Dionycles, P.I.

Dionycles, P.I., being one of the contenders for official mascot of my new writing group.

On Friday, the first official as-of-yet-unnamed writers group involving myself, big sis, big sis' husband, and family friend met and exchanged our first products to be reviewed. (Members by name: Sandi and Dustin Henderson and Amber Johnson. And me. MEEE.)

Sandi provided her beautiful new Cloche hat that I'm going to steal when she's sleeping, Dustin showed the amazing full-size easel, including a carving of a paintbrush on the back, that he created for Sandi, and Amber and I both whipped out the first bites of our respective novels.

New title of Ze Book, by the way, is Clover Leaf Investigations: Book One: First Time's a Charm. In order to save time and webspace, it shall from hereon out be referred to simply as 'Ze Book.'

I can't say I'm thrilled with what I passed out to the rest of the troupe, but we'll see how it goes. If nothing else I'm eager to get the crap critiqued out of me. It's always a great way to crank the old gear back into motion. And having meetings once a week will be great motivation to keep up my aforementioned goal of writing a lot all of the time.

Excellent (finger tap).

In other news, my god-daughter, River, is gorgeous. And now a strong member of the cast over at Fragmented Poe, the family's website.

Also, previously mentioned big sis totally made me get teary today by plagiarizing me. But in a good way. I love you too, Pixie :)

New Goals and...Gasp! Twitter!

Hey gang who I've been ignoring for a while; much has happened!

I've moved in with my very patient sister, brother-in-law, and adorable niece and nephew. Really, I'm impressed that my bro-in-law is apparently cool with it. I'm sure having a leach-in-law move into your home is at least in the top ten list of things you dread when you get hitched. So thanks for not vetoing the invasion, buddy!

A few weeks ago, I had the kind of day at work that makes you sit back and go "Man, life as a customer service person makes me want to shave off all of my hair, move to Alaska, and become a fish monger who only deals with herself." You know. The days that drag on forever and are filled with nothing but customers who whine, complain, and mumble. Ooooooh...the mumbling.

Anyway, it made me realize that I've been dragging my feet horribly in regards to the whole 'become a rich and famous author' dream. I'd like to get that train moving. So I at first wanted to set the goal of having a complete, readable copy of Ze Book (which now has an official series title and imaginary city name) by my next birthday. I set up a schedule and everything. Then realized that, with as many hours as I've been scheduled with the last few weeks, I simply would not be able to meet it which would result in a very sad birthday indeed.

So now the goal is this: Each week, I will have completed EITHER a new chapter in Ze Book OR a new Phil Innis Adventures episode. This will keep me working, but will mean less depression when I don't slam my forehead against The Bar I set.

Also, I'm now on Twitter. Tremble in phear, internets!