I finished a chapter yesterday.  I saved it.  I’m certain I did.  So where the f**k is it?  Gritting my teeth and fighting back tears, I searched and searched my files for it.  It was like it never existed.  All panicky, I went to beg My Honey for help.  He couldn’t find it either.

I cried myself to sleep.  That’s probably a pretty good sign that I need more.  Sleep that is.  Not tears.  I woke up this morning resigned, if a little puffy.

It’s gone.  Totally gone.  I’ll have to rewrite it.  Pages that are lost take on a mythic quality.  Nothing you write to replace them will ever seem as good.

Back in August I got my hair done and it was a horrible event.  I got brave enough to go back – well it was either go back or find someone else and that prospect was at least as terrifying.  I could have attempted to tackle it myself, but that didn’t sound like a great idea either. 

I went in trying to feel brave, told her specifically what I wanted.  I got it – more or less.  Actually less.  However, I didn’t leave crying.  It’s a little shorter than I like, but hair grows.  The biggest thing is, I desire to return to my natural color.  Honestly, it’s been so long, I don’t even know what that is.  I’d go back and look at pictures of me in high school but all of those have been destroyed.  I’ve been coloring my hair since I was 18.  I suspect my hair is medium brownish with maybe red highlights but I honestly don’t know.  What I do know is that I don’t wish to maintain color anymore.  Well with the exception of the gray.  F**king gray.

Well, apparently, my hair person wants me to have red hair since that is clearly what I left the salon with.  Red.  I got back to work and the girls all said, “Hey, I thought you weren’t going red?”  I rolled my eyes because I don’t even know what to say.

Hair makes me crazy.  It always has.  I do not come from good hair people.

I am doing interviews again for the Tucson Festival of Books.  I started out on the committee, then became the publicity team lead, and now hold that position plus the co-chairperson seat.  And January I become the VP of Membership for the local chapter of Romance Writers of America.  And I’m trying, trying, trying to get Book 2 finished to give to MY AGENT.  And that stupid day job that takes 40 hours a week of my life.  And family obligations and their desire that I be present.

I’m stretched so thin.  I have no one to blame but myself, but as I said to Ava today, I just desperately want to get out from under the yoke of being employed.  Besides, everything I mentioned above I absolutely LOVE doing, except, and that’s a huge EXCEPT, the day job.  I don’t want to give up anything but that.

However, sometimes the stress gets to me and I wig out.  I call it my quarterly nervous breakdown.  When I feel it coming on, I call Kelli and, God bless her (the God of unfailing loyalty and sisterhood), she will take up my banner and charge into the fray.  That’s one of my favorite things about Kelli – and there are a lot of things to choose from.  She is a great champion for your cause.  With Kelli, I can rail against the machine and spout ridiculous nonsense about what I’m going to do and she’s right there with me, watching my back and cheering me on.  It’s awesome.

Ava is often the word of sanity in the murk.  After I’ve calmed down, days or weeks later, Ava will calmly say something like, “I understand but you see why this is the better course, don’t you?”  And of course, in a sane head it often is.

Both of these points of view are priceless. But sometimes, a word from a disinterested third party will elevate me to a place my sisters can’t take me.

Like I said, I’m doing interviews again for the festival.  That means I get to talk to some really great writers and get insights and perspectives I’d never considered before.

Take for instance this private exchange with an up and coming author.  I think she’s going to prove a powerhouse on the paranormal scene.  Her first in a new series came out yesterday.  Her name is Caris Roane her book is Ascension.  Go buy it.

This is an email she sent me off the record and I hope she’ll forgive my sharing it with you.

Amy,
Love the sparkles on your website header!
I’m soooo proud of you!  There’s nothing easy about being a woman or life choices or anything!  In the early days, I was up at 4am to write, with two small children.  But even then I didn’t have a day-job.  Looking back I still don’t know if that was the right decision because it took such a toll on finances.  I’m envious that you can handle such a rigorous schedule but way to go!  Life is freaking hard and we have to earn our dreams…I really believe that.  Yes, I’m published with St. Martin’s now but it was years in the making and even now, everyday, I still ask myself…what more can I do, what else needs to be done!  Even as we speak I’m working on a Regency historical series, letting it sit on the back burner while I write my vampire series.  Publishing ain’t for sissies and neither is life…so keep at it no matter how tough the road.  For every day you stay with it, another writer drops off the grid because it’s soooo hard to get where you want to go!
 
Courage and then more courage,

Holy moly and good God (I’m referring to the God of supportive and generous mentors).

So I will keep plugging away.  And thank you out there, every one of you who supports me.  When I’m really, really tired I can’t even tell you how much I appreciate it.

I am very competitive.  I think I’ve mentioned that here before.  I’ve narrowed down the reason why to my father.  He played games with us when we were kids but he flat out refused to “let” us win.  His philosophy, as taught to him by his grandfathers, was that our victory would be sweeter when we finally did win on our own merits.  I am certain this is true.  When you map out your own strategy and claim a win solely by yourself with no quarter given by your opponent, it is a powerful moment.  Mine came with checkers.

Granted it takes a child longer to finally win a game that way, but it makes you a fighter.  It also makes you a good loser.  You get used it.  You realize that it’s not the end of the world when you do lose.  You are forced to try harder, to concentrate, and to really learn the fundamentals of a game.  Hopefully it also teaches you to win gracefully too, although honestly, I may have been absent for that particular lesson.

Of course, none of that can really explain why I took such glee in beating the pants off my five year old at tic-tac-toe at a Mexican restaurant tonight. 

He and his sister received the dreaded colorable placemats from the hostess when we went out to grab dinner tonight.  He sat next to me in the booth – that was probably his first mistake.  Towards the end of the meal he begged me to play the game with him.  Using the green Crayon, he marked off his first X.  I put my O in the bottom corner.  He played again and so did I, marking my O in the next box setting myself up for a win OR for him to block me.  He gripped his crayon tightly and set the blunted point in the wrong box.

“Is that really where you want to go?”

“Yep,” he replied with confidence.

“OK,” I replied with skepticism.  I took the crayon and marked my O and drew a victory line straight through my marks with a dark slash.  “I win!”

He puffed out a little grunt of frustration but moved right to the next pre-drawn board.  “Again.”  He put his X in the corner.

I put mine in the opposite one.  Next he chose a random box and filled in his mark.  After several more turns, I had set myself up for the sure win.  No matter where he tried to block me there was another “win” spot.  He stared at the board for a minute, perplexed.

“Where you gonna go?” I prodded.

“I don’t know.” He laughed nervously.  “Daddy, where should I go?”

His father looked at the board and then at me with a glance that told me I was mean.  Mean schmean – little dude’s gotta learn.

“Where you gonna go?” I asked again.  The boy kept hesitating.  He finally picked a spot and I won again with undisguised pleasure.

Deep sigh from the boy.  “Once more.”  And he marked the board.

Again, I was ready to win, but he had a chance this time to make the game a draw.  It all came down to this placement of his X.

“There?” I asked with dubious warning.  “Have you really looked at his options?”

He hesitated for a few extra seconds and finally chose a spot.

“Ooooooooh, dude,” I said with a sweeping movement from my Crayon.  “You chose unwisely!”

Fortunately the boy was too busy laughing at his insane mother to be too upset at my hat trick. 

My Honey just looked at me with flabbergasted disdain.  “Aren’t you proud of yourself.”

“Ye-e-e-e-e-e-e-es,” I agreed, cackling away like Renfield.

I don’t know if any of that will teach him to be a good fighter, competitor, or loser, but I’ll bet he doesn’t sit next to me at dinner next time.

Either way – I’m a WINNER!

People ask me all the time what I’m reading, hence the advent of the little box at the top that tells you what I’m carting around in my purse and toting from room to room.  Unfortunately, I’ve been so ridiculously busy that my reading is very slow going right now.  In fact, every moment I’m reading there is a nasty old schoolmarm figure in my head berating me because I’m not writing.

The book I just finished reading was a fabulous one by a friend who exemplifies everything that is the exact opposite of the stigma of a self-published author.  She has done a truly excellent job of editing her work and it’s very professionally done, not to mention a good read. 

I thought I’d show you the bookshelves that house my rotating To Be Read pile.  Keep in mind this is the pile of books I haven’t read.  There are many, many more books scattered about this house I assure you.

One of the Sisters does not see the draw of Johnny Depp.  Quite frankly, the other Sister and I can’t understand how she shares our DNA.  Clearly, she must have been brought by fairies, or discovered in a melon patch, or as my fabulously imaginative Grandmother would say, perhaps she was knitted out of yarn. 

Whatever the case, Kelli simply doesn’t care or notice when something by the yummy and magnificently talented Mr Depp comes out.   Now Ava and I on the other hand are alerted by curious tingling and other-worldly whispering in our ears.

I happened to see this on one of the blogs I regularly visit – The Goddess Blogs written by some of my very favorite authors.

Ooooooh, I just can’t wait.

All Christmas Eve day I repeatedly told The Bandit to go pick up his room.  I was repeatedly ignored.

“Go clean up your room.”

Nothing.

Repeat.

Finally I told him, “If I was Santa, I wouldn’t bring you anymore toys because obviously you don’t have enough room for the old toys.”

I swear to God the little creep looked at me and said, “Well if YOU were Santa, I’d be good every day.”

What do you say to that?  I stood there like a guppy, my mouth opening and closing, opening and closing.  I so desperately wanted to form the words.  Of course, if I did, the parenting police would show up at my door and my Mommy card would me summarily revoked.

I finally had to walk away or risk irreparable damage.

Last night we went to walk the Winterhaven Festival of Lights.  It’s a local thing where an entire neighborhood decorates their houses for the holidays.  There are contests and awards and literally thousands of people come out every year for two weeks around Christmas.   There are light and music displays and a gazillion horse and mule drawn wagons and a few lovely carriages drawn by gorgeous prancing horses.  It’s usually brisk, cool weather if not really cold and we get to feel a little like Christmas dressed in mittens and hats.

We took The Idiot Dog with us because it always seems like a good idea at the time.  We’ve always taken the dogs.  This

The Idiot Dog

year I was amused that so many people approached me to exclaim at Roscoe’s size. 

“Oh my God, your dog is huge!” they’d exclaim as they stroked his long, silky ears and I’d look at them in bewilderment.  Roscoe is a young coonhound/bloodhound mix at not quite three years old, and by that I mean he is tallish but he is still youthfully trim.  His legs look less stilty than they did last year, but he has by no means filled out yet.  He looks a lot like a teenager.  So I peer down at this admittedly tallish dog, he comes up to about the top of my thigh/hip area but then I’m not a tall woman at 5’4″, and I think, “Hmmmmm.”

Now here is why I become bewildered by people’s astonishment.  I’ve always been a fan of big dog.  BIG DOGS.  When

Shirley

 My Honey and I started dating I had three dogs: a Sheppard husky mix named Shirley, a great dane/rottweiler/St. Bernard mix named Hugh, and a pure bred Newfoundland named Sophie.  They registered in a combined weight of 390 pounds. 

Silly Hugh

Obviously I had no fear of living alone.  A person would have to be a complete idiot to burst into my house uninvited.  I also had a completely insane gargoyle of a cat but that’s another story altogether.

There were several years we took Sophie or Hugh or both to the Winterhaven festival of lights and, understandably when seeing 180 pounds of black Newfoundland in the dark, I heard more than once, “Holy crap, she has a bear on a leash!” 

Admittedly my perspective of big dogs is slightly skewed, but I just don’t see Roscoe as a big dog.

Sweet Sophie - no one could melt on a tile floor like Sophie

Here’s another thing.  Just to add to the inventory of nonsense about this dog – he’s terrified of horses.  And trolleys.  When the carriages or hay rides would come by he would literally hide behind my or My Honey’s legs, turn his face away from the street, and tremble pitifully in fear.  At one point, he ran and hid in a hedge until the horses passed by.

It would be sad if, at the same time, I didn’t think it was so funny.

Really, I’m not a nice person.