Twisted Fairytale

As you can probably imagine, between my terrible cold last week (and the lingering congestion), this week has been nothing more than a blur of exhaustion. But I’m happy to say we’re finally going away!!! It couldn’t have come at a better time. I’m just about packed and tomorrow evening CBear and I head to Cape Cod to stay with his family until Thursday. I plan to do very little while up there. Eat, sleep, read, and write are on the agenda. And I suppose I’ll squeeze bathing in there somewhere. J/k.

In the meantime, I’ve been doing some major projects around the house. As the weeks creep by, I’m starting to go into panic mode about Peanut’s arrival. The ‘to-do’ list seems to be growing rather than shrinking! How is that possible?

For starters, we had a door installed in our tiny downstairs room which will be turned into the nursery. The door is to keep our meddling kitty out at night when the baby starts sleeping in there. I’ve moved some of the baby gifts I’ve started receiving into my room for safekeeping and re-shelved the items in my closet to make space for the stroller and car seat. We’ve started clearing out the storage items in the loft to make room for the our bedroom which will be moved up there *crosses fingers* hopefully by mid-January.

And although the baby won’t be doing any running around/toddler things for over a year, I decided it best to move the glass dining room table and china out of the main walkway and closer toward the wall so that they’re braced up against something. Paranoia? Perhaps. But, I know I won’t be doing much furniture moving post-baby. I’ll be lucky to do any sleeping/eating. *lol*

So as you can see, things have been busy in the Santiago household, not to mention a little spastic. But it’s all in good fun. Each passing day is a day closer to seeing my son for the first time! It’s kind of thrilling!

“Baby on the brain” has made it a little difficult to focus on creative projects (so has the physical exhaustion) however I have managed to get at least a few sentences (and on good days, a few paragraphs) of my YA fantasy written nearly everyday. It drags, mostly because it’s got a very distinct voice and in my distracted mental state I tend to veer into my own voice. But in the end, I’m glad to be working on something. And I hope that with my shiny new Canon Pixma printer, I’ll be able to work things out on paper once Peanut arrives.

So that’s been the last week or so. Hopefully it won’t take me another week to get back! *hugs*

Three days of cleaning, snow, hot cocoa, and DVD marathons

of News Radio have brought me to Monday. And now… I’m sitting on my couch, too congested to function with my left ear feeling all achy and stopped up, and despite my desire to go on another cleaning frenzy (can anyone say nesting?) I feel completely incapable of functioning. :-

I did some writing last night, since I couldn’t sleep, and although it was minimal, it felt like a productive streak. So today, I may just relax. It is Monday after all. If I’m feeling better tonight, I’ll try my hand at another few paragraphs of my WIP. In the meantime, an afternoon nap is sounding more and more appealing.

I woke up at about 6am to no power. This is not an uncommon thing. We live near the water, and for some reason our side of the bridge tends to lose power a lot. In the summer, when everyone’s A.C.’s are blowing full blast, our entire neighborhood goes dark. It’s an amazing thing to see. No streetlights, no lampposts, no storefronts, nothing. Just darkness. So, with yesterday’s forecast of a major storm heading our way, I was not the least bit surprised when there was no power.

The actual reason, did surprise me however. Turns out, it was only on our street. In the middle of the night someone rammed into the power post taking it down. The electric company worked on it all morning. We got power back at five minutes to twelve/noon. I celebrated with a little happy dance. The house is far too quiet without at least some music or the tv to serve as background noise.

Then I looked out the window. And wouldn’t you know it? It’s snowing! Did I mention the forecast is expecting 6-10 inches? *clears throat* Yea. It’s going to be a LONG day. Pulling out the candles and doing some dishes before I curl up with a good book because really, what else can I do on a day like today?

Winter is now officially upon us.

Hope you all have a fantastic Friday and enjoy your weekends!

Morning Bloggers! Remember to post a comment in today or yesterday’s blog posts to be entered to win a goodie envelope chock full of business cards, bookmarks and magnets!

This scene I’m providing you today is actually the scene RIGHT before the current opening chapter of DHN. So you may even recognize what’s happening in the last few paragraphs. Enjoy!

Chase and Lexi as I saw them in my head.

For today’s scene from Dark Hollywood Nights, I present the original opener to the story. It was cut for several reasons – one being, pacing. It took far too long to get the action started and it told a lot more than necessary, bogging the reader down with back story. I love the current opening because it’s BAM, right in your face with the characters AND the conflict. But I do miss this scene because it has one of my favorite cameos of the book: Charles and Bridget.

They were still fresh in my mind from writing Cinematic Royalty, and they came off much stronger than my heroine, Lexi. That’s another reason we had to cut them. They were supporting characters now. I couldn’t let them outshine my star! But it’s an amusing scene and I’m happy to share it with all of you.

I finally figured out how to download the photos from my booksigning onto my computer. CBear and I bought a new Canon Powershot Digital camera to prepare for Peanut’s arrival and as digitally savvy as I like to think I am, I’ve never owned a digital camera so I was clueless. I read the manual and think I pretty much have the hang of it. The pictures come out beautiful and there are so many settings! It’s very exciting.

Of course, I absolutely hate how I came out in most of the pictures. I look so puffy! *blah* But, I do have something I really want to share with you. At my first book signing, it was an endless stream of books and people coming and going. This time, I had a few people sit and chat, ask me questions, etc. I even got to do a reading! This was absolutely my favorite part of the event. So here it is! *Side note: ignore the funny faces I tend to make. I’m way overanimated.*

In celebration of two successful book signings I’ve decided to do a little something special on my blog. I’m going to post two deleted scenes from Dark Hollywood Nights! So check back in tomorrow for post #1 and then Thursday for post #2. Those who read and enjoy, leave me a little comment and I’ll enter you into a raffle to win a goodie envelope, including booksmarks, business cards, and magnets.

Finally! After several hours of fidgeting with WordPress I can proudly present the new theme!

It’s been tweaked an indefinite amount of times and when I uploaded it, it wouldn’t allow me to see the blog posts individually or to make comments. It kept telling me there was a fatal error.

This made me want to pull my hair out. You see, although I’m pretty handy with basic HTML and can work with stylesheets and such, I know NOTHING about php. When I look at some of the theme sheets, it’s like looking at a completely foreign language. Nothing registers as familiar and I just want to cry. Ha ha. But, I didn’t (I swear). Instead, I took the time to finally upgrade WordPress.

Believe it or not, as of this morning I was still using version 2.2.1 or something equally ancient. I backed up my posts in every possible way I knew how and then closed my eyes and hit upgrade. Then, suprisingly, it was done! And my theme worked! And the new dashboard was all strange and different and kind of orangeish with brown and blue. Everything looked new and overwhelming. I took a few minutes to get familiar with the new format, grinned when I noticed I could upgrade my plugins as well so they would work, and then voila! Here I am.

I’m thrilled. Let’s hope I face no problems in the long run. I’d hate to revert back to an older version. For now, let’s enjoy my new blog home.

Working on setting up a new theme and I’m having some trouble.

If you click on a specific post or try and comment and it doesn’t let you it’s because I haven’t gotten it quite right.

Bear with me folks!

This has been one of those weeks that feel somewhat surreal. The days and hours have passed chock full of stuff to do until finally I woke up this morning startled to realize it was already Friday! How does that happen? I’m not sure I’m prepared for the coming weekend. The to-do list has just gotten extensively more complicated.

It started on Wednesday when Seven Steps and I went to a midwife appointment together. She’s five months along (exactly a month a half behind me), and seeing the same doctors gives us a lot to talk about which is nice for first time mommies. It makes the process a lot less scary. Since she’d taken the day off of work for her appointment, we decided to make an afternoon of it.

We headed to Olive Garden for a delicious lunch! Their Chicken Gnocchi soup is stellar and on a dark, rainy day like it was on Wednesday, it was the perfect meal. Hearty and filling, very chowder-like. Not to mention the endless salad and bread sticks. We ate like queens.

Afterward, we were both so full that a walk in the mall seemed not just improbable but impossible. We went to her house and lounged instead. We watched Family Guy, looked at baby and pregnancy websites on the computer, laughed about silly things here and there, and talked writing. 

It’s nice to have a personal friend who enjoys/dabbles in writing. Mostly because it gives me the chance to talk about something I’m passionate about and have her understand where I’m coming from. Although she hasn’t written anything in a few years, she’s a great sounding board and she’s brutally honest when I bounce ideas off of her. Her book is an interesting mixture of science fiction/futuristic and historical which fascinated me. Of course, our shared interest in sci-fi also extends to great book recommendations! So check her out if you’re interested. I believe Amazon.com has an excerpt of her book on the buy page.

Thursday, I went back to work for the first time in nearly 4 months. Interestingly enough, it was as though I’d never left. I immediately closed my eyes when I walked in, overwhlemed by the smell of new books and brewing coffee. Really, there is no better smell in the world. The people were the same kooky awesome as always. After playing catch up, the day moved along quickly and productively.

I love working with the Community Relations Manager. She’s such a people person and she really goes above and beyond the needs of her clients to make it a comfortable and memorable shopping experience. It’s why they keep coming back to her! Seeing the load of paperwork she faces daily really built a new level of respect toward her. It’s a tough job to keep everyone happy and make events run smoothly. But she manages to make it look effortless. PLUS- she did a book signing with Glenn Beck and got his autograph so she kind of rocks. Bravo!

Today is a home duty day. I have SO MUCH to do in the house it’s actually overwhelming. Cleaning, vacuuming, dusting, bathroom, dishes, sweep/mop floors, etc. The list is enough to send me crying into the room. BUT, it does give me time to 1) mentally go over some of the plot for my fantasy and plan out the next scene, 2) practice the songs I’m singing for the talent show tomorrow.

Oh, I didn’t tell you? I’m singing at the annual talent show tomorrow night. It’s a little something friends put together so that our families can all get together and eat and enjoy some entertainment. Hubby and I perform every year. This year, it sort of snuck up on us, (what with Peanut distracting us and all). So, I’ve had all of 2 weeks to prepare 2 songs and this morning I woke up with a cold that’s settled right in my tonsils. Yay for getting caught in the rain. *drips sarcasm*

I got to practice with one of my co-performers. She and her husband came by during their lunch  break today and they set up their keyboard and guitar and I attempted to sing along. Tonight, I have another rehearsal session with a different guitarist for the second song. Tomorrow, I’ll be so exhausted from all the practice I may not have it in me to actually perform. ^_^’  Wouldn’t that just be my luck?

Not to mention the fact that I have an encore book signing tomorrow at 1pm (3 hours before the talent show). My last one went so well (and we sold out) so we figured we’d try another one to get the attention of those we may have missed.

It’s going to be a LONG weekend. I think I may have double, triple, quadruple booked myself.

I hope you all have a great, productive, and perhaps less hectic weekend!

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