Accolade

I'm feeling pretty weepy this morning...and I'm not even pms-ing. Today I'm going to one of my very dearest friend's college graduation. Working a full-time job that requires travel and with two kids both still in elementary school, she went back to school and is graduating today, magna cum laude, with a business degree. And she's still managed to be involved with her kids and a great mom--she's insane enough that she was in charge of the cookie distribution for her daughter's girl scout troop this year. I am so incredibly proud of her and what she's accomplished it brings me to tears.

Forget movie stars and pop divas, we need to look in our own back yards to find true role models for our children and ourselves.

Ellen Marie Gallagher, I applaud you.

Jennifer on 04.30.05 @ 06:51 AM EST [Entry Link] [No Comments]

Frogs, Bus Rides, and One Heck of a Good Book

We had a great time on the fieldtrip yesterday! Well, outside of the bus ride from Hell. Anytime you are on a bus with fifty fourth graders, it's Hell. We went to the Ferbank Science museum, which had this really, really cool exhibit on frogs. They even had an Ecudorian blow dart gun and the darts on display. I had five girls in my group. I made them all read how the natives get the poison from the frogs for the darts before I'd let them leave the exhibit. One kid said, "That makes me sick." (They roast them while they're alive so they'll sweat.) BWAHAHA. There was also a fabulous shell display. And the IMAX movie was on the sea with Sting doing all the music. Very cool. There was some incredible footage of surfers riding the waves. Makes me wish I had an ounce of co-ordination because I think surfing would be such an awesome experience. Alas, not in this lifetime.

On the endurance test afterwards (more commonly known as the bus ride back to school), I turned on my brain, put on my earphones, and read. I was so into my book, I hated to look up and realize we were back at school. This is one of the perks of being a writer and having friends who are writers--sometimes you get advance book copies. I'm readng Rita Herron's A Breath Away, a romantic suspense. Put it on your MUST BUY/MUST READ list now. It's great! I am using all my willpower not to give into temptation and read it instead of working.

Hmmm. Okay. My reward for hitting my page count today--instead of sneaking off and reading--is a manicure/pedicure and then some serious reading time. Yahoo! If I have to stay up all night tonight, I WILL find out what happens in this book.

Jen

Jennifer on 04.29.05 @ 08:54 AM EST [Entry Link] [No Comments]

Field Trip

Today I'm playing hooky from writing and going on a field trip with my daughter's class. It should be fun and a welcome change from sitting at my computer. For the most part, I like the kids in her class and I really like her teacher, so other than the heinous bus ride across Atlanta with screaming kids , it should be a good time.

BTW, I HATE the way they're handling the whole elimination announcement on American Idol. Hate that they line them up in the top half and lower half and then make a couple of people put themselves in one group or another then pull a couple out as the lowest. And there's no way in hell I could stand there and sing a song when they told me I had to go home. Ack. I think it's cruel.

Jen

Jennifer on 04.28.05 @ 05:24 AM EST [Entry Link] [No Comments]

If You Need to Laugh...and You Do!

If you need to laugh...and you do...we all do...run, don't walk, to your nearest video rental and check out Meet The Fockers. OMG, it was so funny. At a couple of points, I was laughing so hard, I couldn't speak. My dh missed a line, and I couldn't tell him because I couldn't stop laughing. Definitely good medicene for whatever ails you...except for when it was time to get up at 5:30 this morning and I'd stayed up too late watching a movie.

I'm really afraid I'm cursing myself but I'm going to go out on a limb and say that I'm having too much fun writing this book now, Nick's story. And yeah, that's the working title girl genius here has slapped on it-- Nick's Story. It's a wrong bed story and there's this mistaken identity thing going on and a blow-up doll named Sheila....

It's a rainy day and although I can't take too many of these in a row (that lack'o light depression thing), I like it today. There's an intimacy in sitting on my office on a rainy day--just me and my story...and those three cats and three dogs. Off to work now.

Jen

Jennifer on 04.26.05 @ 08:35 AM EST [Entry Link] [1 Comment]

Today I'm going to try something different in an attempt to be more organized and a little more disciplined regarding my schedule. Instead of constantly facing the temptations of e-mail, IM, and general Internet surfing, I'm posting and answering e-mails now and then disconnecting...that's right...signing off! And I'm not taking any phone calls before lunch time unless it's my mother, my editor, or my daughter's school. I like to read and I like to talk, so between the Internet and the phone, I can really while away some serious time. Have I mentioned that little Internet addiction I have and my need to talk....I'll let you know how it goes.

Jen...who's about to sign off now...really...I am...I swear it

Jennifer on 04.25.05 @ 06:06 AM EST [Entry Link] [2 Comments]

Music in my World

Music is one of the essentials of living, right up there with books. It's probably one of the most overt emotional manipulators I can think of. I turned on the radio after dropping my daughter at school the other morning. I wasn't particularly down or upset about anything, but when Spriral Staircase singing More Today Than Yesterday came on--how can you NOT turn it up really loud and smile? It's an instant mood booster that brings back memories of shagging with my daughter at a beach restaurant on Tybee Island and keg parties on Friday afternoons at UGA.

I used to require absolute quiet to write but in the last year or so, I've gotten to the point that I really need the music on when I'm writing. I know some writers put together sound tracks for particular books. I don't do that, but there always seems to be a selection of cd's that wind up staying in my cd player for the duration of a book. The down side to that is there are certain songs that just make you want to get up and dance-- Sting's Brand New Day, Steve Winwood's Spanish Dancer, DMB's Crash Into Me. Fun for me--pretty frightening for my neighbors.

Embarrasing to admit that I got an MP3 player for Christmas and have only managed to download one cd onto it. The instructions that came with it are lousy and I'm lousy at following instructions--not a stellar combination. So, I run to the same cd every time I go out. I have a Pavolovian response now to DMB's Listener Supported, cd one. I hear it, I think I need to break into a run. Luckily, I have no pride and admitted my technological ineptness at the soccer fields yesterday. The 12-year old brother of one of my daughter's team mates is going to teach me how to use it at the next practice. Humiliating? Only a tad, but as I said, it's a good thing I have no pride.



Jennifer on 04.24.05 @ 10:07 AM EST [Entry Link] [No Comments]

The other evening another writer and I were discussing internal versus external conflict and the evolution of conflict throughout a book. I thought I'd share my take on discerning internal versus external: If resolving the conflict doesn't result in an irrevocable emotional change, you have external conflict. It's simplified and the digest version, but I think this is one of the most difficult concepts for many beginning, and sometimes veteran, writers to wrap their head around.

On a totally different note, a Scarlet Tanager visited my garden pond yesterday! He was stunning and I haven't seen him since, but I'm glad he stopped by.

Okay, so I'm off to work on finishing this chapter today.

Jen

Jennifer on 04.21.05 @ 09:23 AM EST [Entry Link] [No Comments]

Quirks

My life is shot to hell. I voted last night in American Idol. I couldn't help myself. After the retinue of disco renditions, Bo Bice taking on Vehicle drove me to the phone. Wow! So, now I've officially participated in the world's biggest popularity contest.

How do we wind up with weird quirks? I seroiusly hate to unpack a suitcase. That road trip my daughter and I took two weeks ago over Spring Break--suitcase is still in the closet to be unpacked--uh, I did pull out the dirty clothes, but the clean ones are still waiting to be unpacked and put away. The overnight bag I took to the retreat? Sitting in the closet next to the Spring Break bag. One year I didn't unpack my bag from National Conference (end of July) until October. It just sat on the guest room bed for three months. Really I don't have a daily need for business suits or an evening gown, so it sat there. Maybe it's that I hate that the fun trip is over and unpacking represents a return to the mundane. Or maybe it's that I'm just lazy....

Jen

Jennifer on 04.20.05 @ 10:17 AM EST [Entry Link]

OS Geek

I am an office supply geek. There, I've said it. I feel better. The high point of my day yesterday was shopping office supplies at Sam's Wholesale Club! I bought printer cardridges and little notebooks to keep in my purse and in my car in case inspiration strikes. I finally treated myself to a reversible corkboard/magnetic whiteboard so that I can keep my writing calendar up and I want to start an ongoing collage that relates to my WIP. I splurged on a 14-piece dry erase set--the colors are lovely! And the piece de resistance...a shredder. It fits right beneath my printer in my office and I can even feed disc and credit cards in there, but no hands, ties, or screwdrivers.

Off to work on Nick's story. When I hit my page count today, I get to put up my whiteboard. But I think I'm going to have to find something to shred before I do that....

Jen

Jennifer on 04.19.05 @ 10:28 AM EST [Entry Link]

Nick's Story

For everyone who asked for it, you've got it. Nick O'Malley, the brother in Really Hot! has his own story! I started it this morning and it's going to be so much fun to write because Nick is such a...well, such a guy. I know that sounds sort of crazy because all the heroes are guys but Nick is fun and flirty and sexy. Ya know, the kind of guy you think would be fun to date but bad news to fall for.

Jen

Jennifer on 04.18.05 @ 12:30 PM EST [Entry Link]

Post-retreat

Returned home this afternoon from my first writer's retreat--it certainly won't be my last. What a great experience!! Did I churn out a record number of pages this week-end? No. What I did accomplish was far more valuable. I worked through two book ideas, with some impromptu brainstorming with my room-mate, which had been going painfully slow for me. Perhaps even more important, I spent some important time really getting to know my fellow sister writers. I knew all of the other writers there from our GRW meetings. But, this week-end, I really got to know these women. Although we all write romance, our books are vastly different and we're all at different stages in our careers, but I feel sure we all went away having learned something new about the business of writing and each other.

Jen

Jennifer on 04.17.05 @ 04:00 PM EST [Entry Link]

The mountains, the lake and writing

The retreat is wonderful! I'm blogging from a business center computer as there are no internet connections in the rooms. Makes me painfully aware of how much time I spend surfing the net during the day. Arrived Thursday afternoon and after a nice long nap wrote several pages, went for a nice long walk and then our group met as a whole in the Lodge to talk about writing and careers. I think I may have to do this more often.

Jen

Jennifer on 04.15.05 @ 08:33 AM EST [Entry Link]

Writing Retreat

I feel wickedly self-indulgent. I'm leaving this morning for a writer's retreat in the North Georgia mountains. I've been to numerous conferences, but I've never been to a retreat like this. For three days I'll get up and spend the day writing and then at night we'll all get together for dinner to discuss our progress for the day and kick around ideas. Doesn't that sound heavenly? Even though I'm going to work, and I expect to get a lot done, I feel guilty. I think it's because I'm playing hooky from my real world and all my responsibilities. Guilty or not, I'm ready to go.

Jen

Jennifer on 04.14.05 @ 04:18 AM EST [Entry Link]

The Kitchen Timer and the Phone Company

Okay, I was on vacation last week--a full week off of reading, eating out, hanging out. This week, I've had continuing education classes--no, not for writing , for the pest control business my husband and I own. If I don't have a certain number of continuing ed classes, I have to sit the state exam again. No thanks. So, Monday was essentially shot. Yesterday, I found myself seriously distracted by the internet and more bug business stuff. Today, however, I'm going to pull out the big writing guns--I'm tracking down my kitchen timer. Seriously. I'll sit at the computer and set the timer for thirty minutes. I can't get up to let a cat or dog in or out. No bathroom breaks. No refilling my water glass. No answering the phone. No checking email or web surfing. For half an hour I owe the screen and keyboard my undivided attention. For thirty minutes I have to write without regard to grammar and punctuation. I can revise anything except a blank page. By the end of the day, with enough of those thirty minutes in there, I should have my proposal ready so that I can move on to my new book tomorrow.

In a totally unrelated topic switch, why is it that the simplest things become a snafu? I finally joined the 21st century and went with a broadband connection. My husband called the phone company and cancelled the second line that I used for my dial-up connection. The phone company disconnected my home number. I was out of town all last week and my husband's never at home so I only called him on his cell. Finally, my mother called me on my cell phone on Monday morning to ask me, very tentatively, if I knew my home number was disconnected. It took about two seconds to figure out what had happened.

Of course, it tied up about an hour with the phone company to have them say that the wrong number had been disconnected and they'd restore our service WEDNESDAY by midnight. When I testily asked the dh why it would take them 2 1/2 days to restore our service, he testily replied that I could call them up and ask that question if I wanted to sit through an hour of being transferred from one person to another. I graciously declined that generous offer. In the interim, anyone that calls my house gets a message that this number has been disconnected and is no longer in use. Great! We look like deadbeats who haven't paid our bill.

Monday afternoon I get a call from the vice principle at my daughter's school regarding a committe meeting. She calls on my cell and very politely dances around my disconnected number. "Uhm, Mrs. LaBrecque, your home number has been disconnected. Is this a note that we should make on your daughter's record and would you like to give us an alternate number other than your cell?" I laugh and tell her about the wrong number disconnect. She laughs in return and you can just hear her thinking, "Yeah, sister. I bet you'll pay that bill on time, next time around." There's been a similar call from my dentist's office and God knows how many other calls that don't have my cell number...like maybe the coach for the select soccer team that my daughter just made. Their first practice is Friday night and I'll guarantee he's called and got that disconnected message. I think the phone company should have to replace their standard recording with one that says "We screwed up. These people did pay their bill on time. Please call them back Thursday morning because that's when we'll get around to hooking them back up, unless you're a telemarketer, in which case, you should never call back."

Jen

Jennifer on 04.13.05 @ 06:45 AM EST [Entry Link]

Back from Spring Break

I'm back from a really great Spring Break. I won't bore you with all the details, but I'd like to share some of the things I came away with last week.

1. Ten seems to be the perfect age to road trip with your kid. At least it worked out this way for me. I put the girl in charge of navigation. It was her job to keep up with and read the directions from Mapquest and Yahoomaps. She was also tracking the mileage from one point to the next and subtracting it from our total which nicely took care of all the "Are we there yet" questions since she knew exactly where we were and how much further we needed to go. Ten's also a good age because I haven't yet reached the total idiot status in her opinion. We talked about anything and everything.

2. Leave the men behind when you road trip. We pretty much stopped once an hour at rest areas for potty breaks. Men just can't handle that. Much as I love my stepfather, we had to limit our beverage intake so that we were only stopping every 3 to 4 hours. It would have driven him mad to stop that many times and my husband would've complained, but, hey, it worked for us!

3. North Carolina is crawling with state troopers. We saw more state troopers in North Carolina than in Georgia, South Carolina and Virginia combined. They take their speed limit very seriously. So did I since I was in no frame of mind to contribute to the coffers of that great state. This is not the state to discover just how fast your car will go.

4. Speed detection devices are illegal in Virginia. You don't want to speed here either.

5. Life is good blowing down the highway on a sunny day with the sunroof open, the wind whipping through your hair and Stevie Ray Vaughn working out the kinks on Texas Flood.

Jen

Jennifer on 04.12.05 @ 10:45 AM EST [Entry Link]

Gearin' up to Road Trip

Spring Break begins this afternoon when school releases and my girl and I are gearing up for a road trip. We're driving up to Willimsburg and Jamestown for a couple of days and then on up to Maryland to see family and then back home via Monitcello. My daughter is studying the American Revolution and is so excited she's almost beside herself.

We went shopping this week and bought matching outfits (only two), complete with matching shoes. What can I say? We're geek girls and proud of it! We've already started going through picking out cd's to take and planning our snacks. I love airports and I love flying but there's just something about a road trip.... The weather's supposed to be great and we'll cruise down the highway with the sunroof open and the cd player blasting.

The downside to gearing up is I have to buy a bathing suit. Double ACK!! Ya know, normal clothes shopping isn't all that painful, but bathing suit shopping...Too bad I can't be unconscious for it. Think of me today and feel my pain!

I'm starting a new book when I get back and I'll have to move double time on it, so I'm looking to come back refreshed and ready to roll.

Jen

Jennifer on 04.01.05 @ 09:10 AM EST [Entry Link]