Monday night, my husband and I were trying to decide what restaurant to go to for my birthday dinner. We’re tossing around ideas when “T” (my 5-year-old) says:

“Can we go to Burger King?”

So, I say, “No, sweetie, mommy doesn’t want to go to Burger King for her birthday dinner.”

He scrunches up his face and replies, “Ohhh, that hurts like the dickens!”

I couldn’t stop laughing about that one, and of course, since he knew I found it funny, the rest of the night his response to everything was ‘that hurts like the dickens!’

So, today, I’m staring at my computer, three pages into chapter seven and I have the overwhelming urge to shout at the top of my lungs, “this hurts like the dickens!” One of these days, a chapter will actually come easy to me. One of these days…

This past weekend my husband needed to go down to Tucson to pick up a car and wanted me to come with. I said, that’s fine, I just don’t want to have to drive through the snake river canyon in the dark on the way back. So, he promised we’d leave in plenty of time to get through the canyon during the daylight hours.

Of course, we ended up leaving later than planned, then we had to stop for dinner. The sun starts going down and wouldn’t you know it, we hit the canyon, and boom, the sun sinks. The road through the canyon twists and turns as well as descends on an 8% grade. It’s also one lane in either direction and a loonng way down. Now, while this makes me nervous, what makes me more nervous is the other cars that think going 60 mph around these curves is normal and you should get out of their way. Luckily, there wasn’t too much traffic. But still….

This is me:

This is me driving through the Snake River Canyon:

Any questions?

Good. Now, today I’ve turned one year older, and I can already tell that I’m not liking it very much. But, heck, it could be worse. I could still be driving through the Snake River Canyon.

I went to pick my son up from school yesterday and this is the temperature recorded on the sign at the electric company. 264 degrees? Um….okay…I think that sign needs a teensy weensy bit of adjustment.

I’m proud to report that I finished the chapter from hell and beyond!! Who hoo! It still needs work, but I was just ecstatic to get past it. Hopefully the next few chapters will flow smooth like butter because, darn it, I need a break! :)

I wish I had something fun and cool to report, but unfortunately, life hasn’t been cooperating. I’m putting together a query for HQN and will probably drop that in the mail in the next day or so. I really need to keep the motivation going.

What do you do when you need to pump up your motivation?

I’ve made so little progress on my writing lately. I’m trying to climb back on the writing wagon, but my frustration has been making the climb extremely difficult. And I can feel that frustration creeping in and spilling over other parts of my life as well.

I’m frustrated! LOL! But it has to stop, because it’s driving me crazy…

Well, apparently, Warner Books is not accepting unsolicted queries either. I just received a postcard back in my SASE that reads that they are not currently accepting query letters, proposals or manuscripts from unagented authors.

Oh, well. Nothing ventured nothing gained and all that. Time to figure out my next plan of attack. :) 

What to blog about when you have nothing to blog about? So, I’m creating a new ‘feature’….Wednesday’s Useless Fact About Me (and Other Stuff).

I’m sure this will rivet you all.

I know how to tap-dance. Yep, I took tap-dancing classes when I was in my twenties because I had an obsession with Gene Kelly and I wanted to know how the heck he did it. I found out that it’s much harder than it looks. Gene Kelly managed to combine amazing athleticism with fluid grace and although I’ve seen some of his movies hundreds of times, I never get tired of them. My favorite is probably An American in Paris (because, let’s face it, it’s brilliant), but I love Singin’ In the Rain, Anchors Aweigh and On the Town as well.

I went out on a limb and dropped a query in the mail today to Warner Books for HER OWN BEST ENEMY. I did some research and realized that they will accept a one-page query letter from unagented authors, so I thought, “What a great way to motivate myself to finish my book!”

Warner listed their response time on unagented queries as 2-3 months, although I’m sure that’s optimistic, and in the end, I may not even get a response. But I’ve been sorely lacking in motivation lately and I needed an extra kick in the pants. If I focus, I know I can finish the book in two months, which means forcing myself to complete my pages BEFORE I hop on the internet from now on.

So, here’s to hard work and the hope that Warner will think my book would be a great addition to their Warner Forever line.