Deborah Woehr

The top 15 complaints of the modern day vampire :-

15) Grunge look makes it tough to tell living from the undead.
14) Nutrasweet or not, fat-free blood tastes like crap.
13) Hard to get a decent puncture with latex on your fangs.
12) Three Words: Daylight Savings Time
11) Thanks to all those Marilyn Manson fans, we just aren’t taken seriously any more.
10) After 45 years of Communist rule, it’s impossible to find clean, uncontaminated Transylvanian soil for bottom of coffin.
9) After 100 years of trying, still can’t score with Elvira. No bat is safe with Ozzy Ozbourne around.
7) With all those crucifix-wearing Madonna clones, junior highs are suddenly off-limits.
6) No warm blood for miles around DC.
5) Exhausted from all those Calvin Klein photo shoots.
4) Sick and tired of being mistaken for Keith Richards
3) Buxom wenches of old have been replaced by aerobicized “hardbodies.”
2) Baboon heart makes everything taste gamey.
And the number 1 complaint of Modern-day Vampires:

1) No small task beating F. Lee Bailey to a warm body.

Have a safe and sugar-filled holiday.

I decided to spend today typing in Chapter 10 of Prosperity. My goal was to find out how many words I’d written and to continue on with Chapter 11. Well, towards the middle of the second scene I realized that I’d screwed up.

Amanda and Travis return home from their errand to find his house burned to the ground. I’d done nothing to describe the condition of his house, and her initial reaction was to focus on getting the mattress into her new house. As I began typing this into the computer, I realized that her reaction was wrong.

Her important papers and special photo albums had been inside that house. Wouldn’t she care more about that and how Travis is doing? Duh!

This also means that I’ll be scrapping Chapter 11 because I have them standing inside his bedroom, which is no longer there. Shit, I hate it when this happens.

This isn’t the first time this has happened to me, so I’ll get over it. At the moment, the typed wordcount for this chapter is 3,700 words. I’ll take the original subscenes and stick them into Chapter 11.

Enjoy the rest of your Sunday!

NaNoWri is due to start on Tuesday at the stroke of midnight. I’m ready to start right now despite the fact that I have no outline (which rarely helps me, anyway). I do have plenty of notes and the first season’s transcript I’d found yesterday. The transcript will come in handy to jog my memory, which is getting leaner as I get older.

I’ll start this story how I always do–just dive right in and worry about the changes later. That seems to work best for me. Just to warn you, the majority of next month’s posts will revolve around this project. And, depending upon how obsessed I get with this, my posting may dwindle down to once per week.

Last night, I was supposed to change my clocks back one hour to observe the Daylight Savings. So far, I haven’t made it. I was curious to see if my computer would automatically change the clock, falling back one hour as I blogsurfed, returning me to Saturday night instead of Sunday morning.

It didn’t. Oh, well. Nighty night!

My husband asked me to build him a website for his family’s business. In the process, I needed to update his corporate image, which is twenty-two years out of date. This logo happened quite by accident, as I had planned on a different design. He’s happy with it, so I can consider this part of the job complete.

Needless to say, with all of yesterday’s activities, I didn’t get any writing done. That’s okay because I’m almost halfway through Chapter 11 of Prosperity. So, I’m feeling good today.

Not only that, but I have a clearer idea of how I want to approach my NaNoWri project. After I came home from my walk, I got online and found a link to the official Lost sight, where they have a forum. I read a couple of the theories that one member had, which sparked an idea.

I’ve decided not to go with my original spoof idea, but to create and action-packed thriller in 30 days. Will I be able to pound out 50,000 words this year? I don’t know, but I look forward to the challenge.

I went on a nature hike with a new acquaintance yesterday. Yes, I actually went outside! We took a two-mile hike near our homes. All I can say right now is, “Ouch.”

I’m embarassingly out of shape. This comes from 20 years of working in admin, and, well . . . sitting on my butt in front of the computer for 12+ hours per day over the past decade. I had to stop several times as we walked up the hills because I kept getting out of breath. While my partner was talking about her plans to bike one of the longer trails today, all I could think about was curling up with a large oxygen tank.

What’s crazy is that I would like to go again. In the spring, the hills are emerald green with spots of golden poppies. And the view from the hills is breathtaking.

Later in the afternoon, I picked up my boys. The youngest gets out first, so I grab a book and go early in order to have some good reading time. On the way to pick up the older one, I told him about my hike. Although he didn’t express any desire to go with me, he told me that P.E. was his favorite subject in school.

I don’t know why I was surprised, but I was. Last weekend, he and his friends were kicking a ball over the roof of our house. Keep in mind that he is maybe 4′6″ and managing to kick a ball over an 1,800 square-foot house. To me, that’s impressive. I can picture him as a punter on a football team.

My youngest, thinking big.

It’s a 50/50 thing, my boys getting along. A few minutes ago, I walked in from my backyard only to have my youngest walk up to me and ask if his front tooth was still planted firmly in his face. Big brother had decided to shove him against the wall.

I assured him that his tooth was fine. Satisfied with that knowledge, he decided to take revenge by absconding with the remote, much to big brother’s dislike. Big brother didn’t decide to tear after him and wrestle it away, which was good for me because he is getting too big for me to have to wrestle him off.

Now, they’re talking and getting along for the moment. Go figure. They wrinkle their noses when I tell them that they’ll be best friends when they grow up. But it’s true.

My little brothers are testimate to that. They fought worse than my boys, and I often wondered if they were going to kill each other before they had the chance to grow up. But they got through the boy thing with a few scratches and scars and came out of it being best friends. I guess this is a family tradition, but it leaves me exhausted.

I know, I know. We haven’t gotten to Halloween yet. But for those of you who like to shop early for Christmas, here is an idea for the women in your lives.

I bought this purse back in August via Amazon and just love it. It’s big enough to hold a man’s style wallet, your cell phone, and your keys with a bit more room to spare. I get compliments on it from strangers all the time, including men.

The purse comes in two styles–box and cyclone (tubular). The designs range from state license plates to designer plates. They also carry license plate photo and CD albums, plus bottle cap belts.

The cost for the purse runs at $64, which isn’t much more expensive than a good leather purse from Macy’s, except these purses will last much longer (provided you don’t leave it in the rain).

If you’re interested, check out the Littlearth site.