Creeping on

Mondays are tough. But today I've done a pilates class, worked, done some time on the elliptical and now it's back into the scene that will not end. The page count hasn't exactly zoomed along for the last week but hopefully now the cold has left the building, the girls might decide to come on back and work out how I get to the next bit.

Powerful in Pink

After the application of much, much sleeping and a few boatloads of vitamin C and friends my cold or bug or whatever it was seems to have packed up and mostly left the building. Yay. Hopefully today that means I can actually get some writing done.

I went to see Pink last night and she was great. I haven't seen her live before and I'm always happy when I go see someone and they sound just as good or better live than they do on their albums. Because lots of people don't. But Pink does. She's got a big voice packed into a little frame and she rocked. She came off as smart and sassy and powerful and sexy and looked like she was having a damn good time. Seems like a good role model to me (even though I would say there were kids in the audience probably too young to be at a Pink concert...). People watching was also fun given fashion seems to be going through a return-to-the-eighties moment which was giving us all bad teen years flash backs...we saw ankle warmers and fluoro high heels and lace tights...we were expecting jelly bracelets and the mile-high moussed fringe a la early Madonna at any moment.

Anyway, Pink was, to quote the Androids who were the support act and also fun, too cool for schoo. Plus she did some freaking awesome aerial ballet (or Tissu as google informs me it is called) without a net or safety harness or anything. Jaws were dropping all over the shop. After we picked them up, my friend and I proved that we have been accountants too long by saying "bet the insurance company guys had conniptions over THAT". : )

This is Tissu (not Pink) but you get the idea.



Given that I'm scared of heights and was always completely hopeless at rope climbing I don't think it's something I'll be trying anytime soon but it was amazing to watch. And Pink and her dancers were in amazing shape...something we're still working on here. It made me want to try something new so I'll think about that. At least receding colds mean I got to go for a walk yesterday and another short one today, will try some time on the Elliptical later.

The walk was nice this morning - it's actually been raining quite a bit here this weekend (yay rain gods) and it was cool but not cold and the sky was full of interesting clouds in all those sulky, slippery, stormy shades of grey, so hopefully we'll get more still. An afternoon writing with the rain pattering on the roof might be nice. Then I can make my great minestrone for dinner and watch Grey's Anatomy to round out a nice weekend.

Fuzzy heads and fluffy trousers

The cold bug that has been going around has decided to make a stop at my house. Colds make me sleepy and hungry. And send the girls into deep, deep hibernation. Head all fuzzy. Hopefully some more naps and sleeping in over the next few days will help.

In good news, I went to see Matthew Bourne's version of Swan Lake last night and it was really good. There were initial concerns that the guy playing the Swan was carrying a little more condition than your average ballet dancer (great dancer, but a more powerful build which requires a mental shift). But then he came back on stage in the second half in black leather and proceeded to steam up the stage in a way I've never seen a male dancer do before. *Fans self* He was hot. Capital H. O. T. And the whole thing was entertaining and well danced and had lots of cute boys in fluffy trousers. And the girls seemed to like it. So thumbs up to the ballet, thumbs down to the common cold.

We'll call it a draw.

Halfway

Busy weekend. I've made it to the halfway point in the wip, we had a lulu meeting, contest entries were judged, treasurer stuff was judged and (sob) the last episodes ever of the West Wing were watched.

Thank goodness this week has a holiday in the middle.

And can I just say a big "have fun" to Keri, who heads off to RT tomorrow. This time last year she went, and her hardcover hadn't yet come out. Since then she's had four books out and is a USA Today and NTY bestselling author!! That's what I call a good year. And it wasn't even the golden pig. Imagine what can happen by the end of this year...

And now, into the second half. I'd like to finish this book by the end of May. Which may be a tall order but I'll give it a whack.

Words words words

I may have mentioned I'm doing a big project at work with lots and lots and lots and lots of documents. I've spent the week typing and fiddling and formatting and typing some more.

All while dealing with a sudden fit of cranky pants. You know, the sort of mood where someone could hand you a million dollar cheque and the typeface would annoy you so badly you'd want to punch them. The sort of mood where you're probably best staying home in bed with the covers over your head not talking to anyone because talking annoys you. But that isn't really an option so instead you get up and move through the days with sort of rumbling refrain of 'grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr arrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh' in the back of your mind. As you type and type and type. The type of mood that isn't improved by inutterably tragic events unfolding. So you type and type and type and snarlingly demand what the heck is going on to the universe and offer prayers for the lost and the grieving.

And then if you're lucky, and believe me, I know I am unbelievably fortunate, you get to come home and type some more.

I feel like there's a Word toolbar floating in front of my eyes. I think I'm going to switch for Scrivener and alphie for the weekend, if only for the change of scenery. I managed to sweat out the cranky pants on the elliptical the other night but I'm still feeling a little typed out. And I have a crick in my neck that's going to be remedied by my wonderful chiro tomorrow. I hope. Otherwise I might just be putting the cranky pants back on.

I mean, I like words. I'm a writer. But sometimes you get sick on black on white and the tip tap tap of the keyboard for hours on end. I'd swap to longhand but this story doesn't seem to want long hand at the moment. So more typing it is. Another 26 pages and I'll hit 200. Or halfway. I hope. Should be do-able in a weekend. If I don't commit word-processor-a-cide in the meantime.

Let's hope the world is a better place next week.

That was the weekend that was

Okay one of those blink-and-three-days has passed weekends. There was catching up with folks (including one cutie pie baby), upgrading of computers, collaging, chores and a big old load of treasurer stuff today. So haven't quite moved that progress bar along quite as far as I wanted but I have figured some stuff out and I'm at 40% and want to try and hit 50% by the end of this week.

In further adventures of the Wolf and the Golden Pig, I found out today that I'm a finalist in RWAustralia's Emerald Single Title award, which is fantastic. So that's officially four comps entered with this book and four finals. Hopefully more good things are still to come.

And the oinks just keep on coming

In more good lulu news...Keri's latest book Dangerous Games is number 15 on the NYT list. Yay, Keri!!! Muchly deserved, it's a great book, so check it out.

And the first Riley book, Full Moon Rising comes out in paperback in Australia this month, so keep an eye out!

The pig strikes again

That golden pig seems to be doing good work for the lulus.

Wednesday Chris Weston came second in the RWNZ's Second Chance comp and scored herself a request from Harlequin (2nd chance is a best of the best comp, so go you good thing).

Yesterday the VT came third in the YA category of the Great Expectations comp and I, just to prove the theory of VT freakiness, also came third in the paranormal category of that comp.

We like the piggy : ) Lulus rock!

Also congrats to fellow aussies Tracey O'Hara who came second in the paranormal category (a good day for aussie paranormal gals) and Kiki Opdenberg with third in steamy hot and fourth in YA and all the other winners and placegetters.

Hanging on

Melbourne has turned on a glorious day for Easter Sunday - sunny and warm with a sky that goes on for miles and mile of uninterrupted blue. The kind of day that makes you wish you were the orange cat and could nap in a sunny spot all day...or at least nap and read in a sunny spot all day. The kind of day that makes it hard to keep one's butt in the chair.

The kind of day you want to just go on and on and on (much like four day weekends).

Speaking of not wanting things to end, can I pause to mourn the West Wing for a bit? It's not quite over here in Oz, we've got a few more episodes of S7 to go. But each Saturday night I get myself into a sort of bittersweet state. Hopeless fangirl joy at new episodes and seeing things wrap up the way they shoud and hopeless fangirl despair that soon there will be no more (apart from on dvd...season 7 is winging its way to me from the US as I type). Not helped by the episodes tugging on the heartstrings pretty hard - particularly last night's. I don't want to let the characters go. Aaron Sorkin, as has been discussed elsewhere on my blog, is one of the TV/screen writers I just love (along with Joss and Amy Palladino and Shonda Rhimes).

I've loved the West Wing from the first moment I saw it. Which is weird because my interest in politics (or rather, politicians), other than to roll my eyes in despair a lot, is low, low, low. So how does a show about American politics hook itself into my head and heart so easily? It's the characters. The funny, human, quixotic, try-hard-fall-down, screw-up, transcend, brilliant, dorky, romantic, dream big characters. Write that sort of character in any medium and I'm all yours to the bitter end. Which is approaching too fast for my liking for this particular set. They're very real and I want to keep visiting with them. To the point where last night I dreamed about telling Bradley Whitford "No, Josh, you can't leave". LOL. We'll blame that one on too much Easter chocolate.

All too soon, I know that my little West Wingers will join other big love shows of mine like Buffy and Firefly and Farscape on the DVD shelves next to the big sign saying "Why oh evil tv programming gods, why?" (Okay I accept that sometimes shows must end but some of them are also cut off in their prime while reality drivel multiplies like fungus - this confuses me). Where they will rank up there with my favourite books as comfort food for the girls. Hopefully while they get their fix, I'm learning something about how to make my own characters live like that for a reader....because I think for a writer, the ultimate compliment has to be "I just didn't want it to end".

One third

33,000 words. One third. Yay. Strange things are happening but I'm sure I'll figure them out. In the mean time...one third! I hoping to be close to 40% by the end of the weekend.

Checking in

No earth shattering news so far this week. Lulus was fun, the baby got christened accompanied by her two blond sisters looking angelic in white frocks and her also blond big brother looking less pleased at the prospect of three sisters but still pretty cute.

One good thing is that I've discovered that power pc memory for macs is now way cheap (I assume due to the release of the new intel based macs) so mac mini is going in for a RAM upgrade Saturday morning. It generally chugs along quite happily but hopefully 1GB will mean the spinning rainbow ball will become a very rare occurrence instead of just a seldom one.

It will also mean I can play even more happily with Curio which is a fabulous brainstorming tool which produces fabulous collages if you're into that sort of thing for your writing and I'm sure could produce many other fabulous things as well. I discovered Curio via Heidi gushing on the Cherry Forums so if you want to know more about it go here. And Jenny Crusie has had a few posts on Argh Ink as well. Collage heaven. I mean I've barely started playing with it and I managed a good brain dump of stuff about Wolf 2 and my revision ideas for the GH short contemporary book both of which have the girls muttering away. I will be digging deeper this weekend between writing and eating chocolate and hot cross buns and visiting the folks. Sadly it's only for mac users but hey, everyone should be a mac user.

PS For the deformed bunny, I think you might like Curio!