I did an interview with Amanda Young over at her blog. Stop by and take a look!
2 Comments
Author: Cynical Woman
Freaky Friday – Food Porn!
It’s started. Harry and David… Swiss Colony… Hillshire Farms… All those glossy holiday food catalogs are just bursting out of my mailbox with their sensuous, tempting images of sinful, seductive food, all of it crying out, “Eat me! Eat ME!”
What, you’ve never heard of food porn before? Let me tell you why these naughty little catalogs are really nothing more than hard core XXX porn!
- Glossy, airbrushed images of tantalizing treats, complete with strategic lighting.
- Everything in those pics is plump, ripe, fresh, steaming, hot… Speaking of hot, is it me, or did someone just turn up the thermostat in here?
- Twelve inches of summer sausage on special sale this month. Need I say more?
- More nuts than you can stuff in your mouth, just in case you didn’t get enough summer sausage.
- And finally, the centerfold in just about every one of these damned catalogs is… CHEESECAKE!!
This has been your moment of freakiness for the week. Enjoy.
Writing Wednesday – E-mail is EVIL!
We’re now halfway through the second week of PerNoFiMo (Personal Novel Finishing Month), or as it’s better known to other writers, NaNoWriMo. So far, I’ve written around 11K words, more than halfway to my minimum goal of 20K, so I’m very pleased. I’ve discovered that I can churn out between 1200 and 1800 words without much problem, so long as I follow a few rules.
First, just write, don’t re-write and don’t edit as you go. Remember, neither PerNoFiMo nor NaNoWriMo are about a perfect first draft. Their goal is a first draft in any crappy shape you can manage to turn out.
Second, don’t go back and re-read your previous day’s work. A friend of mine, Scarlett Greyson, mentioned that she made the mistake of doing this and she wished she hadn’t. She wanted to rewrite everything! Again, this is not the point of PerNoFiMo or NaNoWriMo. Don’t rewrite! Just get it down the first time. The next month, and the month after that and the month after that, you can rewrite to your heart’s content.
Finally, whatever you do, don’t open your frikkin’ e-mail before you sit down to write! I made this mistake last week. I just wanted to check something, but then discovered a super very important life or death e-mail that I had to answer right that second! I spent the next two hours writing one stupid e-mail, and there went all my time for writing that evening. I had to make it up the next day, and damn near killed myself trying to write 3K words as opposed to the usual 1500 or so.
Anyway, that’s what I’ve learned from PerNoFiMo/NaNoWriMo so far. What about you folks? Figure out anything interesting from all this writing?
Episode 43 – NaNoWriMo!
I know, I’m doing PerNoFiMo (Personal Novel Finishing Month) instead of NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) but this is about how it feels.
I spent Saturday cranking out 3000 words in the novel I’m working on, tentatively titled Whip It! I was feeling pretty proud of myself because that’s a lot of words to produce in just a few hours, so I posted an announcement to Twitter. Someone almost immediately came back and said, “That’s great! If they’re the right words…”
If they’re the right words? If they’re the right words? I said it last week and I will say it again. NaNoWriMo and PerNoFiMo are not about putting the right words down on the page. These events are about putting words down, period. A bad first draft can always be re-written, edited, cleaned up, etc. A blank page? You got nothing to work with.
I explained this, and the person who made the comment understood immediately, and I’m glad, because there are lots of people out there who would still insist that if I didn’t write the right 3000 words, then I’d just wasted a lot of time. Well you know what? Those people most likely aren’t ever going to succeed in writing novels. So there!
Have a great day! I’ll post my progress on PerNoFiMo tomorrow in my Writing Wednesday post 😉
Don’t forget to visit www.nanowrimo.org to find out more about National Novel Writing Month.
Also at Oh Get A Grip this week, we’re talking about what it’s like to live with a writer. Good stuff. Stop by for a look!
Move It Mama Monday! Bored with exercise?
Oops! This was supposed to be posted early in the morning. Instead, it’s going out a wee bit late. Sorry, folks. Still getting used to WordPress.
I have to admit, I’ve been feeling pretty bored lately with all my usual workout options. Between kids being sick, me being sick, doctor appointments and car repairs, I haven’t been able to make it to the gym much in the past couple months, so I’ve been spending a lot of time on the Wii. I’ve done so much Wii Fit Plus and EA Sports Active that I feel like I’ve got those two games memorized, and I hate that. It just kills all the fun in my workouts.
When I’m bored with my workout choices, I tend to slack off on the exercise, which I really shouldn’t do right now. I’m on some medications that cause my weight to go up, so now more than usual I need to get up and get moving. To ensure I do that, I finally bought a couple of new Wii workout games. After all, that’s where I’m most likely going to be able to work out these days, thanks to a constantly disrupted schedule. So I bought My Fitness Coach and Gold’s Gym Cardio Workout.
I’ve only had the games for a couple days so far, so I can’t really give a good review on them yet, but I am very relieved to have something new in my repetoire of workout options. But these games aren’t the only new things I’m doing right now. I also decided to start going back to the Y at least once a week, twice if I can, and take water aerobics classes. That’s right, I’m going to join several very active senior citizens at least once a week in churning up the pool with a pair of foam dumbbells. I’ve already been to one class with my friend Patty, and had a great time. It was harder that I expected it to be, for which I am very grateful because I really do need something to get my heart rate up and help me burn calories. I’m looking forward to my next class, which unfortunately won’t be until Monday after this due to more upcoming doctor appointments this week. Bleh.
But at least I’ve managed to stave off the boredom for now. I’ll do a review of one of the new games I picked up next week, once I’ve had more time to spend with it, and let you know if I’m still feeling not bored by my new workout options then 😉
Sunday Contentments – Extra hours in the day
It’s Sunday afternoon and time once again to look back on the week and think about all the warm fuzzy things in my life. Here’s this week’s contentments.
Extra hours in the day – I’ve been busy as all get out today. Productive even. Frighteningly productive. It’s as though somehow I’ve managed to cram twelve hours’ worth of work into eight. I finished up this week’s Heat Flash Erotica Podcast. I put in an hour of exercise. I baked bread. I cooked three dishes for dinner and lunch this week. I cleaned the kitchen! Accomplishing even half of that would have been good for a day’s work. And that’s just today. I wrote over 8000 words for PerNoFiMo, sent off for book reviews, done some drawing… I don’t know how I managed to do so much this week, but I’ve got this giddy happy feeling of many jobs well done (and yes, I know, I’m bragging, but seriously, I am never so productive!).
Cooking – Like I mentioned earlier, I’ve already made bread and a few dishes for lunch and dinner this week. I like cooking everything on Sunday. It means I don’t have to worry about it any other time of the week, and I won’t get caught with nothing decent to eat when I get hungry. I even made healthy food. It’s a miracle!
Toy catalogs – the kids and I have been going through every one we get in the mail, and Princess and Pixie have already made up their Christmas lists. There’s nothing so fun as cuddly up underneath a blanket with two little girls and giggle over pages and pages of brightly colored images of toys.
TV – I don’t watch much of it, but there are now two shows on t(V and Flashforward) hat have got me interested enough to sit down and turn off my brain for a bit. I think I need that, just an hour or two every week to shut down my higher-level cognitive functions and become a vegetable. It certainly helps to lower my stress level when I’m upset about something.
New pajamas – Hubster and the girls went shopping and came back with new PJs for me, including flannel penguin pajamas and a fleecy tunic decorated in skulls and hearts. My family loves and understands me 😉
There’s more, always more, to feel contented about, but I’ll leave the list at that this week. Hope you all are having a wonderful Sunday, and feel free to share the things that make you feel all warm and fuzzy.
PerNoFiMo update
I mentioned a couple of weeks ago in a Writing Wednesday post that instead of doing NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month), I wanted to do PerNoFiMo (Personal Novel Finishing Month). I’ve got three unfinished projects on my computer that I really need to get done, one of which was as far along at 40,000 words. That’s a lot of novel to have written and then left unfinished.
So on Monday, I pulled out that 40,000 words and started adding to it. It was a little rough at first. I had wanted to get started on Sunday by re-reading what I had written so far, but Princess came down with the flu and I wasn’t feeling so hot myself, so nothing got done that day. I plowed into it on Monday instead, adding about 1500 words, and then spent Tuesday and Wednesday reacquainting myself with my notes and rough outline. I’ve got a ton of notes still left to sort through, but I got myself far enough along to know the general direction I need to head in, and on Wednesday night I started writing again.
Last night, Thursday, I made the mistake of checking e-mail before doing any writing, and spent an entire 2 hours responding to a very important e-mail, thus failing to get more than another 10 words written in the novel. So I cleared everything off my plate today and sat down at noon to start writing again. I got through another 3000 words, bringing me to a total of 6000 so far for the week. I’m hoping I can squeeze in another 2000 before I go to bed on Sunday night. We’ll see.
Some interesting things I’ve discovered so far this week. I had planned to work on this novel during the day, but I’ve had to spend so much time dealing with the usual e-mail and day-to-day promo and supporting work I do as a writer that I can never manage to do any actual writing. So, I decided I would have to stay up a little later and write after the girls go to bed. It’s actually kind of nice. I climb into bed with my laptop, and just type. It’s very cozy and I can actually get 1000 words done pretty easily this way.
The other thing I’ve discovered, or rather knew but am now actually experiencing first hand, is that I don’t need write perfectly to get this done. If I try to write the perfect story, I will fuck myself over completely and not get anything down on the page. Instead, I just need to type anything, and I do mean anything, that comes to mind. I’ve said this before, the point of NaNoWriMo, and now PerNoFiMo, is to get as many words down on the page as possible. Not the best words, not the exact perfect words, just as many as you can in order to rip through the first draft of the novel. I’ve had to constantly remind myself of this every time I hesitate and think, “Eh, did I really mean to type that? It doesn’t sound exactly right.” It doesn’t matter if what I typed is exactly right. What matters is I typed it and now I need to move on and type other things.
Hopefully, I’ll do another update on PerNoFiMo next Wednesday as part of Writing Wednesday. My goal is to get at least another 20,000 words added to this story by the end of the month, though I would prefer to write as much as 40,000 and maybe get this story done. But any progress at this point is good progress, and right now I’m already 6000 words ahead of the game.
Write on, dudes!
Episode 42 – How hot is too hot?
How hot is too hot? Is it possible to put too much sex in an erotica story?
Well actually, yeah. Most seasoned erotica writer realize that an erotica story has to be more than sex scenes strung together with a flimsy plot. Determining how much sex to put in, and determining how intense those scenes will be, can get tricky. It comes with practice though.
Still, it’s always a good idea to keep an extinguisher on hand. You know, just in case…
Move It Mama Monday! Going NOWHERE today
The Princess is sick. I repeat, the Princess is sick.
My eldest is on the couch for a few days, battling a fever, cough, and general misery. Looks like the flu has hit la Casa de Madden. I tried to get us flu shots, but everywhere I went, they were out before I could get us there. It’s gonna be a looooooong winter, folks.
So, with a sick child, my usual exercise routine is once again out the window for a few days. What to do? The usual; hop on the elliptical machine for 30 minutes, then pull out the Wii Fit. I want to exercise, I need to exercise, I am very fortunate to have the option to exercise at home while my child is sick. Hopefully, I do not find myself in training for that infamous Olympic event, the vomit catch, or even worse, the “toss your cookies for distance” event.
So, what sort of contingency plans do you all resort to when you can’t get to the gym? I really want to know!
Sunday Contements – A little late, but…
It’s 10PM on Sunday evening. Normally I get this post written by 11AM, 2PM at the latest, but that just wasn’t happening today. We had a very busy morning, with appointments that required we be up and out the door at the crack of dawn. Then afterward, since I didn’t feel well, I laid down and went to sleep for a bit. Four hours later…
Anyway, it’s been a muddled day, and now I have a sick child on top of everything, to boot. But still, I have that usual peaceful easy feeling, and here are the reasons why.
The Hubster – I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again. I love that man of mine. He knew I didn’t feel well, and so he shooed me to bed for a few hours after we got back home and let me sleep until I woke up on my own. He took care of Princess, who was sick, and Pixie, who’s been a little stinky fart for the last few days, pulling every trick in the book when she thinks she can get away with it (she can’t!). Why Hubster is still married to me after all these years, I’ll never know.
Cooking – It’s something I don’t do often enough. I stink at cooking on a daily basis, prefering to spend an hour or two on Sunday prepping dishes for the coming week. This afternoon, after I woke up, I made New England baked beans, apple caramel nut bread, and pumpkin souffle. The pumpkin souffle is something I make every year after the annual pumpkin carving party we go to. My souffle wilted shortly after I pulled it out of the oven, but we weren’t going to eat it until tomorrow anyway, so that’s okay. It’ll still taste good. I already know the bread is mouth-wateringly perfect, and the beans seem to be coming along just fine (they’re finishing up in the slow cooker as I type this). This week will be a week of good meals!
Challenges – I set them for myself, and I strive to conquer them. I busted ass the last two weeks getting the new site set up, and while it’s not perfect yet, it is functional and I think it looks pretty good. I’m giving myself a pat on the back for a job well done.
Doodling – I managed to squeeze in a bit of drawing time this week, and turned out some fun doodles. I want to fill up a sketch book with all sorts of kookie drawings. Wonder how far I could get toward that goal by New Year’s?
Disney movies – I know you all know I’m no fan of Disney princesses, but today a shelf-full of DVDs kept the Princess quiet and content on the couch when she needed to get some rest. She’ll get more movies tomorrow, in between naps and being read to and comforted. My girl feels pretty poorly, but so long as she’s got one of her favorite flicks to watch, she’s okay, and when she’s okay, I’m okay.
And that’s it for this week. Hopefully next Sunday I’ll be back to my usual routine, but even if I’m not, it’s all okay anyway. Night ya’ll!