Kids

 It's another of those on-again/off-again rainy days... the kind my yard and the farmers love because it's nice and gentle, plenty of chance to soak in rather than just run off... but I'm getting tired of it. When I'm inside, it's sunny... I step foot outside, it starts to rain, until I go back in. Aarrgghh!

And I gotta take #1-son driving again, and he's grousing about it. Too bad kid! But at the same time unpleasant to deal with.

Brain feels like jello... old-man-dog was into his I-want-out/I-want-in mood last night. He can't be trusted to be left inside because he's just too old to have much control left, and his bark is still loud enough to wake the dead, let alone my densely populated neighborhood... so I was up with him for a couple hours until he finally decided to go to sleep. <grumble, grumble> (Read more)

 Yesterday was a waste, writing-wise.... didn't write a word. Ran kids back and forth, and read a book.

But today, I got 2700 words, plus a bunch more long-hand that I will type in and count tomorrow.

Including the long-hand words, I'm over the 50k mark... a huge accomplishment for me, since it's the first time I've gotten past the initial 10k words on a book since my first manuscript.

And the best part is they're good words, and the characters keep surprising me, in good ways. So, I'm tickled. And the heroine is in the middle of the confrontation with her folks... such fun. And I have several ways she can get out of this mess, so it'll be interesting to see how it turns out. (Read more)

 Today I'm working on making new characterization sheets, which I meant to do yesterday... except that everything got side-tracked after walking by #2-son's and #4-son's bedrooms yesterday morning and totally losing it.

After a screaming fit at #2-son ("You'd better clean your bedroom or I'm going to and that won't be a pretty sight!!"), I stood over #4-son for the next 3 hours as he cleaned his room. Some parts of my help he didn't appreciate, like when I emptied his closet onto the floor. But after 4 kitchen-sized bags of trash, and 5 baskets full of dirty laundry, and things taken out that belonged other places... he has a floor! and everything has a place to go! Amazing! (Mom being snide). The cool thing, though, was when we got done and he stepped into his room to look around and he (11yo) said, "Mom! You worked a miracle!" Awwhhhh... <sniff> (Read more)

 Feeling better today, and actually got some done on the edit. The 1st chapter is done, except where I'll be adding in backstory that comes out when I rip out the next three scenes. So, I have a little momentum going, we'll see if I can keep it up. (Read more)

 My critiquing of the contest entries ended up better than I thought, and I actually got seven of the twelve done. Yah!!! And the best news is that five of the seven actually ended up being surprisingly good, given their awful beginnings.  (Read more)

 My kids and I drove down to Texas and spend spring break with my family. And no, I'm not Texan, we're all mis-placed Michigan folks. Even including the two-day-drive down and back, it was a great time. Good to see my brothers that I hadn't seem in quite a while. My kids had a grand time with all their cousins. We got back Tuesday, and I basically crashed for the rest of the week... accomplished absolutely nothing. But the new week starts tomorrow and I really need to get stuff done... but not right now.

I've gone from dithering to floundering... is that a step forward or back? 

My kids are driving my crazy... I'm seeing more of the principal's office now than I ever did as a kid. I'm ready to string up a 5th grader and a 10th grader, both for being morons. Another 4-day weekend with the kids starts tomorrow, and I didn't get any recovery time last weekend because I spent the whole weekend running hither and yon. So I spent most of Monday sleeping. On top of my kids, I'm now running a neighbor kid to school in the morning because dad sold mom's car out from under her and hasn't found her a new one. And I'm watching one of my 5th-grader's friends before and after school. Which both pay, but only minimally because I know how much money they don't make (not the place for a 'raise the minimum wage' rant).