I would like to know how my cat knows to wake me up at PRECISELY 5:30 every damn day.

Le sigh.

( 30 Days Of Writing )

Do you write romantic relationships? How do you do with those, and how “far” are you willing to go in your writing? ;)

Oh, God, yes. I quite like writing romance of all stripes. I haven't written poly yet, but I've written straight, gay, lesbian, a bit of an open marriage, you name it. The thing with never having been in a genuinely serious relationship and being a virgin, and then writing sex and romance is that eventually you just sort of get over your unease about writing something you've never done before, because, hey, you're writing a lot of things you've never done before.

But, yeah, I don't mind going far, depending on the couple. That said, I do like to focus more on the action itself than on the, you know, action just because I've recently been all about writing (or attempting to write) stories with kick-ass women in the lead, and one of my least favorite things about reading other people's stories with kick-ass women in the lead is the bit where they're pursued by two or more incredibly hot guys and OH NOES HOWEVER WILL I CHOOSE?!

Heroine Addiction is kinda the epitome of that, in that the book (and any sequels, of which I've already started plotting out the first) will probably focus mostly on the case or adventure or whatever, and the romances for Vera will be there ... just not, you know, THERE. And the entire focus being on the romance won't happen for very long if it does happen because, seriously, when you have to rescue the city or escape a villain's trap or fight a bad guy, stopping to have an argument with your ex-girlfriend just bugs me. It can wait until AFTER the world's been saved, as far as I'm concerned.

*

A few other things:

-- I threw down an idea for what could possibly end up a YA novel about a gay teenager. We'll see. Considering what trouble I've had lately getting anything started, this might be as dead in the water as the rest of my ideas.

-- I didn't get any editing done yesterday, as I am a lazy assbutt.

-- Happy Fourth of July! Or, if you're me, Happy Free Vacation Day In Which I Can Hopefully Avoid Too Many Flag-Waving Orgasmically-Nationalist Douchebags! (That won't work. I have to go to Wegmans in two and a half hours for orientation stuff so I'm bound to see someone being an all-American asshole. Uh, did I ever mention I'm not a big fan of the Fourth of July? Do I really have to celebrate? Can't I have just have a second Halloween instead every year?)

-- I just wanted to apologize if I'm not being all that entertaining lately. After all of the overtime I've done in the past couple of weeks and how tired I've been when I get home and how hard I've been trying to write only to fail miserably since I started the overtime ... yeah, I'm not really much for entertaining at the moment.

-- Oh, did I mention that I'm planning to hit DC on Labor Day weekend? "Planning" being the operative word, as I may not be able to get the extra vacation days for that weekend that I'd like considering how soon it is, so I may have to go the weekend after. But since I'll be starting at Wegmans shortly and there should be more overtime to be had at my full-time job, I should be able to afford to use my first paycheck in September to take a road trip down to the city for the weekend. And my brother's planning on coming with -- the only thing he asked was that we stop at the National Aquarium on the way down, which I am more than happy to do. Yay, road trip! FINALLY. I need a vacation so badly, you have NO idea.

Because it's a lot easier than bugging the guys at Best Buy.

A bit of a question for you guys. As soon as I start working at Wegmans and put aside all of the money I'm going to need for my trip (I need to get out of town for a few days if only for my own mental health, plus that's my birthday present to myself for all the long hours I'll be working the next couple of months) I'm going to start putting aside money for a new MP3 player. I've emptied my piggy bank (almost literally) and haunted eBay for cheap knockoffs that would work better than the Phillips Go Gear 8GB I have right now, but no dice. So now that I'll have the money to actually get a new one to replace it, I want to get it right on the first try. (It's not exactly a necessity, obviously, but I spend my entire day at work doing data entry and without a MP3 player it could drive you a little stir-crazy.)

Anyway, here's what I need in an MP3 player:

-- I need one with TONS of space, preferably 64GB or higher.
-- I need one that plays videos clearly as AVI files without me having to attempt to change the file type to m4x#kittens!whatever.
-- I need one that allows me to separate my music and my audiobooks so that if I put the thing on shuffle it won't suddenly decide to shuffle through my audiobook files.
-- I need one that, if I suddenly decide that I'd rather listen to my music instead of the six-hour-long audiobook file I'm halfway through listening to, it will easily let me get back to the precise point in the recording I was at without having a minor coronary about it.
-- I need one where the battery won't konk out halfway through an 8-hour work day.
-- I'd kinda like one with a touchscreen because, whee, touchscreens!

I'm not against buying an iPod Touch. That said, I sort of want iTunes to die by being hit with a toilet seat from an exploding space station, so I'm hoping for a player that's not that, if possible.

Anybody got any suggestions? Or should I just look into an iPod Touch anyway?

A frustrated status of the writer

I am on my second day of having nothing else to do -- no job, no plans -- and I haven't written more than a hundred words or edited a damn thing.

So I opened up the most developed or most intriguing (well, to me, anyway) story files in my WIPs folders, and here are the opening lines:

-- If Christians are Christlike, Jesus must have been a real asshole. [as written in a world religions textbook] (Exile From Hateville)

-- The only thing stopping me from attempting to murder my blind date with my leftover pizza crust is that he's already dead. (Incognito/Capture The Pawn)

-- The Holy Protective Order of St. Sally boasts thirty-seven nuns, most of them in varying stages of pregnancy. (Barren)

-- I keep expecting my roommate to just fuck her boyfriend right in front of me and get it over with already. (This Way To The Egress)

-- The sleeves of my graduation robes reached past my wrists, covering the bite marks. (The Hollow Girl)

-- Billie Cherry tripped as she emerged from her front door, nearly giving herself another black eye in the process. (Cherry Bomb)

Well, if there's one thing I can say, I really do like my opening lines most of the time. Now, if only I could keep going much farther after I write them ... *sigh*

*

In other news, I don't know which is worse, all of the fireworks randomly going off across town or the person across the street who keeps attempting to play drums and has done so all day long. At least I was expecting the fireworks.