my father was up before we could open presents and we couldn't wake my parents if only one of us was up. Kind of silly, I know but my father was in the military and was always up before we were most of the time. He worked different jobs while in the service so that dictated the types of shifts he worked. But he was always around for the holidays, no matter what - I don't remember him being at work on Christmas or anytime during the few days before or after. Maybe it was because he was on odd shifts and I didn't realize he was gone.

I tried this tradition with my own kids when they were younger, but that flew out the window. They couldn't go into the area where the tree was until everyone was up and they couldn't wake mama and daddy before a certain time (but kids have a way of not being able to tell time - lol). So now, we have no waiting until everyone is up, it happens if one child is up, then everyone soon follows.

Christmas happens very quickly now and it is a shame - Used to be that we would open gifts, have a nice breakfast and then go play with our new toys. Now, unfortunately in this fast paced world we live in, we open gifts and then just go on our way and forget all the traditions and fun and amazement we once knew.

see you all in the postings - E :)

Christmas Memories

Here we are less than a week away from Christmas day and I have not done any shopping per se, just a few little things. I am participating in this Virtual Advent Calendar, which I think is a cool idea and hope I can do this justice.

Being that my father was in the military and we traveled a lot, I was born in Japan, and we have lived in several of the East Coast States as well as Texas and Germany, I can say that Christmas had always been an adventure. One of my earliest memories, although it is more a Thanksgiving/Christmas combined one, is the year my father told us he was going to war; he was supposed to go to Vietnam at the time (I was like 7 and didn't really know all these big names or places). He had already explained to us that this was all bad and that he may not come home for a long time, if at all, and we had said all our goodbyes.

Thanksgiving day, he steps off the plane in Germany (I think he was supposed to rest and switch planes in the area) and was handed new orders. He was to spend time in Germany and the family would be joining withn the next few weeks.

My mom, my two brothers and me had just sat down to Thanksgiving dinner; my mother had already said the blessing and was about to carve the bird (yeah, I was hungry), when the phone rang. It was my father but I wouldn't believe it since he had already told us we may not hear from him for a while. I had a mini argument with him on the phone about him not being my father. My mother finally took the phone from me and when she hung up she was crying. I was mad at tihs man who had made my mother cry. Little did I realize at the time that she was crying happy tears.

So we sit back down to the table and she says the blessing again - I was not wanting this, I wanted to eat. Anyway, after we ate, she explained to us that we were moving to be with my father soon.

Now mind you, we had just moved from West Point, NY to Columbia, SC and still had boxes everywhere. We didn't even get a chance to really unpack before leaving for Germany. We left as soon as the winter break hit and were overseas in time for Christmas.

Germany was an okay place to live - even living on an army base. It was cool because we were pretty self-contained - like a city within a city - we had our grocery store, theater, schools, housing, fresh bread (a local man and his wife brought bread and candies in their station wagon every day), and everything was within walking distance.

Back then, parents trusted us kids to do things on our own, even 7 or 8 year olds. We were allowed to walk anywhere on the base as long as we let our parents or whoever was in charge of us at the time where we were going.

I just remember being thankful that my father didn't have to go Vietnam and that was one of the best Christmases we had.

See you all in the posts - E :)

Second week of December already

Before you know it, Christmas Day will be upon us and then a new year. I am hoping to finish my NaNo story this week but may not. Since work has been low and all, I'm hoping to get quite a few words in the next day or so to really bump up my count and have the story completed by Friday (that is the goal) but then again, work could pick up and we will be swamped and not have a break - lol

When the story is completed, I am exchanging with another Nanoer to do some commenting/editing/thoughts on so I can revise. I'm possibly thinking of going with PublishAmerica for publishing this one but will just have to see.

On another writing note, Echelon Press is doing a Fast & Feastive contest and that is due by Saturday. I'm thinking of entering that one if I can come up with something. Also, the South Carolina Fiction Project is due the middle of January and I'm going to try again on that one -

If I don't get any postings before Christmas - blessed be all of you and hope you have a joyous and merry Christmas; happy channuka, kwanza or whatever you celebrate during this holiday season. If nothing by the new year, hope you have a chance to spend it with loved ones and that your resolutions are keepable, no shooting for the moon, just something attainable. May have to post some New Year's Writing Resolutions right after the new year - I hope whatever you do, that you are safe and prosperous in the new year. See you all in the postings - E :)

WIP - some other updates and the like

Okay, NaNo officially ended Thursday night at 11:59:59 (according to the site) your time - so at 11:59:59 EST (my time) I had posted 40,220 words - I am enjoying the story and hope to hit 55,000 to 60,000 words by the middle of December - that hopefully will wrap the book up but then again, if the girls decide to take some more twists and have some more surprises, it could go on longer, but I think that 60,000 is a good goal to shoot for. Yesterday, I wrote almost 3000 words on the story - so go figure, the story just keeps having these little surprises pop up and the girls can't explain them. Some things they are finding out are helping get to the goal but right nothing has been settled.

Band stuff is officially over until next year and then I will have two in the marching band (if band fees don't go up so high I can't afford it) so until the spring concert, the only band stuff I have to worry about is getting the kids to practice at home like they should.- haha - easier said than done with teenagers

As for the new look - I really don't like it but it got me a blog that I could actually put links to the side and not in the postings. I'm not impressed with the new beta blogging - as I have to log in every time I open a blog to post a comment. I only had to log in once and windows and the blog site would remember me and my passwords, et cetera. This logging in every time I open a new blog post or my dashboard, or someone else's blog to post a comment is ridiculous. Yes, I've made a mention to the guys in support and what they sent me back hasn't helped. So I guess I'm stuck having to log in a gazillion times a day.

Last week our Sisters in Crime group did a combined November/December dinner and mystery theater production. It was fun. I got play a part in the production and then we had to email our guesses for whodunit to the president. I was one of three persons who guessed correctly so they are going to do a drawing for the prize - which is an autographed book of an author who had come to speak to our group last year. If you have never participated in a mystery theater production or seen one, I highly recommend it. They are loads of fun and really bring out the actor in everyone, even those with no acting experience at all - The group really enjoyed our small production - and even the audience members (those with no parts) helped out.

This month is semi busy but nothing like November - so until next time, - see you all in the postings - E :)

Another friend's site

If you have small children around and are looking for some good books to give during this holiday time, please check out my friend's store front at www.lulu.com - Link is posted to the side under Jeanne Marlene - they are very cute books - E :)

I haven't disappeared off the face of the earth yet!!!

I guess it seems I've not done much updating since band stuff was over but I've been busy.

As soon as band competitions ended, NaNoWriMo began and for those of you not familiar with this - it is a writing frenzy. National Novel Writing Month starts November 1 and ends November 30. The object of this is to write 50,000 words of a Novel in 30 days. I was challenged to do this and to write a novel or novella or whatever it came out to be since all I really have done have been short stories and haven't really felt that I had a novel in me. Well, I have hit the 33,000 word mark and am probably half way finished with my story, probably a middle grade book, which now that I've gotten a few twists and turns going on in my head, I'm excited about getting this story finished. Needless to say, I won't hit the 50,000 this month but will keep working on it until it is finished. I went into this with no idea what I was writing, so my challenge was to rewrite my mystery as a young adult story - and I had started a YA before but wasn't really pleased with how it was going. So what happened was that Lana told me to find a story prompt and write a story. I found one that said - two friends enter a house. In the house there is a 100-year-old mirror that has never been broken - write a story about what happens.

Well since my fascination has always been this "house on a hill" that got me writing my very first novella (it is completed, just not edited and is kind of dull), I started a story about the mirror. Then when I started NaNo, I decided to keep the house and the mirror and work with those, as well as two girls exploring the house. Now the story has taken on a bit of magick and involves witches and that sort of thing - I hope the girls will enjoy it - With my busy schedule this week, I will be pleased as punch if I hit the 40,000 word mark. I must work today and then attend my kids' band concert this evening and upon returning from that, I will be writing some more tonight. Tomorrow after work, I'll add some more. Slow and steady - if I do about 2500 words the next three days, I should hit the 40,000 word mark by the end of Thursday (but do have the town parade to attend as well as a meeting - so may have to do some power writing tonight and tomorrow so I can accomplish what I need to do on Thursday - fingers crossed I hit the 40,000 mark, although I must say, I never really thought I would get a story that was this long or longer - I figured my story would end at 30,000 or 35,000 but it's not ending - the girls are just now going into the house -

Okay - now you know where I've been - hope to see you all on the postings - E :)

still behind on band info

The band made the top six, placing 5th this year in over all the state - so we say congrats to our band -- I can't find my daughter on the picture on the front page but I know she is in the group.

We had a great time and now that band season is over, we are moving on to other things (she's thinking if the doctor will let her to do winterguard) so we I'll just keep you posted on that aspect -

Check out how they all look - following the links on the front page to marching band to photos and you will see pictures of the upper state competition first and some other performance and practice pictures and then the bottom set is the state competition - the one picture with all the drum majors lined up I believe is the beginning of the state pictures. Best one of the group is when they are in their show shirts at upper state in the stands and standing at attention - you can see everyone's face for the most part (although we do have some very short band members but they are there) - Take a peek and let me know what you think of a great group of kids - see you all on the field, or in the pages - E :)

Newsletter for magazine for which I am an editor

It may not be much - but every little bit helps and we are still taking submissions - so please if you are interested in writing a story for the magazine, check out our submissions page and just write and submit.

Diary of a Novel

Diary of a Novel

Pretty cool site - maybe if I keep blogging my friends, the hits on my site will go up as well as the comments and their sites will get lots of hits -

Kimberli is pretty cool and a NaNo fanatic - she hasn't posted much this month but she has been working on her novel in a very dedicated manner - please visit her traveling blog to see some of her adventures - pictures of places she has been, fall colors, et cetera - pretty cool stuff - E :)

Yep I'm behind on the good news for the school

Since the previous posting, we had another competition on the 14th and took 2nd place, which was a miracle in and of itself since we didn't capture any of the outstanding awards, so the program and visual effect and music stood on their own to score the band high enough to take 2nd place.

This past weekend was upperstate in our class (we are a 3A school and 3A band) and we had to compete against 17 other bands. The top 6 bands from upper state and top 6 from lower state go to state to compete for the overall grand championship. Well check out the website - we placed 2nd in upper state and we only lost by a little over 1 point (we scored a 90.6 and the winning band scored a 91.75) - so needless to say that we are totally excited.

On the front page pictures, my daughter is in the middle back with her arm around her friend and she is whispering something to her (her head is turned so can't see her face) but on the next picture down, same spot, she has her face towards the camera - Her birthday is Thursday and she will be 14. On the pictures below the schedule information - the group with the red shirts all in the stands - my daughter is on the end of the second row right in front of the black girl and behind the really short girl. She is the red headed girl on the far right as you are looking at the picture, near the other band that got caught in our picture - lol -

Since the previous posting, my oldest has turned 21 and my youngest is now a preteen (well he actually had turned 12 a couple of weeks prior to that posting but since I am mentioning ages, I figured I should put him in too -

During the competition before they gave the awards, I had picked our band as third and the band that received third, I had them as second. I had fourth to a band that didn't even place and had between 5th and 6th to one of the two bands that actually took 5th, 6th (the one that took 6th, I didn't have placed either but the last band that performed, taking 4th place, I had as between 5th or 6th - I think I had the last band that performed as 6th and the third from the bottom as 5th. So only two of my guesses were correct but I'm glad since that put us as 2nd place instead of 3rd where I had us -

So congrats to the marching band that has worked super hard to come this far and hopefully next week we will be in the top 3 to receive a plaque or award or medal - whatever is given to the top 3 bands - more then - see you on the field - E :)

Some really good news for the marching band

The marching band (at present known as the Bear Brigrade, but that name is supposed to be changing) had two competitions this past weekend and so were on the road a good bit. I got to the second competition right as the last AA class band was performing; which is great, because the AAA and AAAA bands were to follow (we performed in AAAA at the second competition).

Upon arriving, we got to see the awards for the A and AA bands - cool looking costumes on one of the groups and it has inspired a short story for a contest -

After that, we watched all the AAA and AAAA bands perform, we were the last performing group before the exhibition band (school sponsoring the competition) and the awards. Our band placed 3rd out of 4 teams competing with the difference between first and third only being 0.95 points - we scored (I think) a 90.3 and the first place band was 91.25 - so not much room to make too much difference on the scores. We also took best drumline and best color guard (or front line as it is called sometimes)

So we had to wait around until the first competition's awards and had a person phone us to tell us the results - and (drumroll please) - we took best drumline, best colorguard, and best hornline and first place. We also took Silver Grand Champions in classes 1 - 4A bands - first time in our school's history of taking the Grand Champion at a competition -

Last week at our first competition, we also took best drumline and 3rd place with the difference between first and third only being 1.85 points - we scored an 88.9, second place scored an 89.3 and first place was a 90.75 - so as you can see these scores are very close and the bands are high quality in competitions

So congrats to our school for achieving a first - almost sweeping the categories of extra trophies and doing a great job performing twice in the same day - E :)

WOW - some very good news for me

I saw this listing for a call for several editors and so I joined the discussion group and put my two cents in for some story ideas for the upcoming new magazine that is going to run next year and I got one of the editor positions - how cool is that?

I am looking forward to posting my call for submission for my particular storyline and hope to see you all submitting your stories - not only to me but to the other editors too - the more the merrier.

Be on the lookout for the calls - come visit the site and see whats happening - E :)

A Literary Agency's blog

BookEnds, LLC — A Literary Agency

I've actually met Jacky from this company and have had contact with several authors that they represent - lots of interesting posts regarding the publishing world as well as the agent world (all have been editors for publishing companies and now are agents - so know both sides of it) -

I have posted all blog links under the links section on my blog - thanks - E :)

Another friend's blog

People I'd Like To Be - Again - please see the links to access the blog - E :)

Chai's Blog

I have posted the links to my friends' blogs under the Links section - so please visit some interesting blog sites I have accumulated and would like to share with you - E :)

CAN IT BE SEPTEMBER ALREADY?

Here it is labor day and I'm slaving away at work (there is plenty there) and trying to concentrate on only work to build up my lines but it isn't happening. Again, thinking of a ton of different things I could be doing, but I must persevere with the work, need to build up the funds to hopefully move from this wretched house - the one full of snakes, mice, and other critters that tend to not show face but make up for it in all the noises they make.

I have started a new story and goal is to do 35,000 words by the end of the month and yet I have no direction on the story, had a prompt from the Writer's Digest site that a friend was a good idea and so I went with it. I have an opening scene, some backstory a little bit and nothing else - pizzazz and flat - good combination. Hopefully something will come.

I don't have a home for it yet but maybe that will come along and inspire me to really write the thing - I think doing it this way makes me think differently on the story; having a home first, makes me want to write the story and all kinds of ideas flow; not having the home first, just makes it more like work - oh well - Maybe tonight I'll look for a contest to put it with so i can write, edit, revise, et cetera on a timely schedule -

Well back to work - ya'll have productive days - see you soon - E :)

FALLING BEHIND, QUICKLY

It seems that school was just out yesterday and here we are already back in August and school going full force. Daughter is in the marching band again this year; her picture was in the local paper last week - she is playing the tuba which she hates. Son is taking up the sax for band and wants to do marching band next year - so I'll have both of them in at the same time next summer (oy!!!) -- Oldest son is taking a break from classes this semester but still plugging on with his arts and creativity.

Work is going well, trudging along as long as the computers don't explode any more (I've been with this company now a month and a few days and since beginning I've had four computers and an extra power supply (making 5 total) die/crash/burn up on me - apparently it was a wiring problem in my house with the hot and neutral wires being interchanged) and I keep getting good lines and reports - not that I've had any bad ones so far because there are no foreign doctors.

Writing wise, I've fallen way behind in that as I have had no desire, no interest, nothing to drive forth any stories whatsoever. I did enter another one of the 24-hour contests in July but then again, it was very short and I probably could have expanded on the story some and made it better so I'm not holding my breath on winning anything on that. The next one is September 23, and I'll probably enter that one too (anyone want to join me, the website is - http://writersweekly.com/misc/contest.php) -- hope to see you all then -

happy writing, keep on doing the things you do - E :)