Category Archives: General Stuff

Wind and Weather and Water and Writing and Weirdness

Life in Motion, General Stuff

So the effects of this spring’s weather have been interesting.

First, we’ve of course had a shitload of rain, same as what happened last spring. That means our front yard ditch is loaded down with….crawdads. Yeah. Crawdads. Hey, we live in the country. We get all kinds of interesting flora and fauna ’round here.

Biker Dude was out wandering the front yard the other night and said there were about 30 or 40 of these crawling out of their night holes:

Funny looking critters, aren’t they? They really like that wet mud. A. Lot. We need to get our granddaughter over here and let her go crawdad exploring at night. She’ll enjoy that. :giggle:

Yesterday we went to the lake for Biker Dude’s company picnic. The water level on the lake is up. A. Lot.

Couldn’t even find the boat ramp. It was under water. Probably why there weren’t many boats out on the water yesterday. Plus the winds blowing about 40mph made it really choppy out there. Ugh.

Wind wind wind. We took a bike ride this morning out for breakfast. Riding on a motorcycle in strong winds is not my idea of a good time. When the wind grabs hold of your helmet and it feels like it’s going to lift your head clean off your neck? So not fun.

The wind really could stop blowing so damn hard. Seriously. Thanks.

Writing went really well this past week. I set out to do 5,000 words a day with the goal of 20K a week until the book is done (omg it’s a tough goal!). I’m about 2500 words shy of hitting that goal for the week, so now that NASCAR is on, I’ve got the laptop on my lap in front of the tv and I intend to get those 2500 words so I can make my goal for the week. I’ll let you know how I do.

Oh, and I chopped all my hair off on Friday. It was growing out long and it looked REALLY BAD. Now it’s cute. I have a hair appointment on Tuesday so I’ll let my hairdresser fix the choppy parts, but considering I did it myself, it doesn’t suck. Heh. :sasmokin:

Edited to Add: Before and After Hair Photos:

Before – Long, stringy, no shape. Bleh. Not to mention every time the wind blew, I ended up with my hair in my mouth. :gah: This is Biker Dude and me at the rodeo a few weeks ago.

After – After I’d reached the end of my rope. Or my hair. Heh.

Swingers on TV?

Uncategorized, General Stuff

So I’m reading through this week’s issue of Entertainment Weekly, which profiles the new summer shows coming on. One of them is Swingtown, which premiers tomorrow night at 10 p.m. Eastern on CBS. Swingtown is a show about suburbia in the mid 70’s, and surrounds a group of husbands and wives who just happen to be swappers. You know…people who swap their partners. :wideeyed:

Dude. Swappers? Swingers? Seriously? On CBS? Not on HBO?

Times have changed, huh?

I can’t wait to see it. It looks like a fun, stand around the water cooler and talk about it the next day kind of show. Though I’m sure it’ll have to be pretty tame since one of the major networks is carrying it instead of one of the cable networks. Still, we’ll see.

Anyway, reading about this upcoming premiere got me to thinking about television and movies vs romance books, and how we seem to be much more forgiving of the characters we fall in love with on tv and in movies than we do in our romance novels. On tv and in movies, some of our favorite characters are not always above reproach. They lie, cheat on their partners (sometimes more than once), divorce each other, fall in love with the wrong person, cheat, do really bad things, cheat, kill people, cheat…

If any of the main characters in a romance novel do those things, isn’t it pretty much unforgiveable? Won’t we take that book and toss it against the wall and call it a DNF?

Why are we so forgiving of characters we love in TV and movies, and yet so staunch in our rules for romance novel characters and what they can’t do?

Just a thought that popped into my head that I didn’t really have an answer for. So I thought I’d throw it out there and see what y’all think about it.

Is it because in a romance novel the hero and heroine can only love and be with each other? Is that the unwritten rule? That because there’s no long term story ARC for them to screw up and come back together over several books (well, usually), to make amends for their past mistakes? But even if they show up at the beginning of the story having already made those mistakes, wouldn’t we find it hard to forgive them for having made the mistakes in the first place?

I know….deep thoughts for hump day, huh? :giggle:

Weekend Observations

General Stuff

1. I really needed some sleep, and holy crap could I ever power nap. I think I might be exhausted :giggle: .

2. I saw Nora Roberts’ High Noon commercial on Lifetime over the weekend. She looked gorgeous.

3. Karmal Sutra Ice Cream by Ben & Jerry’s. O-M-G. Orgasm in a carton. Srsly.

4. Mother Nature is not done fucking with us. Really, we’ve had enough rain now and I could have used power in my house yesterday morning. Please stop with the rain or Biker Dude will have to build a boat. kthxbai.

5. Groceries are nearly as expensive as gas. Jeebus!

6. I didn’t do nearly enough writing this weekend, meaning the whip comes out this week. :devilwhip: