Let it snow...

...Except on a school day! I love the white stuff as much as the next New Englander, but snow that cancels school on a Monday just before Christmas when I am thisclose to finishing edits on my manuscript so I can send it off to the agent who asked for a full... Well, I can do without! The kids were excited to say the least to hear the holy grail of school days words, "snow day." But me...

Well, I warned you on my website that I am a complainer, and anything that keeps me from my writing is worth complaining about. Besides, my complaining pales in comparison to my kids, who've inherited the complaining gene with a vengeance. I think the gene mutated with them, creating uber-complainers, each word a satiric, sarcastic art form out of their precious mouths.

I promised to focus on my writing career in this blog... 'Blog' I don't like that term, makes me think of The Blob, that 50s horror movie with Steve McQueen, which scared the bejeezus out of me. Saw it at my elementary school when I was a kid as part of an after school program for 'latchkey' kids. Other movies--full-color, tinny sound from the AV room projectors--included Mysterious Island and a disturbingly sexy version (for a 9-year-old, anyway) of Dracula. The goal was probably to keep us out of trouble (and to keep me out of the Marshmallow Fluff—a ploy that failed miserably), but it only served to make me a paranoid wreck—and a huge movie fan. Go figure.

But I digress... My writing has been in edit mode lately, interspersed with holiday duties and the usual crap that keeps me from writing (does Stephen King—or any other male writer, for that matter—ever stop in the middle of strangling a character to go put the laundry in the dryer because his kids will have to go to school naked if he doesn’t? Just asking…). I haven’t gotten any rejections lately, which is a good thing for my ego/psyche, but bad because that means I don’t have enough queries out there. The ones that are out there are in agent limbo, sitting on someone’s desk, and I wonder if I’ll hear from them before the post office raises the price of stamps again, making my SASE obsolete.

Time to go whip a few snowballs at my complaining children (add a bit of spit to ice them up good and you've got the original WMDs). Happy Holidays & Merry Christmas.

December 9, 2004

It's my birthday; what better day to officially start my blog?

If you've visited my website, you know all about me. If not, a quick intro: I write fiction, mostly mystery and romance, have a couple of kids, myriad pets, a house in the 'burbs, and have celebrated more than a few birthdays. I used to get all excited about this annual cake-fest, especially when I was ten and learned that I shared a birthday with my dreamboat, Donny Osmond. Now that he's closing in on Social Security, well... Not that I get depressed about birthdays. It's more of a numb, stunned feeling, like, "Heh; wasn't I just 22?" Forty, that was depressing. My oldest son, clever boy who will some day be president, told me to look at it this way, I wasn't turning forty, I was thirty-ten. Now, thirty-sixteen doesn't sound so bad.

The day began with my kids waking me up singing Happy Birthday before they went to the school bus. I told them to go away. Old ladies like me need our sleep! Later, my dog Lily pushed open the bedroom door and, getting an eyeful of me getting dressed, quickly vamoosed. Whether out of respect for my privacy or horror at the sight of my saggy body, I'd rather not know.

Then the Jehovah's Witnesses, a perky mother-daughter team in holiday red and green, rang my doorbell. Apparently they didn't get the memo about me being a Blue State heathen who's already staked out a bunk in that very special hell. After I sent them on their bible-toting way, my mother called to sing to me. That's her present to me, my siblings, her grandkids—on your birthday, she calls and sings Happy Birthday. She's always off-pitch, but we love it.

She was in rare form today, punctuating her rendition with the announcement that she was in the ER (chest pains and ongoing heart trouble). She insisted the nurses ("who you can't tell from the janitor, everyone wears those ugly flowered smocks!" she says) bring her a telephone so she could call me. She also insisted they admit her or she was calling a cab and going home, with their heart monitors still attached. Well, though the hospital could risk losing one cranky old broad, they'd never risk losing costly equipment so they promised to find her a bed.

Bad—or weird—things always happen in threes, so I was expecting a big rejection from an agent in the mail today, but, surprisingly, all I got was bills and junk. There's still time for tragedy, my husband's taking me to his company Holiday party tonight, and who knows what will happen if I get a couple drinks in me. Well, okay, I know. I'll be unconscious on the floor (hey, I can’t drink like I used to—can you?) and I will probably have to be rushed to the hospital. Bet I end up in a room with my mother, who will insist I do a few chores, making my bed and straightening the cords on her heart monitors.

In closing, except for worries about the old lady, all in all it's been a good birthday—I've spent the day writing and editing Polkadots & Moonbeams to send to an agent who requested a full. Doing what I love most. I hope to update this blog once a week, posting news about my quest to be published and basically yapping on and on about me.

Thanks for stopping by. Janet - No Power in the 'verse can stop me!