Saturday, November 29, 2014

Abandoned Kitty (Abby)



On Monday, when I returned from lunch, there was a commotion on campus, so I had to go check it out.  My boss' wife was there with the tiniest little kitten snuggled into her jacket.  It seems that she and their son had been out grocery shopping and saw a box with "free kitten" written on it.  The box was in a grocery cart parked in the middle of one of the aisles with no one around. A little black and white kitten face kept poking up out of the box.

My boss' wife is an animal magnet - if there is an animal in need, it always manages to find her.  She and her son claimed the kitten, picked up some canned food and brought it to work.  She had a new owner in mind, and it wasn't me, but when I saw the kitten, I knew we had to have it.  We've been looking all over for a kitten that wasn't going to cost us an arm and a leg.

Since the weather got cold a couple of weeks ago, the mice have been getting bolder and bolder to the point where they would just stop and look at you like, "I dare you!".  We had mouse traps out, but hadn't bagged as many as we had hoped.  I hate to hear them in the walls, but there they were, scrabbling in the wall between the bathroom and mudroom.  It was past time to get a cat.


I texted Jay and told him we now had our kitten.  I'm not sure she even weighs a pound yet and she fits curled up in both of my hands.  She also had worms (yuck), which we realized when she started dragging her butt on the carpet like a dog.

She definitely likes being up and would not stay in her box, despite taping it shut, for the drive home, so she sat on Digger's shoulder.


After I dropped Digger off at his place, she climbed onto my shoulder and slept the whole way home.  It was tough work being abandoned and then claimed.

She wasn't so excited about Allie-bird when I first introduced them, but has now decided that Allie is her dog.  However, she immediately claimed Jay as her human.


She's a bold kitty, not afraid of much, and has immediately taken over the house.  The first couple of nights were really rough.  It's been a long time since we've had a single kitten with a ton of energy.  It made it kind of tough to love her those first few days.

But she's just so darn cute when she's not terrorizing everyone and so loving when she wants to be that she'll get to stay.  It didn't hurt that she killed a mouse her first night home.

We (de)wormed her and gave her her shots yesterday.  The shot(s) was easy, but the wormer pill was not.  Between the two of us, we were able to choke it down her throat without losing any fingers, but it was a close thing. Because we didn't want Allie to end up with worms, we also treated her.

Abby likes to "help" whenever I'm on my cell phone, so I downloaded an app for her to play with.  How cute is this?



Saturday, November 22, 2014

Publishing Has Killed My NaNoWriMo Mojo!

Here it is, twenty-two days into NaNoWriMo and I've barely broken 7,500 words.  In the five (or six) years I've been participating, I've never struggled like I am this year and I blame the fact that I finally published my books.  I've resigned myself to the fact that I am not going to "win" NaNo this year, and that's okay as long as I get useable words out of my effort.

No longer can I just "vomit" words onto a page and feel okay about it.  Editing sucks.  Taking all those crappy words I threw up onto the page and trying to make something useful out of them is one of my least favorite chores.  Now that I know this, I'm struggling with putting the "right" words down the first time.  I understand why Tara Janzen says that writing is "excruciating" and "that it's like placing individual pieces of glitter with tweezers".

I find that I have to know where the story is going, whereas in the past I didn't care.  I find myself thinking things like, "will this tie into what is going to happen in chapter so-and-so?".  Or, "is this even believable?".  Things that never once crossed my mind in NaNos past.

And you know what?  I miss the free writing.  I do.  I just want to be able to shut off the "inner editor".  Now, just as soon as I figure that out, I'll let you know.

I'm currently working on two books: LYON'S RAGE and  PICEANCE BASIN PRINCESS.  My thought was that when I hit a wall with one, I'd switch to the other.  It worked beautifully for a couple thousand words.

LYON'S RAGE is a book, still early in Stacy's career as a Protection Specialist.  Her recent past comes back to haunt her when a potential client tries to hire her to kill his spouse. 

PICEANCE BASIN PRINCESS is Skeeter's story, how she came into my life after losing Her Highness.  It's not going to be a sappy, oh-she-saved-my-life story, because I honestly hate those stories.  It's more the reality side of things.  Yes, I loved Queen Estes and yes, I love Princess Skeeter, but it's hard work to keep from comparing the two.  It's more of a "she's different from Estes and I still love her" kind of story.

If I finish the month with a good start on both of these, I'll feel really good. I've taken vacation time over Christmas break, so I plan on continuing to write. I'd like to have RAGE in a publishable state by June 2015, and the other by the end of the summer.