Dude, Where's My Muse?

Or at least today.

So I tape RAW every week. Always have, possibly always will. Now last week I missed MOST of Shawn's promo (I cut out the guys I don't like, La Resistance, Shelton Benjamin, Christian, ect) so I watched the repeat at midnight last week and taped the full bit.

Now I always leave the tape in the VCR ready to go. So yesterday we had company for Easter and he wanted to watch the last few scenes of Die Hard 2. Fine, which meant I had to rewind the tape and put in the movie. So thinking ahead I wrote down the # where it was, 4781.

Put in the tape today, fast forward. Then realize Corner Gas is on tonight and I should tape it for dad. Tape comes out, new tape goes in for CG. Then I take old VHS out when its over, put in the RAW one. Fast forward to the point where RAW ended last week and the sportscentre promo comes on, I think hmmm maybe 4721 is a little early but maybe I meant to write 2 instead of 7 and hit record. Fifteen minutes into RAW tonight, I realize...damn, I had the Shawn promo on there.

Freaking ruined my night.

A very p.o'ed Lis

So the week started and ended about the same, more late nights :o) I can't wait to get back to a normal sleep schedule, hopefully sometime soon. (Though with TPH/HP lurking in the wings, I'm not sure how possible that's really going to be)

Weird question to throw out there, does anyone know who sings a song called I think "I'm Alive" I know its not Celine Dion, it sounds like a guy and its got sort of a strange beat to it so I'm not sure if its something new or old. If I knew what radio station I'd been listening to tonight I'd have called and asked but I was channel flipping in the car and it came on right after Sugar Ray's Every Morning which really doesn't count down the # of stations it could have been. So any thoughts/suggestions would be great.

I heard the new Michael Buble single today and I love it. Inspired an idea, so I'll see where it takes me.

Hope to surf some more blogs this week and add a few more links to the side over here.
Other than that, Happy Easter all! Hope the Bunny's good to one and all.

~Lis

Its funny how a muse can turn your world upside down. I'm really starting to think mine is behind the insomnia the last 3 weeks or so. Because it seems I can edit and write up a frenzy from about 11 p.m to somewhere around 3 to 4 in the morning. And I don't even notice the time passing. Even stranger, no cravings for Coke or Dr. Pepper lol Though I have munched my way though a small bag of those chocolate easter eggs *g*

So the final draft of the ms is coming along. I've got a good chunk done, completed and just sitting there waiting for me to paste the remaining chapters to the end of it to print it out and get it boxed up. Should be exciting. I'm trying to debate which song I want to listen to as I print.
Strange random Lissy fact, I usually play one song while the ms prints, sort of as a good luck theme. When TPH was finally done, I had Golden Years from A Knight's Tale Soundtrack blaring (special significance, eh, Heath looks like someone I know... ;) )
So I'm debating what the theme song for this could be. I could go with Bonnie Raitt's Something To Talk About, since well same title. And I put it on the soundtrack. If your curious what the songs to the soundtrack are right now, here we go:
Kid Rock - Feel Like Makin' Love
Bonnie Raitt - Something To Talk About
Celine Dion - I Drove All Night
Carolyn Dawn Johnson - Just Another Girl
LeeAnn Womack - I May Hate Myself In The Morning
Backstreet Boys - Incomplete
Kayle - A Little Something, Something
Britney Spears - I Got That Boom Boom
Janet Jackson - All For You
Janet Jackson - You Want This
10 Things I Hate About You Sndtrk - I Want You To Want Me
98 Degrees - Una Noche
Jessica Simpson - The Sweetest Sin

There's a couple others, but the title escapes me right now and there in my various music folder and I feel too lazy to go through and try to find them. One's another Backstreet song and the other's country.

Other than that, nothing much to ramble about. RAW's on in an hour and that could add another post tonight :o)

~Lissy

Stress sucks.

Plain and simple.

Today it caused extreme pain in my ribcage. It seriously felt like I'd been shot *sigh* So not good. Cut my afternoon work to zero because I couldn't move. Couldn't lean forward, couldn't change how I sat. I could just sit there and try to breathe.

Guess tonight will be another late night to make up for it.

Onto other news now (sounds like a newscaster!)
Still no progress on ripping the DVD. I tried one but it had the screen size down so small if you played it on a tv later it would be like watching it on a gameboy screen. So that really doesn't work at all. I thought NERO had a way to rip DVDs but can't seem to find anything. Have to see if I can find something this weekend.

Watched Smackdown last night. Highlight was definitely Randy slapping the Undertaker. Oh bad Randy, bad...that can only lead to trouble. At least WrestleMania's shaping up to be a pretty great card this year. But back to the Smackdown show, is it always that boring???? Even mom mentioned it, though she thought part of the problem is the announce team. And Tazz and Cole certainly aren't JR and The King by any means. They are really rather dull. But who else is there that could take over? Coach? And the guys actually wrestling over there. I can count about 6 who I'm actually interested in seeing in the ring
~ Taker
~ Angle
~ Big Show
~ Cena
~ Eddie on a good night and Rey
~ Dudleys

Which leads to me a question, where ARE the Dudley Boyz??? And that poem Heidenboy read, what was that about? Creepy. Loved the match between Jannetty and Angle, really made it almost worthwhile to watch the whole two hours. If I was Vince or Stephanie, whoever's in charge at the moment I would have met him behind the curtain with a contract and pen in hand. Put him on either brand, the guy can move. And he took Angle for a good fifteen-twenty minutes. He could be a decent mid carder. How about him versus Jericho?

The Big Show sumo match. Could prove interesting. Looks like he's put on about twenty to thirty pounds for this one. I'm guessing he'll win, though Butterbean did take out Bart Gunn at that one Wrestlemania. Should be interesting, hope the ring can hold up to that much weight!

Quick note on the Divas, why are there suddenly so many? I could only recognize Dawn Marie and Torrie. Weren't there other original WWE women on Smackdown or did they suddenly disappear?

And why oh why is JBL (I still can't picture the old APA Bradshaw as this guy) still champ? He has no charisma (Christian's buddy Tyson Tomko has more), can't wrestle and can barely conduct a half decent promo. I hope he's not the guy coming over for Randy if there is a trade.

Enough babbles!

Tommy Salo @ Superskills 2002 - Skyreach Centre (c) Lis 2002

I found out today one of my favorite hockey players, Tommy Salo is retiring from professional hockey. Tommy is/was a great player and was one of the first guys I ever got to see play in person in 1999. A great goalie who was thoroughly underrated and one of the nicest guys I saw around the NHL and on the Edmonton Oilers. It was such a shame when he was dealt to Colorado and left the NHL at the end of last season to go play for MoDo in the Swedish Elite League.
So to Tommy, in honor of being a hell of a goalie and the first jersey I ever owned, I raise my glass in a toast!

And in special honor of Tommy, today’s blog post is dedicated solely to him :o)

First off, if anyone can recommend a good program to rip DVDs, could you please leave me a comment or email? We got some home videos on DVD last night that I'd like to rip and put on a VCD for myself but I'm clueless about how to do it :o) So any help would be greatly appreciated! Thanks.

Second, WWE Smackdown's coming here May 31st to be televised. I'm on the fence about going. The thought that Randy may be on Smackdown permanently by then is tempting me (a lot!!!) as well as it could be the last time to see Taker in person. Hmmm, very tempting. So I have the password to get the early tickets and there's some right by the ramp for 2 in row 10 floor or 1 lonely seat all by its self in row 4. Problem 1) I still don't know when dad's going in for surgery on his shoulder. If its then or around it, I'll have no way there and back (I always take Dad to wrestling) I could go by the bus there but I'd have no way back. Sucks.

So I don't know, if Randy does make the switch I'll probably try last minute tickets day of if I don't get any before then...and I can go...but its tempting right now. Though it sucks I haven't been closer than 15th row in about 8 years. Oh well, at least Shawn isn't coming then I'd really be ticked *grin*

But if anyone does know a good program to rip and convert please let me know! Thanks :o)

Random musings, rants and raves...

~ Went through and cleaned up some of the blog today. I want to add a link to the side today but not sure I will or not, because I don't know how much longer this website is going to be up.
Anyway: www.worldslongestgame.com

Brent's presenting the cheque on Friday @ 1 pm mountain time to the Cross Cancer Institute along with I think some or most of the men who played in the game.

Be interesting to see how much money these men raised for such a great cause.

~ What else...went out for dinner at a friend's last night. Was nice. :o)

more later, need to reboot after updating.

~Lis

Isn't that original? hehe

Well first off, if anyone out there know's how to put the links so that they show up when I publish the blog, please leave a comment. I can get them to show up in preview and then when I hit republish, they disappear. I can't figure it out and I doubt I'm ever meant to :o)

Second ramble of the evening, wrestling related so feel free to skip if your not a wwe fan. It was so great to see The Rockers together again! Shawn was jumping around and you could tell he was truly happy (and so cool to see the old Rockers moves again, I forgot how they'd jump over the top rope in sync). Which was great to see, kinda hope they sign Marty to stick around for awhile and let the two pair up a little more. Am I the only one who thinks the second promo between Snitsky and Flair was taped before the first one? Someone backstage should have caught it when Flair was going on and on about it was the first time he saw Gene and how impressed he was (uh flair? about half an hour ago you were in his locker room) or is Flair's old age sinking in? lol JR's comments about Edge the last couple weeks have been a bit double meaning. Especially this week with the controversy comment. Are they actually going to come out and say what's really going on behind the scenes? They are sorta pushing Lita and Kane apart at the moment so be interesting to see what happens there.

MS update: Chapters 1-3 Finito (well except for finding Ava a last name which I just realized I've neglected) and come in at a nice 51 pages. Any luck four will be completed tonight and I can add 5/6 to the mix as well.

Guess that's about all to ramble and babble about today.

~Lis

Another strange weird day in the life of Lis...

Never mind its two years to the Thursday I last got to see 44 play hockey in person -in an Islanders uniform no less :( - the day still sucked.

In the mail today was a lovely jury summons form. Woohoo *insert sarcasm here*. I think this is the first time in 16 years I'll be fully embracing my panic attacks. Yes indeedy.

I looked at the printed out stack of the first draft of Something To Talk About, the lovely draft that's over a year or more old...okay probably closer to two...Its way different than I expected looking back at it. Has a few good scenes that translated well over to the new one but its still...different. I dunno, which ones better I couldn't say since I've grown as a writer since writing down the first one on the old MAC. So we'll see. Fingers crossed the new one's good.

What else to ramble about, hmmm, I signed on to do an agent workshop. Kinda looking forward to that. Have so many notes and things that I've gotten researching in the last two years, hopefully someone out there will find it useful.

Nuff from me,
Lis

Oh yeah, if you see some entries disappearing on my blog, I'm gonna cut the whiny ones :o) lol

Remember how I said I was getting the itch to query agents again on TPH? Well turns out didn't need to query, just needed to wait for some of them to read their email. Checked the inbox this morning on my business account and found a request for the first 75 pages. Yay! She'd like to see it in April so that gives me time to finish off STTA and polish the pages on TPH.
So excited about that. Funny how that bit of good news makes me feel better about the writing. I was sinking a bit into the 'bad' side of things, how crummy this is and how its not what I write so why bother...But we'll see. I think this book (STTA) scares me though because it does have the potential to be good. Its sorta like Temptation though when someone made a comment,
suddenly I was scared of the story in my mind and its been a battle with that one and now STTA ever since.I went back and reread the comments the editor gave me during the pitch, how it captured exactly what they were looking for. I think what I'm MOST afraid of is that I
can capture that tone on 2 pages but its not going to be there on any of the 240 pages of the actual manuscript.Oh well if its not its not.But I'll try :o)
~Lis

A writer's best friend?

*shrug* Might just be in my case. I'm about 8K words shy of my 60,000 total though if I'm a few hundred or even 1000 short I'm not going to push myself for filler.
Because I may have enough as it is.

This is the second manuscript of mine that refused to cooperate and tell the story in order [Last one being Her Protector]. I know Temptation did that to me too and look where it got me, stuck in a corner though I am going to go back and start rewriting it from the beginning (is that a chorus of boos I hear? lol) I think I've grown since I started it five years ago and some of those opening chapters are really cringeworthy when I go back and look at them now. The idea's good and solid...I just need to reshape where the 4 of them want to/need to go.

So anyways, back to my STTA rant & ramble. I'm trying to mesh this thing together. I've got one huge long file that I called working and then I decided to try and pick bits and pieces off of that and put that in order. And I just suddenly realized typing this the thing to do might be print that off as one then go through and block bits off...hey that might work. Who said blogging was a waste of time??

I've got a half decentish outline of the scene order, but now chapter 3 is headaching me. I think Brit needs to be more sassy and crack more jokes, she seems to want to be so introspective in the book and that's not how I painted her in the synopsis. The great fun this'll be to change her into a sassier version of herself. Jas seems okay and I've just decided he's really going to look like Jerry from The Bachelorette. Originally I pictured him as MC but maybe he's more of a cross between the two.

Nuff from me, off to print 30 some odd pages

A rambling word or two about agents.

I'm beginning to think there should be a support group for us writers who are querying them. Right now I've got two partials out, one that was requested and one that I sent in in a query package (its been out since Mid November I think) and I'm seriously contemplating sending more out.

This proves I'm insane.

Before I had the lack of stamps to hold myself back, but now that I've got another 10 shiny 60 cent US stamps in my drawer I've got the urge to start sending out queries right and left. There's two agents who I've never queried before because they don't take equeries. The query letters are written up on the computer, all I'd have to do is print the letters and labels, stick them in the envelopes and plop down the 5.50 to mail the partial package.

And yet I'm wondering what this is going to accomplish. Is the manuscript ready to go? Uhm not completely at the moment, I want to go back through and revise a few more parts...but yet I want to send it out. Its crazy.

Especially with STTA still looming above my head. I wish this one was done all ready. But I know its not as close as I want it to be (52,000 words down and counting) and I'm now doubting chapter 3. I'm trying for Brit to be sassy - she just doesn't want to be sleeping with her best friend but I don't think that's coming across as much as it should.

I'm still debating whether or not this ms will ever get sent in...*sigh*

Back to meshing it all together.

~L

Insomnia

Last night was night #4 of my bout of insomnia. Not minding it so much since I seem to be able to get some more pages done on STTA. Yay on that. But its weird not crawling into bed before 4 am most nights.

Some parts of the story are going along well, the one big major part where I need Jason to spring the whole Friends With Benefits idea on her however is nowhere near what it should be. Oh well, give it some time while I put the rest of the story together and then go back to it later I guess.

Nuff from me

~Lis

Its March...

I like March. Well so far. Its starting off good. Night two of insomnia produced about six more hastily scribbled down sceneage for STTA. Including one scene I've rewritten about four times now. Which version makes it to the final manuscript, still don't know. See what mood me and the two characters are in when I get there.

Today was weird. Plain weird. :o) I think I mentioned before about the silent auction thing right? Okay so the game ended last week, no call. Now dad upped the bid on the picture and used his name (he told me when he came home that night so I know this for sure) so today its about 3 pm. I've watched the early showing of GH (still can't believe Tamara's leaving. Why why why!!) and about to set up the rest of the work day which is typing up last nights pages. But before going online, I slip on my lovely new mardi gras beads and the phone rings.
Its for me.
Now when someone asks for me by my full name. I start to panic. Agents who have partials and queries and most importantly my phone number fly through my mind. Could be Stephanie. Miriam...omg...
No its someone from the silent auction, they've extended the deadline to the 7th, I have a couple items right now (this comment still makes no sense...more on that later) blah blah blah. So while this is sinking in and I'm really trying to get my breathing ability back over the panic, I ask which office the stuff's at to go bid and she tells me and I say bye.
Now the sheer weirdness of this moment hits me.
A) Dad was the head bidder when they closed up the trailer last monday at 12:13 pm. She didn't ask for him, she asked for me. (And I bid like the second day of the game...makes no sense to me whatsoever)
Weird. Wacky.
So I don't know... *shrug* But strikes me as odd.

Adding to the weirdness of the day...
Finally able to download all the lovely windows updates it wouldn't do a month ago and 3 tell me i can't install because I don't have sp2 in. *Shrug* So why tell me I need them???

I gotta ramble on RAW last night, if you aren't a WWE, Shawn, Randy fan...back away now:

Okay, so Shawn once again gets the shit beat out of him. *hides face in hands* And he's bleeding like Austin way back when at like Wrestlemania 13/14. So why the hell doesn't Earl stop this?? I mean really, hello Earl your supposed to be one of Shawn's close friends, take a look at the guy. When you can't see his face clearly, isn't that a sign to put your hands in the air and make an X and get the guy some medical attention?
And I really think he nailed Edge a couple times too, because he had a nice indent from the ladder on his back. Good for him. Starting to think there's some real genuine anomisity (sp?) between them.
And can I just say how much I completely disrespect Angle right now? I know its a storyline but for crying out loud, Shawn was halfway conscious or looked to be and he comes running in and beating him up like nothing's wrong, like there aren't puddles of blood ringside and in the ring. Argh!!!

Rant 2: Randy...okay so I've read the rumors about Randy's 'wild' ways outside of the ring. Fine. Good. Feel free to punish him anyway you like - but give the guy more than 2 minutes of airtime on the show! For crying out loud I had the VCR all ready and he's just in the back. *shakes head* If I'd been at that RAW I would have been majorly ticked about that little injustice.

Point 3 (its not soo much a rant) - Batista rocks. Really. He's going to be pretty much unstoppable I think if they do this right for the first while. Let's just hope he doesn't drop the belt back to good ol' Hunter...by the end of April (why can't he go to Smackdown???? Take Nature Boy woooo with him for at least the summer...)

Nuff ranting, but its really annoying when I can't even stand to watch half my favorite show anymore.