Wednesday, July 8, 2011

ASSUMPTION OF RIGHT available from Champagne Books now.
Annabel Aidan webpage here.

Wednesday, June 8, 2011
Waxing Moon
Saturn Retrograde
Pluto Retrograde
Sunny and HOT!

When you’re done here, hop on over to Diane Parkin’s blog. She’s got me (as Annabel) with a guest post on mixing what you know and what you don’t in your writing, and how that contributed to the creation of ASSUMPTION OF RIGHT.

Hit the ground running yesterday. Since I have to get the early morning watering/garden stuff done BEFORE I sit down at the desk for my first 1K (or I’d have to do my 1K at 4 AM), I now need two hours before hitting the desk instead of one for the yoga/meditation, and that means getting up earlier so that I can still be at my desk early enough in the morning to tap into my best productivity. If I wait to water the garden too late, it cooks, so it needs to be done early. I like to be very present when I’m working in the garden, not just thinking about what I should be writing (except when I’m deadheading the rhodies), so it’s kind of thrown off my process a bit. I’ll get used to it, it just takes some adjustment.

Did some work on various projects, not enough on SPIRIT REPOSITORY, dumped the next round of grass clippings at the dump, came back, loaded up the car, and drove to CT. It was an hour later than I’d hoped to start. It was a lovely day, though,

However, I wondered why the heck I was so grumpy, since it was such a lovely and sunny day. Then, I realized that I’d forgotten to eat breakfast and it was now past lunchtime. Since I am an army who moves on my stomach, I stopped near the MA-RI border at a McDonald’s, gobbled down a quick meal, and was in a much better mood by the time I got back on the road.

It was an okay ride — sunshine, I had music playing, I could hear myself think. Lots of traffic around Providence, as usual, and then from Madison on down was pretty intense.

But I got here just fine, in the late afternoon, got to work, and it was all good. Had a relaxing evening. It’s so much warmer down here — high 80s, low 90s.

Up very early this morning, yoga, meditation, and writing. I’m going to spend some more time on the page with SPIRIT REPOSITORY this morning, hopefully get some work done on Confidential Job #1, make a Costco run, do the work I’m here to do, and then head back. I need to wrestle this chapter of REPOSITORY onto the page, so that I can move on. I don’t want to write the Bonnie chapter first again and then go back to the Rufus chapter — I need to write chronologically for awhile, and I need to pick up the pace so we don’t hit “middle sag.”

Gas is 32 cents a gallon cheaper up where I am than down here, so I’m glad I can get back without having to fill the tank here!

I’m going to make the rounds now, and then get back to the page. There’s another book to get out.

I want to shout out to Juliet Blackwell — her third Lily Ivory mystery, HEXES AND HEMLINES, released yesterday. I look forward to reading it!

Devon Ellington

Friday, February 4, 2011

Violet

Friday, February 4, 2011
Waxing Moon
Saturn Retrograde
Sunny and cold

Diane Parkin has an outstanding article for writers about payment problems faced in the UK for short fiction. A lot of it applies here in the US. The other profession where people are supposed to work for “exposure” is theatre — imagine, you get to work every night and weekends for the joy of performance! Small theatre, that is. Many small theatres work hard to pay their personnel something, but the ONLY reason Broadway is paid is because of the unions. Having served as a union negotiator, the producers sit across from the table with the position we should be grateful they ALLOW us to work and stop expecting so much money — that working on Broadway is a “privilege”. Of course, they completely ignore the fact that if it wasn’t for writers, actors, designers, and crew, they wouldn’t have anything to produce, and therefore nothing that creates THEIR (often well-paid) jobs.

Yesterday was kind of a loss, due to the back problems, so I’m hoping to get back on track today. It flurried off and on all day, I managed to get out and run the errands that needed to be run, including getting to Staples, where the clerk said that the name of my company, Fearless Ink, sounds like “a really cool tattoo parlor”, which I thought was hilarious.

The rest of the day, I was stuck on the couch on either an icepack or a heating pad. I managed to finish a book I’m featuring on Biblio Paradise — sad, haunting, brutal, beautifully written — and do some more Tower of London research, some of which overlapped the time period in which the book I just read was set. I mulled over ideas for the essay that’s due on the 15th, and it’s starting to come together in my head. I just hope I can spin out 2K on it. It seems more like something that’s 800-1200 words. And a really interesting opportunity to get back to serial writing crossed my desk. I have to think about it and do some number crunching. The good thing is that the whole serial has to be finished before they start running it, which means I could be done writing it before the next big contract starts in fall. But can I fit it in now, knock it out, say in April, after this book is out of the way and the play is done, and still stay on track on all the other projects I’m trying to clear off? I have to think about it. I’ve got two ideas for it, actually — a really cool fantasy that the current research inspired, and also opening out a comedic short story into a serial. I’ve also got the sci-fi horror piece I could expand a bit. So there are possibilities; I just have to figure out what makes the most sense, if any of them do, in terms of time and money and creativity.

And that was it. Not acceptable. I have way to much to clear off my desk before the jobs start in CT to lie around not getting anything done. There’s an event at Long Pasture Sanctuary I want to attend tonight, but it all depends on my back. The valerian I took last night helped a little.

I have to go to the grocery store for myself and the pet food store for the cats, but, other than that, everything else today has to be about butt-in-chair and words-on-page. We’re supposed to get another big storm tomorrow, so maybe I can have a full-on writing weekend.

Devon

Tuesday, December 21, 2010

Iris stays in bed on cold winter mornings

Tuesday, December 21, 2010
Full Moon
Neptune Retrograde
Mercury Retrograde
Full Lunar Eclipse
Winter Solstice
Snow

Happy Solstice, Peaceful Yule!

It’s truly winter here, but we’ll get to that in a minute.

First, hop on over to Biblio Paradise, where Diane Parkin talks about her novel NIGHT CRAWLER. Leave a comment, so she’ll know you were there!

Then, hop over to my new gardening blog, GRATITUDE AND GROWTH, for its launch. Most of the time, I’ll post on Wednesdays and Saturdays, but I thought the Solstice on a Full Moon was a good day to start!

Okay, back now?

Yesterday was a good writing day. Finished, polished, and got off the big article on time, and my editors seem pleased with it. Prepped the two blog posts listed above. Caught up on email. Made some notes for a couple of projects — a play and a book — that have February deadlines.

It snowed all day, which was lovely. Mid-afternoon, I shovelled the walk and the driveway. It wasn’t too bad, but either I have to invest in a snowblower or hire someone if the whole winter is like this. I’m simply not strong enough if the snow gets much heavier.

It kept snowing in the night, and, when I went to turn off the outdoor trees at 10 PM, I couldn’t open the door! Not only had enough snow fallen so it blanketed the step above the doorframe, but more had blown against it. I wrestled the door open to get the trees unplugged, and went to bed.

I was awake on and off, hoping to see the lunar eclipse, but didn’t. Everything was that milky pale bright of moonlight.

This morning, the neighbors were up bright and early, with their snow blowers, and cleaned my driveway and walk for me. Isn’t that kind?

Yep, when we can get out of here tomorrow, I think it’s time for me to invest in a snow blower! It took them maybe 10 minutes to clear the drive and the walkway, so if I had a blower and did it myself, it would take maybe 20. I could hire one of the guys up the street to plow me out, but if we have a severe winter, the blower will earn its keep within a month or so.

And for some reason, the sound of the snow blower is at a different pitch and it doesn’t hurt the way leaf blowers do. (Just a reminder, the sound of a leaf blower causes the physical response in me that could trigger a heart attack, which is one of the MANY reasons I don’t own one. Why would I own a a machine that could kill me simply by turning it on?. The name of this condition is a very long word with lots of consonants).

I stuck my yardstick in a clear part of the yard, and it hit just under 13”. The weather folk keep saying yeah, the Cape got hit harder than expected (they said 2-4”), but we seem to have gotten more than the places they’re measuring.

My mom’s friend is supposed to visit today, but I don’t know if she can get here. After all, they had to close to Bourne Bridge for awhile last night, due to weather. And we’re supposed to get walloped over Christmas weekend with an even more severe storm, so I think we’re not going to make it to Maine for Christmas Day Dinner. Which is fine, I’ll just cook a turkey here (and hope the CO detector doesn’t go off).

I’ve got logs for the Yule ceremony this evening, and a chicken to roast tonight. I may call my favorite hardware store in Osterville and say, “Hey, babe, got a snowblower that fits in a volkswagen?” because why not give him a challenge, right? 🙂 I might as well be his resident eccentric.

I’m going to run the vacuum quickly through the house now (after sprinkling the carpets with lavender and peppermint) just in case my mom’s friend turns up. Then, I’ll get back to the page for awhile. I got very little done on yesterday’s To Do list (yes, I made a list for once), so I want to get a little bit more done today.

Yesterday was productive, and the quality was high, but today I need to add in some more quantity, too!

And I want to come up with something nice to do for the neighbors as a thanks!

Devon

Thursday, December 24, 2009

Thursday, December 24, 2009
Waxing Moon
Mars Retrograde
Christmas Eve
Sunny and cold

For the curious, yes, I can celebrate both the Solstice and Christmas if I want, and it doesn’t mean I’m being hypocritical to either. The former is my chosen path in my adult life. The latter is a nod towards happy family traditions and memories, since I am one of those freakish individuals who experienced a decent amount of happiness while growing up. And I will celebrate as many traditions as I wish! So there! 😉

There’s a giftie waiting for you under the virtual tree, but you’ll have to wait until the end of the post to retrieve it.

Wow! Natalie Bahm gave me a Kreativ Blogger Award. I am so honored! Thank you so much! Part of this honor is to thank her, and I do.

Part of this honor is to pay it forward to 7 other bloggers and to write post 7 things others might not know about me.

Okay, choosing only 7 is hard, I read more than that on any given day, but here’s an attempt:

Lori Widmer — Words on the Page — she’s an amazing writer and human being, a dear friend, and one of the most spiritually aware and emotionally grounded people I know. She gives back constantly.

Diane Parkin — another amazing writer and good friend. She gets more done in an hour than I can get done in a week.

Michelle Miles — Ye Olde Inkwell — terrific balance of blogging between writing and life.

Lara Stauffer — Ramblings of a Suburban Soccer Mom. A daily must-read from a good friend whose life is very different from my own!

Colin Galbraith — Freedom From the Mundane — another good friend and fellow writer, whose blog is a daily must-read.

Brandy — Book Mom — because she loves books and cats.

Margaret Finnegan — Finnegan Begin Again. I just found this blog the other day, and it is amazing.

Okay, now for 7 things:

1. I developed a deadly allergy to shrimp. I used to love shrimp and now I’m horribly, horribly allergic. As in vomiting-for-18-hours-straight-and-going-to-the-hospital allergic.

2. I don’t trust people who don’t like animals, and I trust them even less if the animals don’t like them back. In my experience, the animals are usually right! 😉

3. Three things on my Must-Learn Someday List are: Learning to play the piano; taking a pottery class; learning to paint.

4. Even though I spent over 20 years in theatre, the period where I wanted to be an actor was very short-lived. I don’t like that much attention focused on me. Although many actors look at playing characters as getting to be someone totally different, for me it was always about bringing forward different aspects of my personality, and I like to choose for whom I do that.

5. I loathe tabloids and gossip magazines. Having worked with lots of actors over the years and feeling protective of the ones I like and admire, I am enraged to see such lies printed — and 90% of what goes in those rag sheets are lies. They are lies that hurt people, and for the general public to think it’s “fun” to feed into those lies by purchasing the magazines, reading, and even believing the crap makes me sick. Not only that, they are poorly written. If house guests leave one of the mags behind, I literally remove it from the premises with tongs and scrub the place down.

6. I get twitchy if I walk into someone’s house and there aren’t any books around. I try to get out of there as quickly as possible.

7. I am better at crochet than I am at knitting. I’d love to be a better knitter, but I’m awkward and clumsy at it. For some reason, I find crochet easier and more logical.

On to other things. I realized that I don’t have enough dishes for left overs (I’m taking left overs with me to the site), so I have to dash out today and get some more.

Yesterday was fine. I wrote. All day. Over 6K. Until nearly midnight. Edited, polished, et al, this morning.

So, here’s your giftie:

JUST JUMP IN AND FLY: a holiday tale by Ava Dunne.

When two men have an accident with eight no-so-tiny reindeer on her front lawn, Susanna Wright has to balance thinking they’re delusional with keeping in the spirit of the night and getting them back on the road.

The story pulls from a mix of myths and traditions, sprinkled with a few of my own “what ifs”. Although it’s just over 10K, it’s a fast read, and, I hope, a funny one.

To read an excerpt, visit the Ava Dunne page. The download link is also on the site. It downloads as a PDF.

Enjoy!

Devon

Thursday, June 18, 2009

Thursday, June 18, 2009
Waning Moon
Pluto Retrograde
Jupiter Retrograde
Raining. Again.

Well, the sun didn’t last long enough yesterday for me to get out and enjoy it. Boo. 😦

I’m back, as Jenny, talking about writing without a contract in place, on Diane Parkin’s blog.

Pretty productive day, though. Got my assignment polished and out to Confidential Job #1. Took care of some business correspondence. Finished off a client project. Went to Trader Joe’s to restock the cat food supply.

I printed out CRAVE THE HUNT and had it stacked on the desk, waiting to go into a binder. And Iris had a temper tantrum and scattered the pages all over the living room. Sigh. Fortunately, they’re numbered.

I found that, if I use Safari, I can override the 1and1 server error. I can’t get into my sites to work on them, but at least I can access my email. Not perfect, but a stopgap until I can move things.

Trying to get back on track with the serial and CRAVE THE HUNT. There are some things looming in the near future that take a lot of energy and focus right now, and it’s negatively affecting the writing. Hopefully, once that’s sorted, I can get back in the groove.

I’m making preparations for the DC trip next week — so far I am not impressed with the organization, or lack thereof, and I’m setting a bunch of appointments on my own. I’m not going to stand around doing nothing, and it wouldn’t be right if I slipped away to a museum! So I’ll do my bit at the rally,and then I’ve got appointments with people who can actually create some positive change. I need affordable health care. This week is a good example — I don’t have insurance, and I can’t afford to spend several hundred dollars for a five minute doctor visit out of pocket (which is what it is here) unless I REALLY need it. I’m feeling off, not awful; I’ll deal. I had DECADES of pouring money into health insurance, and hardly ever needed to see a doctor. All of that should be credited, and I should be able to draw on it now Instead, I threw out money for years BECAUSE I WAS HEALTHY. How twisted is that? Plus, I’m sick and tired of the way they glance at you and order a plethora of tests, almost all unnecessary, because they can’t be bothered to spend the time to get to know you and your individual health issues. Assembly-line medicine doesn’t work. I do much better with my acupuncturist, and I’m calling her today to see if she can fit me in before she leaves for Saratoga. Whenever I leave a doctor’s office, I feel completely dehumanized. When I leave my acupunturist’s, I feel I can take on the world. The insurance companies in this country need to be gutted, and the health care industry needs to be rebuilt from the ground up so that doctors can provide individualized care and patients are treated like people, not like the plastic dummies one practices on in First Aid training sessions.

Next week is going to be a long day! 😉

I’m also prepping for the NHL Draft, which starts the day after the rally in DC. And, in a few weeks, I’m going to head up to Maine for a couple of days, to see my great uncle, and maybe visit some farms where they spin and die the yarn they shear from their sheep.

Hopefully the laundry room renovations are done. Six weeks ago, they told us it would take “about ten days”. Right. My friend’s out of town, so I can’t pop over to do laundry there, and the laundry bag’s about to burst at the seams. Fingers crossed.

I’ve got a fiction deadline coming up for a short story. I’ve got it percolating, and I’ve also got a couple of other short pieces percolating. Maybe, with everything going on these next couple of weeks, it makes more sense to focus on shorter pieces, pieces I can actually get done.

Now that I’ve visited The Mount in Lenox, it really makes Hermione Lee’s Edith Wharton biography come even more to life. It’s also making me itch to back to GOOD NAMES.

Back to business. There’s a lot to do. Maybe if I keep focused on work, I won’t notice that it’s raining. AGAIN. There are flood warnings, so I’ll be jumping up and down to check the brook every few hours, and see if I have to move the car. And I’m boiling and bottling water, just in case. Maybe today’s NOT a good day to do laundry!

Prepared fried cod cakes last night with home-made tartar sauce (wonderful) and roasted potato wedges (with oregano, cumin, and olive oil) dipped in lime-cilantro mayonnaise. Yum.

Back to work.

Devon

Tuesday, June 16, 2009

Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Waning Moon
Pluto Retrograde
Jupiter Retrograde
Dreary and cool

Stop by Diane Parkin’s blog today and read her interview with me (“The Evolution of Dixie and Jenny”), and visit Hywela Lyn’s blog for another stop on the DIXIE DUST tour!

Thanks to both of you for being such lovely and gracious hosts.

There was so much hail in New Jersey yesterday that people were out (in their shorts) with snow shovels!

For some reason, I couldn’t shake off my fatigue and lethargy yesterday. I scanned the job boards. There was some good material, but it was site work, and too far away for me. Still, it was nice to see a better quality of work up there.

Worked on the DIXIE DUST postcard mailing. The first list is almost complete and ready. As soon as I’ve got the second wave compiled, that should go out in a week or so.

Designed the postcard for Fearless Ink. It’s a first wave post-card, going out as part of a mass-mailing, different than the targeted list with the brochure. I also have to design a second card, that’s the follow-up card to the targeted mailing. I need to find scored, colored postcard stock. Any ideas? All the colored stock I’ve found is unscored. Me with a paper cutter and three curious cats? Now that’s an accident waiting to happen. I’d rather used scored cards.

Struggled with the write up for Confidential Job #1. I know what I want to say, but I’m not saying it well.

Worked on client projects, but it was slower going than I expected, and not because of the projects, but because my brain felt unfocused, so eventually I put it aside. My clients deserve SHARP focus.

I’m getting caught up on my filing and excavating my desk. Once the PC is done, I’ll have a desk back so I can work — right now, I use the Macbok on the part of the desk that used to house the PC keyboard, while the old monitor dominates the desk. I think I’ll put the monitor up on Freecycle eventually, with a bunch of other things, remove the hard drive, and then take the tower to the next county electronics recycling day. My old PC in storage also needs to go. Now that I know HOW to remove a hard drive, it’s not such a big deal. Plus, since I won’t need the damned thing once the transfer is complete, I don’t have to stress about screwing something up.

Pulled off a bunch more stuff from the PC, converted short stories from floppies, etc. The PC crashed every 6 or 7 minutes and took approx. 18-22 minutes to reboot. I HATE it. I can’t wait to be done with Dell for good. What a piece of crap. Not to mention that the older Microsoft programs can’t even be read by the newer ones. If I thought about all the lost time and productivity over the past years, because I never bit the bullet and got a Mac before this year, I could just kill myself. It’s amazing I ever managed to get ANYTHING out to a publisher or an editor.

By 3:30, I was feeling pretty lousy, and cancelled out of that evening’s workshop. It’ll come around again in a month or so, so I haven’t lost my opportunity forever. I had a quiet night, eating lots of vegetables, drinking juice, going to bed early. I feel a little better this morning, but still not all that sharp. I figure if I don’t push too hard for the next few days, I should get my feet back under me and be fine. Everything really starts to accelerate next week, so slowing down a bit this week and building up my reserves makes sense.

I have a big grocery shopping trip today (possibly to Trader Joe’s as well as to the usual store. I’m trying some great recipes this week, and I’m very excited.

I plan to clear some client projects off my desk this afternoon, and then spend a few days this week focused primarily on my fiction.

I worry that I’m spending so much time on re-organization and admin and workshops and all that, but, if I do it now, and reconfigure my workspace and my files and everything, it will streamline the rest of the year and help me be more productive.

Oh, and Chase Bank gets yet another Middle Finger Award. Yeah, like that’s a surprise.

Anyway, I better get going. I want to get a lot done early in the day and then rest. in spite of feeling under the weather last night, I pushed through my workout, and, once I was done, I was glad I did. During it, I wasn’t so sure, but it was the right choice.

Before I go to DC next week, I’m going to upload all the photos on the camera so far to the computer, just in case something goes wonky through one of the security areas. i fI lose the photos from the day, I’ll be sad, but I’ll deal. But if I lose everything I’ve put on the card so far, I’ll be very upset. So I’ll back it up first.

I’m going to Target in the next week or so. I need more bins, and, as I finish with the boxes of floppies, I’ll stash them in a bin and take them to storage. More room for the stuff I actually use! There’s going to be a lot of cleaning out of things over the next few months!

The fix Canon sent me for the little printer worked, and I printed out what I have of CRAVE THE HUNT, the Billy Root piece, so I can get back to it this week. I hadn’t realized how much I’d written. This will be the biggest book of the series so far. It’s kind of a turning point for several characters, so it makes sense.

Back to the page.

Devon