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Just For Fun

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Just For Fun

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Please Vote for Lisa!

Hey everybody! It’s that time again… my mentee in the RT/Kensington Writing With The Stars Contest, Lisa Kessler, is up for your consideration once more and she needs your votes to get to the next round. Please check out her entry – this month’s topic was blurbs – at this website: http://www.rtbookreviews.com/content/writing-stars-vote-best-back-cover-blurb

I honestly liked Lisa’s blurb but you might notice this month’s celebrity judge was a bit rough on everyone. So please show Lisa some love and vote for her!

Just For Fun

see more Lolcats and funny pictures

Just For Fun

see more Lolcats and funny pictures

DEAD ALERT – Great Cover!

So, what do you think?

December Already?

My God, has it been a month since my last post? What happened? Where did November go? Where did all my good intentions for NaNoWriMo go? WTF???

Seriously, I have no idea what happened. It feels to me like I wrote that post about NaNo just a day or two ago and I can’t believe it’s December 1st. It’s like a fog descended and obscured my vision — compressing four weeks into a blur of motion and emotion that left me with my head spinning and wondering what in the world just happened.

I think part of this is returning depression. I haven’t been sleeping. I haven’t been working well when I do work. Memories of this time last year assault me when I least expect it. I miss my life — the happy existence I used to have. Where did it go? Why? What is life all about if you have to suffer so badly? Is it really worth it? All of these questions and more have been plaguing me in the past few weeks.

Thanksgiving was particularly awful, when I couldn’t help be bombarded with memories of how I spent Thanksgiving last year at my Mom’s bedside in the hospital. She couldn’t eat much. My Dad and I ate Thanksgiving turkey prepared by the hospital cafeteria. I tried to dress up for Mom. I even know what shirt I wore and how I did my hair. I’m not sure she noticed. She was so sad, so worried about dying, so full of hope that she would get better and we would be able to reclaim our happy times in a few months. It was not meant to be.

And it’s still killing me.

Things were a little better this summer, but once the sad anniversaries started happening – the day we found out she was sick in late August, the day we realized it was cancer in early October, the day she had surgery, the day she went into the hospital and unbeknownst to us, would never come home… Thanksgiving in the hospital… all leading up to that sad day in December when she went on a ventilator and the worst day of all… the day she died. Two days before Christmas.

I just don’t see how it’s going to get any better for me until after Christmas. Depression has come back to me. Anxiety. Tears. Uncontrollable emotions. Insomnia. All of it is back. And I still miss my best friend. Every day. Every waking moment. I see her in dreams and those are some of the only happy times I have now. Seeing her in my dreams the way she used to be — happy and joking with me, alive with the wonder of the world, enjoying life to its fullest.

I love those dreams. I live for them now. Sad, isn’t it?

So. I have to sadly admit that while I had the best of intentions when I started NaNo a month ago, this will be the first time I ever attempted NaNo where I didn’t finish well before the deadline. The whole idea of NaNo is to write 50,000 words in 1 month. In past years, I’ve finished the goal inside the third week of November. This year, I didn’t finish at all. I admit it. I own it. So be it.

But at least I tried. A few things I did accomplish this past month — I finished the edits on the last of the zombie novels, titled DEAD ALERT. It’ll be out in August of 2011, I believe. I’ll post the cover for it tomorrow. I still have to do copy edits on it sometime in the next month or two, but the actual work of writing the thing is done, which always makes me glad. (The editor asked for very slight revisions, which is what I just completed and sent back.)

I’ve been working on two proposals for new series. Not sure what will happen with them, but at least the proposals, which consist of three chapters of the first book and complete synopses for all the books in the series, were done. I’m proud of them and I hope they go somewhere. I’ve also done a little bit of writing on other projects that will pick up some of my ongoing series with Samhain. Nothing finished, but at least I got something done on a few of them.

I fell short of the NaNo goal, but it’s been a helluva month. Fighting depression and sad memories of someone who will never be replaced in my life. Someone I will miss every day for the rest of my days. Someone who took a part of my heart with her when she died. A big part.

Sorry to bring you down. I just need to “talk” about this sometimes and I thought maybe, if anyone is actually reading this, it would help explain a little bit of what’s been going on with me and why I haven’t been writing too much. Hopefully things will get better soon, or at least ease up a bit until the next storm. Wish me luck. And thanks for your continuing support, thoughts and prayers. They are much appreciated, as are you. (((hugs))))