What’s that noise, you ask?

That’d be the sound of my fingers on the keyboard the last few days. I’ve written 25 pages in the last 2 days and have hopes to double that today!

I’m getting a bit of a late start this morning as I’ve been on the phone for more than an hour - oops - but I should hopefully be able to make up for it tonight while the hubster plays his video games.

Best way I’ve found to get more writing hours in the day? Get the hubster an XBox 360!

Anyway, I hope everyone else is having as successful a writing week as I. I’m hoping to carry this over into NaNo for November.

What’s your maximum number of pages in a day? Average number? Have any major writing pushes coming up (besides NaNo, of course)?

First, just a follow up from yesterday, Robin know that the NYC Public Lions were Patience and Fortitude. And just so I can say this for the world to see, my husband was wrong about their names, lol!

Anyway, the past few nights I’ve been plagued with the same problem. I’ve been having boring dreams.

No hot sexy cowboys, no spending time on a tropical beach, hell, even nothing scary chasing me. No, I’ve been having those dreams where you do stupid mundane things and then wake up and are like, damn, I have to do that all again?

I’ve been reading blogs and reading forums in my dreams. I love RWAOL and Romance Divas, but visiting there when I’m awake is enough, I don’t have to visit in my dreams, too!

And, I’ve been talking writing craft in my sleep, too.

Does an accountant add in their sleep? Does a programmer write code in their sleep? Frankly, as much as I love writing, and craft, I don’t want to dream about it!! I want exciting dreams!! At least crazy weird ones.

But last night was the most boring of all.

Last night, I dreamed that I was sitting on the couch watching television.

I don’t watch that much TV while I’m awake, I certainly don’t want to watch it in my sleep!

*Sigh* Anybody have any ideas for making my dreams more exciting? Anybody have great dreams to share to make up for my boringness?

Yep, so we finally made it to othe city on Saturday. We got up early and took an 8:30 train. Still, we didn’t get there until about 10. It was a nice ride though, and I think, definitely better than driving.

Just thinking about driving in NYC makes me want to cry, unfortunatly, if there’s more than 2 people, it becomes cheaper to drive and pay to park than to take the train. *sigh*

So we got to Penn Station and made our way to Times Square. I’ve been to New York several times over the years, but maybe 5 years ago or so was the last time. Even since then Times Square has changed. I’d love to have seen it 10-15 years ago when it was crackwhore/hooker central, but now, it’s pretty much a mini Las Vegas. Except with the same amount of people as Vegas crammed into an area about the size of one Vegas hotel.

We went to the TKTS booth - I don’t pay full price for show tickets - and got tickets to Times They Are A-Changin. Then we walked for awhile.

We walked through Rockefeller Center. This is looking up.

We made it up 5th Avenue almost to Central Park, but then we decided we were hungry and headed back towards Times Square. We ate at a deli, obviously.

Then back to Times Square.

We saw the Naked Cowboy.

I hoped his underwear were heated because it was kind of chilly on Saturday.

We saw a matinee of the show. It was kind of crazy. It was Twyla Tharp coreography set to Bob Dylan music.

Then we walked a little bit more and ended up at the NY Public Library (bonus points for anyone who knows the names of the lions outside the library).

This is my favorite picture.

A bit more walking, past the Empire State Building, through Macy’s, and then we headed home on a very crowded train.

We came home and pretty much collapsed. It was a very fun day though, and I’m glad we did it because I think the first time will be the hardest. Next time we want to go, we’ll just go hope on a train and do it without all the anticipation.

What’d you do this weekend?

We did go to the city, had a really good time. I’ll tell you more about it, with pictures included tomorrow after I upload the pics.

For now, though…I got tagged by both Tara and Karen. You know, I would have sworn I’d done this one before, but if I had I don’t think it would have been so hard to come up with answers, lol!

1) One book that changed your life: Mischeif by Amanda Quick. It was the first romance ever read as an adult and I haven’t really stopped since.

2) One book that you’d read more than once: Any old Nora Roberts books. I usually read the Donovan Legacy books around Halloween (Morgana’s story is my favorite) and the Irish Hearts trilogy is another favorite.

3) One book you’d want on a deserted island: Is there a book called How to get off a Desert Island? Perhaps some kind of survival guide would be helpful. Maybe a cookbook for Island Delacassies?

4) One book that made you laugh: America by Jon Stewart was the first one to come to mind.

5) One book that made you cry: The latest Harry Potter? I think I got a little teary at that one. I gerally don’t read books if they’re going to make me sad.

6) One book you wish you’d written: Bet Me by Jenny Crusie or The Pleasure Slave by Gena Showalter. I generally try to treat great books as something to aspire too, but I got hit with the jealousy bug BIG TIME with both of these books.

7) One book you wish had never been written: Well, I’m certainly not going to tell anyone not to write books, but one book that I wish I’d nver have to have read (over and over again no less) is Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness. Frankly, I’d rather poke my own eyes out than have to read a word of that book again. Same goes for watching Apocalypse Now.

8) One book you’re currently reading: Home Buying for Dummies. Exciting I know. I also have the Idiots guide to Home Buying and 1001 Questions to ask before buying a home. Anybody want to guess what we’re gearing up for in the next year or so, lol!

OK, time to tag…I tag…Kendra, Cat, Sherrill, Kelley and Tess. Wow, that was hard.

I’m actually writing this Friday night, setting it to post Saturday morning because we’ll be up bright and early (ok, so it’s not that early, but early for a weekend) to head into the city.

For real this time!

But I wanted to post because I FINISHED MY NOVELLA.

Sure, I use the term “finished” very loosely because the plot changes probably 3 or 4 times in the 80 or so pages it ended up being (20,000 words which I think is a good start).

Still, now I have a skeleton which I will bang into some sort of shape. Hopefully an interesting shape, lol!

Hope everyone has a fabulous weekend. I’m not sure yet if I’ll be taking my camera, but if I do I’ll surely share pictures in the next few days!

My lunch actually went very well yesterday. Thanks for all the good wishes. Oh, and just to clairfy, it was with the hubsters bosses WIFE, not just his boss (’cause that would have been weird since he was working, lol).

We had yummy food and no awkward pauses in the conversation and I got to play with her 17 month old. We even talked about doing it again, altough I don’t know when since this is a hectic time of year!

Anyway, saying it here may jink it, like it has every other time I’ve said it, but we’re going to try to go into the city tomorrow, lol. I think the problem we’re having is that we can’t really decide what to do once we get there. Therefore, we just end up never getting there!

Even if we just end up doing the standard tourist walk up and down fifth avenue, we’re going tomorrow, lol!

With a little bit of luck, I may be able to finish the novella today. That might make me cry, I’d be so happy. If not, I’m not really happy about waiting ’til Monday to finish, but I don’t want to miss out on going to the city, and we need to get some pumpkins to carve which I figure we’d do on Sunday.

And to end with some good news, I just signed a contract to be a part of Whiskey Creek’s Best of Torrid Teasers Vol 1. There are 10 stories total and I’m super excited to be a part of this with some super great authors! Plus, a contract without me actually doing any more work - what could be better than that!

What’s everybody else doing this weekend? Anybody have other good news to share?

I’m nervous.

In a few hours I’m going to have lunch with the hubsters boss. He’s totally not a scary boss, and his wife is VERY nice - obviously since she invited me to lunch - but I’m still nervous.

See, for the last few years, the majority of my interaction with people has been online. Via blogs, groups, loops, forums…etc, etc.

“Real people” have kind of fallen by the wayside in my world.

9 times out of 10, I don’t even notice how weird I am. It’s those occasions though when I’m with a group of real people and try to share in the conversation by sharing a stoory about my “friend.”

You know, that strange online presense that I’ve never actually met in person and could, in theory, be a dirty old man instead of the hip romance writer I think she is.

Because occasionally, that awful question comes, “oh, how do you know this person?”

“Uh, I don’t really.”

Try and come back from that conversational blunder!

The last time I was surrounded by lots of friends was in college. It was easy to make friends back then because you were in forced surroundings with them. Now…not so easy.

And it was easy to put off making friends in Seattle, and then again in Maryland because both places, we knew we’d only be there for a set amount of time. Two years without a lot of friends - no problem!

But now we made a move that’s permanant.

Theoretically this is where I’ll live forever, buy a house, raise kids, all that garbage. I really have to start interacting with real people.

*Sigh* And it all starts with lunch today. Wish me luck!

Oh, and am I the only one like this? Please tell me I’m not. Is it a writer thing to be such a HUGE loner?

The Hubster got his X-box 360 yesterday. It was his present to himself for the new job.

So, I may as well be single now. As of yet, he only has one game - Lego Starwars - but Halo is supposed to be coming soon. And then the carnage will commence.

Now I totally regret having my desk as a part of the living room.

I’d say it’s great because while he’s playing I can be getting a ton of extra writing done, but how am I supposed to concentrate on lovey-dovey-ness with killing in the background?

I’m starting to think when we buy a house, we look for one that has a special x-box room.

Can you write with distractions like video games in the background? What do you do to block out noise? I could wear headphones, but I’m all paranoid that someone is going to sneak up on me if I’m wearing them.

Ok, it’s not like I had a better blog post planned, but does anyone know how to tell if your baby toe is broken?

I kicked the wall pretty hard this morning - that’s what I get for walking around without my glasses on - and my toe still hurts several hours later.

Anyway, I’ve updated my website with a blurb and excerpt of Fighting Fate - you can check it out via the Books link or just click on the picture.

And here’s my beautiful cover…

Take one of the cover was a little iffy, but take 2 is Beautiful!! (Is it just me or does that chick have a kind of Hilary Duff-ish vibe going on?)

Hopefully I’ll have a release date soon. Yay, it makes me happy! Edited: Should have checked my email first - release date - October 30!

I got a ton of work done yesterday AND a good bit of writing. I’m hoping for the same success today so I’m off to work on my dark and spooky novella - maybe it’s going better ’cause I’m getting in the halloween spirit?

What’s everyone else working on?

I haven’t been blogging on the weekends lately and my only excuse is laziness. Actually, that’s not entierly true as I haven’t had much time to get to my computer on the weekends either.

What’s with that?

The in-laws came on Sunday to celebrate FIL’s birthday - one of the hubsters brothers and his wife came, too. We went to a yummy Indian buffet for lunch and then went to the beach for a little while (not the naked one).

I made potato soup for dinner (and now I can’t wait ’til lunchtime leftovers) and an apple crisp.

Yesterday, we didn’t really do anything. A quick trip to the mall to pick up my copy of The Little Mermaid and then a trip to Target. If I don’t go to target once every couple of weeks I start to get the shakes. Target Withdrawl, lol.

It turned out to be a pretty good thing that we didn’t do anything more exciting ’cause I was laid flat by a migraine. So I ended up going to bed at 8.

I’m catching up on things this morning. I got my cover for Fighting Fate so I’ll share that tomorrow. It’s so pretty!

What’d you do this weekend?