Tuesday, February 28, 2006

A birthday and Random Thoughts

Happy Birthday Ruby!!!!!
I hope this birthday is an absolutely wonderful one. You've been a great friend. Have an awesome day! You deserve it.
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(hey, it was the only way I could think of to separate the two - whenever I published, they ran together - any suggestions?)
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So, just what is it with the title of this blog? The long and writing road (besides a play on one of my favorite Beatles songs) is a journey that many of us "un-published" writers travel every day. Its a quest for just THE book that will get our proverbial foot in the publishing world. It's a wild ride, sometimes lonely, sometimes so full that its hard to breathe, but never, never dull. Hard, frustrating, tragic, wrenching ... but never dull. For me the journey began in childhood with the fantasies and mystical worlds I created everywhere I turned. This fantasy world filled me, sustained me through some very tough times in my life. I'd spend my days in Collinsport, or on the bridge of the starship Enterprise (where I really was going to marry Chekhov). As I grew older I started to solve mysteries with a girl named Nancy, dumped Chekhov for Keith Partridge, Dave Starsky and Joe Hardy (wait, Keith Partridge and Joe Hardy? Isn't that kind of incestuous?) and continued to dream. Then my mother introduced me to some very fine ladies named Violet Winspear, Mary Burchell, Betty Neels and Mary Wibberley. I became hooked on this thing called romance and dumped Donny Osmond for aristocrats and doctors. And my dreams broadened. That's when the voices began ... you know those voices - the weavers of stories, the narrators of vivid tales of love, romance and adventure. I even tried writing a Presents once somewhere around the 9th grade (that was just 7 years ago - watch it!). But then something happened. I suddenly developed this fear of mistakes. I became obsessed with homework, agonizing over every word, every comma, every grammatical mistake I was making until, suddenly, I couldn't write anything down. Not a good sign for a writer. So I shelved that dream and went on with my life. But the daydreams continued, the voices still whispered to me, and the self-imposed exile to the land of no writing became a silent torment. About 13 years ago that began to change. Slowly my world started coming into focus and the voices became louder until they would no longer be silenced. So I began to write, to push those boundaries I had erected around me. I even joined a writer's group ... and for someone with agoraphobia that was one of the hardest things I ever had to do. And the words began forming, the ideas sprang from me sometimes so much, so fast that I couldn't keep up. It was if someone had opened the floodgates and I couldn't stop it. I wrote a book. Yep folks, I actually have one. Oh it needs a lot of editing, and the story is really ... mediocre at best. But that's not the point. It's written. So what's the problem? Well, other than the fact that I hate the book? That's about the time I began taking care of my parents, dropped out of the writer's group and pretty much gave up writing again. Until last year. Until I began blogging and the muses sprung up in me and all gave a shout of Hallelujah! That's when I decided that writing, for me, wasn't just a hobby. It was a passion, an all-consuming need to write down the stories of all the voices in my head. So this week I decided that I had wallowed in depression for long enough. That I was going to get my life back in some sort of order (hence the cleaning of the desk) and I was going to start back on that journey, back on that long and writing road. Wanna walk with me?

Hey!

Nobody's looking at my desk! Scroll down - I worked hard on that!

Wow, 5 posts in a little over 12 hours.

Hooray Cece

Our very own Cece, aka Celia Stuart, has sold her book "Blue Collar Chicks" to Kensington for Aphrodesia. Yay Cece!!!! (I want my smilies)

My, my, - four blog posts in less than 12 hours - watch, I won't have anything to say tomorrow.

Welcome to Blogger

So what do you think? I'm still messing with it (in fact, I've changed templates three times already), but I think this is going to work out okay. Only one problem so far ... HOW DO YOU DO LINKS! (How are you feeling Toni? Was that too loud for you?)

This is my third post for the evening - the other's are pictures (look below). But I just wanted to put up a welcome post for those of you who will be joining me today. I will no longer be posting on bravenet - they made me mad with their broadband crap, so here I am. I'm thinking about doing another blog just with my book recommends. What do you think?

Draw - in case you missed it - a tie (two pieces of paper stuck together) Butterfly - you here yet? You need to email me with your snailmail addy. I can't send your book without it. Oh, and Olga - narrow down your choice - I ain't sending you all of the romantic suspense. And if you didn't win this time, keep at it.

I'm going to miss the smilies though. I really liked them ...

Now, if anyone can help me with links I would be most appreciative. And don't say go to "edit me" because I've tried and it just messes with my non-technical mind.

Monday, February 27, 2006

My Desk


This is my desk ...





This is my desk on drugs ...













Got it?

Test


This is just a test to see how this will look. Guess I'll start with a picture of my almost 9 month old kitten Bailey - or Baileyboo to those who know and love him. Isn't he cute? He's such a baby - but being a feral cat, he still has a little wildness in him. I caught him at approximately 3 months old, then found out he had ringworm (yikes) so he spent the first three months of his life in this house in a kennel. I would let him out in my mother's bathroom every once in a while, but with other cats in the house we had to be careful. He kind of walked funny at first, but is doing fine now. And he's getting a little less skittish every day. He and Devlin have fun - a little loud, but what would you expect from a 9 month old and an 11 month old. Oh, and this is Devlin. I got him at 1 day old - yes, he's a handfed baby. He's little for his age and always will be because he had a parasite from birth that caused him to not gain weight for about 3 weeks during a crucial growing time. He's very loving, more loving than any other cat I've ever owned. "They" say that's the way with handfed kittens.

Well, I guess this is the end of the test. Now I'm off to play with the rest of the blog.