Traumatic.

Top Three Traumatic Events Today

3.  My doctor cut out a chunk of my cervix* and then showed me the pieces floating in a little lab jar.

2.  After being a vegetarian almost fifteen years and not having had beef for over eighteen years, I accidentally chewed and swallowed a full bite of a beef** burrito.  

1.  I learned that when my husband was in high school, he used the word "Dawg" in conversation with as much frequency as Antwon Tanner (Skills) on ONE TREE HILL does***. 

* I'm fine, really.  It sounds worse than it is.

**It was supposed to have been a bean burrito.

***Meaning, several times in every conversation.  Like: "Hey listen, dawg."

E-mail formatting issue.

I've just started using Firefox as my browser because my IE has a horrible pop-up issue for some reason.  I sent out an e-query today, not realizing that my formatting in Firefox is like, SCREWED UP.  Afterward, I saw that all my apostrophes were crazy boxes with letters inside.  It looked terrible!  Instead of being annoying and resending, I decided to let it go and hope that the agent would decide it wasn't my fault and look past the wonkiness.  She did!  And she requested a partial!  Oddly, in her response, my message looked normal.  I'm not sure if she cleaned it up for me or what.  In any case, yay!

(I've now pasted the query into NotePad so this never happens again.)

Fictional Writers.

I've noticed a trend in movies and television where characters who are writers get writer's block--often while working on Book 2.   And when this happens, their editors or agents hop in planes or limos and travel to the writer's town to motivate that wacky writer into get her/his act together.  Because they are DESPERATE to publish Book 2!

Does this ever happen in real life?

I mean, really! 

Does it?

Also, do editors and writers ever actually travel back and forth to, like, edit projects together in person?  I mean, wouldn't they just talk on the phone and use e-mail for all that?

See, I do sometimes scoff when I see stuff like this on movies/TV.  But then I think that maybe I'm just all out of the loop and clueless!  Otherwise, why would the same thing keep coming up in different stories?

(Assuming I'm right to scoff, though.  Really, why would script writers depict the process in this way?  Is that how the film industry works so they assume publishing is the same?)

I kind of... did it.

There's something so crazy about writing.  Like, how finishing the synopsis/draft/whatever can seem so impossible.  And then, eventually, after all the whining and stressing, it's, like, done.  It torture to get there, but then there is pure elation afterward.  

That seems to be my pattern, at least.

(Okay, I'm not done done with the synopsis.  I still have to polish and ponder it some more.  But I'm close.  Much closer than I ever thought I'd be this time yesterday when I was feeling like I'd DIE before finishing.)

This is what happens...

Seth keeps me up at night. 

It's almost midnight, and I'm working on the effing synopsis because I couldn't sleep.  It's weird how this happens. 

This story.  This character.  Two years later, I still prefer him above all others.