Christmas Eve

I'm sure everybody is spending time with their families this weekend, just like I am.

Merry Christmas and I'll see you next week.

My Favorite Things - post #100!

Well, I was asking over on facebook about what I should write for my 100th post. This is a pretty big deal for me! I've never done 100 of anything before, I don't think.

I decided that this should be a post of me sharing some of my favorite things. Some of these things are 'current' favorite things, they might be different next year, next month or next week. Some of them are going to be enduring favorite things, I've liked them for years, maybe even decades.

Since I'm a writer, I think I'll start with books.

My two favorite children's books. I loved them as a kid and they still tickle me as an adult.

I loved reading this book to my son and I can't wait to see my daughter's reaction to lovable, silly old Grover.

I blame this series for my love of reading and my love of history. I learned to read  starting with Molly and she's still my favorite. My daughter got her first American Girl doll last year and I'm slowly re-collecting the whole series for her so they'll be ready when she is.

My favorite grown up books.

This may be a cliche, but Pride and Prejudice is one of my favorite books. I don't remember why I first read it, but I'd nearly memorized it by the time we got to it in my high school British Literature class. I still remember most of the best lines and I re-read it every year. It's a timeless classic that I think I'll love until the day I die. 

I liked Terry Pratchett before I read this book. Night Watch is, to me, the culmination of years of storytelling. From the very beginning, you feel everything Sam Vimes feels. I'd never thought you could use lilacs to set up a sense of dread but there they are, everywhere, looming over what's coming. The suspense is awful and delicious as the characters come alive and you really, truly hope they stay that way. 

My favorite movies:
These next couple might be a surprise to anybody who doesn't know me very well.

This one might just be a movie that I love right now but I do love it. I had the soundtrack in high school but couldn't track down the actual movie until this last year. All I could think after watching it was "How have I never seen this before?". Oh, and seriously? Truly yummy Jeff Goldblum.

Isn't this every girls favorite movie? I think this is what drove my love of pirates.
Who wants to be a princess? I want to be a pirate!

I love it when someone takes a story every body knows and re-tells it and does it well.  She works hard! She loves books! Did you see that dress? This movie may have been what sparked my desire to make costumes and play with fabric. Oh, and the prince has a personality. How cool is that?

My favorite music:

I've tried to deny it but I can't. I write to Celtic Thunder, almost exclusively.  This is the first year I missed the concert and I'm really sorry I did. They've gone through some changes lately but they're still my lads and I love them. 

Favorite television shows:
Now, I own a television but it hasn't been turned on in a little over 3 months. I just don't watch much television. I love boxed sets and Netflix so I can just put something on and do something else. These are all television shows I've loved and will watch over and over.

While I will freely admit that David Tennant is my favorite Doctor, I do like all the others. I hold with Terry Pratchett's view on it, as well. Doctor Who is not Science Fiction, it's fantasy with sci-fi trappings. 

Set in the Whoniverse, this is one spin-off series that is actually more intense and more adult than it's parent series. This one is definitely sci-fi and I love every minute of it. Well . . . almost every minute of it. I'm going to pretend like Miracle Day didn't happen. Ok? That work for everybody?

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine is probably one of the least appreciated of the Star Trek series and also my favorite. I will freely admit that I love a little politics and religion with my science fiction and this series did it really well. 

Have you tried turning it off and on again? The IT Crowd is brilliant and funny and I love Roy. 

I grew up watching Red Dwarf and I don't say 'smeg' enough. There's really not much of a way of explaining why I love it. If you've seen it and liked it, you'll understand. If you haven't? Why not?!? Go watch it, ya smeghead!

I've read the books, I've watched the show. This is one show that makes you happy to root for a bad guy because there are worse guys out there, and he knows where they are. 

Space Cowboys!

Does anybody not love this show? I watch it with my son, the budding nerd, and explain all the science jokes to him. 

Aaaand, yeah, I'm gonna stop there. I could keep going but really? This is enough. I'm pretty sure my true colors have shown through and my status as a geek, at the very least, has been justified. What are some of your favorite things? Have any questions to ask me? Leave a comment and let me know!

Hallelujah

The Bible says there are 7 ways to praise God. I don't remember what the Hebrew names for the different types of praise are and I'm feeling a little lazy right now so I'm not going to look them up (if you find them, leave them in the comments). The one that seems to be coming to me right now is during times of trouble or the one before any blessing comes.

I've always loved the song Hallelujah by Leonard Cohen. I'ts spoken to me for so many years, I guess it's inevitable that I would have random refrains from the song running through my head at any given time.

Like this one:

It's not a cry that you hear at night
It's not someone who has seen the light
It's a cold and it's a broken Hallelujah

I guess I'm feeling a bit introspective tonight. At any rate, it's almost 3 am and I can't sleep. Again.

Time and again I get pulled back to this song so I guess it was only natural to pull up the version performed by my favorite lads.

NaNoWriMo: Day Twenty-Six

I am caught up! Yay! I actually spent today shopping and my kiddo's are going to like what they get for Christmas I think but it left me with not as much time as I would like to actually get some writing done.

So, I made some coffee, sat down with Write or Die and started doing 15 minute sprints. My goal was to do 400 words in every 15 minutes. Most times, I hit 500+.

Something else I've found is that I write better with one certain group playing than I do with any other music. Writing without music is not an option right now for reasons I'm not going to get into here. If I had a white noise generator I could attach headphones to, I probably would. As it is, I think I've probably memorized the entire Celtic Thunder library.

This is my favorite song right now, though is seems to change depending on what scene I'm working on.

Today's Stats:
Title: Amaria
Total words written: 43,427
Words written today: 2,633

NaNoWriMo: Day Eighteen

Today feels like a better day than yesterday and there are only a couple reasons I can think of to account for it, none of which should really make that big a difference to my day.

The first thing is the music. I like having music playing when I'm writing but it has to be the right music. Nothing I had really felt right and I kept going back to youtube to play certain songs. Finally, I just went ahead and downloaded the cd's and the pages just seemed to fly by.

The second thing was an email from a friend, which was a forwarded conversation she'd had with a mutual friend I'd lost touch with over the last couple years. They were both talking about how much they admired me and my writing.

I'll admit, I cried a little. I mean, really, who wouldn't get emotional upon reading that your friends are very impressed with you and think you should stop listening to the little gremlins of self-doubt that live in your brain. It was a very nice email to receive, is all, especially after the non response I got from certain quarters that I wasn't expecting.

Today's total word count isn't as high as I'd like, but I'm very satisfied with the scenes for today. The one that took the longest feels more intimate than the sex scenes I wrote a little over a week ago, and that's exactly how I wanted it to be. Tonight, I leave my characters hurt but stable (instead of bleeding to death like they were yesterday) and very, very loved.

Today's stats:
Title: Amaria
Total word count: 30052
Words written today: 1331

The music that made all of today's writing possible:

Gotta love Tam . . . I mean, Ryan Kelly.

Weekend Sexiness

I submit for your approval some truly inspiring images.

Ryan Kelly of Celtic Thunder

Paul Byrom of Celtic Thunder

Vin Diesel


And something for the guys . . .



Enjoy and have a fantastic weekend!!