Cheezan of the Apes

I preface this with the status of DramaMama's and my head conditions:

DramaMama: Her migraine has lasted for over a week.

Me: Steady on for about a month I have had a comin' and going' tension headache. I find my self clenching my teeth so hard its a wonder I dont break a tooth.

Today, on advice from her mother, DramaMama tried a new combo of medicines that would knock out her headache. She took Anacin with Advil Cold & Sinus, and Kaplow! it took it out just like her mom said it would. WOO HOO! She was so happy not to have a headache at last.

Meanwhile, I have taken to chewing gum to try to take pressure off my teeth. I'm not quite sure what my deal is, but a few days ago, I missed a couple of days of my happy pills and I felt like I was in a rage. Everything was annoying, and I wanted to throw, smash, yell, scream and be all-around unpleasant. I finally got more of my meds and they calmed me down a bit. I am happy to report that I did none of the above other than a bit of screaming which I will detail below.

I watched Greystoke, the Legend of Tarzan the other night, and Tarzan made a great yelling sound. RRRRRAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!! So I tried it out, and boy did I like it. I kept doing it, and the Bear said, "Be quiet, I can't hear my show!"

I found out years ago while playing county rec volleyball that a good primal yell did wonders for getting me back in the game and focused. It's noisy and draws attention to you, but try it sometime when your bejeebers are being frustrated out of you... You might just like it.

RRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!

This Easter Please Remember:

He Is Not Here

He Is Risen!

OOPS!

This weekend we have my 13-year old son (the Bug) visiting from Utah, so I took Friday off to be able to spend more time with him.

I took him and the Bear to IHOP for breakfast. Part of my order was some pancakes, which I shared with the Bear. I prepped them for him and myself and we both began eating. After a couple bites, I determined that the pancakes didn't taste very good.

I ate some of my other items, and happened to look at the syrup pitcher.

"ON NO! Bear give me those pancakes!"

On the side of the syrup pitcher was a warning reading, "Careful Hot Coffee".

Come to think of it, the syrup was quite runny, and it absorbed readily into the pancakes. DOH!

So the waitress got us another stack, and we were good to go. This time with proper syrup. The Bear has already been bouncing of the walls lately, a shot of coffee in the morning was the last thing we needed.

Revision 2 is Under Way!

Revision 1 of my middle grade novel Black, White, and Shades of Gray is currently in the hands of Penguin Books Australia being considered. I have heard a smattering of comments from over there that the first person who read it (Our Australian exchange student Sam's mum) really really liked it. I found the second "really" to be encouraging. :)

The last I heard, my novel had been passed up to the associate publisher of children's literature there, and that once she was finished with it, it would be going to a senior editor.

I decided that while I am waiting for their yea or nay, that I would press on with my next planned revision. I hadn't wanted to begin the querying process until after revision2 was completed, but this opportunity presented itself, and I had to act on it.

My main goal in this revision is to polish and expand. I have written a program that counts the number of words as well as flags -ly and -ing words for me. I put this to good use last night and discovered that although I preach against overuse of -ly and -ing words, I had quite a lot to deal with.

My program also showed me a big imbalance in chapter lengths. I have some chapters over 2100 words, where others are just over 300.

Shortly before handing my manuscript to Sam to take home, I had broken up a couple chapters with the intention of expanding those areas. That accounts for some of the shorter chapters. So anyway, my task is to clean up the adverbs and gerunds, and flesh out the short chapters.

WOO HOO!