My brain hurts

I swore I would get a full night's sleep before my board exam, after late nights and interruptions all week, so I would be in top form.  As I continued to study (and not move as quickly through the material as I'd planned) that got revised to getting in bed by midnight.  Then 2 am.  Then...

The exam was at 8 am yesterday; I had to be there by 7:30.  I slept one hour ("power nap") on my couch in the wee hours of the morning before being awoken by the alarm on my cell phone and returning to the books.

I just don't handle all-nighters like I used to.

I fortified myself (instant "cappuccino" and my little yellow buddy the caffeine pill) and then sat through a grueling 4 hours solid of physics calculations.  I only got one bathroom break, and that was "unscheduled" so it counted against my test time.  That was rough.  I'd been hoping for some kind of intermission.

Overall it went...well, it went.  I don't know how I feel about it.  I don't feel like I bombed it, but I'm not full of confidence that I passed it, either.  OTOH, it's a board exam, and historically all the people I know who've taken them feel like crap afterward, even if they ultimately pass.  We'll see in 4 weeks or so.

Until then, my brain needs a few days of R&R.  I was so exhausted I fell asleep on the couch last night and woke up about 30 minutes ago.  We're heading out to DH's hometown later today.  Little Boy spent the weekend with Grandpa, and then my MIL is having a family get-together for my BIL's birthday.  I'm off tomorrow, to make up for working last Saturday, and I plan to sleep in and not do much of anything. 

I do need to get caught up on the revisions workshop.

For now, I'm going to haul the laptop downstairs and play with my new iPod Touch.  I love it.  It was the coolest gadget in the house for all of 24 hours, before DH got his new iPhone last night.  *sigh*

Radio Silence

I am still here.

 

Life (as usual) has been hectic, but I have not forgotten the book or this blog.  I have actually been working on the book - maybe not as much as I'd hoped, but I am making steady progress.  The blog, unfortunately, has come under the knife of my extremely limited internet/computer time.  When it comes down to either writing or blogging, I've chosen writing.

 

But!  Things are looking up.  We're FINALLY about to hire another physicist, so even though I'll still have a lot to do at work, it won't be so overwhelming and draining.  And my hours might actually regulate a little.

 

The big thing that's been keeping me away lately is the board exam I've got hanging over my head.  That's Saturday.  Yes, this Saturday.  It's the second of three parts I have to pass in order to gain my certification, a raise, and the legal right to perform some duties without supervision.  The third (and hardest) part will be an oral exam next May, assuming I pass this written test two days from now.  For the insatiably curious among you, I'm taking the Part 2 - Therapeutic Radiologic Physics exam from the American Board of Radiology.  (Here are some sample questions.) 

 

I actually took today and tomorrow off from work to study, since I haven't really had a chance up till now.  All my books and notes are in my office, so that's where I am, but I'm in jeans and t-shirt and off the clock.  With that said, I'm going to sign off and go bury my nose in radiation dosimetry and shielding calculations.  Joy.

 

Look for the following in the near future:

 

Revisions/Workshop Updates

Book Reviews

General Life

New Ideas/Future Goals

 

And give a shout out in the comments if you're still around and haven't forgotten me!  I miss everyone.  Hope to "see" you all again soon.

Follow-up to FREE Liquid Story Binder XE

As I said in the other post, the offer to get LSB for free is for today, Thursday, 7/18/08 only.  I noticed last night when I was on the GiveawayOfTheDay site that those offers are good until midnight *Pacific Time*.  So that's 3 am my time...or noon on Friday in Australia (unless that funky daylight savings offset has thrown it off - probably so).

 

From my experience with GOTD, you download a .zip file and unpack it - there will be 3 items.  The setup file for the free software, a readme.txt, and an "activate" file.  Read the readme.txt first (I say this because I usually ignore them but this time it's important).  You need to run the ACTIVATE program before installing the software.  Then install the software and it should automatically register itself to the full version.

 

ALL of this needs to be accomplished before the midnight (or whatever) deadline.  You can't just download the file - you have to run the activation and install the software.

 

Just FYI.

 

Oh, and there's a Yahoo! group for Liquid Story Binder users.  For help with the software, updates, questions, discussion of features, etc.  Come on by!

Liquid Story Binder XE - FREE TODAY!!!

A commenter (thanks, Rick!) gave me the heads up last week that LSB might show up for free again and guess what - today it has.

 

I got my copy a few months ago for the bargain price of $15 but today (7/18/08) ONLY you can go to:

 

www.giveawayoftheday.com

 

and download LSB XE for free.  The newest version, even!  (I'm running 2.71 but once you have it registered all updates are free, so I'll be upgrading to 2.91 tonight no matter what.)

 

It was well worth my $15 so BY ALL MEANS go get it free today if you don't already have it.  I've been using it for rewrites and I've only scratched the surface of all the features but some of my favorites are: character dossiers, line notes, shortcuts, file associations, picture galleries.  The storyboard and timeline features are cool but I haven't had the time to fully set mine up.  Other stuff I've heard it does but haven't experienced yet: jump words (i.e. if I click on "Alec" I can set it to pull up his character dossier, if I click on "Glencoe" it will pull up the picture gallery or the list of files with all my research on the massacre, etc.), playlists, all sorts of stuff.

 

For more information on Liquid Story Binder XE go to www.blackobelisksoftware.com

 

The interface isn't your standard Microsoft (duh - and some would say that's a good thing) and it took some getting used to.  I had to change the display colors, and all that.  But the more I use it the more instinctively I know where to find the tools I want, the more features I discover and get set up, and the more addicted to it I get.

 

Go.  It's free.  You can't go wrong with free!

More slashing and burning

Another 2700 words cut tonight, and that despite me not getting and staying focused until after 10 pm.  That brings the MS down to just over 102K, almost 10K less than the SFD.  I still have a lot more to cut, though, especially considering all the new stuff that has to go in.

I'd like to be done with this phase by the weekend, and seriously re-plot through next week.

In other news, I've got reviews for several books I'd like to post, if I could find the time to write them.  Unfortunately, being in full-on revisions mode makes me hyper-critical, and I can't enjoy everything as much as I might.  Thankfully, there are some authors (a few I happen to know "personally") who are good enough that I can still get transported into the story and escape for a little while.

In other other news, I booked our hotel for Fergus tonight.  Only one month from now, woohoo!  It's a shame DH isn't coming with me, though; he would have worn his kilt.

Yay, caffeine

Revisions with me are proving to be mind over matter.  I was exhausted tonight, and the temptation to turn in early and get a good rest was strong.  But I get to sleep in tomorrow (working late - planned for once - so going in late) so I made myself take the little yellow pill and it perked me right up. 

I picked up where I left off with Chapter 12 and started cutting some more.  Among tonight's casualties: my beloved "takedowns" scene, or most of it.  *sigh*  All told I cut about 2500 words, and that only from chapters 12-16.

The rest of the time was spent adding a new scene, or most of one.  A little over 500 words.  Alec and Janet discussing their future, not knowing Elspeth is nearby and the sight of them kissing will send her off to Glencoe alone...

All in all, I'm pleased.  Yay, caffeine.  *g*

Scenes

So I took a break from the "hacky, slashy, poky-poky" of last night to work on this week's assignment for the revisions workshop.

Right now we're looking at scenes: what makes a well-balanced, complete one, things a scene should and should not do, etc.  Our assignment was to post a pivotal scene from the MS, and I chose Elspeth's confrontation with Breadalbane and her bargain for Alec's life.  On the whole it was well-received (by the two people who've commented so far) and some good comments were made that inspired about a 100-word addition to the scene...my first new words in a while.  I also reworked some stuff and took out some "telling" where I didn't need it.

So that's one out of, oh, about 130 or so scenes in the MS that's in pretty much final condition now.  I'll take what progress I can get, hehe.

Now it's almost midnight and I think I'll be better served in general by going to bed and resuming my slash-and-burn operation tomorrow night.

But in the meantime, if anyone wants to save $30 on a CatGenie - a catbox that not only scoops but washes itself and doesn't need litter - let me know.  I can give you a "friends & family" coupon code.  After less than a week I am IN LOVE with mine.  It's totally worth the money.

Slash and Burn

So, first night of the new routine seemed to go okay.  Little Boy went to bed late, so I only got a solid hour of work done.  Still, for a change, I feel like I actually made some progress.

I made it through the first 1/3 of the MS (chapters 1-11) in my slash-and-burn rampage.

According to LSB (Liquid Story Binder) I cut almost 2600 words tonight.  (I've done a little bit previously, too.)  The overall MS is at 107,250.  So I'm down a total of 5K or so, and I've got another 12K at least to get down to my target of 95K.  Some of that will come in the next few nights as I cut big scenes and chunks of scenes (some are hard to part with, but I have to admit to myself they're more for me than for the story).  Other wordage will evaporate as I get into the nitty-gritty revisions, scene-by-scene.  Right now it's the broad-stroke stuff, because I'll get hung up in the little details if I try to go in and just take out lines or paragraphs.

I will also have new stuff to write, at some point.  But I think after I get all this extraneous stuff cut, it will be a big catch-up plotting/organizing streak, and then we'll see where I am in the revisions workshop - I really do plan to blog about that, someday - and hopefully I'll manage to keep pace.

In other news, I'm probably going to Fergus again this year!  My friend Jodi *waves* is also somewhat obsessed with Scotland and we're planning a "girls' weekend out" road trip.  Fun times.

Now I'm for bed.  Staff meeting at 8 am tomorrow.

A new schedule

Okay, I'm trying to get myself on a routine, since things are still hectic but at least they're settling into some aspect of predictability.

My new plan:

8 pm: begin bedtime routine for Little Boy
9 pm: LB in bed; wash face, brush teeth, etc. while waiting for him to settle down
~9:30 pm: at computer - go straight to work on revisions
11:30-12 am: wrap up revisions for the night, check e-mail/blogs and other online administrativa
~12 am: bedtime
6 am: alarm goes off
8 am: work
~6-7 pm: home, dinner, playtime
8 pm: lather, rinse, repeat

Another meme, because Deniz posted it *g*

(Y'all, I have so much to blog and absolutely no time to do it - what with the internet ban at work, and my evening computer time taken up by the revisions workshop - so I'll have to make do with this for now.)

Stolen from Shaylin, who stole it from Jon, who stole it from Sandy:

1. What's in your pocket right now?  Nothing.  My cell phone about 15 minutes ago.

 

2. Have you ever gone skinny-dipping?  Do hot tubs count?

 

3. Did you have a baby blanket?  I don't think so, but I did have a tattered old feather pillow with a homemade pillow case (Lovey Pillow) and a ragged stuffed rabbit missing an eye (Lovey Bunny).  Still have them, in fact - though I don't sleep with them anymore. 

 

4. Have you ever tried to cut your own hair?  When I had bangs, I cut my own all the time.  Never the whole head, though.

5. How did that turn out?  Fine.  Like I said, I did it all the time.

 

6. Have you ever sleepwalked?  I don't think so. 

 

7.Have you ever had a birthday party at a restaurant?  Yeah.  Blanking on which ones, but I'm pretty sure I have.

 

8. Have you ever eaten a dog biscuit?  Tried one.  Not bad, actually.

9. If you were in a car sinking in a lake, what would you do first?  Open the door.  (Thank you, Mythbusters.)

 

10. Have you ever ridden in an ambulance?  No.

 

11. Have you ever fallen asleep in school?  OH, yeah.

 

12. How many foreign countries have you visited?  4: Mexico, Israel, Bahamas, Canada.  Oh!  5 if you count our layover in Copenhagen on the way to Israel.

 

13. Have you ever broken a bone?  Not officially.  Possibly a few undiagnosed hairline fractures in there somewhere.  OTOH, I drink a lot of milk.

 

14. Have you ever accidentally taken something from a hotel?  No, not accidentally.

15. If you could invite any movie star to your home for dinner, who would it be?  Movie star?  Can't it be someone interesting?

 

16. If you could attend an Olympic Event, what would it be?  I like to watch figure skating and gymnastics.  Fencing would be pretty neat, too.  Also archery.

 

17. How many pairs of shoes do you own?  Hmmm...6 pairs of serviceable work shoes (3 black, 3 brown, usage varies by season), 3 pairs of tennis shoes (white, black/white, and blue/silver - the first 2 are new as of last weekend), 2 pairs of boots (black and brown), 1 pair of tartan - not plaid - ballet flats, and assorted pairs of sandals/strappy dress shoes.  2 pairs of dress heels.  Or something like that.

 

18. If you won a $5,000 shopping spree to any store, which store would you pick?  Oy...  How about Carnival Cruise Lines online reservations?  Does that count?  I'm too tired to analyze best-case options right now.

 

19. Have you ever been rushed to the emergency room?  Not rushed, but taken.  I seriously had like a 106+ fever when I was in 4th(?) grade.  And once I jumped in a pile of leaves and almost broke my wrist (but didn't, cf. #13).  Can't remember if the time I hit the pipe in the road while riding my bicycle barefoot resulted in an ER trip or not.  I think it probably did.

20.  Have you ever had surgery?  Yeah, most recently my wisdom teeth out.  Only one other back in college, and it was outpatient too.  Nothing major.

21.  When was the last time you had a sit-down dinner with your immediate family that didn't consist of a television?  Saturday night?  Sunday we were gone all day to the zoo, and Little Boy's been gone to Granny's since yesterday (he gets back on Thursday, and that's why I'm able to be on the computer before 10 pm...)

Happy (Belated) Birthday to Alec!

I hate that I missed it and didn't post yesterday.  But, well, the way my life's been lately, it's amazing I'm blogging at all.

Anyway, Alec was born on June 24th, 1663, the second son of "Red" Malcolm MacGregor, Laird of Glenstrae, and Mary Campbell MacGregor.

Going strictly by birthdate, he is 320 years older than Elspeth, give or take a month or so.  In the "real world" of present day, he would have been 345 yesterday, though biologically he's still only in his late 20's.  (In the novel, he turns 28 the day after he meets Elspeth, making him almost 30 by the end of the book.)

Là breith sona dhuit, Ailig!

(I probably slaughtered that.  My Gaelic is r-u-s-t-y.)

Proof Google is Stalking Me (and probably you, too)

Move over, Big Brother.

Just now I was on ThePeerage.com researching the antecedents for one Hugh Sinclair: tacksman to Malcolm MacGregor, Chief of Clan Gregor and Laird of Glenstrae; effectively adopted brother and good friend to one Alec MacGregor; potential antagonist/almost betrothed/ultimately good friend of Elspeth Martin; and eventual heir (with Andi Duluth) to Book 3 - One Highland Somethingorother.

At any rate, toward the bottom of the page I found a GoogleAds box.  No biggie.  Only it was for Amazon, and the 3 books it highlighted were:

The Complete Handbook of Novel Writing
My Lord and Spymaster (Yay, Jo!  And it was this that caught my eye.  Check it out in the sidebar to the left!)
Keeping Kate by Sarah Gabriel

The freaky thing is: yeah, sure, Amazon knows I buy books on writing and that I've preordered Jo's book.  But I've only ordered one book by Sarah Gabriel recently and that was through PaperBackSwap.com, something neither Amazon nor Google should know about.  Hmmm?

I'm still alive...

...barely.

The last 2-3 weeks have been crazy, and not in a fun way.  Work is pretty much kicking my ass, and by that I mean sheer workload.  Consistently working until 7-8 pm for weeks on end will tap me out in a hurry.  Having no internet access while I'm there pretty much sucks, too.  It completely mucks with my schedule.  I mean, I understand they want top productivity out of us, but at least being able to pop into my e-mail or pay some bills over my lunch break would do wonders for my morale, not to mention save the few precious hours I have on the computer in the evenings for the MS.

Despite all I have been making progress - just at a snail's pace.  Maybe someday I'll have the time to blog about it.  We just got assignment 2 (characterization and POV) for the revisions workshop, and I spent a good chunk of tonight working on it.  Once it's posted I'll probably go back to do some more on the first assignment, which was structure and organization.  I'm nowhere near where I wanted to be on that just yet.

On the home front: Friday DH and I are leaving for a 3-day weekend in Gatlinburg to celebrate our (7th!) anniversary.  I REALLY need the R&R.  Little Boy (who is dry pretty much all day at home in underwear now, though he still wears pull-ups in public and to bed) will be staying overnight at Grandpa's house for the first time.  I think we'll all have fun.

Quote

"When you write a story, you're telling yourself the story.  When you rewrite, your main job is taking out all the things that are not the story."

-Steven King
On Writing

---

I am so tired and overwhelmed with work and life and this workshop (in which I am hopelessly behind, and the first session isn't even over yet) I could curl up and cry.  Or sleep.  Or something.

But in my desperate reach for input rather than output for a change, I've been toting the above book around with me today and I discovered that little gem on page 57.  It was the bright spark of inspiration in my dismal blur of a day towards the end of a dismal blur of a week (Deniz's visit the obvious exception). 

So to heck with timelining for tonight; I think I'm gonna go rip some scenes.

Torn

I want to do the June X over on CompuServe.  I want to rather badly.  (Not least because part of our first assignment for the revisions workshop was a 750-word synopsis, so I've got one ready!)

BUT I still have 4 crits to do for the aforementioned workshop, and a whole heck of a lot of timelining and organizing and extraneous-scene-culling from the MS to complete in a little less than 2 weeks.  And posting up an X means critting everyone else's and though I usually enjoy participating, honestly I really do not have enough time in the day right now.  I obviously haven't had much time to blog.  Heck, I *barely* have time to check my e-mail.

*taps chin*  Decisions, decisions...

Tedium

I planned a detailed post about what exactly I'm doing and how that fits with the first part of the revisions workshop, but tonight I'm too drained.  Maybe tomorrow. 

In summary: the past few nights have been spent finally (finally!) getting my butt in gear with Liquid Story Binder - henceforward referred to as LSB - and setting everything up for large-scale revisions.

Unfortunately for me and my mental state, "setting up" means hours' worth of importing files, associating files, sorting files into chronological order instead of alphabetical, and tonight: inserting columns (and columns, and columns - 129, to be exact) for scenes into a timeline and labeling them with chapter and scene number.  (Example: third scene in chapter seventeen is labeled "17.3" and so on.)

This is the scut work before the "real" work begins, the stuff that - though tedious - will ultimately make my life easier.  The timeline, for example, will help me visualize and organize issues ranging from character subarcs (i.e. Elspeth's grasp of Gaelic, or appreciation for 17th century food) to sequences of events, times of year, and exact dates, among others.

Of course, were I starting from scratch in LSB (or nearly so, as I will when/if I ever dive into OHW) this kind of thing would grow organically as I wrote, with only small amounts of time required to update my organizational tools.  Starting with 112K of rough draft and umpteen million little picture files, brainstorming notes, etc. and trying to get everything sorted into a software that's completely new to you with sometimes unintuitive commands...well, you see why it's taking so much out of me.

On that note, I'm going to bed.

*Fanfare* (for various reasons)

First and foremost, congrats to Carol on her release!  Head over to The Wild Rose Press and purchase her book.  Then pop by Jen's blog with your order number for another contest!

As for myself...tonight I officially resumed work in earnest on OHN!  The Next Level Workshop opened properly yesterday, but I was exhausted and brain-drained and so I didn't really dive in until tonight.

Thank God for caffeine pills, though.  I think my single greatest discipline in working on this MS is making myself take one (note to self: taking a caffeine pill WITH a Mt. Dew is a bit of overkill and makes you jittery) and then getting BICHOK until it kicks in.  Then I'm golden.  Last night I was practically passing out at my keyboard by 10:30, but now it's almost 2 am and I'm going relatively strong.  Off to bed soon, though.

I may continue to have a reduced online presence for the immediate future.  With my writing time restricted to late night (generally the hours between 9 pm and midnight) and so much work to do on revisions, I can't afford to futz around playing Text Twirl or looking at LOLcats for very long.  Also we've been asked to scale back our internet usage at work, and with a load of new (and old) projects - not to mention an upcoming certification exam - I'm too busy to do much online there anyway.  Even my e-mail activity will be restricted to only the most urgent of dealings.  I will TRY to maintain a presence on the CompuServe Forum (and yes - I know I still owe several people replies!) but I've cut myself off from most of my other message boards and hangouts as nonessential for the time being. 

Notes from the home front:

• I'm just now almost over the upper respiratory infection that kept me coughing for a week, then morphed into a sinus infection that's had me blowing my nose constantly for the past 5 days.
  
• We've decided to enroll Little Boy in a Montessori preschool beginning in the fall.  He'll be 2 1/2, which was way younger than I planned to have him in any kind of program, but I just recently discovered Montessori and from what I've read it sounds like a GREAT fit for him, and they usually start kids at 2.5-3 years old.  It's only half days, and it will also give DH a chance to go to class/work on schoolwork/have some downtime.
  
• To that end, we've also begun potty training in earnest.  Pray for my sanity, hehe!  LB is doing well, all things considered...which is to say he's no longer screaming and running from the room when we ask him to sit on the potty chair.  Switching to cotton training pants during the day has gone a long way to further his awareness, and he does want to keep them "kween an' dry!"  (Though I felt bad for him the other day, when he was trying so hard to not pee on himself that he wouldn't go AT ALL - even in the potty or his diaper.  He spent the last hour or so before bed with tucked knees and a hand over his bladder, and then filled the diaper as soon as he relaxed for sleep.  Bless his heart.)
  

Up and Coming:

• More posts!  I try to post a little progress bit at the end of each session when I'm actively working.  And believe you me, this workshop's gonna kick my ass (in a good way!) for the foreseeable future, so I WILL be actively working.
• Blog updates.   New pics and stuff for the sidebars, mainly.  I'll be updating my blogroll, so if you're a regular reader and want your blog linked to, just drop me a line to remind me!

Character Portrait: Artist's Take

WOOT!  Jason's got a post up on his blog about my commission of Alec & Elspeth, so head on over to check it out:

1000 Words

Be sure to give him some comment love and tell him what a good job he did.  *g*

T-minus 4 days till revisions workshop.  I may or may not be a larger online presence during that time; it depends on how busy Barbara keeps us.  *g*  Tomorrow's holiday is slated for more outside/yard work, at least until it rains.

For now, I'm off to comfort the sobbing toddler who didn't nap and therefore can't get to sleep.  (If anyone can explain THAT one to me, I'm all ears...)

Book Giveaway!

Author, blogger, fellow Forumite and friend Carol A. Spradling has her first book Cost of Freedom coming out (digitally) next week by The Wild Rose Press.  Print version releases in November.  Yay, Carol!  *g*

 

Cost of Freedom

Release Date: Digital May 30, Print Nov. 28
ISBN #: 1-60154-241-0
Publisher: The Wild Rose Press

 

Jen is sponsoring a contest to celebrate, and you could win your very own e-copy of COF.  Head on over and throw your name in the pot:

 

COST OF FREEDOM Book Giveaway

 

(I'd put up the banner and book trailer, but those don't work by e-mail post.  You can see them at the contest page.)

 

Let's all say it again: Yay, Carol!!!

Sick

Ugh.

 

Little Boy's been sick for the better part of a week (upper respiratory infection; read: bad cold), and he passed it along to me just before he left for Granny's house on Sunday night (she kept him until yesterday, so DH could finish the last of his papers for school).  For the past several days, I've had a persistent, unproductive cough, and as of yesterday the lymph nodes in my neck are all swollen and tender.  Joy.

 

I finally broke down and took some NyQuil last night - I'm a big proponent of letting my immune system try to handle things on its own - and some generic OTC gel-caps of cough suppressant/expectorant this morning.  They do seem to be helping.  I also gave up the ghost and fell asleep on the couch right after LB went to sleep last night, and got up and went straight to bed around midnight.  Needless to say, I didn't get anything accomplished.

 

Also, my boss has been on vacation all last week and this week, so I'm pulling down double-duty and that's keeping me busy at work.

 

Between those two situations, you can see why I haven't been up to much online.  *g*  I'm hoping the full night's sleep will restore my attention span and bolster my immune response, and I'll be able to stay on task today.  I've got quite a bit to do, online and elsewhere.

 

One week and counting to get stuff caught up before the revisions workshop consumes my existence...