Message you do NOT want to get from your printer...

"Parts inside your printer are near the end of their service life"
Sigh...
Time to go shopping!

Back from Vulkon...

Well, honestly, I got back Saturday night, totally exhausted. But it was a blast.

First off, hanging out with fellow Trek fans is always a blast. Though Nat has promised to smack me good for not letting her know I got back in one piece...did I mention what a fine human being Nat is? (grovel grovel)

I had my picture taken with Tim Russ and Armin Shimerman, who is slightly taller than me. I was kicking myself because I forgot my camera - Maria took pics for me and she and Nat have both promised to send me copies. Lucky me!

At the moment I am printing the first draft of a novel I've written so I can go over it. Want to be amazed? Print out the 100,000 word novel you spent the last 5 months writing. That's a LOT of paper

Vulkon

Well, a friend of mine commented that I don't update this blog enough (hi Nat!) so here is a quick post.

I'm attending Vulkon today, a Star Trek/sci fi convention in Orlando. Part of the reason I'm here is to hang out with some friends I haven't seen in a while (hi Nat again! Hi Maria!) and that's always a treat.

Plus, cons can be fun. Wandering around the dealer room, actually meeting actors from your favorite shows...pretty cool.

I shook hands with Tim Russ last night (Tuvok, "Voyager") who is also an excellent musician. He had a concert last night which included dessert (yum!).

I also saw Armin Shimerman (Quark, "DS9", Snyder, "Buffy the Vampire Slayer"). He is shorter than I thought - I might be able to look him in the eye at my 5' 2". I'll check.

Anyway, they are gonna throw me out of the breakfast area in my hotel so I'll update later (SOON, Nat, I promise!)

I have a Myspace page!

Don't ask me why - I'm not sure myself. :-)

But you can click on the link if you like...www.myspace.com/lauraslook

Christmas came early....

Don let me get a 30 GB Ipod as an early Christmas present! I'm enjoying my new toy and trying to figure out everything I can do with it - pictures, music, etc...

Am I a geek?

Electronic destruction

Today our local recycling center was taking what they called "e-waste" - or end of life electronics. We had several, after building several computers this summer and breaking some parts in the process.

One of the computers still had the hard drive in it. I didn't want to turn it in with an intact hard drive so my original plan was to remove it before we turned in the tower.

James asked if he could have some fun. In a moment of insanity I said yes.

After a few fun-filled minutes with a baseball bat and James' rather large shoes, the tower was dented and the hard drive was in such shape that the data on it is lost forever.

Then we had to pick up all the little pieces that resulted from the carnage but it was quite entertaining. Killing a hard drive isn't as easy as it looks, but we managed it.

A new era occured this weekend...

James, my 17 year old, discovered that he can pick me up this weekend.

I am shorter than he is, and he has been working out. He can lift me right off my feet.

Can't carry me very far yet, but that's coming...

Eek.

Which party?

When I first became eligible to vote, I registered as an independent. I figured I didn't know enough abut either party to decide which one to join.

Later, I became a Republican, because at the time, I thought we were going somewhat in the same direction.

These days I am not so sure.

I believe in a limited federal government and fiscal responsibility. I believe that judges should interpret the law and not pull new ones out of thin air. On most social issues, I would be considered conservative.

Yet the Republicans lately seem no more fiscally responsible than the Democrats. Nor do they object to bloated and ineffective government programs. They pay lip service to these things, but when you get right down to it, they don't practice what they preach.

Because I am pro-life I can't bring myself to go to the Democratic Party (yeah, tell me about their big tent. Pro-lifers are lepers in the tent). I am looking seriously at returning to my independent beginnings. Only reason I haven't done it yet is the whole issue of primaries, and I find that being a member of a party just so I can vote in that party's primary isn't a strong enough reason anymore.

Who left? Me or my party?

Thoughts?

The problem of being out of town a few days...

...is the fact that when you get back there is a ton of stuff to catch up on and often you aren't motivated enough to do it the first couple of days back.

Today I am finally trying to deal with stuff - dishwasher, laundry, and finding the floor in my office (long story on the last one).

I also have a checkbook to balance, and stories to mail out, and stories to FINISH.

Time to get busy!

Nice rejection

Rejection is part of the deal of being a writer. You send stuff out, and a lot of times you'll get your self-addressed stamped envelope back with a "thanks, but no thanks" form letter.

You learn to take your encouragement where you can get it. I got a chance to do that last week, when The New Yorker sent a rejection email for a short story I sent them.

In the email, they said the story had "evident merit."

I checked with fellow writers and they assured me this was indeed a positive rejection.

So the story is out to another magazine, and I have hope someone might buy it at some point.

A lotta words.

I have said that I my goal for August was to write 30,000 words.
My total on my novel came to 26,932. That does not count my column or any work I did on short stories.
I have written at least 1,000 words/day since August 6th.
So I figure if I didn't hit 30,000 I came pretty close.

Also, for the Labor Day weekend, a group of us writers challenged ourselves to a high goal - 30,000 words from Saturday (or Friday night) to Monday bedtime. Some people set different goals, being at different points in their careers.
I shot for 30,000. It was hard work. You might not think that sitting at a keyboard making stuff up is hard, but I was whipped today.
And my novel was 24,003 words longer.
It wasn't my goal, but close enough to make me pleased.

Gotta admit that's a LOT of words...

Much ado about nothing

Ernesto came, and really wasn't any worse than a moderate thunderstorm. Everyone panicked over THIS?

Worse thing today wasn't the storm - it was a headache that was impervious to rest or Motrin. I think I did something to my neck that my head doesn't like.

Still on my 1,000 words/day. Will total August up very soon.

Writng update

Well, I'd said I wanted to write 30,000 words in August.

As of today, I have written 11,118 this month.

Now I feel as if I'm getting in the habit of writing every day - it bothers me if I don't. At this point I have written every day since August 6th. And I have written 1,000 words each of those days.

It adds up...

New Computers, writng, and school starts next week!

John and I have spent the last couple of weeks trying to get 3 computers built. That's one for Don, one for John, and one for James. (Me? I took possession of John's, which is a year old and the one we built last year).

At this point all computers are up and running except for Don's. We had to reorder a motherboard for his (this is the second motherboard we've had hassles with). I put a new hard drive into the one I got from John so I would have more space and of course THAT has meant reinstalling stuff and the associated headaches. Not done with that yet but working on it.

I'm aiming to write AT LEAST 30,000 words in August. so far I have 4800 words in - will have to work a little harder to make the goal, but I'm going to give it a shot. Novel is almost at 30,000 words and I am bound and determined to finish the short stories on my hard drive.

James starts 11th grade next week. Hard to believe it! It seems like summer just started and here we are in August!

The past 20 days...

Just an update on what's been going on here. (Happy now, Tina? )

We got back from Guyana late Sunday afternoon, after being there since the previous Saturday. The trip went well - two doctors saw 557 patients, and 17 people were baptized.

Only thing was that a bug went through about 1/3 of the team. Yep, I was one of the 1/3.

Was sick on Thursday and became dehydrated, causing Don to force fluids into me. Felt a little better Friday, relapsed on Saturday, got on the plane Sunday feeling woozy. Was GLAD to get back to the US - glad I went to Guyana but was ready to be home.

Took yesterday to rest and recuperate. Now I'm trying to catch up on stuff before going out of town (again!) Thursday for a couple of days.

I sat down and figured out we are out of the house at almost 1/2 of the month of July.

No wonder this blog isn't being updated!

Where do you want to be in 10 years?

This is a question writer/editor Dean Wesley Smith asked recently. Where did we, as writers, want to be 10 years from now?

If we didn't want anything to change, then we shouldn't change anything.

If we wanted to be best selling authors, then we should begin to make changes towards that now.

I am still working towards that. But every now and then I need to be reminded of this stuff.

10 years from now I want to be a best selling author.

What am I doing now to make that happen?

Time flies...

Some writing done this week, not as much as I would have liked. A trip to visit family (and to beat my older sister's computer into submission), a light attack of a bug that ran through my family, and a trip to help out my in-laws all cut into the writing time.

Except for the bug, I don't feel bad about those reasons. I do wish I hadn't goofed around so much as well - had a bad case of the "I don't want to work" a day or two.

But I can't believe 2/3 of June is already gone! It doesn't feel like it should be so late in the month...

Three

Well, that's the number of unfinished stories STILL on my laptop. I got two finished and some readers gave their opinions on them - they go out in the mail sometime this week.

The other three will take a little longer to finish...they were not as far along as the first 2.

Also working on Chapter 6 of my novel now. Got very bogged down with it, then realized what I needed this chapter to do and have some decent ideas for it.

Also watching a bunch of rain fall as Alberto plays in the gulf...it isn't too bad, we really need the wet stuff given the drought we've been going through here in Central Florida!

:-) It all goes well...

Five

Five is the number of unfinished stories on my hard drive at the moment. One is a potential entry to Strange New Worlds, the other 4 are of various genres. Actually, I may have MORE than 5 unfinished stories, but I think one of THOSE is just going to be torn up and restarted - it's a Strange New Worlds Story that I just think won't work in its present condition.

But the five in question bother me. I'm pretty sure I can finish them, not sure why I haven't. Well, I just started the Strange New Worlds one. But why do I keep starting stories and not finishing them?

Well, I set a goal. By the end of this week I plan to have all these unfinished stories done. Hopefully setting a goal will give me the motivation I haven't had to finish them.

Doing Writing Stuff Without Much Writing...

Yeah, I know it sounds crazy, but it sums today up.

I did not do a lot of writing today. Instead, I finally finished a binder that contained markets I have submitted to. I also researched markets for 4 manuscripts that had come back and needed to be sent to new markets.

All this took a couple of hours. When I was finished I hadn't written much but was much better organized. I also have stuff ready to mail.

I'm wrestling with a couple of short stories that are resisting finishing. I have Chapter 4 of my novel planned out in my head and I have to figure where it goes after that.

Well, back to the keyboard...