Posts Tagged ‘Whining’

Miscellaneous Whining and a Contest Over There

Wednesday, December 3rd, 2014

Where else can I whine if not here at my blog?Last night we had a huge enormous rain storm that was actual weather with thunder and lightning thrown in just to scare the bejeebus out of all the dogs, all the cats, and all the people. At 11:00 PM onward, which is well past my bedtime, I’ll have you know. Then the lights went out which had the extremely ironic effect of waking me up because when the lights came back on, the lights in my room came on. Because the Hue lights mean the switch is in the on position all the time. So, electricity goes out when the lights are “off” no change. It remains dark and I sleep blissfully on. But when the electricity comes back on?  My lights turn on and I am no longer sleeping blissfully. And then KA-BLAM!!!!!  More lightning and thunder.

So, yay for lots of rain because we need it. But I had to drive into San Francisco today for a conference thing and …. flooded roads. sloooooooowwwwww traffic and rain coming down so hard the windshield wipers were essentially useless. But no worries! Traffic was moving at a nice, safe 2.3 miles per hour.

But now I’m home and hey. Over at the Riskies I giving away some books. Click here to go enter.

There. I’m done whining.

 

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Posted in Books | 4 Comments »

I Invite You to Whine

Monday, May 14th, 2012

Because I’m going to whine, too. This is the whiney post.

1. I would like to know who is responsible for cutting 2 hours out of my day. That’s the only way it’s possible that by the time I finish all the stuff I have to do, or decide what I’m going to ignore, it’s time for bed and I got no where near enough writing done.

2. Why, WHY, when I have a sign on my door that says “DO NO DISTURB unless you’re bleeding, maybe” do people think that means “HEY CAROLYN WANTS TO TALK!”

3. I have the cutest shoes ever in the world. They have sparkles! But I think they’re making my feet hurt. ::cries inconsolably::

4. Who put all this junk in my room? And WHY, after I spend an hour throwing a bunch of it away, is there MORE of it? Why?

5. My email is breeding. Great. Because that means it’s only a matter of time before the rest of the bits and bytes start doing the same thing. Don’t turn your back on your computer for a minute.

Some good news

1. Page proofs came for Not Proper Enough. I finished them in a day. I think it came out good.

2. Arjun Rampal tweeted a link to video of him doing a shoot for Men’s Health Magazine. Oh my. You can watch the video on my Arjun fan page. Scroll down a bit to the videos. Probably safe for work, except it will be blazingly obvious that you’re not working so wait till you get home or watch on your phone.

Leave your best whine in the comments.

P.S. I just put in tags for the post and there was already one for whining.

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Posted in Arjun Rampal, Writing | 7 Comments »

On Being a Writer

Thursday, February 11th, 2010

What’s it like to be a writer? Well sometimes it’s darned expensive!

This week’s expenses:

425.00 Register for RWA National in Nashville TN
407.00 Buy round trip non-stop plane ticket Oakland to Nashville
188.50 RWA conf hotel hold on credit card
225.00 Enter RomConInc Contest because editor emailed authors about it, 3 books at $75 each.
093.00 Buy and ship books to contest via Amazon (I’m low on copies plus this saves me postage AND a trip to the Post Office, which would happen God knows when.)

Plus, the really evil thing is I had to use the credit card for some of this, so know I have to go to the “Writing Fund” Bank to get the cash to pay the credit card IMMEDIATELY because credit cards are evil.

Right now, I’m freaking out about money. I’ll feel better when the amounts are all paid in cash. But still. That RomConInc contest is freaking expensive. I hope next year they lower the fee. Not that it matters because in 2010, I only have the Regency short story out. So, actually, I hope they lower the fee for the 2011 contest.

Then today, right when I was in the middle of sending an email to my agent about back cover copy for My Immortal Assassin, my website went down — this would include email and I was on the webmail program. Everything just went ::poof::

Did you hear me scream? Prolly. Yeah, that was me.

So then I had to reconstruct everything and send it from my gmail account.

I’m whining, I know. And I apologize, sort of. But I’m in the middle of massive revisions and not only is that depressing on a number of levels, it’s a lot of pressure to get them done both well and quickly.

To top it all off, I made a pound cake and it was a failure. It tastes great, but the texture is all wrong. ::sob::

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Posted in Conferences, RWA Nationals, Writing | 4 Comments »

Monday – Blech.

Monday, March 23rd, 2009

There. I said it.

Yes, I dislike Mondays. They’re so far away from Fridays and even farther away from Saturday mornings when I can be sleeping when it’s not pitch dark. And they’re too close to the memory of sleeping in on Sunday and then doing whatever I feel like, including staying in bed with the covers over my head pretending it’s still dark out.

Sometimes Monday is a payday, which makes for a better than usual Monday, but that was not today’s Monday. Nor is that next Monday. In fact, the next Monday-Payday isn’t until June 15th.

From time to time, Mondays are a holiday and then I am in charity with the day and I can say, Tuesday — Blech. (as a stand in for Monday. I think we’re all well aware that such a Tuesday is really Monday in disguise. A meta-Monday, if you will.) But a holiday Monday doesn’t come around all that often. The next one’s not until the end of May. Sigh.

Carolyn’s Ode to Mondays – In Free Verse Just for Joyce Kilmer and the New York Times Review of Books*

Mondays — Blech
As a General Rule,
I dislike you Monday
You have goopy eyes
And bitter breath
Your hair is a tangle
And the pillow left
A crease down the right
Side of your face
Your nose is crooked
You stole 15 of my
Twenty winks.
I want them back.
But not at lunch or
In the Boring MONDAY
Meeting when people
Will notice I’m
asleep.

My nose hits the table.

Ouch.

I’m awake now.

Mondays.
You are NOT my friend.

1. The poet Joyce Kilmer was an editor of New York Times Book Review (or maybe it was that whole Sunday supplement) anyway, he HATED prose poetry. People like Ezra Pound and H.D. and others got him all in a twist and he managed to fill pages will all sorts of invective against Free Verse. Not that I don’t kind of admire him and mourn his death in WWI. What a waste that was. I think we would have seen some really astounding things from him had he lived.

P.S. I am not procrastinating.

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Posted in Uncategorized | 3 Comments »

Unnnhhhh [shuffle shuffle] unnhhhh

Monday, March 9th, 2009

In case you don’t recognize the blog title, that’s the audio for a zombie, which would be me. Oh, the humanity!

Ask me if I got any work done today. Go head, ask.

No! No, I did not! If you have any brains you have already snatched back your hand — and in the nick of time, too, I might add. Why? Because I had a lunch meeting (no lunch provided) so I had to eat my lunch at my desk while I caught up and attended to another work matter. I had to go home, throw in a load of laundry then get my son to his Math thing and then take him all the way across town to work on an (unexpected) English project, then go grocery shopping, then home to put away groceries, throw the wash in the drying, then sit down and participate in a chat with FBI Agent Julia Hunter. I missed the first half of it because I was home later than expected. But what an awesome awesome chat. Then my son got a ride home (yes! 15+ miles of driving saved for Mom!) but I had to make him dinner and fold laundry and approve the final design of my new soon-to-be-revealed website.

And now I’m tired and going to bed.

Oh, plus after I finished brushing my teeth, I opened the new floss and it would not dispense the floss no matter what I did. So I give an extra hard tug on the floss and pop the top flies off, the bottom falls down and with me holding onto the end of the floss, I watch my naked roll of floss unroll all the way to the floor. Sure, I have floss now, but mint floss enough for three people. Sigh

But now my teeth are extra minty flossy, and even though I have no money because I mailed bookmarks, books and a prize, I’m still going to bed happy because I get to sleep. My second favorite thing to do.

Good night!

The first favorite thing to do is drink sipping chocolate at Viva Cocolate. All of you come to Petaluma and let’s indulge. Why, what were you thinking?

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Posted in Chocolate, Writing | 3 Comments »

Zombie Alert!

Sunday, March 8th, 2009

Can I just take a moment to grumble about this time change? I hates it. Hatessses it. Why can’t we just stop messing with time? These are powerful forces at work here and all that happens when we play with the very fabric of the Universe is we create a mass of zombies on the highways and in line at Starbucks. Is that any way to run a democracy? No, I say. No! Leave time alone. Time is fine just the way it is right now. Let’s DON’T change it back. Ever. Please?

Right. Moving right along. Yesterday I sent my second paranormal proposal off to my agent. I’m glad that’s done. We’ll see if these two make her cry again. I hope not. Now I need to get to some serious work on revisions.

Today I prepped another batch of bookmarks to go out. It’s going slowly because there are a lot and it’s expensive. Sorry. Also all the books I needed to send, those are ready to go, too.

I’m going to go to bed early. Like, right now, actually. Because, sob when my alarm goes off at 4:25 am tomorrow morning it will really be 3:25 am and the fact that I went to sleep (hypothetically) at 8:30 pm won’t make a lick of difference. None.

To bed. See you all you zombies tomorrow. I advise you to stay out of my way. Because I will be crabby. You have been warned.

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Sunday Regrets

Sunday, August 5th, 2007

Weekends just never last long enough. Sigh.

After a lot of procrastinating, I sat down and started work on Scandal. It went like this: Read chapters 1-3- feel reasonably happy. Look at chapter 4 – realize it’s boring and delete it. Look at chapter 5 — realize it’s boring, too, and delete it. Start a new chapter 4 and then a new chapter 5. And in between all this, make cookies, go grocery shopping, take pictures, remind son he’s supposed to clean the bathrooms, check email, MySpace, stare out the window, do laundry…

I’ve already exceeded my minimum for Scandal, but right now I’m struggling with a transition. Probably it’s a mistake to try one at all, but I have to have one in this case. I’m keeping it as short as possible, but that makes for exposition and that’s dull. At any rate, if I end up deleting it, it’ll be short.

So, as mentioned above, my son cleaned one of the bathroom showers. He did a pretty OK job, but I had to clean up after him. According to him, he had no idea cleaning a shower would involve water. Things went downhill from there. But as mentioned, the shower looks clean. Possibly not well-rinsed. He really wants a new game for his DS Lite, and around here there’s only one way for him to make money. . .

Then I look at him in his pretty-darn-new size 14 slims and realize they are too short and tight in the crotch. Spent $125.00 buying him 16 slims. He has one pair of 16 slims, which I bought not that long ago and which were far too long. He had them on as we were taking down the garbage and the recycling, and I could see they are now the perfect length. Before, he would have been stepping on them. They were my insurance pants for him. That pair of pants will have to do for him until the new ones come.

We’re babysitting my brother’s dog, Boo, a big golden lab with a tail that can wreak havoc. He’s the world’s happiest dog and he can’t figure out why the little dogs don’t want to play with him. He’s stolen ALL the dog toys, as he cannot be five minutes without something in his mouth. He’s a menace, but so darn happy no one holds it against him.

Back to work on Scandal, then off to bed.

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Posted in Books | 2 Comments »

Ratzafratz!

Tuesday, December 26th, 2006

I have the day off work, but am not feeling well enough to enjoy it much. The Cold is getting worse. Ick and ick again. It’s raining cats and dogs and it’s windy. I ate way too much chocolate yesterday and today. Further, I made the horrible error of ordering my Leonidas chocolate from other than my usual source. They sent the wrong selection and did not pack it appropriately such that most of the chocolates arrived broken. For future reference, the ONLY place to order your Leonidas chocolates is from Leonidas-chocolate.com. Don’t make my tragic mistake. Megan F can probably take the bus or something to get hers, they’re at 487 Madison Avenue, New York. The wonderful folk at the Madison Avenue store pack their chocolates in foam blocks and they never send the wrong kind either. Sniff. I’ve now bookmarked the correct site and won’t be making that mistake again.

I’ve been mulling over my hero for Magellan’s Witch. I have a very specific mood in mind that I really want to pull off. Oh. Gee. My fogged brain is getting foggier. OK. I’ll just muddle along here.

We had a wonderful Christmas here. My mom got me a sweatshirt that says Careful, or you’ll end up in my novel. My best friend got me typewriter bookends. My dog is asleep on my lap right now. The kids loved and appreciated their presents. Right now, my son is working on a large paint-by-numbers Panda that I got him. He’s good at detail like that. I have errands to run, but don’t feel well enough to run them. Oh, well. I’ve been reading The Historian. Very good, but to be perfectly honest, there are genre vampire novels that get it much better. As I recall, Dark Jewels was better.

I’ve been reading a lot. I re-read all my Black Dagger Brotherhood books, and then I read over on Romance : By the Blog that Michelle Buonfiglio managed to get her hands on #4, Lover Revealed. Arghh!!! I wanna read this book! Sorry, MB, I do hate you because you’ve read it. (OK, not really, but here I am sick and feeling sorry for myself and I just know I would feel much much better if I had this book to read. Now.) I also read Loretta Chase’s Mr. Impossible which I totally loved.

And I got my copy of Gina Trapani’s Lifehacker which I’ve been flipping through and really enjoying. When I’m feeling better, I’m going to implement several of the suggestions, which are mostly about how to use technology to actually improve your life. None of them are terribly complicated, some are common sense, and some I have already implemented for other uses. Like using Instiki, which is a personal wiki. But I use it for writing stuff, not life stuff. But now that my son has a real computer, I’m going to re-commandeer my old laptop, install Linux on it and turn it into a web server so I can set up a more robust wiki.

Personal note to Patti O’Shea: I never get lie, lay right either so I write around that, but my ninth grade English teacher gave us this sentence to remind us of the distinction between affect and effect: The sound Effect Affected my ears. It helps to repeat this sentence with a deliberate emphasis on the opening vowel sound of the two buggers… er.. words. Therefore, when you are confronted with the effect/affect dilemma repeat that sentence to remind you of of the distinction. Thus: The effect was fantastic. E word. He was glad his whisper affected her. A-word.

I think that’s it for now. I need to go lie down.

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Posted in Authors, Books, Chocolate, Reading, Writing | 3 Comments »