Catching Up

It’s been one hell of a busy week.

I found out at a meeting on Monday afternoon that a project deadline had been moved up a week and that I had to have it done by Friday – as in yesterday. Grr.. That meant some long days, where I went in at 6:00 or 6:30 in the morning, stayed until 5:00 p.m., took a break, and then went back later in the evening.

To make matters worse, I also had a training seminar to go to from 11:00 to 1:00 on Friday. I already knew about 90% of the material, but I get Continuing Ed hours for it and it was free – so it was worth my time. I also took a colleague with me and about 60% of the material was new to him (and he really needed to learn it!).

I haven’t totaled up my hours for the week, but I think I’m approaching fifty. I got home from work last night, had a glass of wine, and fell asleep on the couch. It was that kind of sleep that is hard to come up out of, where something wakes you but fighting back to full consciousness is almost impossible.

So what else have I accomplished this week?

Outlining for my NaNoWriMo novel: zilch

Writing on first draft of story for Lynn Viehl’s challenge: zilch

Revising two poems for submission to an e-zine: zilch

I did attend a couple of talks at the Book Festival going on here today. One panel included four authors who, for various reasons, have self-published. One of the authors was RoseMarie London, who was a finalist in last year’s Needle Awards (see POD-dy Mouth). Another author was a girl who wrote a novel while she was in high school, and her parents loaned her the money to self-publish her novel as a senior project. It was interesting stuff, and I’ll write more about it soon.

The second panel was about fiction writing, and five authors discussed their latest works and their writing process. Two of their books sounded interesting enough that I’m probably going to buy them. My only complaint is that all of the author’s write literary fiction. There were no genre authors on the panel. It’s a minor complaint, though, because the discussion was still good.

And to top off the day, I score big time at the used book store tonight. I found Holly Lisle’s “Midnight Rain”. I have read her “I See You” (loved it) and “Last Girl Dancing” (liked it). I also found a second book by Annette Blair called “My Favorite Witch” I just finished her “The Kitchen Witch” and loved that as well. This book is about one of the secondary characters in the first book.

And finally, though I hate to admit it, I bought another Susan Kearney book, “The Dare”.

***ducking and running because asked someone to shoot me if I ever bought anything by her again***

It’s just that the main character of this book, Dora, was so funny in the last one. If the book includes any “forced seduction” scenes, well, I used my trade credit for the book…so it’s not like I spent actual money on it.

I’m trying to get caught up on reviews, but I haven’t much lately that’s been really snarky-worthy. Most of it has been just bland and unmemorable. Except for a couple of gems that I will touch on in the next post.