Quote of the Day

Second Accomplishment of the Day

I just beat Turret Wars on the "normal" setting.

It's the little shit, man. Gotta celebrate whenever you can.

The Celebrations are Short-Lived

Oh yay! I've finally sent off agent-requested revisions to said agent! Oh glorious day! Oh fantastic -

Oh, gawd, I'm twelve hundred words behind on my Black Desert writing schedule.

It really is like I have two full-time jobs.

Round 85

Latest God's War revisions are done (again).

I get the feeling I'm going to be saying that a lot this year.

In Which the Protagonist Has a Small Heart Attack

Went into the pharmacy today to fill my med subscription. I'd been putting off refilling my insulin until I had my insurance card, so needless to say I was down to half a pen of Novolog and my last Lantus pen.

So I walk in and get just one thing of testing strips on top of that because I don't have the prescription refill on me cause I see my endo this week, and my last insurance company didn't cover the strips unless I had the RX.

But you can imagine my shock when the pharmacist aid said, "That'll be $342."

"I'm sorry?" I said.

"Three hundred forty-two dollars," she repeated.

"That can't be right. I have a $100 deductible, and then everything is free. They cover 100%."

She called over the pharmacist, who looked rather surprised at the slip. "Oh!" he exclaimed, "I never look at that part!"

Well, of course. Why would a pharmacist care how much we're all paying for the drugs that keep us alive.

Dude. My company is paying thousands of dollars a month so I can have this wicked-good health care and you're fucking me over.

"I can't afford this," I said, knowing full well I wasn't going to leave the pharmacy without the drugs. Because without the drugs, I will die.

So I pulled out my credit card, which now has over $12,000 on it. For just this reason.

I was so angry I couldn't speak. I wanted to scream and rage and knock something over. I was literally shaking as I left the pharmacy, I was so fucking angry. Here were all the old memories again, of being unemployed and spending putting $350 on the credit card every month that I didn't have, just so I could fucking live, digging a deeper hole just to postpone the invevitable.

And I fucking hate that feeling. I hate that dependency. I hate that my ability to fucking live could be fucked at any time by somebody fucking up their paperwork. I hate that I'll never be able to fucking work for myself because I'll always have to have employer-sponsored health insurance. I hate drugs in general and insurance companies in particular and I hate everything that has to do with anything.

Most of all, I fucking hate being poor.

NOTE: restrained phone call to the insurance company confirms that I am covered - but I must pay the first 1K out of pocket and submit my receipts to be reimbursed. I wonder if they will reimburse me for the finance charges on my credit card as well... no?

The Writer at Work

Things I Learned to do Today:

Hook up a light switch and mount an outdoor light.

Sexy.

Bloody Hell

It needs another Rhys chapter.

Bloody hell.

Hell hell hell.

Note to Self:

Too much sex. Not enough writing.

But really, how often do we all get to say that?

Jesus vs. Doctor Who

heh heh heh.

Why I Travel

Because it really comes in handy when you're sitting down to explain the smell, feel, geographical layout, and logistics of fantastical foreign cities.

Seriously.

Can I write all these trips off now?

Reasons to be a little crazy...

When was the last time I wrote new material? Not summaries and revisions, but new material?

Ah, yes.

Thing is, I'm doing so much writing at work that it doesn't *feel* like I haven't been writing. I feel like I've been... well, writing every day. And I certainly *open up* my actual writing files at least once a day. Now I need to find the headspace to get cracking again.

Working on my new writing schedule tonight. Let's start with 500 words a day and see where that gets us. I've got a long way to go to get back on track.

Gaaaaah!

Yes, sometimes you are crazy.

"My boyfriend is Type 1. Before I met him almost 4 years ago, I knew next to nothing about diabetes. He has always insisted that he can feel when his blood glucose is high or low, and that he doesn't need to test that often. He limits his sugar intake and takes insulin twice a day, so I assumed he had it under control.

Our relationship is a very close one, but once in a while he will have these mood swings out of nowhere. He gets depressed, just wants to be left alone, feels like everything and everyone is against him. During these mood swings, he often tells me he has a feeling that I don't love him anymore or that I'm seeing someone behind his back. He feels his life is a mess and that everything is going wrong.

Then, just as suddenly as it came on, the depression will lift and everything is fine again. I never understood what was happening. I knew he loved me, but I didn't understand how he could go from the perfect boyfriend to someone who couldn't even stand to be in the same room as me (or anyone else for that matter), with no warning and seemingly for no reason." Read the rest here.

OK, all you diabetics out there? Please don't do this to your partners. Trust me when I say that you're just crazy, and when you even out, life is beautiful again. The girlfriend, in this instance, had to do all the work and research about t1 in order to get this guy back under control, which also explained and controlled the mood swings when they occurred (yes, they were low sugar episodes - not terribly surprising).

If you won't get your sugar shit together for yourself, you need to do it for the people who put up with you, cause nobody deserves to go through that crap. Learn to recognize it, and make it really clear it's not the other person's fault.

If anybody speaks to me during a low, the first thing I say is "I'm a little low; I'll be OK in a minute." That way, if it turns out I can't shut the fuck up (I usually can, but not always), then they know that if I'm snappy it's not about them, it's all about me.

Please look out for the people who care about you. I caused a lot of havoc the six months before and after I was diagnosed; I was learning what was me and what was just the sugar. When you can distinguish this for yourself, you can make it a lot easier for the other people in your life to distinguish it, too.

Rhino

Somebody should tell that Rhino she's fine just the way she is. Also, I love me some pretty unicorns, but at the end of the day, the rhino's gonna win in a rumble.

Most Days, Really

No Christmas for You

I can get tickets home for the holidays for just under $700, or just under $800 if I want to avoid Chicago and Denver and get out at a reasonable hour. I used to think getting home from Chicago for just under $600 was a raw deal.

Ah, the joys of living in Ohio.

I'll get home for the holidays, sure, but nobody's getting presents this year.

Tra-la!

For Travis

Because I'm EVIL.

We Can't Stop Here...

Mmmmmm Sparta!!!

Looking Back

When archaeologists look back at something like this, what will they see? A religious complex? A city built to honor some god? A complex created to flee the mainland? A high-tech leper colony?

When I look at some of the gradiose projects we put together in our time for the amusement of the wealthy, I can't help but think that everything we assume about the cities and monuments of the past is dead wrong.

Sleepless Nights

Malaysia's Muslim men are suffering sleepless nights and cannot pray properly because their thoughts are distracted by a growing number of women who wear sexy clothes in public, a prominent cleric said.

Nik Abdul Aziz Nik Mat, the spiritual leader of the opposition Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party, said he wanted to speak about the "emotional abuse" that men face because it is seldom discussed, the party reported on its Web site Wednesday.

"We always [hear about] the abuse of children and wives in households, which is easily perceived by the eye, but the emotional abuse of men cannot be seen," Nik Abdul Aziz said. "Our prayers become unfocused and our sleep is often disturbed."

I have this problem all the time, let me tell you. I mean, there are bare-armed, bare-legged men walking around my bedroom all night long. I've even seen men wear short sleeves at church, without shame.

Hookers.

How to Make Pancakes Like a Crackhead

Oh the deliciousness!

Sugar

1/4 piece of a Killer Brownie from Dorothy Lane Market eaten at today's workadoo holiday potluck + 1 spoonful gooey macaroni + dollop of oreo cream puddy pie =

OMFG.

I never fucking eat this stuff any more.

There's this moment of loss and longing, after you eat it, realizing that you're just never going to eat the way you used to, ever again.

Yeah yeah, eating to excess is bad, blah blah blah, but you know what? I liked my holiday indugences. I liked being able to eat a whole bag of potato chips if I felt like it. I liked eating three bagels in an afternoon on occasion. I liked sitting around eating chocolates and watching mindless tv.

I didn't used to do these things all the time, obviously, but if I *wanted* to, the option was there. Sure, I still *could* eat a whole bag of potato chips, but I'll have a headache for an hour, my whole body will slow down to a crawl, and it'll send my sugar into a low/high rollercoaster that'll take me a week to get back under control.

The sense of joy and delight associated with eating really good food to excess just isn't there anymore.

Some other life.

Fear & Longing

I started plugging in dates to price tickets for going home for the holidays, and I realized that one of the reasons (besides the price) that I've been putting it off is because I'm really going to miss my boyfriend when I'm gone (insert vomiting noise here, yeah).

It's stupid, lame, and, I suppose, a fleeting feeling. We've been going out less than two months (we were friends for a couple months before that as well). *Everything* looks better at the beginning. Eventually, you get sick of each other, or he stops saying "I miss you" and he dumps you cause it's too serious or you dump him (or her) because the idea of an entire future together is just too terrifyingly permanent, like death.

The thing is, everybody tells you how to fall in love. There are tons of movies and songs and media sobfests and bitchsessions all about how to start up a whirlwind romance. It's hot and fun and you laugh and have a great time.

You start a lot of romances in your lifetime, but nobody ever teaches you how to *stay* in love. Nobody teaches you how to stay together.

It's like a writer who never finishes a book. You've got all these great beginnings. You're great at writing beginnings. But slogging through the middle? Wrapping up the end? You've got no experience with that.

Falling is easy, sticking is hard.

At least in the case of writers, we have lots of more or less successful examples to look at to teach us how. But in real life? How many really loving, successful relationships do you see? Relationships where people stayed together for some reason other than "well, I can't do better" or "we can't afford to break up" or "I guess it would hurt the kids if we split."

And maybe that's the thing - at one time or another, what kept some longterm couples together was just that one thing. Some fatalistic thing, and they pushed through it, and things were better (as Steph once half-jokingly said to me "Me and the Old Man got engaged because we needed more than love to keep us together"). But man, you know, my fear of getting stuck in a relationship that's ALL that - that's based on two people sticking together out of something other than wanting, something less than mutual respect and friendship... that's hard to swallow.

The problem with constantly waiting and worrying over the ending of a relationship is that you lose all the good stuff in-between. You miss the missing; you fail to enjoy the laughter, the amazing sex, the verbal sparring, the pancakes in the morning, because you're always waiting for that moment when you lose it.

Thing is, I guess, I already lost this particular boyfriend once for one miserable week where we both looked and felt like death. We came back to it, because being miserable sucked goats, and we laugh a whole hell of a lot more together than apart, but how long does that last? How long until the next time? Until one of us flips out again or we get bored with each other? Maybe once we're bored with each other, the break won't be as painful, or as hard. We can hope.

Thing is, you know, I'm tired of being afraid of everything and living through something expecting it to end. I'm tired of writing hot beginnings whose tough middles I can't make it through. I want an ending hotter than my beginning, and a middle that's hotter than both. I just don't have a roadmap on how to do that.

People talk a lot about the sort of courage it takes to be a writer, to put yourself out there. It takes a lot of courage to live fully, too, to put your heart out there. It's going to hurt either way. Sometimes it's pretty scary not knowing where you're going. Exhilarating, terrifying, beautiful. An adventure. But fucking scary.

We lose everybody, in the end. If not to a breakup then to death or disaster. The ending always comes, whether or not we're prepared for it. Unlike fiction, there's no putting it off or setting it aside.

I want to find out how this one is going to end, no matter how much it scares the hell out of me. Because I wouldn't trade this beginning for anything, even if it's going nowhere; even if it ends tomorrow.

Good German, Bad German

The Good German, the book: Excellent.

The Good German, the movie: WTF?

If I hadn't read the book, I don't think I'd have any idea what was going on. The characters were entirely unsympathetic. Instead of good people made bad by bad circumstances, they were all (with the exception of Clooney) a bunch of black roaches feeding off a dying city (not gray roaches, but thoroughly black). The plot was mishmash, confusing. It tried to follow the story through all three POVs, starting with the least sympathetic, moving to the most, then back to another unsympathetic character.

Jumping heads was supposed to clarify what is, in fact, a really complex plot. Instead, it needlessly complexified it (yes, I'm declaring that a word).

It was really terrible, and terribly dull, which is a shame.

It's a great book.

Mmmmmm

Pumpkin PIE!!

It is always so reasonably carbed.

The Writer

I write everything at my job. Everything.

I write up SOPs for software installation, hardware maintenance, corporate store applications. I write "news" stories and announcements for our intranet frontpage. I create PowerPoint presentations from talking-point outlines. I write and edit marketing copy, business proposals, executive resumes. I write and revise panel descriptions, sales rep letters, insurance business proposals and company histories and all of our web content.

I have written talks about tax history, documents about how to use our timekeeping system and how to create service tickets. I've written sales policies, revised the company handbook, formatted and reviewed hotel directions, convention agendas, and loan applications. I've created order forms and trade brochures and email campaigns and edited four hundred pages of operations manual - twice.

I have written everything, and when I didn't know how to write it, I googled it and found formats and examples and ideas. I'm constantly learning about how to write sales pitches, persuasive copy, and business proposals, because you can never be too good at writing those, and you can always be better.

And I've spent the last couple of weeks working on synopses, one-line elevator pitches, pitch paragraphs, pitch packages, pitch copy, because you can never be too good at writing those, either. I have never written this shit before, and it's involved a lot of reading, a lot of searching, a lot of reviewing, a lot of writing and re-writing and starting over and reading.

It's a small miracle, making a living as a writer. What people never understand, though, what everyone sighs over and makes eyes at, is that writing is a job. Like acting or modeling, it seems very glamorous, but I don't think I realized exactly why it seemed so glamorous. I honestly thought all that glamor had to do with lots of money and hot bed partners and expensive toys and trips to Paris.

We've attached all sorts of associations with these sorts of professions, but the glamor of making it as a creative person isn't actually about the work itself, or even the expected perks, I think. Work is work.

The real glamor, the real perk, is the idea of spending your days doing something you love.

Sometimes I think that's what the allure is of any place: this idea that you can live somewhere, with someone, doing something, you love.

It is, perhaps, the greatest gift on earth.

That's the glamor.

Synopses:

Still hate them.

On the upside, I didn't realize I had this many backlogged novel projects.

So.

That turned out to be a very pleasant night.

I've been having a lot of those lately.

This One's For Patrick

Slaughter your world! (and kick a puppy!)

PUMPKINS!!!

Fresh, nubile pumpkins await their transformation.


Stephanie holds their fate in her hands....



I have all the right tools for the job.



Just call me the eviserator.



Mmmmmm. Tasty eviseration.


Around here, we don't need costumes to be scary.


Gutting nubile corpses is tough work, even for brutal women....


Mmmmmm... tasty pumpkin guts.


I take sinful delight in my work. Really, who wouldn't?


Stephanie has a surgeon's skill paired with a grave digger's sense of urgency. It's a deadly combination.


There's more where THIS came from....


I'm TELLING you: STEPHANIE HAS MAD PUMPKIN SKILLZ!!!!


The brutality takes shape....


Yes, EVIL has a face....


... and a not-so-steady aim.


Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.... Gotta love that new pumpkin smell!!!


The resemblence is STRIKING.


Sometimes I even scare MYSELF.


And then I see THIS FACE: and I am truly TERRIFIED!!!!


Stephanie's reaction is far less dramatic. I think she's still in shock.


I, however, have moved quite quickly from awe to shock to horror to pure, unadulterated batshit-crazy lunacy. Pumpkins have that effect on me.


Later, we teach Tessa to feed off the remains. It builds character.


Stephanie's pumpkin takes the left watch.


Mine takes the right.


Our terrifying creations complete their journey from nubile, fresh-faced pumpkins to brutal jack o' lanterns in just one night.

They'll thank us in the morning.

Together

Natural Architecture

Yummy!

Insured vs. Uninsured

Money I've saved in the last three months while being insured:

Hospital costs saved: $896.94 (two more claims for over $800 are still pending)

Meds costs saved: $611.51

That's $1508.45 saved on medical costs in three months. Just three months.

I wasn't joking when I said these costs-to-keep-breathing - pre-employement - were literally killing me.

And, of course, I HAVE paid costs out of pocket. That's just what insurance paid. Total out of pocket for the last three months is still: $475.46

Which is still 1/4 of what I was paying in medical costs pre-employment.

Four Suns

Definately the star system I'll use for The Burning Fields.

Note to Self:

Just because cheese curds are carb free does not mean I should eat the entire bag, blissfully satisfying as it may be to munch without fear of sugar overload.

Things I Hate More than Anything

Summarizing my books. Whether that's one-line summaries or full synposes. Hate, hate hate.

And it's something I seriously need to get better at.

That's what I keep telling myself as I slog through.

Quote of the Day

"Honestly, I think the only difference between depression and disappointment is your level of commitment."
- via Stephanie, who heard it on "some show."

Time

"Funky Things You Discover While Living in Africa"

Yup.

Fires in CA

From here.

"You Too, Mother?"

The one line that beautifully illustrates my undying love for Rome.

Midnight Madness

One of the ways I control my sugar when it's been out of hand over several days or when I eat something I don't generally eat for dinner is, I set my alarm clock for midnight and do a midnight sugar check.

What this allows me to do is adjust my sugar to keep it from rollercoastering too high overnight. If I was eating something that's got a weird rate of absorption, the numbers usually shoot up between my bedtime test at 9 or 10 and my midnight correction (unless I did a heavy exercise/kickboxing session the night before, in which case it spikes downward). This is why I tend to eat low carb and stick to certain types of foods. When I don't, I start to rollercoaster, and when you rollercoaster, you have to work fucking hard for about three days in a row with midnight testing and watching what you eat just to get back to your happy numbers.

The funny thing is, that even if I'm eating all right, I will, without fail, jump at least forty points between midnight and 5:45 am when I get out of bed. It's just how it is. I tested one midnight at 56, another at 68, and I resisted the urge to overcorrect (I did once, and woke up at 140). If I didn't correct, I'd wake up at 90 or 100 instead of 140.

So, why do a midnight correction if the difference is between 90 and 140? No big deal, right? Well, if I don't do a midnight correction and I have Chipotle for dinner, I could go to bed at 90 and wake up at 200. Big, big difference.

And yes, I learned all this through trial and error, and every diabetic is different. Your mileage may vary.

The last couple of weeks have been a little stressful, and I've been eating crap - going out and eating onion rings and chicken strips, waaaay too many Chipotle burritos (there is a direct correlation between Chipotle burrito consumption and my stress level), and chicken wings and breakfast scramble wraps here at work. Too much weird food, and it triggers a rollercoaster sugar ride, which then affects my mood. Extreme highs and lows wear me out. I feel like dirt. Quite literally, like dirt.

So this week I'm working at recovering from last week's rollercoaster. I realized I'd taken things too far yesterday, when I was so exhausted and bitchy that all I wanted to do was go home and sleep for ten hours because I found the idea of interacting with people - including my roomies and the boyfriend - really exhausting and annoying.

People find it very funny that I take such crazy control of my sugar, that I work so hard at it, but you know - I'm not a fun person to be around when my sugar sucks. I physically feel really, really bad. If I'm too low, I want to claw people's faces off. If I'm too high, I'm tired and bitchy all the time and too exhausted to speak to people, who then thing that it's them who's done something wrong, when in fact, it's all about me.

If rollercoastering goes on too long, some of those bad feelings are going to get out, and I'll start to lash out at the people around me who I love and care about. And after what happened back in Chicago, after knowing just how badly things can go if I'm not running at 100%, I'm committed to taking care of myself to reduce if not eliminate the possibility of me hurting people like that. I hate hurting people. If you can take better care of yourself so that you *and* the people around you benefit, wonderful. To do otherwise isn't just self-destructive: it's selfish.

Sure, if you want to be a hermit in a cave and not have anybody care about you, that's one thing, but if you want to invite people into your life, you must do your best to respect them. You can start by respecting yourself.

And yes, it's fucking hard.

Things to Say When Someone Has Broken Up With You

HAHA ah HAHA AHaha ahaha HA ahahA

Recommended Reading

I've been spending the vast majority of my time reading about ADD, Islam, and copywriting. Yes, it's an eclectic, informative, but incredibly non-relaxing cornucopia of nonfiction. I seriously need a break.

Any recommendations for fat fantasy that doesn't suck? I may pick up the new Daniel Abraham book, I couldn't stand the Lies of Locke Lamora book and so have no interest in the sequel, and Song of Ice and Fire 4 and Kushiel 4 have both gotten so long-winded that I can't stand the idea of picking them up again even to finish wading through them. I even tried to read Kathryn Harrison's non-genre Envy. I love a couple of her other books, but her self-absorbed characters are starting to annoy me.

Got any recommendations?

Faith, Love & Death

"Don't lose faith. I'm convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You've got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don't settle."

And this:

"Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart."

Yes.


Read the rest.

Artificial Sky

Because it's more useful here than in Vegas.

Trust me. I know.

One of Those Nights

It occurs to me that I don't handle stress as well as I used to. That, or I was just never in a position where I had to balance so many different aspects of my life - and the lives of others - all at once.

It's a challenge. I'm up for it, but it's a challenge.

My sugar has sucked since I started with the new monitor and insulin pens. The pens are fucking great, but for some reason even when I hold the button down for the full ten seconds, there's still at least half a unit of insulin that I never get, so I've had to dose myself one extra unit every time. That, paired with the fact that I've switched to an electronic monitor that records my numbers instead of recording them myself, means I don't view all of my numbers daily. Whoever made the OneTouch software program made it stupid and clunky. It's so useless at displaying the numbers in a way I find helpful that I just avoid loading numbers for weeks at a time. I have only a vague idea of where I've been at, and it hasn't been all that great. OK, Ok, probably it's got me running 130-180, which isn't the end of the world, but it certainly fucking isn't at those lovely 70-120 numbers that I so adored.

I need to get back on that, and I'm kind of pissed that it looks like what I have to do to kick my ass for that is go back to manually recording all of my numbers so I can SEE exactly how my sugar is trending overall. It's too easy to just throw out a bad number when you don't have to look at it three times a day when you enter your other readings into your spreadsheet.

So that's something I need to balance back in. I was really fucking proud of my 5.9 A1C, and I have a feeling I'm going to be closer to 6.5 or something (under 7 is still good for a t1, but 6 and under is the A1C of a non-diabetic) when I see my endo next month if I don't get my shit together. We'll see.

In any case, it's one of those nights.

But at least I'm not eating Tom.

My YouTube Debut

OK, our web developer put it up on YouTube, so it's not my fault.

I won't identify the whole team here, but I'm the last person on the far left. We're missing about three team members here (they're hard at work in the adjoining room), but these are the folks I spend my day with, for the most part.

Yes, every day is like this.

I love my job.

Updated Website

My website is very pretty now, and has been updated.

My Weekend

Was up at 6am on Saturday to prep for the franchise convention. Headed down to the hotel and worked with our tech guys to synch up my asshatted computer with the projector so my PowerPoint presentation displayed correctly. Ran through a mock-up of the presentation with the slide transitions, then attended the general session, presented two 45-min sessions about our new intranet portal and its features, lunched, and presented two more 45-min sessions to another two groups of franchisees.

I had a guy come up to me at lunch and say, "You're one of the most incredibly confident, determined, passionate people your age I've ever met."

How this came across during a 45-minute presentation about our intranet portal, I don't know. I can turn on my funny, confident, outgoing self for short presentations, and I know that a lot of the love for my job, what I do, the free health insurance, my affection for the team I work with, came out during my talk.

"Well," I said. "It's not that complicated. I just know what I want."

"Exactly," he said. "You have no idea how rare that is. Most of us still have no idea."

And me? Man, I've worked hard to get to where I am, and I'm still just renting a room at my friends' place. I certainly have a lot right now, and I'm incredibly blessed and happy to be where I am, but I have a long way to go. And I know exactly where I'd like to be. Maybe that is pretty rare these days.

It was a really good convention, in any case. This company has a fantastic group of great franchisees. They were a lot of fun to talk to. I've done theater, and spoken at writing conventions before, so the actual doing wasn't tough: it was just all the buildup that was stressful. This week has been insane getting this convention put together. I had a blast, but was ready to collapse come 4pm. I didn't bother staying for dinner (our programming was done at 3:15; after that was general sessions led by the exec staff), and went home and put in some napping and movie watching time with the boyfriend.

Besides the convention, I've been putting together the synopsis for the third book in the God's War series, Babylon. It's why I was up until 11pm at the Books & Co. down the street on Friday, and perpetually sleep deprived this week. Convention madness + personal writing deadlines + addiction to boyfriend time = sleep deprivation.

Finished up the synopsis today and got it off to my agent (MY AGENT!!!!!) and started printing out the old synopses for my old series. I have stuff for The Dragon's War and Over Burning Cities that I'll be revising and putting back together again, writing up pitch paragraphs for the rest of the series, et al.

Things at work won't be as stressful this week, and I'm thinking of taking Friday off since I worked Saturday. This will give me some time to get my Ohio driver's license and maybe go to Columbus this weekend and hang out: me, the boyfriend, Steph, and the Old Man. Might be fun.

Yes, I'm busy. It's damn fine busy, but it explains the lack of posting. I'm going to need to find some kind of balance for all of this stuff pretty soon here. I think some weeks will just be easier than other.

Tra-la

There's Nothing More Fun...

... than freaking out about the recovery of a completely fucked corrupted file at eleven o'clock at night when you have to be up at 6am the next day to present four hours worth of breakout sessions at a franchise convention.

Yuuuuummmmmmmmmmmy.

Well, It's Official

I was waiting for her to publicly post it first.... so now it's really true!

For those that didn't read it in the locked LJ post, me and God's War and all the rest are now being represented by Jennifer Jackson of the Donald Maass Literary agency.

I'm uber-super-thrilled about this. She was my first pick from the start (years and years ago when I was trying to sell The Dragon's War), and I'm still sort of stunned.

I couldn't be happier.

And yeah, the amount of work I need to do, writing-wise, just shot up.

But I couldn't be happier about that, either.

My Peeps

But waaaaaaaaaaaait a minute... I tied with the Serenity crew and Deep Space Nine?

Oh well. B5 isn't so bad when the actors pretend to act and the monologuing is kept to a minimum. But really: I'd prefer the Serenity graphic.

Which sci-fi crew would you best fit in with? (pics) created with QuizFarm.com

You scored as Babylon 5 (Babylon 5) The universe is erupting into war and your government picks the wrong side. How much worse could things get? It doesn’t matter, because no matter what you have your friends and you'll do the right thing. In the end that will be all that matters. Now if only the Psi Cops would leave you alone. Serenity (Firefly) 75% Babylon 5 (Babylon 5) 75% Deep Space Nine (Star Trek) 75% Millennium Falcon (Star Wars) 69% Moya (Farscape) 63% Nebuchadnezzar (The Matrix) 63% SG-1 (Stargate) 50% Andromeda Ascendant (Andromeda) 50% Bebop (Cowboy Bebop) 50% Enterprise D (Star Trek) 44% Heart of Gold (Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy) 44% Galactica (Battlestar: Galactica) 38% FBI's X-Files Division (The X-Files) 25%

Heavenly Health Insurance

We had a big meeting today at work because our health benefits will change Nov. 1st. I'd known this was coming since I signed with the company, so I was nervous and busy doing math and looking up tiered drugs and in-network providers and going through all the paperwork and thinking, wait a minute, this can't be right...

But when we went into the meeting, we found out that yes, in fact the paperwork was right.

Our new plan requires a $100 individual deductible, and then it pays 100% of in-network costs. 100% of prescriptions. 80% of out-of-network if you really want to stick with another doctor.

No, no: seriously.

100% of prescriptions and no doctor co-pay in-network.

This means, not only do I no longer pay my $15 co-pay that I thought was so fucking sweet, but I no longer pay the $70 per month in diabetic supplies.

I will no longer be paying healthcare costs of any kind except for the $10 per month the company takes out of my paycheck (so long as I stay in network, and yes, my endo is in-network).

Me and one of my work buddies went over the math some more afterwards. He has high drug costs as well, and we both just sort of looked at each other and went, "Holy fuck no shit this can't fucking be true."

It's like fucking socialized medicine.

IT'S LIKE LIVING IN A CIVILIZED COUNTRY...

LIKE CANADA.

Fucking Christmas.

No idea how long this will last (at least through next year), but living in Dayton just got a lot sweeter. I might make less than I did in Chicago, but add in the huge amount I'm saving on drugs and medical costs, and I'm easily making more than I did there.

We gave the HR Director a round of applause.

Sleeeeeeep

Seriously, all I want to do right now is sleep. We've got a franchisee convention coming up this weekend and we are crazy-busy putting together tons of materials and presentations and slides for that, and I've got a ton of novel writing work to get done when work hours end.

So I'm off to Chipotle for a burrito and diet Coke and then it's Books & Co. for another night of banging-head-against-novel.

I should chop somebody's head off next chapter just for kicks.

Seriously, I Need to Get Some Sleep

It's like being 17 again, only with professional success, self-esteem, and no curfew.

But I really need to catch up on my sleep.

And get a lot of fucking writing done.

And... but first:

Sleep.

Quote of the Day

"In the 60's people took acid to make the world weird. Now the world is weird and people take Prozac to make it normal."

Yes, This is What Happens at Planned Parenthood

Over 90% of women of childbearing age use some sort of contraception method. I quickly became aware that my male gender has allowed me to pass through medical school (and life!) totally ignorant of all of this. My patients came in using almost everything–condoms, the pill, the patch, Nuvaring, Depo–and I was left perplexed. What a humbling role reversal–this was one of the first times it’s been so painfully obvious that my patients are more informed about their health and medicines than me.

Valuing Girls

Here's a look at an all-girl public elementary school in New York. I'm not a huge fan of sex-segregated schools, but watching what they do here - naming the classrooms after women of achievement, having women speakers who are doctors, lawyers, football players; promoting a girls-are-women-of-achievement atmosphere - makes for a good look at how things could be really different.

The Life of American Vagabounds

La Vida de Vagabundos Americanos

More Reasons to Take Martial Arts Classes

Because most fights only have to last about this long.

HouseKeeping

I've been spending the weekend trying to put my book projects in order (OK, Saturday was mostly pancakes, barbecue, and the like, but I was thinking real hard about it. Most of the actual working happened today, while I was still hungover from staying up too late out here).

And today I reviewed, once again, all of the projects I'm currently interested in completing and shopping:

Nyx books:

God's War - shopping
Black Desert - drafting
Babylon - synopsis

Ruusu books:

The Dragon's War - shopping
Over Burning Cities - drafting
Book 3 - rough outline
Book 4 - rough outline
Book 5 - rough outline

Stand-alone guerrilla-girl genocide novel:

The Burning Fields - rough outline/researching

Hell, if I could sell the Ruusu books, that's enough projects to keep me busy for the next ten years. And if I don't, well, there are still enough books about guerrilla girls and holy wars to keep me busy for five or six.

I don't consider this a bad thing. Problem is, I really need to keep other shit off my plate until I finish some of these. Right now the priority list is the Nyx books, followed by The Burning Fields. All the Ruusu books are on hold for now. I think I may need to revisit the concept when I'm a little more skilled.

In the meantime, no more projects on the fucking burner until I have Black Desert in the bag and at least half of Babylon done.

Mmmmmm

My bills are paid, my account is empty, and I have a bunch of writing stuff to clean up and put together today.

Tra-la!

Zelda

Legend of Zelda Artwork.

Snapshots from my Worklife

We're working with a new software program here, and I'm reading through the technical how-to material that was sent to us by the software creator.

There are typos, certainly, which I find even more annoying now that I do this for a living, but what stopped me in my tracks was this:

"Help - Takes you to frequently asked questions, an instructive knowledge base, and other tools to aid you."

I'm sorry... WHAT THE FUCK IS "an instructive knowledge base"?

Instructive Knowledge Base.

Dear lord.

LOL Diabetes: OMG

And more!!

Remember: Life Starts Now

Joy's newest Fat Rant.

One for the Road

I love life.

Chinese Propaganda Posters

(text reads: Kill the bastard Chen Zai-Dao as a sacrifice to the souls of our brave martyrs)

More here.

My New Favorite Word Hangouts

I got tired of going to the ad-ridden dictionary.com and thesaurus.com at work in order to look up words.

Enter:

ninjawords.com (a free dictionary)

freethesaurss.net (obviously)

These are my new best friends.

Conversations from my Personal Life

Was talking over the phone last night with the guy I've been on again/off again dating the last month or so.

"Well, it's not like my head thinks this is a totally rational pursuit either," I said. "I mean, we have nothing in common, and we're both poor and in debt."

"We have LOTS of stuff in common," he said, deadpan, "We're both poor and in debt."

Man, can he make me laugh.

Life is engaging, at the moment. Have a big work convention thing coming up that's going to eat up the weekend of the 20th, and I'm putting together a presentation for that, including loads of documentation. There's a lot of shit to do, but you know, I love my job and I'm having a lot of fun. I've been working out regularly again and working on Black Desert and my roommates are crazy and the dogs are crazy and the guy I'm sometimes dating is crazy and yes, indeed, I am crazy... so yeah, life is damn good. Busy, but damn good.

I'm sure I'll have something more lengthy and profound to say about it all shortly.

Fucking Awesome

Where do I sign up?

Yay!

Falling Leaves

Back in Battle Ground, my mom and my nephew enjoy the season.

Quote of the Day

Life

It's an adventure.

Quote of the Day

"The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy."
- Martin Luther King, Jr.

And then... Damn