Go, read and comment.

I'm participating so I thought I'd post the schedules & rules. :)

February 3, 2009 = Danielle Devon, Divinity in Chains
February 4, 2009 = T.A. Chase, Out of Bounds
February 5, 2009 = Rita Oberlies, The Catcher and the Lie
February 6, 2009 = Kimberly Nee, Eden's Pass
February 7, 2009 = Dawn Brown, Living Lies
February 8, 2009 = Lexi Adair, Rockstar
February 9, 2009 = Avery Beck, Sexy by Design
February 10, 2009 = Angelle Trieste, Devil Falls <— this is me writing under another name!
February 11, 2009 = Lissa Matthews, Pink Buttercream Frosting
February 12, 2009 = Denise Belinda McDonald, Second Chances
February 13, 2009 = Kelly Jamieson, Friends with Benefits

The authors will be posting an excerpt from each of the above-listed stories here. And where they stop, you will begin. You will continue writing the story as you see it, or would like to see it, up to two-hundred and fifty words. A winner will be chosen from the entries each day, and at the end, on February 14, a grand prize winner will be chosen.

mood: slightly sleep deprived
currently reading: Salt: A World History by Mark Kurlansky
Shiro's status: hanging in there; gained 2 grams :)

I can't believe Margie Lawson's Defeat Self-Defeating Behaviors workshop is over. For those of you who know me well probably know that I'm not the one to get all spiritual and frou-frou, and Defeat Self-Defeating Behaviors doesn't sound like something that would tempt me to sign up. You're right. It's not. But I'm glad I did. She teaches it once a year in January, and I encourage everyone to take it if they can. It's worth every penny and more.

Margie also teaches Empowering Character's Emotions (ECE) and EDITS workshops. I bought her lecture packets for ECE and EDITS, and already went through ECE and took tons of notes. Again, I encourage people to take the class. (She's teaching ECE in March.) The only reason why I decided not to sign up is because I'm planning to outline and draft a new project in March, and I honestly can't take a revision class while drafting a project. My internal editor will go crazy.

For All the King's Women 1st round of revision, I plan to do something a bit different. I'm going to revise backward.

What does that mean?

Instead of starting from the first chapter (my standard M.O.), I'm going to start from the last chapter. I tend to rush the ending, and I want to devote the most time and energy on making the ending very strong. Of course, I'll do a read-through from Chapter One to make sure everything flows correctly before sending the revised draft to my beta-readers.

mood: neutral (that's the only way to describe it)
Shiro's current weight: 25g
why Kuro's bad: he bit Peanut's scent gland so hard it bled
why I'm hopeful about Shiro's recovery: Shiro fought Buttercup (51g) and was able to hold her own
why my hamsters fight: I have no idea
how much I spent on stationary today: $20

Sorry I'm been terribly remiss with my blog. I've been very blue about Shiro's weight loss and just didn't want to blog about anything.

I've been continuing to work on All the King's Women. The 1st draft is rough, but it has all the main points. :) I also came up with more ideas for the setting that I like.

Also I got the Devil Falls galley. I can't believe it's coming out in print in August. It seems so soon! :)

mood: upbeat
just read: Does Anything Eat Wasps?: And 101 Other Unsettling, Witty Answers to Questions You Never Thought You Wanted to Ask by New Scientist
currently reading: Salt: A World History by Mark Kurlansky

Sorry I didn't update on January 17. Saturday's progress was subpar. I was tired from getting way too little sleep, and I didn't write much even though my butt was firmly planted in front of my laptop. Jan 17 progress:

Today I wrote the final scene. It was a bit surreal since I'm done with the draft sooner than I expected. It also came out a bit short, but that's okay since I usually go back and add layers, etc. so the final version ends up being much longer. I have nine more working days this month to go through the draft and make the changes I already know I must work on. Once that's done, I can print out the entire manuscript for a pre-revision read-through.

Today's progress:

Today I broke an ATM. In Japan we use bank booklets to keep track of debit / credit on our accounts, and I decided to deposit some money into my account since my Japanese credit cards take money out of it regularly. Everything went fine, up to my inserting several bills into the machine. Then all of a sudden, it died and told me to use the intercom. It was sooo embarrassing because the second I pressed the intercom button, a bunch of people started rushing inside to use ATMs, and the intercom speaker said, “Dear honorable customer, are you there? Please pick up the receiver.”

And of course, in order to make the intercom age-friendly, the bank technicians made it super loud. I think everyone in the building heard it, not just me. I had no idea where this mysterious receiver was, so I fumbled around and pressed the intercom button again and said, “Hello?”

Well, I did that wrong because the woman kept saying, “Dear honorable customer, please pick up the receiver. Are you there?”

She repeated the same line for about five times before I saw the “receiver” and picked it up. Then she asked me the most difficult question of all: “What were you doing when you received the error message?”

It's not that I didn't understand her. I can actually understand a lot more than I can speak. The problem was I had no idea how to say, “I was trying to deposit some money into my regular bank account.”

After a long moment of consideration (mostly me going “How should I answer this nice lady?”), I just said, “I'm sorry, but I can't speak Japanese very well.”

After a short pause, she assured me that everything was fine and that she'd send someone immediately to help me. So I waited. And waited. While I waited, the intercom played very loud music the entire time. More people came in to use the ATMs around me. I almost died from embarrassment and pretended that I was just doing a little karaoke.

Finally, two clean-cut Japanese bank workers in uniform came to me and asked me very simple questions, ones I can actually answer, such as “What is your name?” Once they decided that everything was in order (ATM fraud is a huge problem in Japan right now), they told me to wait so they could figure out what was going on.

A little bit later, they came out and told me that my bankbook had a small receipt inside. And it jammed the machine. All I could think at this point was “OMG! I broke their ATM!” But they told me it was no problem, and that I must be “honorably tired from having to wait to use the ATM” and told me to use another machine to make the deposit. They gave me the receipt, my bankbook and the money and hovered around me to make sure I did everything right. I'm sure they thought I was a stupid American who didn't know how to use ATMs correctly. As I was leaving, they bowed and told me that they appreciated my business. While they were telling me this, another person put an “Out of Order” sign on the ATM I had been using before. Oi…

mood: a lil sleepy
currently dreaming of: a nice back rub

I got started late today. I was very sleepy this morning. Hamsters went wild in all three wheels last night, and one of them was so loud I could hear it from the bedroom, and it kinda woke me up a couple of times. But I still got some good amount of writing done. The part I wrote today is the dark moment: the good guy v. bad guy, blood, fire and the heroine getting stabbed, etc. I wrote the section very fast — basically only getting down the action and dialogue — then went back and added the POV character's thoughts and emotions. I think that when people face a life-and-death situation, they get some kind of epiphany a.k.a. they can cut through the bull and realize what really matters in life, and I wanted to clarify some of those things for my characters since it is critical for demonstrating their growth.

Today I finally won my battle with phpList. I've been planning to install it for the longest time, but kept putting it off since I didn't want to deal with learning how to use a new tool. But after about 4 hours from start to finish, it's up and running.

Ladies and gentlemen, may I present (drum roll please…)

my first newsletter!

Feel free to subscribe. I only send out very big and important announcements, so don't worry about the volume of emails you may get from me. Also you can unsubscribe anytime you want.

So…what are you waiting for? :)