Yup. I did it. I released the novel finally. Woohoo! Ahem. Got my first feedback yesterday. My friend read it and loved it. Yay! At least one person doesn’t think I’m warped. Here is my first unofficial review from her: “I loved it! I loved all the sarcasm!” Hehe. She also found a huge gaping flaw with the story that I didn’t notice until my last proofread or so, but it was too late at that point! Then I pointed out to her another big flaw. Silence. I said, “Did you notice that?” She said, “Noo.” Ha! Yes, I ruined my book for someone. No, she loved it anyway. NICE. And now more than 2 people have downloaded it, so I’m happy.

I still have a lot more to do for the book, though. I have to upload it to all the free document sites I found. About 10. And Google Books, and…. I forget. I have a list. And I also have to finish uploading all my music videos to YouTube, cuz I said I would! I will get back to that tomorrow. Today is all about babbling in the blog. Yesterday I tried to work on book stuff and I just shut down. I had to go take a nap. I just couldn’t do it anymore. Gah! I spent Friday and Saturday, all day, working on the book. Formatting ebooks, yada yada. I forget what else. Each day felt like a week. I couldn’t believe it was only 2 days. Yesterday I added all my books to Goodreads, and then had my little shut down with the nap. Goofy. Soooo much work. I have to change my poetry book information on Goodreads. They spelled the title of one book wrong and I got an account and corrected the spelling. Ha! Yeah, I’m a geek like that.

There’s a link somewhere to the right (to Goodreads). I’m too tired to copy and paste. Ow. I just nuked a muffin in the microwave and it burned me! I need to let it cool. It was frozen a minute ago. Science! I am a dork today. I had much more to say when I was at work writing this blog entry in my head. Today I got home from work and looked in the mailbox and there was a box in there that was too big to get out. ?? Yes. They open the front of the whole mail thing, cram everybody’s mail in there, then close the front, and there just happens to be enough of a… lip? A something, so I couldn’t get the package out. I thought of leaving them a note for tomorrow. “Please turn this” or something. But I decided to go for it! I ripped the box open while it was still inside my mailbox and took out what was in it, then I yanked the empty box out of the mailbox. Score! Ha! My neighbor walked by while I was doing this, “Hi!” She didn’t bat an eye. Funny. I made a small mess, but I’m in that Monday kind of mood. ANGRY. I’m not angry, just impatient. Something. Grr. I’m actually pretty mellow. Compared to this weekend going back to work was relaxing. But, yes, still impatient. Grrrrrr…!

Let’s talk about the book. Okay! It’s a thriller, and looking at the other thriller novels here, I noticed I am one of 2 or 3 women who have written one. The rest are men. Hmm. This makes me wonder if anyone will…. I don’t know what, but I have a unisex name anyway. I’m afraid people will go, “Oh, girly thriller, pass.” Lol. I guess I’m over that now. It’s a really cool novel. I mean, wow, aren’t I modest? Hehe. Also, it has a female main character. How often do you see that in action/thriller/suspense stories? You know? I think it’s cool! All my main characters are women. Cuz I’m a woman. I don’t know why that strikes me as funny. I sometimes feel I should be writing traditional action/thrillers with a man as the main character. But then I think, “Why would I?” Maybe I don’t watch enough movies, but I can only think of female action heroes on the small screen. Yes, I spaced out for a moment pondering it. Serenity! I knew there was one. Yeehee! Anyway. Buffy and Dark Angel were the TV shows I was thinking about… Scully’s pretty cool…. Okay, I can’t think of any more, but my brain’s not completely functioning right now. And I swear my eyes are computer burned!

I wasn’t gonna be so deep and philosophical in here. Or if I was I was gonna do it better! I guess work really does fry my brain a little. Eight hours of that. Ummmm…. I’m still thinking seriously of writing romance novels. Strange but true. My first book was accidentally one. I didn’t realize it was ’til I went to categorize it on link sites. Wow! It’s funny how that shocked me. Lol. I thought I was just writing about life and whatnot. Lord. Anyway! Most of the things I have to say are mystery/suspense/sci-fi/action stuff. BUT I’ll never get to where I want to be writing only that. And I can write paranormal mystery kind of romances. So I wouldn’t be totally wandering off the path. It’s just weird that there are pretty much rules like you have to have a happy ending. Etc., etc. I don’t usually like rules. But if it means possibly writing full time and quitting the day job, I can definitely follow a few simple rules. DUH. Why did this not occur to me before? Well, there are reasons. Anyway, I can still write my sci-fi dark weird stuff for me. And you! If you like that sort of thing. Cuz no day job means more time for writing. All kinds of writing! But mostly romance. Which I am not entirely averse to! I mean, I used to read romance novels for fun. I did! Now I read them for torture. I’m kidding! I don’t read anything now. I don’t have time. That’s one of the things that had to be given up in order to find time to write. Ironic, no? It’s weird that I’m being so businessy about this. Practical. Well, I’m trying to speed things along. I’ve been a starving artist for long enough, thank you. I am craving ramen noodles right now… Seriously! It’s so hard to find vegetarian ones. I’m gonna have to go back through this blog entry and erase a lot of the exclamation points.

You know what was going through my head all morning? “I said ‘brr’… it’s cold in here… there must be some Clovers in the atmosphere…” That’s right. A cheer from Bring It On. Which I saw a few weeks ago. I was even typing to the beat of it. Very weird. I think it was keeping me awake. So not used to getting up early to go to work! Four day weekend. Thanksgiving. You remember. Now it’s in my head again. But this time it’s lulling me to sleep. Ahhhh!!!….. zzzzzzzzz. Wake up! My friend was talking to me about my characters on the phone and I said, “Who?” It was so weird hearing their names out loud. I have been alone with them for about 8 months. I think I’d never heard their names spoken. Wow. Weird.

God, I have Cousin It hair. It’s attacking me right now. Snarly and strange. I need a hair cut! My mother just had some photos developed from the 80s and my sister’s hair in some of them is so funny! Christmas morning crazy long thick bed hair. She had to tie it back or it would strangle her in the night. Lol. In one picture it looks like a crazy wig, but it’s actually her hair. That picture stayed undeveloped for 20 years! Shit, we’re old! @#!$@#@!! Take that spellchecker.

Argh. I should probably shut up now. I’m just babbling away. In metapad, where it is so quiet my unspoken words create an echo. Hahaha. God, I’m a dork. “Brr, it’s cold in here, there must be some Clovers in the atmosphere…” It’s ongoing. The cheer. My wrists hurt from typing! Okay, time to go extract the extra exclamation points. God, I didn’t even do that alliteration on purpose. I’m in some weird zone! The Twilight zone, lol. (Ha!) I will have to rent that movie someday and see why everyone is so nutso about it. I don’t get it. But then I haven’t seen it, or read the book. Hmm.

I’m getting hungry. So, I shall go now. Wow, you’d think I could be more clever. Wait. It’s “cleverer”. Despite how stupid that sounds. Ugh. Editing. Going now. Later.

Couldn’t think of a title. I got a flu shot today. My first one ever. My arm kinda hurts. I finally gave in after 3 years of working in a clinic. I think I had the flu the first year. Fever. I looked like a dead waxy person. It was gross. And I felt like shit, but I was totally going to go to work anyway, but then I looked in the mirror and saw that dead waxy look and went back to bed. That’s funny. Screw how I feel, but if I look bad, back to bed! Lol. Anyway, they asked me to get one, so I did. Hmm. Not bad. Makes sense. I’m a fan of vaccinations. In spite of the apparent dangers. I mean, err, this is not a debate!

But seriously, it’s weird that I’m into vaccinations, cuz I’m such a natural healing/herbalism fan. You know? I’m a complex weirdo. Yes. And now my arm hurts. But I am protected against last year’s flu viruses! Woohoo! No, it was explained to me why I might be protected against this year’s too. It was all about flu traveling patterns, and you don’t want to know. Enough about flu! But, DUDE, I hate the cold and flu season. I haven’t been sick yet this fall, so woooohhoooo!

That was hyper. I’m in a good mood. I was going to work on my book cover today. Make one quick from scratch. Ha! Seriously, if I have to make it just a black background with gray letters, I will. It’s just for the sites that require it, like Google Books. Which I am going to attempt to upload it to. Pah. And I forget what else. Oh, Mobipocket lets you put a cover in there, so I thought I would. Yup.

So, all I have left with the book is making corrections from my last proofread, making a book cover, and…. let me get my list…. and converting the book to 3 ebook formats. The html one might be tricky. It’s like creating another website. OH, I have to write a blurb! But I sort of have one written. A first draft. But I have another 4 day weekend this week, so I should be all set to release the book on Sunday. Whoop!

I’m glad I didn’t release it yesterday, my site was down today. I think they moved it to new servers. Without warning me. Ouch. Not that I will have sooooo much traffic when I release this book, but… that’s why I don’t want to lose any visitors! Stay, people, stay!

I am having 3 problems. What to get people for Christmas, what to do with my “writing career”, and…. probably something more immediate having to do with the book, but I can’t remember. Gah! I made a video. It’s super awesome. I hope it looks good in all browsers. It’s pretty simple.

I’m leaning towards writing romances again. But my way, not some formulaic way. Cuz I was proofreading Fugue and I noticed I’m kinda good at that mushy romantic stuff. And apparently I like to write about princesses and rich people. Hey, I spend most of my days off sitting in a chair I bought for $10 that has springs poking me in the butt. So, yeah, I dream about people with lots of space and time. Money buys space and time. It’s awesome. Sigh….. Whatever! Back to reality. Oh, money also buys good sturdy comfortable chairs. I think that was the point of that mini-almost-rant. Heh.

Romance outsells any other genre of book. It’s like the porn of the non-porn world. What? You know what I mean. It’s like chocolate. Gross! Did I just compare porn to chocolate?! Blasphemy! Nothing compares to chocolate! But I digress. I have things to do. Want to get to them. Want to get this career thing off the ground. It’s almost ready to fly. I think romance might hurry it along more. But then I have the other book to type and edit, and an online soap I wanted to write. Cuz that’s awesome. But really, who will read the online soap until lots of people have read my books? Why am I discussing this in here? That is a good question. Cuz I think these things in my head all day, that’s why.

I swear the flu shot made me dizzy. But then I was already dizzy. And, really, what if it was just the idea of the flu shot that made me dizzy? Ahhh, a conundrum.

My hair’s too long, I need to cut it. Will do after the book is out. Then I get to relax. Which means clean my house. And cut my hair. And worry about what cool presents to get for under $5. YEAH. Not good. I’m getting a raise in my next paycheck, though. Whoopie! Okay, anyway.

I ate Indian food the other day. WOW is that spicy. I could still feel it hours later burning my esophagus. Yikes! I should have chased it with some bread. Next time. Yeah, notice that won’t stop me from eating it again. Ha!

Wow, I’m in a good mood. The Guild season 2 starts tomorrow! Whoop! I can’t wait. But it won’t be on YouTube. I hope MSN Video is nice to me. We’ve never met before. Lol.

Damn my good mood! I have a 3 day work week. Eeep! Yes! My book is coming out, everything is good. I’m so excited to be done with that book finally. Yeesh. Hey! I should let you watch the preview video for it. Let me see if I can do that. I’m gonna upload it to YouTube the day I release the book. I know, why not before, right? I don’t know. Because people are impulsive and if the book’s not there to download right then they may have moved on by the time it is, see? Something like that. ADD. Something! Hmm. Okay. I’m going to give you a link to where the video will be as soon as I upload it. Here it is. (Music by Kevin MacLeod, btw. “Harmful or Fatal.” Fitting!)

Now I’d better go upload the darn thing! Adios! Godspeed! Watch The Guild! Spay and neuter your pets! Okay, that last one I just threw in there. Go watch my video!

Later.

I’m going offline for a bit, a longish bit. Possibly for all of November. I thought I’d say it before I did it, in case anyone wondered if I’d been hit by a bus or something. I’m fine! I just need to recharge my batteries. Be hermit-like. I will probably be releasing my novel sometime in November, though. So, keep your eyes open for that. I’ll post in here when I do, and send an email to my group. Somewhere over there —->

The remote is by the chair, there’s food in the fridge. Make yourself at home. I shall return.

Later.~

Randomly chose a word for the title. I should have called it “Disturbia”, since I have that song stuck in my head. Oh well.

Wiiinnnntteeeerrrrrr. It’s coming. Yuck. Well, that was depressing. Next topic.

I’m tired of working on my book, but I’m gonna give it a full 8 hours on Saturday and see what I accomplish. I took two days off next month and I’ll work on it then too. I just don’t have big chunks of time to devote to it. Sucks.

Two bees flew out of my car’s engine today. That’s a kind of car trouble I haven’t had before. Funny, God. Good one. Grr.

My mother asked me to come over and help her set up her laptop. I opened it up and said, “Okay, how do you make it go? How do you turn it on?” She said, “Well, this should go well.” I’d never used one before! Sheesh! She had it all figured out anyway, so I just surfed the web. Watched TV shows on You Tube with her super fast connection. Jealous.

Speaking of commerce (pff??), this story fascinates me. I Googled “17 year old” to see if there were hyphens in it, and I found that article. (I was editing, there is a 17-year-old girl in my book.) If you actually Google that you will find some really disturbing stories of teenage girls being killed. I’m sorry, I can’t help it! I had to read the stories, and then it bummed me out. Okay then.

Hey, I was gonna be cheerier than this. But I’m in a mood. Am I not always in a mood? Perhaps. Creepy, I changed metapad over to transparent mode. Woa. Trippy. I’d better switch that off. Maybe. Yeah, that’s creepy. Phew! Gone.

I may switch to notepad. Just for kicks. It has lucida console or something for a font. One moment! Nope, this is fucked up. Changing back. Bye, lucida console! Love that font. Okay.

I think I ran out of steam. Too much mini-Twitter blogging. Did I tell you the story of blasting Dr. Horrible music, the instrumental marching majestic evil song, and stopping at a stop sign and a deer standing there actually staring at me and backing away slowly? ‘Twas funny. She could have just been thinking, “Car!” or “Human!” But with that music going it was very hilarious.

That was a while ago. Oh, I remember something. I watched Grease 2. It was bad. I didn’t think it would be that bad, though. Wow. Yeah… it was crap. I like the motorcycle storyline, but that’s about it. Nice. But a weird movie. I also watched Vision Quest. Also a bad weird movie, but at least it tried to be something. It just really failed. A movie about a bunch of people encouraging a teenage boy to starve himself to the point of nosebleeds and fainting? Yeah, go team. ????!!!! Fucked up. But interesting. Were the nosebleeds the reason for the R rating? Cuz I couldn’t think of anything else. ? Weird!!!!

Yeah…. I like TV shows better than movies. They get deeper into the characters’ lives, etc. It goes on longer. It’s just better! Dude! I am watching HIMYM (don’t make me spell it out….) and I loooove the “Rebound Bro” episode. I kept laughing at it at work, it was still playing in my head. No one noticed I was laughing to myself! BAH! But I digress. “Haley. Come here, Haley. Haley, you are a fat ugly whore.” LOL!! Damn, that was funny. Okay then. And, again, nosebleeds. But this time funny. But still gross. Which is what was funny. Okay then!

Sigh… well, at least I laughed in this blog entry. I feel trapped! Ahhhhh!!!!!!! Now you know. Possibly by winter (Seasonal Affective Disorder), possibly by the JOB, possibly… yeah, that’s pretty much it. ETC. Maybe I shouldn’t try so hard with this book. Maybe. Cuz…. I have a paperback book planned and a preview video, which means I need photos I can use, and music, and…. ‘head spinning.’ Maybe it should just be about the words. You know? Really. I could just keep writing the words…. But then who will market it? Who cares?? What?! I don’t know…. Grr.. Interesting…. I’m burned out.

Maybe I should stop watching crap movies and start watching something that will actually inspire me. Thoughts???!!!! What have I wanted to watch? (You know, besides The Guild, which starts next month, or Dollhouse, which starts in… February?) Urrggghh! I tried watching Charmed. It also, ummm, okay, sucked. But I almost liked it! I read that it gets better, but I couldn’t bear to watch! I liked the episode with John Cho, but that was it.

I’m running out of sci-fi/fantasy television! I also liked The Legend of Neil. I should link to these things when I mention them. One moment. -There, I linked it, and also The Guild, but Dollhouse can fend for itself. I mean, err… what? I love it already in advance, it just has all of Fox behind it. Juuuust Google it. I’m all out of linking power. Whatever.

Going to Hell. I had to sit through the worst staff meeting today. People were crammed into a room, some had to sit on the floor. One woman had to crawl under a table to get out of the room to use the bathroom. It was the slowest most torture filled meeting. It was stopped twice to discuss how torturous it was and how much longer it would go on. Then started up again. Aahhhhhh! God. I scribbled a black nothing on my pad of paper. I think I accidentally created a portal to Hell. Oops. I swear if I am ever in Hell, it’ll just be this meeting repeated on a loop. Man. SUCKED.

That’s why I’m in a bad mood! Is it? Hell if I know. Heh. Pfft. I wish I had something cheerier to say. I just feel like being pessimistic and filled with gloom. I should have polls in here. I could ask weird questions. It could be fun. I should add up how many times Mandra has been downloaded. But I think it would depress me. Let’s see…. I estimate, and this is the low end of possible reality: 15,000. Wow. That’s kind of nice. I mean, it’s not a million! But it’s a lot. Neat! I will take it! A college professor, when I said I wanted to be a writer, once snidely asked me if I wanted to write the Great American Novel. The thought had never even crossed my mind. I thought, “Heck no. I want to write something entertaining.” Pfft. I think out loud I just said, “No.” Way to be encouraging, though, teacher. Thanks. Grr.

Okay, now I’ve bummed myself out again. Dangit! I think I can’t win today. Yep, it’s a bummer. Hey, I’m winning in my stats against Buffy and Spike. Go me. I should stop mentioning them!!!! Google will see! Google sees all!!!! Okay, I’m creating drama again. I should just write it down…. I mean write another novel. But the editing, the horror, the horror!

Clearly I’m too burned out to think straight. I’m going now. Later.