Colorful!

A Manic Monday post

This week's theme is Colorful.

Manic Monday #6

The word of the day is "Bug" and it's also the beginning of something called Doodle Week where the theme of the day is also "Bug." Amazing. While usually nothing short of torture could compel me to share my "art" work with the world, I must be in the right mood today. Or maybe I'm okay with it since I can share computer doodles, so it feels less personal. Anyway, for those of you with absolutely no lofty standards for your art ..... I promise not to draw anything when I blog from RWA's National Conference!

Manic Monday #5

And the word of the day was "stripes." And the blogger read the word and her mind went blank. Stripes? Stripes! What on earth do I have to say about stripes? Very little, I'm afraid.

• I don't wear them very often, especially not the horizontal variety.
• Sometimes I find stripes appealing, and sometimes I don't.
• I like the striped background on Morgan's Manic Monday icon.
• This one? Not so much.
• Then I thought about the Stars and Stripes, and I thought hey! I could say something about flag and country. I have plenty to say, just as I'm sure every American has. But I remained singularly uninspired,
• In the end, I changed the sheets on my bed. They are not striped.

Manic Monday: Carol

I haven't done a Manic Monday in a while. I haven't blogged anything in a while. I've been busy meeting deadlines and trying to meet deadlines and trying to catch up with deadlines, among other things. I'm so far behind, I'm still thinking about putting up a Christmas tree.

In a perfect world, my tree would have been up the day after Thanksgiving, because in a perfect world, I love the holiday season. I love the lights, the trees, the cold, the snow (as long as I'm not driving or walking in it). I love Christmas music, Christmas Carols, Christmas presents, Christmas shopping. I love sitting in my living room by the light of my Christmas tree watching Christmas movies.

But wait a second! Maybe I'm not as far behind as I think. After all, my family won't be celebrating until mid- to late-January when (hopefully) Ian's current deployment will be over and Vanessa and Abigail have come back from their 2 1/2 month visit with the in-laws. By my schedule, we're still a month away from the holiday .... which means that I'm right on time! Now how cool is that?

Manic Monday Treats

My treat this week is that my computer is finally working again! My subscription to Norton expired and I started to install a version of McAfee, only to discover that it wasn't compatible with Windows Vista. I told it to stop installing but, of course, the computer didn't listen to me (my main complaint about Windows these days.) Naturally, the unacceptable version of McAfee played havoc with my computer. After much wailing and gnashing of teeth, I was able to boot in safe mode and uninstall McAfee, which left the computer running again except IE -- which still isn't running despite my efforts and those of my computer manufacturer's tech support. Of course, this had to happen when I was traveling to Chicago for some CEO training, so I wasn't able to follow through in my normal obsessed fashion, and immediately upon my return home I was inundated by a number of things that kept me from being obsessed about the internet and my computer's ability to function for a few more days. However, last night in a burst of (totally unexpected) brilliance, I remembered that there are other browsers besides IE and downloaded a copy of Mozilla Firefox. I've been happily reattached to the internet ever since!

Orange

I've spent most of the day on the phone, calling people to let them know the outcome of the Romance Writers of America elections. It's been a fun day, and now that I've had a chance to talk to some of the candidates I'd never met before, I'm really getting excited about the coming year. I think we're going to have an outstanding Board of Directors next year. Meanwhile, it's Manic Monday, and the theme of the day is orange. Orange? What?!? Orange? What do I have to say about orange, except that my dear friend Jo Ann hates the color orange. I, however, have no feelings one way or the other about orange, but I do have a childhood memory, so I guess I'll share that. When I was a very little girl, maybe 4, my parents enrolled me in pre-school. I think our parents took turns carpooling, but I'm not sure. What I remember is that we must have been required to bring snacks from home because the other little girls and I would sit in the back seat and give each other clues about what we had in our snack bags. I was not good at this game, and I hated playing every day. The other girls seemed to have no problem guessing what I had in my bag, and I never could guess what they had in theirs. Of course, my mother always sent me to pre-school with a piece of fruit, and I probably gave brilliant clues like, "It's long and yellow," or "It's round and orange." Well, one day, my mother finally, finally sent me to school with the kind of treat I'd been longing to take ... an orange frosted Halloween cookie in the shape of a Jack-O-Lantern. I was elated because not only did I get something other than fruit for lunch, but I had a treat that surely would stump the other kids in the carpool. I would tell them my treat was round and orange, and they would guess that I had an actual orange in the paper bag I clutched in my little hands. I remember getting into the car that day. I remember being almost giddy with excitement. I remember not being able to guess what anyone else had, but for once it didn't matter. Finally, it was my turn to give my clues. My treat, I announced proudly, was round and orange. I waited with bated breath for the others to guess the wrong thing, but the first little girl popped up like a real smart-aleck and said, "A pumpkin cookie!" I can still remember the crushing disappointment I felt when she guessed, and I don't remember ever playing that stupid game again. :(

One Writer's Tool Kit

Every once in a while, someone gives me a tool kit for writers. It's always very crafty and cute, and it contains things like a handful of lifesavers, an eraser, a tiny chocolate bar, and other clever things that make me smile. But what if I were creating a real tool kit for writers? What would I put in it? 1. A copy of Dwight Swain's book, Techniques of the Selling Writer. The examples are a little outdated, but this book is gold in my opinion, and it's much more powerful than any of its counterparts. 2. Paper. A case, at least. 3. A laptop computer. One of the really lovely things (again in my opinion) about being a writer for a living is that you can work anywhere. Being chained to a desk kind of wipes out that perk. 4. Toner. 5. A printer. 6. A copy of The Writers Journey, Mythic Structure for Writers by Christopher Vogler. I resisted this book for a long, long time just because I'm stubborn. I tend not to get excited about the latest fad, and this book was it for a while. When I finally did take the time to read it, much of what Vogler said made a great deal of sense. 7. Membership in a professional writer's organization. No organization is going to help you get published or stay published, but the association with other writers in this solitary business and the exchange of industry information is invaluable. 8. An extra measure of persistence. Talent is wonderful, but time after time I've seen persistent writers who appear to have a small amount of natural raw talent achieve publishing success while writers who seem to have a great deal of natural talent let their writing ability lie dormant. I'm grateful for every ounce of talent I've been blessed with, but over the years I've come to realize that an even greater gift is my desire and ability to keep going when the road gets rough. 9. A support system. I don't mean a cheering section filled with people who tell us how wonderfully we write, but a real live support system made up of people who understand why we don't answer the door and the phone, who don't try to talk us out of going to critique group or that writing group meeting, who don't interrupt when we're writing, who understand that a whisper is as loud as speaking in your regular voice when you are interrupting and that a five minute phone call can end your work day. These people get the fact that most of us can't write as quickly as we can type, and understand how much work we're doing when we're staring out the window, at the ceiling or into space. They don't have to read a word I write to be invaluable to me and to my career. 10. A never-ending gift certificate to an office supply store. I haven't met a writer yet who wasn't also addicted to office supplies :)