Passwords Suck!

I am so sick of passwords for everywhere I go and everything I do. I know it's for safety, but geeze I hate it. I've forgotten a password for one of my publishing sites and I can't change it. They keep saying they'll send me a new one but never do. Damn!

I entered a contest on NaNoWriMo (see www.nanowrimo.org for info) for a free book cover for this year's contest. Hmm, can't think of another word for contest. Some writer I am! Anyway, NaNo is just a little while away and then I probably won't be writing in my blog so much - or maybe I'll be writing in it more! Ha ha ha.

I got through my writer's block by forcing myself just to write and not worry about it, and it worked. Thank goodness. Oh, and I've got a title for my NaNo book: Gypsies of Allora. What do you think? It's going to be my best book yet! Can't wait to get started on it!

Okay, enough for now. You're probably bored and ready to move on to another blog.

Enjoy, and I'll see you soon!

XOXOXO

Angela

Not the Time for Writer's Block!

I just tried to do a little scene and the words just wouldn't come. I mean really, I couldn't think of the word I needed, and it went downhill from there. I thought that maybe writing here will get me started, but I seem to be having the same problems.

I've got these pictures of beautiful exotic women that I'm going to use as the female gypsies in my clan in the NaNo book. They're gorgeous: painted faces for some, ribbons braided into the hair for others. I'm thinking that I probably won't have a God/Goddess presence in this book, just maybe references to them as the Father/Mother. I was also thinking of adding in some demons or something evil to elicit the conflict I so desperately need but I don't think that will work. I think it is going to be human evil that interferes with a sweet love story.

There, now I'm stuck again. Pushing on!

My one remaining dog is lonely, as is the one remaining cat. We started this year with three cats and two dogs, but so much death. It was a harsh year.

Stuck!

I'm reading this book on Mindfulness and Acceptance Workbook for Anxiety and I keep getting too anxious to do the exercises in the book! CRAZY.

Okay, I'm giving up for now. Promise to try harder later.

XOXOXO
Angela

One Week 'Til NaNoWriMo!

I'm so excited (and nervous) that it's almost November. I have tried outlining a story and it just won't come to me. I think that the characters I've created are going to drive this one. It's a lesbian love story (naturally) about a world where all the gay people are outcast as gypsies. So there are several clans of gypsies who take on anyone who comes out as gay and then they have a new family...sort of. Anyway, my main character was outcast by her parents when she was just 13 because she liked "boy things" so they used that as an excuse to give her to a gypsy clan. She grows up with them and learns their ways. The second character is a girl who is in denial about being gay but instead of marrying to please her father (and his money pouch) she goes to hide out in the same clan as, you guessed it, character number one. But love won't come easy as it never does.

So how's that for a quick and dirty synopsis? Looking forward to my characters teaching me more about their ways and means. 

Haven't carved a pumpkin yet. Don't know if I'll get around to it or not. How about you??

XOXO
Angela

A New Journey!

I'm getting psyched up for NaNoWriMo (www.nanowrimo.org) - I've got a partial outline of my next story and this one's going to be a doozie! We're talking about gypsies and journeying (and a first romance, of course!) It's going to be good. I'm so excited to start. I've written the backstory for two of the main characters so I have some idea of who they are so I'm not startled when they start misbehaving when I finally start writing the novel.

Eyes That Bind is still under construction but I'm hoping to keep my promise of getting it to you by Oct 31 -- a tight call for me but I'll do everything I can to keep my promise. You'll be pleased with this sequel I'm certain. It's more about Renna and Cass and there are many adventures to be had by them.

On a personal note, we're going to put down our cat Diego late this afternoon. We cuddled him and gave him whatever he wanted to eat all weekend long. It has been very hard, but if he's suffering and just wasting away, we don't want to make it go on longer than it has to. My heart is bursting since we've already lost two other pets recently, but it has to be done. May the Buddhas bless them with a happy rebirth.

XOXOXO
Angela

Losing a Pet (or 3)

A few months ago our cat Beast died. Well, we had him euthanized because he was screaming in agony. He had a blood clot in his spine and he was in terrible pain, so the doc quickly took care of him. It was okay because he was in misery and I knew he had to go.

Then last month, we had one of our dogs, Abby, put down because, well, it's complicated. Abby was a problem child from the beginning and as an adult she was downright dangerous. She attacked her sister-dog George twice leading to very expensive vet bills. We couldn't find any alternatives if she was so unstable, so we had her put down and it was very painful because she really was a sweet dog and she didn't understand. It was terrible.

So yesterday I realized that our cat Diego had lost a ton of weight because she was throwing up all of her food. She didn't throw up all the time, but a lot of the time she did. We tried several different anti-allergen foods and none worked. We thought we'd found the one the other day and tried her on rabbit. It didn't work, she still threw up, so yesterday I called the vet. They were concerned about her weight loss and did a blood workup. They also wanted us to get an ultrasound because the xray they did showed a lot of swelling and liquid in her stomach. This morning, though, we got the call about the lab work. Her white blood cell count was 41,000. Normal for a cat is between 1,000 and 8,000. The doctor said she had never seen a cat's count that high before. What it means is he either has leukemia or some other form of stomach cancer. He's going to waste away and die. So we have to have him euthanized. Probably on Monday so he doesn't suffer any more than he has to.

I don't know why I had to write this all out. Seemed I ought to. I'm baking chocolate chip cookies and drinking a coconut rum & diet coke. I cried for an hour; now it's time for comfort.

Massive Editing and Depression Breakthrough

My editor is taking her sweet time and I'm afraid that the book won't be ready before NaNoWriMo starts. I really wanted to get it out there, but then I wouldn't have had time to market it, so I guess it's actually a win situation. Sorry readers who are hoping for my sequel on Oct 31! I'm still trying, but we'll see what happens.

I've had a shot of really deep depression that my therapist really helped with yesterday -- go figure! She said to take all the negative thoughts and judgments and separate them from my self. That is, give them a separate form so that the thought and judgments aren't "me" they're separate from me. It's brilliant. Since she told me that yesterday I've had many times that I've had a negative judment about myself and told it to go away, I wasn't interested, and it kind of works!

In the mean time I'm afraid I'm getting a cold and I'm desperately trying to get together a storyline for NaNoWriMo. Trying to make an outline and I've only got two characters sketched (a little bit). Ugh. I'll get there though. NaNo really inspires me to write my best stuff. If you don't know what I'm talking about, go to http://www.nanowrimo.org.  It's a great motivator for writers, and lovely education and support too.

Happy Reading & Writing to All,

Angela
XOXOXO

Prep for NaNoWriMo

I'm trying my best to get ready for NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writers Month=November) but am running into all kinds of roadblocks. I'm working on developing characters for my story and am coming up blank. She's a tough kid. What else can I say? She grew up on the streets and was adopted by a Gypsy clan. How does that affect her character? She had to be tough. Ugh. I don't know what I'm doing.

I went to the foot doctor this morning and found out that I have a plantar plate tear which means I wear a splint for 6 months, and if in 6 months it's healed, hurray! If not, we go to surgery. Very frustrating, waiting for your body to heal, isn't it? It's already been almost 3 months. This is a long healing process because your toes don't get such great circulation. Huh.

Stop back in for more sneak peaks into my next project. Who knows, I might have figured out a thing or two by the time you return!

Love & Hugs,
Angela

Self Doubt

So I started reading two different books about novel writing. One of them I got about 50 pages into and decided it was a bunch of crap because it told me that just about everything I'm doing in my books is wrong. The second book I got further into before it told me that everything I'm doing in my books is wrong. So what's the point?  Should I quit writing because all of these novel writing authorities think my stuff is crap?

It's true what my friends are telling me: You write because you love to write, not because you want to write the perfect book. But of course, I do actually. Ah, well.

So my next book may be in a new world, and the main characters are gypsies. Kind of exciting to think about that. Lots of research to do though. Better get to work. Thanks for cheering me up. Ha ha ha.

Bye my friends.
Please leave comments!

X0X0X0
angela

Anxiety/Phobia

Hey folks. I've been reading "Hooked," a book about writing the beginning of your book. It's really good but makes me feel totally wrong. There are all these guidelines and I don't follow them, I just write. Is that so wrong? LOL. I've stopped reading it because if I continue there's a good chance I'll talk myself into no longer writing, and that would suck.

So I've got social phobia/anxiety. I just worked that out with my therapist - my problem is more that just depression. Actually I was using depression as a blanket word to cover all my symptoms, when a lot of them are really anxiety-driven. Knowing this, and being new to the idea, I let my partner talk me into joining this women's chorus so that I'd make some friends and get out of the house a bit. It was a mistake. I could hardly sing, I kept getting choked up like I was about to cry. It was really weird. Finally after about an hour I snuck out. It was just too many voices and too intimate a crowd. I don't know how I'm going to beat this, but there's gotta be a way. Just the chorus at this point is not the answer.

My partner is reading my two upcoming books and she started reading the one that I'm not ready to release yet. She's supposed to be doing last-minute editing on my next Eyes of the Witch book, but she started another book that comes later in the series. I sure hope she gets them done soon because I really want to get Eyes That Bind out by the end of October as I've been promising!

Another day, another idea.
Take care all!

Angela