In view of Kuffer's recent activities...

I thought this might amuse...



Courtesy of the lovely folk at Cute Overload...

I have loads and loads to do today, including 1K of In Too Deep, and having got up late, and with me going out earlyish this evening for carvery, time is short.

However, here's an interesting article at the Dear Author blog, that caught my eye this morning via Google Reader. See what you think...

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Thought for the day...

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Wounded in Inaction...

These aren't Kuffer's claws, but they're quite like them. And the reason I post this picture is because claws like the above inflicted quite an unpleasant wound on me last night!!!

I was lying in bed, watching the telly, with Kuffer at my side, when he suddenly decided to flip into one of his 'rough play' fits and before I knew what had happened he'd split my lower lip open with his claw! Ouch!!! I was a bit frightened and had visions of stitches and scars and everything, but when I'd stopped panicking, I realised it wasn't as bad as I'd feared. It's still a little sore this morning, but it seems to be healing okay, no thanks to that furry mutthead... who is as affectionate and friendly as ever, having no idea of the damage he's inflicted.

In other news, I did manage to finally get to my writing yesterday, and managed to achieve my 1k after all. It's not the greatest of stuff, and the plot is crawling at a mindbendingly slow pace, but at least it's words, innit? Words that can be edited. This morning I've tried a trick suggested by my fellow Sweat70 sponsor, Diana Peterfreund. She describes a strategy of hers to start the day with a small 15 minute chunk of writing, so that when you go into a more serious and prolonged work session, you're not going in stone cold, because you've already laid down a couple of hundred words or so at the beginning of the day. I've tried this, and have a tidy little chunk of around 250 words to build on later. Thanks, Diana! It's a good tip!

Something lovely happened yesterday... a bit of serendipity type stuff that made me feel very happy and good about myself. I posted the name of the winner of a prize draw of mine, over at Lustbites... and I discovered that before she'd even realised she was a winner, Dakota Rebel had already written a lovely post about me, over on her blog! Seems that a MySpace bulletin I sent out was instrumental in her getting her first book accepted for publication! Now, I often feel guilty that I don't help other writers enough, but it sounds as if inadvertently I've done some good for Dakota! And she also said some lovely things about my work... :)

Read about her story here.


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Mr Blue is vexed!

It's almost two o'clock and I've not written any of my WIP yet... His Blueship is not best pleased!


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If you love you some Portia click here and VOTE, VOTE, VOTE every day until 31st October!

Eeeek!

Argh, it's only day three and I'm feeling a panic attack! After two days of positive attitude and achievement, I'm now beset by one of those mornings when everything in favour's against me, and I can feel the entire day slipping away into a state of getting nothing done!

I must not succumb to this though! I must stay calm, focus on my writing ideas, and get myself into the zone. I must give myself permission to write a little less, maybe? But I should maintain a general optimistic attitude and lead by example as a Sweat70 sponsor...

I shall have to shape up soon or Mr Blue will be on my *ss! [I wish... ;) ]

And speaking of hard-core Sweat70 motivators, nip over to Kim's Blog and meet The Colonel!

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While you're here, please, please, please pop over the the Night Owl Romance Awards and vote for me in the Best Erotic Contemporary Ebook!

If you love you some Portia click here and VOTE, VOTE, VOTE every day until 31st October!

Is it wrong....

to count the words of the notes I've been making this morning towards my daily Sweat70 total?



After convincing myself last night that what I've written so far on In Too Deep is a pile of camel dung of the highest pong, and that the idea itself is ludicrous, I'm feeling better disposed towards it at the moment. Thanks in part to more of my bathroom brainstorming. Had a few not too pathetic and insane ideas about it whilst hovering before the sink, starkers and soapy, and when I was all clean and dry and dressed, I rushed to the laptop to get them down in my notes file. [above piccie is supposed to represent the foam of ideas welling up... or summink like that] I think I'm starting to get a sense of the book, sort of. I've plumped for first person for the time being, but will give myself permission to change that if it doesn't work out. There's also a bit of an additional hero first person POV in the form of some notes and letters and emails, which I'm hoping will work and not seem too hokey. The story takes place in the Stoneworld universe, but I'm not sure if it'll seem contrived to try and get some of the other characters into it. Maybe they'll just be 'seen' rather than have speaking parts.

Anyway, I did a solid 1K of words yesterday on this opus, so In Too Deep is officially under way now. And that's good because it means I've overcome my fear of 'starting'... which is a pretty big hurdle for me. :)

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While you're here, please, please, please pop over the the Night Owl Romance Awards and vote for me in the Best Erotic Contemporary Ebook!

If you love you some Portia click here and VOTE, VOTE, VOTE every day until 31st October!

Yikes, it's started!

Sweat70 has started and Mr Blue is determined to get tough with me from the outset! Which he needs to, because not only am I a sponsor this time round [I must be maaaaad!!!!] I'm also in the middle of one of my 'oh no, I don't want to write... it's too hard...' things. Which is a bit inconvenient to say the least...

No, seriously, I was feeling like that, but whilst taking a walk up into little town, to the bank [and forgetting to call at the chemists, which I was supposed to call at] I did have a bit of inspiration for the start of my next WIP, which I plan to 'sweat' over, to get at least a goodish chunk done by the time the challenge ends in January. I'm still debating between first and third person, but am veering closer to first at the moment. And even if I start in first and it's a misfire, I'll still have the storyline that I can rewrite in first, won't I?


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While you're here, please, please, please pop over the the Night Owl Romance Awards and vote for me in the Best Erotic Contemporary Ebook!

If you love you some Portia click here and VOTE, VOTE, VOTE every day until 31st October!

Let's Sweat Again!

It's time to sweat for seventy days again... and so help me God, I'm one of the sponsors this time. I can't begin to imagine what possible use I'm going to be. Talk about the blind leading the blind... but here's the official call to arms... Courtesy of Sven...

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We here at Sven Says Sweat invite you participate in round two of our Seventy Days of Sweat Writing Challenge. The challenge begins on Monday, October 15 and runs through Tuesday, January 15.

Yes, that’s 93 days. We’re giving you 23 days off to use as your personal holiday and religious circumstances require

For those participating in Nano who don’t want to start before 11/1, you can use the first 15 days to plan out your story, and then have 45 days to polish once November is over.

The goal is to have a completed manuscript at the challenge’s end.

The rules are simple. You agree to write from 750 to 1500 words a day (depending on your project needs) between the dates listed above. If you need to take off a day, you make up the pages another. Remember: You only have to do the writing for 70 days.

You don’t have to have a blog to participate, but we do want you to sign up below so everyone involved can get to know one another. And if you do have a blog, you can post the information there. Going public with your commitment is about owning it.

As far as reporting your progress, you’ll come back here each Wednesday and Sunday and post your total word count. Those of us sponsoring the challenge will be dropping by your blog (if you have one) and egging you on! And this year we have several co-sponsors who will also be checking up on you! (More on that later.)

The challenge is open to anyone writing in any genre, published and aspiring authors both. On the sidebar, you’ll find our logo if you’d like to put one on your blog. For now, let’s see a show of hands.

Who’s not afraid to sweat?

GO HERE TO SIGN UP!!! THERE'S STILL TIME!!!

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While you're here, please, please, please pop over the the Night Owl Romance Awards and vote for me in the Best Erotic Contemporary Ebook!

If you love you some Portia click here and VOTE, VOTE, VOTE every day until 31st October!

Slightly curmudgeonly but also indulgent Thursday

Have been feeling pretty weird the last day or so, with a migraine that never fully 'came out' that seems to have somehow generated a general pissed-off-ness about various writing related areas. News I hear, things people say, attitudes and prejudices I encounter all seem to be getting on my nerves... it's not one or even two or three big specific things... it's more a mood, a feeling I get sometimes that all is not right in the world, that there's 'something rotten in the state of Denmark'... well, not actually in Denmark, but in the angsty ennui-loaded Hamlet sort of way... Does that make sense?

It's all very vague, and hard to pin down, but it depresses me and makes me wish, now and then, that I was in some other business. Although God knows what I'd do as I have no other particular talents and having worked for myself so long, I'm more or less unemployable in any conventional type of job.

Crikey, that all seems very grim, doesn't it? I'd probably feel a lot better if I could smash a few things and punch a few people... but realistically, that's not a solution, is it?

I should be working as therapy... but I'm finding it hard to connect to my WIP. I like it and all that, and I'm sure once I start, I'll be okay, but the start-hurdle seems toweringly high today...

All of which is not helped by a small obsession/crush thingoid that seems to be developing that means I'm spending more time than I should watching DVDs. The Divine Vincenzo is still my main man, but I'm starting to really like another guy too... maths genius Charlie Eppes in the quirky FBI show, Numb3rs... isn't he cute?

This Numb3rs thing has got slightly serious in that I really cannot wait for the shows to be on the telly [again, they're repeats actually, as I missed it first time out in the UK] and have ordered all the boxed sets I can get my hands on, even Series 3, which isn't out yet here in the UK. I just hope that it'll play on my multi region...

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While you're here, please, please, please pop over the the Night Owl Romance Awards and vote for me in the Best Erotic Contemporary Ebook!

If you love you some Portia click here and VOTE, VOTE, VOTE every day until 31st October!

Sigh.... a migraine coming on....

my head is starting to pound and I feel horrible. So for much more interesting stuff, pop across to LUSTBITES and read my post about beautiful transvestites... and to THE HOT SPOT, the new Total-E-Bound blog, where a bunch of the authors are talking about sex toys.

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While you're here, please, please, please pop over the the Night Owl Romance Awards and vote for me in the Best Erotic Contemporary Ebook!

If you love you some Portia click here and VOTE, VOTE, VOTE every day until 31st October!

I *will* do better! Yeah, right...

With the start of a new working week, I'm determined to do better!

Basically, I'm sick to death of myself for frittering away hours and hours of valuable time, either foofing about on the internet, or just sitting like a zombie being negative. It just won't do! And I can't go on doing it, because I have a whole page full of 'to do' list and some of it's just got to be cleared or else I'll sink under the weight of it and never ever catch up. I should be getting stuff done and clearing off jobs, just in case something exciting happens... And no, there's no specific exciting thing on the horizon, but you never know... something might come up, that needs my attention, and then I'll be wishing that I'd used all my wasted time more productively.

Anyway, in spite of being very tempted by my usual foofage, I've managed to get 1K words of Chance of a Lifetime done, and it's only midday. Which means that I've done my quota nicely and can either push on and do a bit more this afternoon, or switch to other jobs that need doing! It does not mean I can go surfing around the Lolcats sites and/or Encyclopaedia Dramatica!

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While you're here, please, please, please pop over the the Night Owl Romance Awards and vote for me in the Best Erotic Contemporary Ebook!

If you love you some Portia click here and VOTE, VOTE, VOTE every day until 31st October!

Sunday bits and bats...

I've signed up for the next Seventy Days of Sweat! And a jolly good job too, because I've been slacking a lot in the last week or so, and have not got much writing done. I need the incentive of a group effort like Sweat70 and the scorn and abuse of Mr Blue when I don't shape up and get some words produced...

In other news, I watched Sleepy Hollow on the telly again last night, and I do think I have to have this movie on DVD. Mr Depp looks remarkably scrummy in it, and puts in a deliciously comical turn as Ichabod... Trouble is, I don't know which version of the flick to order: Widescreen or Anamorphic... any suggestions as to which is best?

I have another timewasting, writing-avoidance tool... and it's called I Can Has Cheezburger, a rich repository of LolCats... I could spend hours there [in fact I *have* spent hours there] just browsing the many many comical cat pix!

I blame Alison Kent for inadvertently alerting me to this source of procrastination!




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While you're here, please, please, please pop over the the Night Owl Romance Awards and vote for me in the Best Erotic Contemporary Ebook!

If you love you some Portia click here and VOTE, VOTE, VOTE every day until 31st October!