Writing Contests

Santa has come and gone for another year...
We had a lovely Christmas - just the four of us. It was quiet and calm... the kids had the presents opened by 8am and we spent the day in our pajamas, playing with our bounty.
Me - Apple TV! Very cool.

I haven't able to get much writing done, but I did enter my very first contest. Evah. EEK! Because I'm in the home stretch of my current wip, this seemed like a good time to send the baby out and get some good old contructive feedback.

The contest required the first 25 pages of the ms... so of course I agonized, tweaked every word... hated it... tweaked again... loved it... sent it to my compadre to look over... tweaked again... took a match to it... then swallowed my pride and sent it off. I've already bitten eight fingernails off and have two months to wittle away the last two. LOL

Red sent me this very cool contest chart (thanks!) should I want to put myself through the agony again :)

Have you entered contests? If so, did you find it helpful, intimidating, degrading, uplifting, ... ??

Thumpety Thump Thump

It snowed in my neck of the woods. Oh boy did it snow!!

Little Sweetness had his Christmas Concert last Friday so we pulled big brother, Light, out of school, which was only supposed to be for a couple of hours -- but it had snowed so much while we were in the church hall that we decided not to take him back, just to turn around and come home on a school bus a few hours later... in white out conditions.

We spent the rest of the day, snuggled inside watching Christmas movies. Then we had an old fashioned Christmas sing-a-long which started out to be much fun,... until 4 yr old Sweetness, who is completely stuck on Frosty the Snowman, decided to add "thumpety thump thump, thumpety thump thump" to every other carol.

Silver Bells didn't ring-a-ling, they thumpety thump thumped, Silent Night wasn't very quiet with all the thumpety thump thumps going on and On the First Day of Christmas my true love actually gave a thumpety thump thump to me.

On the other hand, none of the Kinsons can carry a tune so those thumpety thump thumps probably improved our attempts.

Here's a pic of 9 yr old Light on Saturday. Despite the frigid temps, Daddy Kinson had the boys outside for most of the day - tobagganin, building snow forts (pictured) and getting them good and tired out! He's totally up for Daddy-of-the-Year, ain't he? :)

Oh - and the Christmas list of many-things-that-must-be-done is more than half complete, which is a big 'whew'. One more trip to the mall, one more trip to the grocery store, one more trip to the sanity store...

Oh crap. They don't have one of those, do they?

I'm screwed.

My Light Turned Nine

My mother-in-law flew up from Bermuda to spend some time with us and get some more of her shopping done, so it's been a bit of a whirlwind week. She left this morning, with more suitcases than she came with *insert knowing nod* and I think she may have accidently packed my sanity. It's a mere 10 days before the big fat dude in red velvet visits and I still have way too much to do!!

In fact, I'm only this much (hold forefinger and thumb really close together) closer to being ready for Christmas than I was last week.
Most of my cards are done, but a bad case of carpal tunnels syndrome is making the whole address-the-envelope thing a real painful challenge. They may be sitting in a box for a few more days.
Baking - done.
Presents - half way done.
Decorating - partially done. I can't believe it, but we haven't got our tree yet!! This is usually a first week of December thing... but between our weekend away at Great Wolf Lodge, and this past weekend (which I'll get to in a second), our living room is still devoid of greenery. Not to mention - I was sick sick sick - with some cold-plague all week. Yuk. I have no patience for sick.

Ah yes - Saturday the 13th marked a very important day in the Kinson household. My oldest, dearest, Light of my heart son turned nine. NINE!!
Friday night, instead of a bedtime story (yes, we still 'chat' before bed) I told him what I was doing exactly nine years before... how I'd hosted a dinner party, then after everyone left tried to adjust the curtain swag that was falling off the rod - giving up in frustration to go to bed and deal with it in the morning. Except that the damn swag stayed 1/2 down for MONTHS because by the next morning, I was at the hospital in the throes of labor.
And the rest, as they say, is history.

So instead of attending my RWA chapter Christmas social, I spent the afternoon at Chuck E Cheese. Try not to hate me.

And writing? Well, not much of that got done this week, but I eeked past the 55,000 mark which is pretty damn exciting for this non-novel writer.
Kid #2 is out of school starting tomorrow (poor Kid #1 is stuck until Friday) so my wordcount won't inch up until January - which is uber frustrating - but hey, that's life.

Off to mall... CHARGE!!!!!

Two personal notes:
TL - SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEing in the blogworld!! And have a very happy birthday, my friend :)
RED - Thank you again and again and again. I adore you!!!

The Great Wolf Lodge Timewarp

The Kinsons made a trek down to Niagara Falls, Ontario to revisit the Great Wolf Lodge. Before leaving, which in reality was only a double digit handful of hours ago, we (read: I) was a total stress-case of Christmas angst.

We came back today (and this time I mean all of us) exhausted from all the fun and feeling as relaxed as if we were gone weeks. No kidding! It was like travelling through some kind of time warp!!

Upon arriving home this evening, I ran around the house watering my plants so they wouldn't die (Duh... they were watered last Thursday) and was quite prepared send hubby out with a grocery list (Double duh... stocked the fridge on Friday).

If you've never been, or never heard of the place, Great Wolf Lodge is ONE BIG BLAST OF WATERY FUN!!! The indoor water park (kept a balmy 84 degrees F) has big slides, medium slides, baby-fun slides, a wave pool (totally reminded me of the smashing wave-fun in Bermuda), two swimming pools, tons of splashy-pad type activities, towers to climb, water cannons to aim, buckets to tip, hot tubs, more hot tubs, and a lazy river, that despite your insisting otherwise, your kids insist on racing you through!

When your hands and feet are so pruny you're quite sure they'll never plump up again, you can haul butt to the arcade, send the kids to the cub club for arts, crafts and an array of activities, and in summer-time, amuse yourself with mini-golf. And speaking of summer - there's also an outdoor pool incase you don't get wet enough inside.

I didn't even make it to the Elements Spa this trip. Ah well... next time.

'Course, this latest trip, so close to Christmas, was an absolute delight -- the decor was festive, Santa made an appearance, they did sleigh rides around the property and had a ton of Christmassy stuff for kids.

Last night, we drove around Niagara Falls to see the annual festival of lights - which was spectacular - almost enough to distract us from the beauty of the falls themselves, all lit up and misty, a sight to behold.

And although we took our camera, we took NO pics of our own. In fact, all the pictures along the side are downloaded from the web -- with my apologies and thanks to those that did take them.

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In other why-is-Wylie-not-blogging news... my mother-in-law arrives tomorrow so I'll probably not blog again until next week. Hope y'all are a'ight... and I will try to pop around everyone elses blogs and see what's what...

Prop 8 - The Musical

Yesterday I had nothing.
Today, I've got something to say it for me. Something absolutely brilliant. BRILLIANT!!

Prop 8 - The Musical... from Funny or Die.
What a cast - Jack Black, John C. Reilly, Doogie Howser (NPH will always be Doogie to me) and many more...
See how many stars twinkle in this hilarious sketch:

See more Jack Black videos at Funny or Die

Nothing to say, really.

I'm having a hard time coming up with anything interesting to say on this blog lately. As if that ever stopped me before...*snort*

Each morning, I grab a coffee and sit at my desk (which really means, on the couch with my laptop), sign on to blogger and nothing comes... NOTHING!

Should I chat about my wip? NAH
I'm 2/3rds in and enjoying the process, but I've nothing to share yet.

The fact that I have no Christmas decorations up yet, and no time to do anything Christmas-related this week? NAH
That only 1/2 my shopping has been done? Nu-uh.
From what I've been reading on YOUR blogs, many of us are sharing a ride on the Frantic Boat toward the 25th.

My birthday? nah
But in case you care... Yes, I had a fabulous day yesterday, thanks to my hubby and friends xoxo

AH-HA... here's something:
I'm presently reading two AMAZING manuscripts - a very hot romance that has me giggling out loud and a quirky delightful young adult book that has me wishing I could go back to highschool and do it all over again... on my terms!
But I can't really say too much about either of them at the moment... and this is hard for me! I want to wax eloquently about the wonderful characters and the sticky situations they're in, and how two uber-authors bring them to life on the computer screen.
You can be sure when those two novels are sitting on bookshelves (soon, I hope) I'll brag, BIG TIME "I knew them when!"

Surrounding myself with such talented writers makes me feel... I dunno... like maybe their magic sparkly talent dust will somehow sink into my skin.

Writers and bloggers alike - are you creatively inspired by others, or intimidated? I waiver between the two, usually, but at the moment, the magic dust is pushing me forward.