OMG What have I done to myself?

Weird dream of _starlady_ 's kids as Jonas brothers. Matt was "the one with pets." Alex was "the sporty one." Steve was "the one with girlfriends." James got to be the older responsible one. Very odd pets, sports being played, girls coming and going, and James trying to hold it all together.

NOOOOOOOOOOOO idea why I dreamed about them though.

Argh, trying to gear up for thanksgiving and I keep either forgetting to buy something or discovering that the guys found the treat already and ate it. Last night I made gingerbread and Don broke out the whipped cream meant for Thursday pie. He only used it twice, but apparently Zac took that as an invitation to drain it. No more whipped cream. Of course I discovered AFTER I ran to the store to replace the mash potatoes. ARGH.

Had a whacked out stress dream this morning. I was trying to get someplace via airplane and forgotten something important at home. I decided to drive home and get it and there was construction on the highway where you had to dodge HUGE construction pile drivers and swinging beams of steel and avoid missing panels on the bridge decks. Then I ended up on a bus being driven -- or not driven as the case turned out -- by some 10 year old slutty witch who was making out with her 30 year old lover. I discovered that I forgotten my cell phone (doh, I don't HAVE a cellphone any more) and accidentally packed my cat (Doh, that cat disappeared 10 years ago) and the only one at home to pick me up was my aged parents who couldn't give me a landmark that hadn't been bulldozed. Discovered that you can read TIME in dreams since my flight was at 3:38 and it was already 3:20 (sister managed to print me a backup ticket from expedita) but I'd lost the cat, my luggage, my friends to return their phone, and my mind. Sigh.

So as an attempt to make Friday Night Pizza cheaper, we had been trying different kinds of frozen pizzas. Zac was NOT happy. Pizza from local places, though, ran close to $20.00 to be delivered. Earlier this week I got some fresh pizza dough to see if homemade pizza would be more acceptable. Turns out you need to use fresh pizza dough almost immediately -- oops. I made the pizza last night to save what I'd bought. Zac was like "more pepperoni! more cheese!" so he was happy that I could pile it on. Later he was like "it was good." Not GREAT but good. I liked it a lot. He angst that there would be no Friday Night pizza and I had leftover sauce, cheese and pepperoni, so I told him we'd make pizza again tonight. Just got back from picking up another batch of fresh dough. All and all, its as cheap as frozen and I think tastes a lot better.

Called my mom yesterday to check in on her. Things seem to be okay -- at least no new emergencies. I had collected Denver mint quarters for my dad while in Texas and mailed them to him last week. He was happily plugging the quarters into his book. The quarters I couldn't find for him were oddly Ohio and Arizona with the little D for Denver mint. Oh well, next time I'm west of the Mississippi.

I have two recipes I want to try this week. Well... three. The first is a tomato cream sauce for ravioli. Olive Garden has one that I love, so I'm going to try my own. The easiest one I've found lets you use a store-bought marinara and ricotta cheese. The others use whipping cream and chopped tomato. Have to consider how much fuss I want to go into. I also looked up beans and rice recipes. While looking, I found a creamy coconut beans and rice -- I love coconut so maybe I'll try it. Unfortunately I think this is one that Don won't touch.

Trying to get back to writing on Lucy, but Aiden is still chewing on my brain.

Convention is over. I dropped Diana off at the airport this morning and came home to nap. The visit was loads of fun and we talked about everything, but now I get to go back to life as normal. Very quiet house. No place to go. Nothing to do but write.

The convention was in the theater district of Boston. First day I forgot the directions and we had a tour of Boston. Second day, the directions from the hotel's website were confusing and we had a tour of Boston. Last day, I figured out how to get there in a straight shot.

The hotel was very old and charming but confusing. Registration was in lobby, the dealer's room was on the fifth floor. They used the 15th for photographs and one of my panel rooms. There was a rumor of a art show, but we never saw it.

I hung out at the table with Diana and we talked, talked, talked. There was an guy next door doing the same type of 'draw for money' as Diane who did quite well but was a little sleezy. http://www.robertquill.com/ It was a new experience for me hanging out in the dealer's room for so long. Often I don't even see the dealer's room.

Also met this artist http://www.purpletophat.com/ who was very sweet. I bought the white haird, bat-winged boy with the one red shoe.

Running around trying to get ready. Need to do everything from sweep the carpet to make sure I have clean con clothes. It would help if I had cleaned recently. :)

So Don has been trying to get me to watch movies with him. The only problem is that he never asks me what I want to watch, so I keep turning him down. Last night he managed to get me to say yes because he tapped into my recent fascination with the bat clan. We watch THE DARK KNIGHT. While it was fun to see all the batman characters out and about, and Heath Ledger really brought Joker to scary life, I just couldn't believe the guy playing Bruce Wayne. He didn't nail the playboy like George Clooney and he wasn't as believable fighter as Christian Bale.

Still struggling with Lucy's story. I'm trying to keep output high but its nothing like what the people in Nanowrimo are reporting. Sigh.

Slightly blocked on Lucy's story AGAIN. Been fiddling on Aiden's story as result. Got a second scene done for him that's okay but not great. Trying to figure out how to make it great.

I've slightly addicted to Snapple's diet ice tea and been fighting with Don not to turn off our cable tv. As a result, Don has bought stock in both Dr. Pepper (the parent company of Snapple) and Comcast, our cable tv. He's like "if you're cutting down on everything BUT these two things, then they must be good deals." Not sure its totally wise...usually when I love something, it goes away because no one else does.

Like Supernatural. Love it. Don't know a ton of people that watch it. Last night the writers did a rewrite on a major character that totally made sense. Wow. Next week, the boys end up at a "supernatural" convention where fans are dressed as them. Very looking forward to it.....oh...wait....Diane, you're going to be forced to watch this.

BTW, Diane, can you let me know what you like to drink and if there's anything you can't tolerate like scented candles, cat fur, yadayadayada....

Bleah, just 400 words on Lucy's story. I did a new start for a existing scene and then spent a lot of time bridging it to what I was keeping. HOURS on two or three sentences. Ann didn't like the new Aiden beginning -- rightly pointing out that its "fuzzy" on telling details. Not sure its something that can be fixed. I could put in a lot more details, but the type of scene is kind of one that starts in the middle of stuff. Maybe too much in the middle...

Working on a new new scene, so hopefully I'll get more words today on Lucy's story than Sunday and Monday.

I finished a scene yesterday for Lucy's book for 500 words, and then worked on Aiden's project as a reward and got 1160 words. ONWARD.

NANOWRIMO!!!! Well, kind of. I spent all morning food shopping. I went to one store and got almost everything I wanted but they didn't have a handful of things, so I went home, unloaded and headed out to second place. Back with lots and lots of food. Yeah, set for at least a week and a half. Also nabbed a roasted chicken just as they came off the roaster, so hot chicken for lunch and leftovers for monday-wednesday.

I'm going to try to do a Nano-like push on Lucy. 24 hours until Nanowrimo starts.

Talking with a friend today in chat. She's helping her kid's class celebrate halloween but they're not allowed to call it Halloween. Seems the school has decided its a religious holiday and must be treated with respect. So now they're doing "Fall Festival" and they're not allow to do jack-o-lanterns, ghosts, vampires.....

She's doing "Pin the crow on the scarecrow"...

Back to Lucy today. Stared at Dusty's plotline for a while and then decided since he's the least important character that I'd switch over to Madison to get out of my writer's block with the project. So far, I've spent two hours trying to get over the bump I had with her. Sigh. This novel refuses to be easy.

Okay, TOMORROW I'll go back to Lucy. Last night I got logic break through on Aiden's story. Don actually helped! He talked about the plot lines in BLEACH, which he's been watching. It got me thinking about who could be doing what and why.

Came up with the idea that after Wolf King was wounded and started his slow descent, various people pushed for him to have an heir. He's had children before, most of which couldn't have inherited his powers, but to keep his people happy, he has a kid. I'm calling him Isaiah right now. Isaiah been raised around the King's Wolves, who are all dominate or alpha wolves. They're all respectful as they can be to punk kid with no power. Seth was the worse for Isaiah as Seth was an alpha at 15 to Isaiah's 23, and adopted as son to Wolf King, since Seth was so young. Isaiah has no chance of gaining power and respect until his father dies, and he's now 33. He's tired of waiting. Father is almost god-like immortal who has been dying for nearly 40 years now -- killing him off will be tricky. Isaiah turns to frustrated but naive Jamie, a low on the totempole wolf with ambitions to be an alpha. He convinces Jamie that he can take over Boston which is standing empty because Seth's pack was wiped out, and build a pack by changing certain humans. What he's really trying to get Jamie to do is trigger a "demon" that will have enough power that Wolf King must get involved and killed.

Jamie is cautious enough that he's doing Isaiah's work in fits and starts, and its one of these experiments that gets Aiden turned into a werewolf. Aiden can't easily talk Jamie out of this course of action because Isaiah has him convinced that its possible, and Isaiah is high up food chain, and Aiden isn't. Jamie proceeds until he hits the trigger point, and then everything goes south.

Sent last week and today playing with Aiden. I'm trying something different in that I'm just leaping through the plot, sketching out scenes and such, trying to find the core of the story without spending tons of time. So far its lead to an interesting difference in plot that went before. It's very rough though and I still don't have an ending, so I'm not sure if I should call this an success or not. I'm going back to Lucy's story tomorrow - I think.

Kind of ran headlong into wall with woods WIP so I've switched back the YA WIP for the time being. Trying something new in terms of outlining by sketching out scenes with just rough action and dialogue. Not sure if it will work, but it has me writing.

Everyone in chat is talking about Nano. Thinking of doing Nano like push on woods.

Been a bad girl and read slash all weekend. Bad bad bad. At least it helped me a little in realizing that long scenes, even with really interesting stuff all crammed into them, are just too long. One writer would tackle almost every issue imaginable during the course of one scene, so the characters would talk and talk and talk and while it was all good stuff, it was TOO MUCH. Much better were the writers that would pick one point to tackle per scene. I have to apply it to my own writing.

Saw another disc of Don's anime. STILL don't like the characters. Two more discs to go. Sigh. Oh well, it's not a totally horrible way to spend 90 minutes with my husband. Note to self: update netflix so something I want to watch shows up.

Picked out panels for November convention.

There and Back Again
How telling is manga and anime on Japanese culture? Panelist speak about living in Japan and how it matches their expectations.

18+ Panel
Dean: Don't they know we're brothers? (Might want to check for actual quote)
Since Sherlock Holmes took to the pages, fans have been writing about how they see their favorite character evolves, usually in directions that the creator never expected. From claims that Watson was really a woman, to Batman dating Superman, to Wincest (Winchester incest), no one is safe.

Also picked out from their already scheduled panels:
Comic Book Movies
Is it the Future Yet?

There's several panels that sound cool to sit in on. Hopefully they turn out as interesting as they sound.