Yes, I do want to cry like a little baby...for about five minutes, then I'm fine.

Michelangelo kitty 99% most likely has what the vet calls Litterbox Aversion, which means something happened to make him not like his litterbox anymore, which means we hew-mons get to play detective to figure out what he does want in a litterbox. Which may be as easy as having one his pesky sister can't get to, or having a different kind of litter, or a lid instead of an open box, etc.  He's fine, but if he could speak English for thirty seconds, the whole process could go a lot faster.  Or if we could speak cat.

Then, I got a very very very good rejection from the first agent who had my full ms.  She loved the book, but had some reservations about marketing, and asked for something else. Which I will be very happy to send her as soon as I finish Simon and Jonnet's book.  I find it ironic that the hard-to-market book is the one I already sold . It is a different sort of a book, but I'm still liking the irony here.

Then there's an email from a friend about a joint venture and miscommunication, yada yada yada.  Short form, I didn't know something had gone a certain way, which gave friend an impression that was false, that resulted in consulting another party I don't know, which blah blah blah...let's cut to the chase and say I don't have time for this sort of stress.  In general, please, please, please check with the other person before assuming.  It can save time and blood pressure.

At least I'm reading a wonderful historical romance by Colleen Faulkner, which definitely reminds me what I'm in the romance fiction business for.  Though it doesn't make up for losing the head skin for a favorite Sims character in the reinstall...site I got it from is gone, head vanished, and can't change the appearance of Townies.  Grumblesigh. 

I'm going to go take my hormonal self to the kitchen, fix some lunch and then write.

Talked to the customer service manager at the local B&N this weekend (he happened to be in when a friend and I stopped by to see what they didn't have (private joke) in the romance section.  Got to tell him about the upcoming book and Arabella story and we talked for a brief while.  A little surreal, but fun anyway.

Other surreal thing this weekend (other than the fact that my dad let me pray for him) was getting a questionnaire to help a favourite author with her branding.  (Associating a particular image with a particular author.) This is something I've been thinking about a lot for my own projects, but to actually have to fill in what food, reality show, etc, is most like this author, required some thought.  Some of the categories, I'm not that familiar with.  I don't go to many movies, though we do live literally a five minute walk from a megaplex; does that say something about our movie tastes?

Got me thinking, though.  Things I would aspire to have the same impact as:

An Elaine Duillo illustration
A MeatLoaf/Jim Stienman song
Billy Joel's music
the Highlander tv series
Anna Griffin's decorative paper products
http://www.stampersanonymous.com/ rubber stamps
A Gregg Gulbronson illustration
The interior designs of Laurence Llewellyn-Bowen

I'll leave writers both ABA and CBA for another entry.

Had one of those days yesterday wherein most of the day was spent smacking head against keyboard and finding excuses to visit one more Sims site (hey, I did lose some nifty and needed items on an uninstall before installing Unleashed) but then, boom.  One of those flashes that in an instant explains everything I'd been fussing over, why I couldn't grab onto the bad guy's character.
 
Oh, I'd gotten his character, his general appearance, gestures, most of his motivation, but something was eluding me, and then, bammo.  It was there, everything fell into place, and when I looked up next, it was six pages later, and my friend Michele had arrived to whisk me off to our nag group.  I hadn't had a chance to read it before reading it aloud to the group, but the scene worked on every level, and though I was one tired puppy, that's one tired and happy puppy.  So yes, definetly in the groove now.  (Which is why I am currently bopping around for some new Sim houses. Plus I need a downtown shower and better beds.)  Of course this flash means I do have to make changes to the family tree it took me forever to get up for the main characters, but right is right.

Husband should be working tonight, so after I take the bottles in for recycling, I can organise the stuff I'm critting and  hopefully be able to dig into my vintage TBR pile for some inspiration.  Last week, I found a copy (oh joy, oh bliss) of Morgan Llwellyn's The Wind From Hastings, which I read for the first time the day before my senior fall semester at college started (I won't say how many years ago that was) and found myself so transported into the medieval world that I didn't care the dorm's electricity wasn't on yet.  Or I hadn't noticed if it were.  I want to write books that absorbing.

Contracts in the envelope, sealed and ready to go. The fact that there have been other human beings breathing my air during my usual work hours keeps me a bit unsettled, but things should clear out soon, and then I am taking a notebook into the bath with me. Gauranteed quiet time, unless the cat busts in. Which she has been known to do.

Nag group tonight in which we celebrate. Family and friends have been amazing in sharing my joy in this week. (Pause while cat busts in to get put in lap) Group still has the ability to physically harm me if I arrive with unmet goals from last week, at least some progress on same. Hopefully they'll help me with some brainstorming to get a better handle on my bad guy from Simon and Jonnet's story; he's not jelling, which means something is off.

Also playing with hauling the half-finished women's fiction prequel to My Outcast Heart -- Dalby's mother's story-- out of mothballs and reworking it into a romance so it can join the family as it were. I know off the top of my head at least one other story that could spin off from that, maybe two. Though Simon and Jonnet are my main focus right now, along with a return to the saga I'm doing with a collaborator.

But first, the important stuff. New awaphue shampoo, so must wash hair.

Very happy but very tired. Awe-Struck ebooks made an offer to publish My Outcast Heart and I accepted. If all goes well, this will be a 2005 or early 2005 release. Next step is contracts. Still doesn't feel entirely real yet, but it's right.

Slow day getting started, but I think having yesterday's strange schedule is giving me a little fallout. Usually, the day after something like that, it takes an afternoon to get back on keel, but then it goes fine. Spent a little time sitting on the floor, making a card for a stamping friend who recently moved out of state. Actually got to use some of the new paper I snagged on Saturday, so I liked that.

Need to get things together for nag group tomorrow night. Of course, since last we met, I got the request from Awe-Struck, which means my query is now a submission, and that puts other queries on hold until I get a yea or nay. Also puts a question mark on the agent queries, but I can make that one of my questions for group.

Very snacky today...hormones, ugh. Better quit goofing off and get back to connecting my Holland scenes.

Slow day getting started, but I think having yesterday's strange schedule is giving me a little fallout. Usually, the day after something like that, it takes an afternoon to get back on keel, but then it goes fine. Spent a little time sitting on the floor, making a card for a stamping friend who recently moved out of state. Actually got to use some of the new paper I snagged on Saturday, so I liked that.

Need to get things together for nag group tomorrow night. Of course, since last we met, I got the request from Awe-Struck, which means my query is now a submission, and that puts other queries on hold until I get a yea or nay. Also puts a question mark on the agent queries, but I can make that one of my questions for group.

Very snacky today...hormones, ugh. Better quit goofing off and get back to connecting my Holland scenes.

Slow day getting started, but I think having yesterday's strange schedule is giving me a little fallout. Usually, the day after something like that, it takes an afternoon to get back on keel, but then it goes fine. Spent a little time sitting on the floor, making a card for a stamping friend who recently moved out of state. Actually got to use some of the new paper I snagged on Saturday, so I liked that.

Need to get things together for nag group tomorrow night. Of course, since last we met, I got the request from Awe-Struck, which means my query is now a submission, and that puts other queries on hold until I get a yea or nay. Also puts a question mark on the agent queries, but I can make that one of my questions for group.

Very snacky today...hormones, ugh. Better quit goofing off and get back to connecting my Holland scenes.

Had an art day today, which is the polite way of saying I sat on the floor while a marathon of Style Star ran, and played with my newest purchase, a pad of distressing ink in "old paper." Mostly artistically tore images from an old black and white Star Trek the Next Generation calendar (used to be a big-time Trek fan, over that now, but like to recycle some images when I can) to eliminate the "Trek" look (which mostly means keeping the faces, and that's it) and then ageing the images with the distressing ink. Must get more of that.

There's something about sitting cross-legged on the floor with the TV on, ripping and inking and crumpling and stamping that is creative yet word-free, which lets the story portion of my brain go off on its own thing and report back to me later. Phew, long sentence, but that's what happens. Will let that stuff percolate in my brain for a while and then get to writing either later tonight or early in the AM. Depending on whether I fall asleep next to a good book. Pushed it last night and actually fell asleep with a handful of coloured pencils. Husband thought it was adorable. I thought I should have learned when to go to bed by now, but when I'm in a groove I like to keep going.

Hopefully that will carry over into the week's writing, because I'm excited over the way the Jonnet and Simon stuff is going. Much goodness.

Finished the Kate Silver book, and that puts me in my "why is this an undesirable period again?" mode. No, this trilogy couldn't possibly have worked if it were anything but Musketeers in 17th century France, but there are going to be some readers who glance at the blurbs, see no rakish dukes, no plain bluestocking spinsters, no Regency anything and pass on by. Which means more for me, but still...

Scared the poor clerk at the UBS today, when I let out a sound she calls a scream, I call a squeal, but the source of it was seeing the end of a (I kid you not) twelve-year search for a particular book. It was the first thing my eyes gravitated toward as soon as I stepped in. Ragtime Dawn by Maureen Bronson, for those interested in that sort of thing.

I'd first seen it in another store when it was new, but didn't get it, figuring I could get it later, and then...poof. It vanished off the face of the earth. Trying several bookstores in different states did no good. Putting the request out on the web did no good. Asking book loving/trading friends did no good. I was beginning to think I'd imagined it (after all, a turn of the century songwriting heroine who breaks into Ragtime fame isn't exactly a common plot or setting) but there it was, today. Much happiness.

Also got the first book in Karen Ranney's Scottish Lord series. I loved her Tapestry and the two medievals I read not too long ago, so this was a good find, too. Should be lovely. Ditto Jennifer Roberson's Lady of the Glen historical romance set around the massacre at Glencoe. I still rank her fantasy series about Tiger and Del, beginning with Sword Dancer as one of the best romance series ever, ever, ever. (Same couple through six books; why can't we see more of that?) Also got the first book in her Ceysuli fantasy series, though not sure if I'll go farther than that. I'm not a fantasy reader per se, and the whole shapeshifter thing isn't me, but will give it a try.

Pillaged three different craft stores including one of the stamping stores. Will need to investigate an Asian market so I can see if they have mah-jongg tiles; stamp store wanted two dollars for two tiles. Umm, little high there, folks.

All in all, good day. Want to write after dinner, but will probably fall asleep next to a good book, as the husband puts it.

Got something good in my email today. Awe-Struck e-publisher asked to see the full manuscript of my colonial, so sent that right off. I would love for this story to find a home.

Progress on my writing goals is going very well. Plugged the two scenes I wrote for nag group into the manuscript of Jonnet and Simon's story, so all that's left to do to fully integrate those is to write the "connective tissue" as I like to call it. I'm very much in love with this story, and looking forward to getting through the warm summer months with these characters off in the chilly winter Netherlands.

More good stuff; found a copy of my RWA chapter colleague, Kate Rothwell's, new book, SOMEBODY WONDERFUL at our local B&N. Let me tell you, this gal can WRITE. I can't wait to get at this one, as soon as I'm done reading the third book in Kate Silver's female musketeer trilogy. Would love a new book from her, too. Not sure what I'll be reading after that, but it's all good.