Castle in the Clouds

These pictures are some I scanned for the Christmas project I was working on for my dad. (Shhh...don't tell mom but she's getting one for Mother's Day) These pics are from my childhood, although a few recent ones might have slipped in. I'm sure you'll be able to tell which is which!

Blame this on Joely . I think I spent a whopping two hours on the vampire romance last week. At this rate, I'll be fifty before I finish the first draft. I need to stop tuning into the television and focus on the fiction. Maybe I should stop reading, too. Um. NO!! I'm going to insist reading is just as important as the writing that isn't being done. Sure, it's entertainment and something I enjoy. Immensely. Maybe even more than chocolate. But it is also market research and useful in analyzing craft. Important stuff, that. I honestly believe the more I read the more insight I have into how construct a sentence, a paragraph, a chapter... What other confession do I have? I didn't read my History textbook. Saving Chapter One for lunch. Of course, I believe I have perfectly legitimate reasons for not writing or reading my textbook this weekend. Yesterday my oldest boy turned 9! (Happy Birthday, Little Man!) We had a sledding party for his birthday. That was interesting. ...

Isn't this cute? This is my current progress on Redemption's Path, my SIL's vamp romance. Courtesy of Writertopia .

You know I'm a nerd, right? I assume that fact has been established without any doubt over the course of the last few years. Even worse, I'm a somewhat overachieving nerd. My first A- at the University left me fuming for week. Well, today I got a reminder that I am not perfect. Now I know you may find this hard to believe, dear reader, but it's true. I am woefully imperfect. Flawed. And apparently a damn idiot. The entire time I was working on that paper it felt wrong. Incomplete. Yet, I thought I understood what the instructor wanted. That'll teach me not to be the annoying student asking 101 questions in order to clarify the expectations. And it's the last time I'll ignore my instincts. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid. Even more aggrivating than the grade I received (11/15 points, which equates to a C), were the comments he wrote at the end of the paper. If I wouldn't have deleted 3 pages, I might have at least earned a solid B. But, no, I panicked at g...

I've been working on my SIL's vampire romance story for a few months now. Some weeks have been better than others, but somehow I've managed to pull together 30K words. I'd like to say those words have been easy. It'd be a lie, though, so I won't. Along with the usual whine about not having enough time, there has been an apparent lack of enthusiasm for the project. Oh, it's not agony writing it. But it's not my preferred genre and it shows. However, I think I've finally reached the turning point. I realized yesterday I've been more diligent about carving out writing time. I'm using my lunch hours. And I've thought about breaking the laptop out more than once while I'm at home; the only reason I haven't is because I've been too busy getting ready to go on my trip. Alright, you say, that's cool, but what's it got to do with a turning point? That's when I know I'm becoming invested in a project. I no lon...

I don't have a lot of time today. I have class in fifteen minutes, a half-eaten lunch in front of me, and an insistant bladder demanding I take five minutes for a pit stop. TMI? Sorry...but it is what is. I'm getting all psyched up for me weekend away. Just two more days of work and then I'm off! Can't wait. We're supposed to be leaving early Friday morning. My cousin has a presentation she has to give in West Branch (a town far north of here), so we're pausing there for an hour or two. While she gives her little speech the rest of us are going to check out the outlet stores. Promise to self: I will not buy anything. I expect I'll get at least 20 scrapbook pages completed over the weekend. Maybe more. I'm pretty well organized and I've been forcing myself to sit down and do the journalling ahead of time. Joke at own expense: The pages should fall into place without too much effort. Okay. Gotta run. More later maybe.