LOLCAT FREIDAYZ

Skippy finally got his dearest wish...

Baby Edition: LOLCAT

I had to.

Monkey wrenches

I gotz dem!

Well, not really. Due to some kind of cool news and the fact that I'm cooking a baby, I don't actually know how INSANE I shall go for PDS in November. There's something that I need to do first, that will require some time, and well, I have to do that first.

But I'll still be NaNoing SOMEWHAT, just not at the frantic pace I had been planning to do.

So. What have I done for PDS lately?

- First four chapters outlined.
- All human characters named.

Go me!

What's next? I want to draw a plot line and put in my clues. I still need to list my clues. So I suppose that this will be next. These mysteries, they're so TRICKSY!

I can't guarantee it'll be today, though.

AND I need a pumpkin. I need a pumpkin! To carve! For Halloween!

*sigh*

Tick, tock, tick, tock

So goes my life away from me.

Well, I have my dog names list. It's good. I have the main players list. It is also good. Next on the list is to get those scenes down. I recently read through "The Art of Racing in the Rain", as one of my major POV (I have two) is ... a dog. I know, but I want to try it. It will either be totally awesome or a big fat splat cow patty.

I'm hoping for awesome.

I think I need to work more on my patience. Because I seem to have lost it, and I don't particularly like that. I'm waiting for EVERYTHING. *sigh*

Nano comments on Twitter and otherwise seem to be picking up. I'm sad some of you won't be doing it, but still! There is always next year! And it just worked perfectly for me this year.

We'll see how it goes.

I do think I want to write a basic synopsis slash outline to make sure I have all my clues in a row. And oh, that's another thing I need to make, a list of clues. Some that can only be seen by hoomans, some only by dogs.

And that's all I'll say about that.

Planning...

...for this week.

Okay. I've got six days left of this week plus what is left of this evening once I get home and settled.

That ain't a lot.

But while I wait for feedback on PoloGRRL from The Wonder Agent, I'm planning the NaNo book (which coincidentally is my next book, PDS as it will be known here) and I want to work on Forester's son too.

So here is what I need to accomplish this week:

1. List of characters and names for PDS (this is a little complicated, only in that I want the dogs' registered names to be plays on famous dogs of that type. And I need to make sure all my quiet quips, as I'm calling them, make sense and are relevant to the breed in question.

2. Write a short list of the first few scenes. Since I'll be doing this in two POVs (I know, shoot me) I want to have a clear view going in of each chapter. It's gonna be fun! *whimper*

3 I think what might actually help me edit FS is to read the whole thing through, then make a list of the chapters + what should occur in each. As well as make a list of things I want to happen in the book. And then try to rectify them.

I swear, this is the most irritating book, but I can't quit it.

Since I have a new book group as well as a knitting class, I think I need to settle for all this. I'm gonna check in each day and get ready for NaNo that way, because I'll be updating here daily my word count too.

I really want to try and succeed at this 50k in a month. For me, that's practically my book!

And you? Will you be in NaNo?

LOLCAT FREIDAYZ

Baby edition: humpf

Child.

I can no longer see my feet when I stand up straight and look down.

This does not amuse meh. And it won't get any better.

*sigh*

In which I melt down...

...book is gone. Finito. My first chance to make a first impression on the second book I give The Agent is now forever gone.

Of course now, I'm dying little deaths. What if it's not as good as I thought? What happens if she says she didn't love it? What happens if she said she DID!

Next comes the wait. The horrible, horrible wait. And since I'm waiting until 1 November to start Panic@theDogShow, I'm stuck for two weeks doing...what? Maybe some revisions to Forester's Son? I still have to finish that one.

*sigh*

Guess it'll be that.

I feel so...lonely and sad with no main book taking up my life. This situation must be rectified.

But for now, I will look forward to my knitting class this evening (gonna learn how to make a Hairless Kitteh Sweatah!) and try and enjoy the wait until I hear from the Wonder Agent on PoloGRRL.

Cross your fingers and toes.

Just checking in...

...'cause today I got nuthin'.

;-)

I'm making my final revisions for PoloGRRL (to be sent to The Wonder Agent on WEDNESDAY!!) and so I might be a bit ... unavailable ... the next two days or so. I still love you all, but I love this MS more. Don't be sad.

I'll be back on Thursday, bright and bushy tailed.

LOLCAT FREIDAYZ

Baby Edition: We Know you, precious!

And here we are, another exciting installation of the Baby Book online for Loki!

Little Loki. Now that we know who you are (or should I say what you are?) things have suddenly become so much more ... real. As in, really real. It's so odd that one little sentence, and one little picture, can change an entire world of thinking.

And it's SO CUTE how your papa is reacting. He was really shocked, and it took awhile for it to settle in. But now he's doing good with it, and he's so excited. I can't wait til you're out!

And of course NOW we (as in I) start to look for baby clothes. And baby stuff. And there is *so much* out there. *whimper* But I shall perservere!

It's hard to believe now you're getting so old. In four weeks we're halfway through! And I think maybe around then your papa will be able to feel you too (at least the information I've found online seems to say so, but you are a precocious thing) and that will probably put him out a couple days too. :-)

Each new step he needs a couple days to process.

But we're happy you're here! And I'm happy I can talk to you now with your name! You'll come out knowing it, I'm certain!

Now. Off to find more baby clothes...

Happiness is...

...your agent looking forward to getting your next MS.

(It's stressful, too, but still pure happy!)

"Well, HEiiiiiidieee-hoooooo!"

(That's "Hello" from Hanky the Christmas Poo. You know, from Southpark.)

Things are going along just swimmingly here. Yesterday, we found out what Loki is. (And no, I won't be referring to Loks as a boy or girl on the blog here, as we want to surprise the parents and I think sometimes they stop by, and BOY and GIRL are understandable even to German speakers.) So if you want to know, Tweet me or shoot me a mail and we'll do it that way.

PG is currently being read, and I've got a whole other week before I have to give it on my self-imposed deadline, so I'm feeling pretty good. I haven't started the FS revisions, mainly because PDS (the new MS) is so strident and I'm taking a big relaxing break right now, and reading other's work. It's nice!

And I'm also...

...knitting!

That's right! My husband poo poos it as a "old woman activity" but I keep telling him knitting is hot, hot, hot. And if I can learn enough to make my favourite kind of sweaters, and baby stuff, and winter scarves (which cost THE EARTH here if you want a nice one!) it pays for itself! Plus it's so nice and calming and chilly. Me likey big time.

It goes well with my other activities. I like to do stuff with my hands, and often I need to think out a plot point. So this is the optimal way of avoiding an sort of plot traffic-jam in my head.

Primo!

Long and drawn out.

That has been the name of the game for this title. The title of my new WIP, that is.

Normally I know three things when I begin a book: The first sentence, the basics of the plot, and the title. And when I say normally I do mean all of the books I've ever written. Even when I was five. (And Rabbit, Where is the Moon? is a LOVELY title when you're five!!)

While I have finished revisions on PG and sent off to beta readers (well within my timeframe still!) and begin to contemplate the revisions for FS, the title of the new book has eluded me. Not so the plot, or the characters...wherever I'm at, whatever I'm doing they're there, standing silently or walking past the corner of my eyesight. It's rather like being haunted, really.

But I digress.

*twitch*

So yesterday morning on the way to work I was desperately thinking...what do I call this book? Because I cannot begin it before I have a title! At this point, I was even willing to settle for some so-called "working title" (and yes, I know editors change the titles and hey, if they buy my book we can go that route but I need something I like for right now. Or, starting November).

Once I got to work (oh, the beauty of being at work! And I can't believe I just said that) I was sufficiently busy to not worry/obsess about it any more.

And that's when it happened.

A major plot point exploded in front of my eyes in a burst of rainbow coloured and puppy-dog breath scented sparks. Voila! And then ....

... and then ...

... my Title came to me. And it's possible that this is the Coolest Title I've ever had, and I've had some good ones (she says, modestly). My only concern is whether it's too witty or not (as it's a direct play on said plot line and normal mystery tropes), but hey, I live dangerously around here.

So.

Say hello to my newest endeavor (beginning in November, and yes, I'm doing NaNo just so I can meet some other Berlin peeps, but if you're doing it too add me as a writing buddy - I'm jaekaebee there) :::

Panic at the Dog Show: A Florence & Bo Mystery

(Extra huge bonus points and german chocolate for those that figure out the reference).

And you? What comes to you first about a new WIP? What must you have to start it?

LOLCAT FREIDAYZ

Baby Edition: Feeling gooood

Hey Loki! You've finally allowed my hormones to normalize which means NO MORE TIREDNESS! This makes me a happy girl. And means I feel somewhat normal, except for the mornings (most mornings, in fact) where I wake up wondering why I woke up, and then realize you're having a party in there.

Evidently my subconscious hasn't caught up to the current sitch yet.

Next week I think we find out (if you're willing to cooperate, please cooperate!!) if you are a girl or a boy. It would be nice to find out, if only for your papa to shut up with the ultrasound-as-videogame bit.

Heh

Other than an overwhelming longing for powdered donuts (NO JOY!) I'm okay, you're okay, everything is okay!

And you out there, my darling readers? Whaddya think? Boy or girl?

Exciting.

I'm excited.

Why?

Well, it seems as though I can see the light at the end of the tunnel for PoloGRRL! Which means I can send that baby to The Wonder Agent and start work on the other baby, Forester's Son!

Which will need more work. *sigh*

But that's okay. In the meanwhile, I'm dreaming up the next book, but I guess what I really freakin' need to do is dream up a darn title for it. Because I can tell you almost everything (major-plot wise) about it, but shoot. A title?

I gotta get on that. And it's also quite funny, as normally I know the title I want to use. But not this time. It's so tricksy!

You? Does the chicken (plot) or the egg (title) come first?

The Day the Giants Came to Town...

...for German Reunification Day.

Altho hubs was not *sooo* interested, I was immediately captivated when I ran across this in the local English paper. I knew I had to see it...gigantic metal dolls! An undersea diver, and a little girl giant!

They'd be travelling all through Berlin, starting out alone and meeting up, which was meant to symbolise (by a French Theatre Company, no less, but we'll ignore that bit, hmm?) the meeting of the East and West parts of Germany.

Here are some nifty pics as well.

So anyway, we got all dressed on Sunday and went out to watch. These things were so freakin' neat. I mean, if they didn't have the cranes *and maybe even that they did* it was so ... steampunk. And the little girl just freaked me out.

So of course I brought my camera. And hubs used his mad skillz to put together the footage into this. How freakin' cool is this, right? I could totally see it coming into a story one day. Which was why I had to go.

Research, you know. (It's my major excuse for everything. Even eating ice cream.)

Regardez-vous! May I present "Die Riesen" (The Giants)

Revisions on my mind...

...I could almost put it to a country song.

So editing is coming right along! And I've gone and done a horrible thing, (perhaps).

I've emailed The Wonder Agent that I'll have her the completed (revised, betad) MS on Wednesday the 21st of October. It's tight, but I think I can do it. I need a cutoff date for this book.

There's a time where fidgeting and fidgeting over the same words becomes sort of useless, and I believe I'm slowly reaching that point. My goal is to have zero (0) misspelling errors, accurate punctuation (for sometimes I am a bit heavy with commas) and a cohesive, lovely narrative. Thanks to the eagle eyes of my beta readers, everything is falling into place.

This weekend and next will be completely devoted to lovely said MS, and during the week as well. I've finally cut and added the major chunks I needed to, and now it's just down to final polishing and critting.

So that's where I am in this crazy process. I know some of you in a post some time back told me how you're doing on yours. Where are you at now? Have you gone forward? Are you setting yourself a time frame, or just rollin'?

LOLCAT FREIDAYZ

Baby Edition: Fear

Loki-diddley-do.

You are messing with my mind. And my body. Why, do you ask?

Well, as we get further into this, I'm being made VERY aware of the body/mind separation. The body is a very old, very traditional thing. It does its thing, growing the baby, taking what it needs, doing its baby making...whether or not my mind actually agrees with what it's doing. And if the body is tired, it doesn't matter technically what the mind wants to do. The mind is, basically, screwed.

And it's so weird to think that there is such a separation. I never thought it before. But it's true: the mind is just the topping on the cake. The cake will do its thing regardless.

And. And.

It's not you. It's me. Well, maybe it's a bit you. Why? The people that ask to touch the belly (even when I assure that there is nothing to feel there yet) astound me. But the people that just reach out to do it with no advance warning? They freak me out more.

I mean as in, literally freak me out.

Please do me a favour and remember this : there's something like one in six women that was physically (sexually) or emotionally abused as a young child. I'm one of them.

For these women, you invading their space and, in some cases (as what actually happened to me the other day and why I am including this in this post) giving them a flashback - back to that time, back to the insecurity, the fear, the ... lack of control ... everything. The whole kit-n-caboodle, as they say.

It is not fun, I assure you.

The nice thing (I suppose) is that this happened, and I did find out that it is very common for survivors of abuse to have these feelings and flashbacks during pregnancy, because it is a very losing control type of time. So now I'm working through these new issues (after the time I thought I had dealt with everything stemming from it. *sigh*)

It's just so odd to have this happen and realize how prevalent it is. And how absolutely, utterly determined I am, bar NOTHING, that anything bad will happen to you, little Loks, if I can help it. Or if your papa can help it. We got your back, little baby.