Friday, June 30, 2006

Punctuation 101

This week I received the copyedited manuscript of Brothers, and now I'm wondering if the local community college offers Punctuation 101. If not, I may have to sit in on my daughter's 4th grade class and suffer through DOL (daily oral language). I seem to do okay with the basics like periods and question marks, but commas, apostrophes, and hyphenated words can be very tricky. I have to confess, some of my pages look like road maps. And I'm supposed to be a writer! It must be that I'm using the creative side of my brain and those little dots and dashes just get in the way. Maybe I'm just humoring myself.

On a personal note: Thanks to Round Rock Animal Control, the vicious pitbull no longer lives next door! I no longer have to wield my trusty shovel and handmade spear when I go out to get the mail!

I must get back to work now, but stay tuned. My next blog entry will be about my brother's 50th birthday/body building competition.

Wednesday, June 14, 2006

Funny How Things Turn Around

Looking back on a couple of posts ago, I noticed how I'd mocked the State of Texas for having a concealed hand gun license as a form of ID for a driver's license. Well, after my neighbor's pitbull jumped the fence yesterday morning and almost killed Leo, my cute little poodle/terrier, I'm beginning to have some really aggressive thoughts, like wouldn't it be nice to own a gun and shoot the pitbull if he ever showed up on my property again? But no need to worry, after taking care of Leo (he's going to pull through) I took a a few deep breaths, called animal control, and they are taking care of things in a civilized manner. Still, a gun could come in handy one day, you never know.

Enough of that. I had a great time with my critique group last night - three very talented and serious writers - and got some really good feedback on Dylan Fontaine, my work in progress (WIP). So, as long as the kids don't interrupt, I'm hopefully going to get a few hours of writing in today. Tomorrow, lunch with Cyn. Can't wait!

Monday, June 05, 2006

Summer Chaos

After returning home from an incredibly fun, romantic, stress-free week in Paris I am suddenly hit with a house full of kids back from college and on summer vacation. Total bedlam. Needless to say, it's a bit difficult to be creative in this environment, especially when I am screaming things like, "Stop banging on the piano!" and "Who left their clothes all over the bathroom floor?" Today I resorted to earplugs and posted a note on my bedroom door that read, DO NOT INTERRUPT UNLESS IT'S AN EMERGENCY. Things seemed fine until I got up to brew my second cup of coffee and discovered a cloud of noxious fumes in the kitchen. Apparently, my son Daniel had burned the motor of my blender while making one of his famous coconut-blueberry-banana smoothies.

Oh well, this too shall pass. In the meantime I'm excited because I heard from my editor that the final cover art for BROTHERS will be ready this week. If so, I will post it on my website. Can't wait.