Arrgh!

I've started editing Sarah's Turn and realized it really needs revising. My writing skills have apparently improved since I wrote that book in 2010 and this project will take longer than I had anticipated.

Not that I'm complaining about that. No. I want this book to be good. It deserves to be good.

It's just that every time I tried to work on it last night, I got interrupted.

Very frustrating.

It's my own fault, I know that. I should have gone into another room.

Lesson learned.

We'll see what day I can put that to use! This week is filling up fast.

Tonight – movie with the daughter (we're going to see Underworld-Awakening and it's $6 Tuesday).

Wednesday – Angel, season 5, with the daughter.

Thursday – writers group meeting, 7-10pm (tempted to blow this off, though).

Friday – Hey! I can work on my book!

How's your week looking?

A Picture to Share

This beautiful sunset occurred last week when I got home from work and I did my best to capture it on...digital (well, it's not film anymore!). If I included any of the street, the sky washed out.

I just love the pinks!

Thought I would share. Enjoy!

My Character is Driving Me Nuts!

While my next vampire character gave me a name I fell in love with, he surprised me with his heritage – Russian.

I know nothing about Russians or the language. There is no Russian line in my family tree. Mostly Irish, Scottish, and German.

But my character will know Russian. Of course, he'll be an old vampire, who has lived in the States long enough to have lost his accent, but he'll use words and phrases. The trouble is, I don't know any words or phrases in Russian!

So…time to do some research.

I started with Google Translator. Big help there – not! It translates the English into Cyrillic – major unreadable! Luckily, the program let me listen to the word.

Ugh! Aren't there any sweet sounding Russian words? When I listened to some of the translations of "sweetheart" or "dear", they didn't sound very…endearing. But I'm not giving up.

I discovered this book: "Dictionary of Russian Slang and Colloquial Expressions". Sounds interesting, if only B&N or Amazon showed some sample pages! I even checked to see if there were any copies locally. Apparently, we don't have a need for this particular Russian dictionary, since the six closest stores are out of stock. So, looks like I might try the library next. If that doesn't work, I'll just buy the darn book.

Russian! Well, I can honestly say that will be unique. At least, it is to me. I see French and Italian used in paranormal books all the time. Of course, their language sounds sexy. I sure hope I find something sexy sounding in Russian.

Actually, I'm hoping some kind of Russian insult sounds sexy. Now that would be funny!

Stamps, Stamps, and More Stamps

When I was a teenager, I collected stamps. I remember going to the post office and buying stamps. I remember soaking the stamps from the letters from my English and Australian pen-pals. I remember ordering stamps through the mail. I remember spending hours putting the stamps into my album.

Heck, I even I remember making friends with my mailman – his name was Don. He called me a philatelist.

I still have the collection – it's somewhere in the basement. Is it worth a lot of money? Probably not. I don't have THAT many. I'm sure I thought it was an investment at the time. But that's not why I collected. I liked looking at all the neat stamps other countries had – all the neat stamps our country had. It was a fun hobby.

I do know that an un-cancelled stamp is worth more than a cancelled stamp, though (duh!). So imagine my shock when my husband's E-bay package came in the mail the other day, covered in old stamps.

How old? The eight cent stamps (Winter Olympics) were dated 1972. Some of the thirteen cent stamps indicate Colorado's centennial, so that would be 1976. But the oldest is the three cent stamp indicating Hawaii, which was issued in 1937!

It was like someone took their stamp collection and used them to mail the package. I can't imagine someone doing that, when they had been kept unused all these years.

My husband was nice and made sure not to rip the box open. And I don't think I'll ever be able to throw the box away, either.

Because that collector is still in me!

What I Read Last Two Weeks

I wasn't sure what to expect when I first noticed what Stephen King's latest book, 11/22/63, was about. I'm not a huge fan of history, per se, but I like reading about the people in the past. Still, it was a Stephen King book, so I had to read it (because that's the kind of fan I am – and boy, wouldn't it be nice if I had fans like that!).

I really picked the perfect time to read it – in between projects. It only took me two weeks, compared to the four weeks I took to read Under the Dome. But then, 11/22/63 is a way better book. At least I think so.

Some people think his books are too long, that this could have been pared down to about 400 words (vs. the 850 it is). I say hogwash! Maybe he can go on a little long, but I love books with meat on them. Heck, I just love his writing.

This is a Stephen King book my husband could read (he hates horror). It involves time travel and has characters I really cared about. By page 600, I didn't want to put it down (It was hard going to sleep on Friday night and then going to the workshop on Saturday – all I did was think about that book – I nearly finished it that night, but couldn't keep my eyes open past 11:30. I finished it early Sunday morning).

It was a suspenseful read and even had a love story in there (yay!).

Have you read it yet? What did you think?