Okay, enough tweaking. I've been playing with this thing all weekend and I think I finally have it to a point where I like it. I am HTML-illiterate, so this has been a real learning process for me. I should have been writing, but alas, playing with blogger was more fun . . . er . . . frustrating.

Speaking of writing, somewhere along the way I did manage to finish chapter 8. And I gotta tell ya, my hero and heroine are never gonna get together at this point.

Oh, Lordy.

So . . . tell me what you think of the new blog!

I came home from our Thanksgiving trip pleasantly surprised to learn I'd finaled in the Romancing the Tome contest with my wip.

Can you say....surprise???? I rarely enter contests, so this was pretty cool news.

On top of that, I got some great feedback on my entry, and, ironically, all of it was right in line with what my fabulous critique partners had to say after they read the first chapter (smart me, I entered before sending to the cp's. LOL).

I guess that means they really know what they're talking about. ;)

Have a great Thanksgiving! (And enjoy the following!)

Actual analogies and metaphors found in high school essays:

1. Her face was a perfect oval, like a circle that had its two sides gently compressed by a Thigh Master.

2. His thoughts tumbled in his head, making and breaking alliances like underpants in a dryer without Cling Free.

3. She grew on him like she was a colony of E.coli and he was room-temperature Canadian beef.

4. She had a deep, throaty, genuine laugh, like that sound a dog makes just before it throws up.

5. Her vocabulary was as bad as, like, whatever.

6. He was as tall as a six-foot-three-inch tree.

7. The revelation that his marriage of 30 years had disintegrated because of his wife's infidelity came as a rude shock, like a surcharge at a formerly free ATM.

8. The little boat gently drifted across the pond exactly the way a bowling ball wouldn't.

9. McBride fell 12 stories, hitting the pavement like a Hefty bag filled with vegetable soup.

10. From the attic came an unearthly howl. The whole scene had a surreal quality, like when you're on vacation in another city and Jeopardy comes on at 7:00 p.m. instead of 7:30.

11. Her hair glistened in the rain like a nose hair after a sneeze.

12. The hailstones leaped from the pavement, just like maggots when you fry them in hot grease.

13. Long separated by cruel fate, the star-crossed lovers raced across the grassy field toward each other like two freight trains, one having left Cleveland at 6:36 p.m. traveling at 55 mph, the other from Topeka at 4:19 p.m. at a speed of 35 mph.

14. John and Mary had never met. They were like two hummingbirds who had also never met.

15. He fell for her like his heart was a mob informant and she was the East River.

16. Even in his last years, Grandpappy had a mind like a steel trap, but one that had been left out so long, it had rusted shut.

17. The plan was simple, like my brother-in-law Phil. But unlike Phil, this plan just might work.

18. The ballerina rose gracefully en pointe and extended one slender leg behind her, like a dog at a fire hydrant.

19. It was an American tradition, like fathers chasing kids around with power tools.

20. He was deeply in love. When she spoke, he thought he heard bells as if she were a garbage truck backing up.

21. She walked into my office like a centipede with 98 missing legs.

22. It hurt the way your tongue hurts after you accidentally staple it to the wall.

So I'm printing my GH entry as I blog. And I'm looking at it thinking, this is a really dumb idea.

Fifty bucks.

Fifty bucks to throw your manuscript at the wall and see if it sticks. To wonder if other writers will think it's even any good. To wait until March to see if you finaled, then sit in agony the day the loops are filled with "I got the call!" posts as you continue to wait.

And wait.

And wait.

And then when you're convinced you aren't going to be one of the lucky ones, you wait some more for your scores to arrive in the mail so you can be thoroughly depressed when they're all over the map.

Because they're just scores. 1-10. And decimals, even! No feedback. And no scoring guide. So you have no idea why you got a five or what the freak a five even means!

Argh.

Of course, there is always that fantasy that you'll final. That you'll get to dress to the nines for the awards ceremony the last day of Nationals. That you'll be invited to the finalist parties, that people will look at your GH Finalist ribbon with envy. That you, of all people, will hear your name called and get to walk across that stage and show the world what a wonderful writer you are.

That's the fantasy. That's the reason we keep entering even though its a crap-shoot and most of us know our odds of winning the lottery are probably better than finaling in the GH.

But we do it anyway.

Because there's always that uncertainty hanging out there...

What if...

Awoke early Saturday morning to gunshots going off in a nearby neighborhood. Turns out, the man (husband and father of 6) decided to start shooting up his neighbor's cars and houses for reasons yet to be discovered. After he'd done some significant damage (no victims, however), he went to the local police station and attempted to set several patrol cars on fire. Officers responded, he fled and took police on a chase, and wound up in downtown Salem (state capitol and sister city) where he drove his truck up the courthouse steps and smashed it through the glass front doors. From there, he barricaded himself inside the courthouse where he set several more fires, held police in a standoff for a few hours and was finally shot and apprehended in the basement.

You can view the full article at www.kgw.com

(Again!)

Henri Lee was born Sat. morning, 11-12-05, weighing in at a whopping 9 lb. 7 oz.

Happy Birthday baby!

Okay, this is the article I tried to link the other day (but messed up and ended up posting a really good article anyway). But it's especially poignant tonight. I will read it over and over and remind myself I can do it.

File it under H: Heartbreak, Hope and the Holy Grail of Publishing

For anyone struggling on the road to publication. A must read:

Winning The Lottery

Happy Birthday To Me

Yep. That's right. I am one year older today. And it sucks. I feel older. Actually, I've felt older since having gremlin #3 (who, by the way, has turned into lightning-fast-crawling-but-silent-man and gets himself into more trouble than you can even imagine).

And I've had a really great day, too. We're having the MOTHER of all storms here, so I have no desire to even venture out of the house. The DH is deathly ill and working from home - two headaches rolled up into one great big migraine. Not only does he feel icky, but he needs it quiet so he can work. Do you know how hard it is to keep a 3 yr old quiet????

On top of all that, I mailed a requested full to a big agent in NY Tuesday. Great, right? No! Not great. Not at all! Of course, I edited and read and got the ms in tip-top shape to send it off, but then today glanced at it because I'm entering it in the GH. And it hit me - BAM - all of the sudden. The reason I've been stressing about the category I'm entering is because the first scene doesn't have a suspenseful-enough hook. So what did I do? I rewrote the first scene today, made it gel with the first chapter. And I like it much better. And CRAP I already mailed the freakin' thing to NY!

I'm so screwed.

Live and learn, right? Ay ya ya...

Happy birthday to me.