May 1999

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A friend's page: Introduction to Fantasy.

Current progresses:
Sandman (SS): 5850 words; DONE!! Yeah!
Molly's Cry (SS): 1100 words
Fantasy Realty (N): 1400 words

I got my name in hieroglypics! Go to the above link to their "Mysteries of Egypt" section to get your own digital hieroglyph!

May 31, 1999

My finger is much better now...I can bend it 99% down now and most of the pain is gone too. It only hurts if I squeeze it just below the middle knuckle.

Had a busy weekend. Saturday we made a quick trip to Montgomery for a chiropractors appointment. Almost missed them too. We were thirty minutes late and we caught them just as they were about to leave. Since it was a holiday weekend, they were planning to leave as soon as they had seen all of their patients. I felt bad to know they were waiting on me. They understood though, since I have to drive two and a half hours to get there. I don't trust doctors very well and once I find one I like, I stick with 'em as best I can. I see this doctor once a month and he's helped me considerably with my allergies. He deals with herbal cures. I don't know how he knows what he knows, but he was telling me something was wrong with my right side of my abdomen for months before I had a kidney stone. The best favor you can do for yourself: drink plenty (about a gallon, or at the very least a half-gallon) of water so you never have a stone. I wouldn't wish them on my worst enemy!

Yesterday we had a family of six over after church and we ate ham and field peas with okra and cornbread. I love eating cornbread with a bit 'o honey on it, then put the field peas/okra on top. YUM! Then last night we went to someone else's house after church for a fellowship and we played spades until the early hours of the morning. We pigged out too, there was all kinds of food. I'm glad there wasn't much dessert stuff though, I did a good job of avoiding the cookies. But, someone brought a fruit tray with some yummy dip(cream cheese and marshmellow cream). I think I ate all the strawberries off of it. :) Apples are good with it too.

Today I got to sleep in. Yeah! I didn't have to work today! Then, by my request, I got breakfast in bed. I asked for two eggs (over easy, my fave), some hunny buscuits in a can that we've had for about a week and I've been wanting, and a bowl of Raisen Bran Crunch. James is so sweet, he fixed: Two eggs (just the way I like), two sausage links, my buscuits, a bagel with my strawberry cream cheese, and a bowl of cereal. I feel stuffed! He's so sweet. I think this is the first breakfast in bed he's fixed, but he does other surprises for me. Like having dinner ready when I come home from work, or if we talked about having to wash dishes together that evening, he has been known to wash them all or have part done when I get home from work. Sometimes, he's washed clothes too when I was working a lot and run down and stressed out. I think I know how to pick 'em! ;)

For lunch I get to have the first fruits of my garden, two nice red cherry tomatoes. There were sandwich fixins last night, so I snitched some of the lettuce to have a salad. They also had a relish tray so I got: cucumber slices, brocolli and califlower too. That with the left over ham will make a great salad.

Today, I plan on doing nothing but writing, reading and relaxing! I'm going to post more later on what I get done today, so check back later! I'd like to be able to write about 2000 words, but I'm not sure. My outlines of the two stories I'm planning on working on are not developed like I want, but I'm fairly sure how I want to start them off.

Catching up on some journals: Lazette: I'm glad you had a good time at ConQuest. I'm jealous, I probably won't get to go to a Con for a really, really long time. :)

Erin: Sorry about the problems with the future family member. She's probably just jealous because her wedding wasn't that extravagant. ;)

Caroline: Congrats on finishing your masters!

I haven't said this before: Congrats to all those going to Clarion (I can't remember all who got accepted).

Paula: Congrats on yet another sale to Jackhammer. That makes a lot of sales for you this year! You go girl!!! :) Oh, and I just saw that on the 24th you had two sales! Wow!!!

Mary: Congrats on the baby and on his great check up! Also, a big WooHoo! about your royalty check! I'm so excited for ya!

Ok, I gotta write now...TTFN!

LATE AFTERNOON POSTING: 1100 words on Molly's Cry. A good beginning I think. I took a break to read awhile and ended up being a long while because of a storm moving through. I read the entire issue of Speculations and some Irish Folk Tales.

I found quite an extensive list of names I know in the good news list: Non-NAWers: Jonathan Fesmire and Kurt Roth, NAWers: Linda Dunn, Neile Grahm, Paula L. Fleming, Vera Nazarian, Diana Rowland, Lisa Silverthorne, and Mary Soon Lee. Congrats on all of you! Also, Congrats to Tippi for winning the Speculations Poll and to John Savage on a good article. :)

Now, I'm checking out some URL's I found in Speculations. I plan on writing on FR before the night's out as well, so I'll be back!

LATE NIGHT ADDITION: Aren't you glad I don't write this much everyday. :)

Good news! I just finished two chapters of FR. That's 1400 words. Chapter two is small simply because it's a transitional paragraph. Later it may get stuck in one or three. Something doesn't feel right about this opening. I may have to re-vamp it later. That 1400 words makes it a whopping 2500 for the day and 4550 for the month. I like that monthly total because it's much higher than it's been, but if I hadn't had so much time to write today, it would have been about the same. I need to do better about writing every day! :::kicks self in rear:::

Hopefully late tomorrow, you'll see a new June look here! Good night all! TTFN!

May 25, 1999

:::shiver::: Until I saw 'The Mummy' I didn't realize exactly what those scarabs on my page were. Now they give me the creeps. Well, only about 6 more days of this page anyway, then it will be the June page. I'm not sure when I'll ever find the time to work on that though...

I played 4 games of basketball with James against two teenaged boys Sunday evening. They whipped us in all of them and they beat me up. :) I twisted both ankles, skinned my knee and jammed my left pinky finger really really badly. My ankles are fine and my knee's ok, but the more I think about my poor swollen pinky, the more I think it's broken. I'm probably just paranoid. Besides, there's not much they could do for a broken finger, it'd just be a waste of money and the doctor's time. I've had jammed fingers before and possibly broken ones too, I'll live. I just never realized how much I use the little thing. Typing is difficult as well. I can hit the 'a' key ok, but any others for it really hurt.

Enough of my complaining. I'm working on outlining my next short. I decided I'm going to put Sandman away for a while, I've been writing drafts of it since last year off and on. Molly's Cry is the next and I hope to be able to start writing on it before May is over, otherwise my May word count will be atrocious! Also, I keep reminding myself to get those other stories out. If I keep posting about it here, maybe I'll get to it one of these days. :) TTFN

May 22, 1999

George Lucas is THE man! Another awesome film by a great filmmaker. I nearly cried when the opening credits came on, I'd waited so long to see it. I do wish, though, that he had come out with this one first. It kind of ruins the whole thing to know what this cute little boy is going to grow up to be. But, WHY and HOW he became that will be interesting to find out. I can't wait for the next two, wonder when they're coming. I haven't heard anything about the last two in the first tril.

I think one of the best features of this newest SW addition is the special effects. The first few explosions nearly made me jump out of my seat. The speaker system was so good I could feel the shock waves even.

Other awesome movies, today we went to see 'The Mummy'. It only enhanced my love of Egypt culture and history. I'm worried though that I may have nightmares, but they had so much comedic acting in there too that it wasn't too bad. I don't buy too many videos outside of collecting Disney and Star Wars films (and James collects Star Trek), but I think this will be one that I'll want to own, at least a dubbed copy, and watch several more times. Now once Wild Wild West comes out with Will Smith, it will complete an awesome quadruple set of movies for the year: Matrix, Star Wars, The Mummy and Wild Wild West.

Writing news: I'm taking some time again to read a bit more. I'm trying to finish the Writer's Digest Handbook to Novel Writing that I've been reading since January or so. It's very helpful and I'm going to make up practice excercizes to go with each chapter to help me apply what the chapter teaches. Also, this next week I plan to send out the few stories that need to go out. I'm trying to decide about one that I sent to an e-zine that I'm not sure still exists. I'm debating whether to wait, query or just send it out again. I don't want to send it out 'till I know what's up though.

That's about it for the moment. Now, if you haven't seen Star Wars or The Mummy yet, get away from your computer and go get those tickets! :)

May 17, 1999

Yeeeyeesss! 500 more words tonight finished Sandman. It needs a lot of work though. My work is cut out for me. It's a good story, but I think it needs more building in the climax.

The internet is sooo cul! We just recently downloaded RealPlayer. I discovered that you can connect to radio stations and listen to music! Ok, ok, so I'm a bit behind the times. This is neat because none of our el cheapo stereos around the house will pick up radio stations very well (I think every one of them are over ten years old!). So, except for our car stereo, I don't get to listen to pop stations much. Oh, and for my fellow X-philes out there, I listen to 101.3. Only an X-philie would understand. TTFN.

May 13, 1999

I have to say, I'm disappointed about all the negative things said about the "Coming Attractions" page. I rather liked the idea, but I do agree with most of the objections made about it. Actually, would it really be a lot of work on Vera? I mean, after she gets the page up and running, if someone were to send her exactly what was going on, in a certain format, all she'd have to do would be copy/paste it into the file. IMHO, I hardly have time to read the journals I do read, much less visit each of your publications pages. If there were one page to look up all that info, I'd like it a whole lot.

Anyway, I told myself I wouldn't write much in here tonight because I'm extremely tired and it probably won't make sense to me another time. 550 words on 'The Sandman' tonight, one more 500 word day and this baby should be finished! Yay! I would finish it tonight, but like I said I'm tired and also I've reached a place where I'm not exactly sure how to proceed. I'm going to think on it a while. TTFN!

May 12, 1999

First of all, congrats to all those who made sales and to Mary Soon Lee at the birth of her first child. I wish I could know how it felt to be having my first. It'll be two more years before that happens, probably.

Also, I think that "Coming Soon" page would be really great. I have a hard time keeping up with all those things, which is why I've just about quit mentioning things here. Plus, I don't get a lot of time to read everyone's web page. I try to visit the same five a day and one day a week I'll visit those five plus five others, but that's about it usually. I just don't have any more time than that.

Well, another 500 words tonight. It's creeping along, but at least it's moving. :) I also did some more free writing on one of the two novels I'm working on. I wrote about one page before falling asleep and taking about an hour nap. The baby that I babysit has an ear infection and he hasn't been sleeping well so I take my naps with him when I can get them and I especially need them since I've been staying up too late.

I really shouldn't do any ranting tonight since I'm tired. I also told myself that I would try to make this journal a bit more coherent for the readers sake, but I've been thinking about this for a while and have to get it out of my head and off my chest. :)

I was looking at the funnies in a paper last weekend, a pasttime that I often enjoyed growing up and all through high school. Going to college changed all that. I neither wanted to sit in the library and read it, or pay my hard earned money to get a paper. It has been only less than a decade since I graduated and something has changed. I'm not sure if it's me, my memory of reading the funnies, or if the funnies themselved had changed. You see, I used to understand them. That's a bit shocking to me now, a teenager or younger actually understanding them enough to think they were funny. Out of the ten or so that I read I understood maybe two. It appeared to me that they were all over taken by political agendas. I don't keep up with the news, never have really, so I don't get political cartoons. For me, it took all the fun out of reading the funnies. TTFN

May 10, 1999

Has it really been that long since I last updated here? I guess it has. We went out of town Friday and Saturday, plus I've been sick with what I think was a touch of food poisoning. {Never eat anything that's been in your fridge for six days, even if it does look and taste good. :) }

After an envigorating game of basketball tonight, I managed to get 500 words out on Sandman. I'm pleased, but do wish for more time to write 500 more. It's getting late and I have one important thing to do before hitting the pillow. Look out during the next few days, I'm simmering on some good rants. I just hope I don't forget them. ;) TTFN.

May 5, 1999:

I hope I will do better about updating this page than I have in the last few weeks. Ever since I started my new job, which I love, I find less and less time to do what I want (reading, writing). My time spent at home is now eating, sleeping, exercizing, housework and reading when I can (including a few web journals a day). I know I misspend a lot of the time, so I could find time to write if I want to. I've also made excersize a priority the last few months. Also, as far as updating this journal goes, I'm getting tired of saying, "I'm gonna write tomorrow."

Yet again I have set new goals for May. I'm getting really tired of setting goals and not sticking to them, this month will be better. I'm also tired of seeing my words written going down each month and less and less stories finished. I'm itching to jump into a novel. I'm outlining two at the moment, FR (which I've spoken about before) and a new one. I've been doing some freewriting on both of them and I'm coming up with some ideas. Thanks to Jonathan for suggesting that! :)

Anyway, I'm rambling again, I was talking about my goals. I've simplfied them a bit, hoping I can do better. Basically I want to have a full outline on either of the novels, which ever one works out best. That's the main thing I want to work on. By the end of the month, I want to know which one I need to start writing. Also, I want to finish that Sandman short that I've been working on for eons (I know, it just seems that way :) ). Also, work on two other shorts and at least have a good outline of both of them by the end of the month. Lastly, I want to at the very least take a look at editing EGI. Any effort on that last will be greatly appreciated by myself. I've also made it a side goal to write at least 3000 words a day, but I really need to strive for 1000 a day if I can do it.

Well, enough chatter for one day, and I'm sure you're tired of seeing me list my goals. :) I like to post them to help new writers. When I first saw someone say they had a goal of so many words to write a day, it motivated me to do the same thing. TTFN!

May 1, 1999:

Well, I finally got these pages moved. It took me all morning, but I'm glad that I did. I think it will be much easier to update them from now on. I know how to deal with the problem at Geocities now. It's a pain, but at least it works. My FTP would not work at times.

I went with another Egyptian motif this month. I like it. :)

I really, really want to get started on writing again. I've been kicking around some new ideas, but not accomplishing much. I need to get back to working on the Sandman story. It would be nice to start writing a short a week. I still have the ideas for several more.