I'm lazy, so here are a few of my scariest posts (well, to me anyway) for your dining and dancing pleasure:

The scariest thing about Halloween

Things that go bump

Cosmic vision & the latest Hoff video

Now Kreskin has my address

Top of mind

Have a fun evening tonight everyone!

The DH and I were invited to attend a pre-Halloween party by friends we hadn't seen in a dog's age. This was to be a casual gathering of adults, sans kids, to get together before the rush of the winter holiday season swept us all into family adventures of madness and holiday-shopping hysteria.

Then the DH got called in to work.

"Go anyway," he said. "You know you'll have a good time."

"Okay, but how am I going to carry this 15-pound hunk of Brie on the bus?"

Yeah, it was that kind of party. Where no one served Doritos and everyone had their best "casual" duds on. A chi-chi-poo-poo soiree, if you will. So the portable karaoke machine stayed at home with about 11 pounds of the Brie. I even put my offering into a nice dish instead of the usual Ziploc container.

When I arrived, I was startled by the new faces in my friend's living room. Who were these people? Had I been so focused on my novel that I missed out on meeting all the cool additions to this gaggle?

The hair on the back of my neck stood on end when I spotted one gentleman near the crab dip. He bore a striking resemlance to the leader of the Others from Lost.

Seriously.

So I did what any nosy party guest would do: go to the hostess for all the details.

"Who's the dude near the dip?"

Janet, who had just finished assembling a tower of phyllo bites, peeked over my shoulder to see to whom I was referring.

"Oh, that's Drake. Petra's new beau."

As if on cue, Petra approached the creepy-looking man and he wrapped his arm across her shoulders.

"What about Steven?" I asked, wondering what had happened to Petra's boyfriend of over two years.

"He up and left one day. She hasn't heard from him since."

I nibbled on a edamame bean and glanced over at the couple, now lounging near the stereo system, sipping what looked like apple martinis.

Janet leaned in closer to whisper, "The best thing is how they met. On holiday. Petra had cashed in her air miles and went to Oahu - solo. She bumped into Drake at a scuba lesson. They've been together ever since."

"So he's from Oahu?"

"No, I don't think so. Petra never said. I just assumed he was from around here."

Yeah, just like they did on Lost.

For the rest of the evening, I tried to catch Petra alone, but Drake always seemed to be within earshot. I'm sure it was because they were still in the honeymoon phase of their relationship and not because he was using some form of mind control to take over my friend's life.

Not that we were that close. She was more Janet's friend than mine.

"And if sometimes I can't seem to talk, you'll know this blackboard lacks a piece of chalk."

Ah, true poetry. But all I wanted to see when the video first came out in the 80's were the closeups of Matt Dillon. :::sighs:::

It's been a frightfully productive weekend and there are two reasons why:

1. The phone lines on the street were damaged, making it impossible to phone or get online until this evening.

2. The DH was working crazy-weird shifts, so I could hog the computer and stay focused on the edits.

And while I love Holly Lisle's concept of the One Pass Manuscript Revision, I know I'm going to have to do a final, final proof once it's all together. Mainly to catch missing quotation marks and wonky dashes. Oh, and the whole time/space continuum thing.

The Penguins of Panic camped out on my broken front step, but I wouldn't let them in the door. Even when they had candy.

BROKEN BOTTOM STEP UPDATE
My father denies any involvement with said broken step and even came over on Friday to assist the DH in a makeshift repair to prevent small costumed children from falling to their deaths...or just scraped kneecaps.

My parents visited to provide some slave labour ( Mom brought her sewing machine and hemmed every piece of clothing I own) and also enjoy a delightful evening of spooky storytelling at Montgomery's Inn, a historic site in our neighbourhood.

We even had the opportunity to try and solve the chilling tale of a maid's murder at the Inn, which included a walk-through where the ghosts of the 18th-century story came back to life, showing us what really happened.

It was pretty neat, and they even served pie and cider at the break. ;)

Speaking of scary rituals, here's a shout-out to Katy, who finally got married this weekend and is off to Rome for a lovely honeymoon.

Is there a reason why gum filled with liquid flavour pockets is so darn popular?

I just don't get it.

Having a burst of fruit flavour at the outset of a good chew doesn't really help with the whole "it's done" syndrome that usually hits you at about chew 42. Not that anyone over here at Casa Staring is counting or anything.

Wouldn't it be better to have some kind of gum that, after being declared tasteless, suddenly had a burst of flavour? That would be cool. Especially if it didn't take out the eye of the person sitting across from you, as it seems to happen in the current commercials.

We could call it Last Blast or AfterBurster or something.

It really doesn't matter to me, since I rarely chew gum. ;)

Just received my RWA Golden Heart entry confirmation today. And now the Penguins of Panic have me on speed dial again. Sigh. Back to the edits...

Warning: This is a particularly frightful tale, so much so that photos of the aforementioned step will not be shown. Reader discretion is advised.

A few years ago, our bottom step started to crack and lose bits every once in a while. The DH and I, not being terribly handy at cement repair, would occasionally look at it and say things like "we should do something about that" or "maybe it'll last another year."

So in the spring of 2005, Bonnie called a home fix-it guy. For a negotiated sum, he filled the parts of the cement that were missing and sealed it all up, good as new.

Until the cracks appeared three days later.

Blood-curdling scream goes here.

So the handyman came back to fix the cracks with some gooey stuff that looked like mashed up...concrete. Everything looked nice and the children started singing in the streets again.

Then it rained.

Not that rain is bad, but it is when your new bottom step was built in such a way that a self-contained puddle can find a home on it.

Better still, in the winter it forms a little ice rink.

Colder and scarier scream goes here.

The DH and I soon developed methods to avoid splashing or slipping on the bottom step, as did mail carriers, paperboys and Jehovah's witnesses. All was fine in the world until late April, when we noticed the formation of cracks, deep ones, on the step.

We'd point at them and taunt them, but keep a good distance away for fear of causing the first hunk of step to lop off like the arm of a zombie.

Then my father came by last weekend.

While we don't have any documented proof, I know Dad. He's the type of guy to tap at something with his shoe to see if anything happens - a step bully. Past behaviour included the kicking of the old step, a leaning against a loose railing and the prying off of a rotten piece of wood on the back steps.

Do you see a pattern here?

Last Friday evening, the step was in one piece. On Saturday, a day in which Dad had walked up and down the front steps unescorted at least twice, the corners had suddenly "fallen off" the bottom step.

Sure, we could blame gravity, but that's not as much fun.

On Sunday, the DH and I examined the ever-shrinking step and decided that we should look into doing something about it soon.

Then the front half of it collapsed today.

And did anyone else here take a peek at the calendar and notice that Halloween is next week? It just happens to be the one night of the year that having a good bottom step to your house is hugely important.

I'd call Dad, but I know he's outta town. Not to worry though, Mom and Dad are coming over on Friday for a visit. I think a trip to Home Depot may be in order. Bwa ha ha ha...

In keeping with the scary stuff going on in my life, I thought I'd take a little Halloween liberty over the next week or so to make things seem even more terrifying. Or not.

The Tale of the Endless Edits
It started as a rather calm day at the office when Bonnie noticed the shadow crossing her desk. She looked up and saw that the stack of papers in her inbox tray had multiplied as she checked her personal email account.

All were marked high priority.

Insert blood-curdling scream here.

So Bonnie did the only thing an editor/proofreader could do: sharpen her red pencil.

She quickly moved through the pile, dotting an "i" here, crossing a "t" there, changing imperial measurements to metric just because that's the Canadian thing to do - and more.

Soon enough, the inbox was empty. Bonnie took the opportunity to go to McDonalds and obtain some more Monopoly game pieces...

And ended up with three more Pennsylvania railroads.

Insert howling wolf with extra echo effect here.

As she neared her desk, she couldn't help but notice that the pile had returned.

Since she was feeling particularly lazy, she decided to hide the pile near the photocopier so that she could work on a magazine article instead.

Then she got called into a meeting.

There sat her manager and the abandoned pile of work.

"Is there a problem?" the manager asked.

"Oh, uh. No." Bonnie eyed the pile and wondered if it were possessed. A single page crinkled near the top.

Great.

"Just because you've seen these documents 400 times over the past two months doesn't mean they don't need your full attention for this round," the manager continued, droning on and on like the teacher in Charlie Brown episodes. No, scratch that, she spoke just like Freddie Kruger before he slashed open all those teenagers' throats.

Spooky.

Thankfully Bonnie had watched Lost last week, and placed a lighter and can of hairspray in her back pocket. With a mighty "hee-yah!", she lit up a stream of Vidal Sassoon Extra Volume Hold hairspray and set the pile ablaze.

Choking and wiping the soot off of her face, Bonnie raced back to her desk - only to face the pile of editorial doom again.

Insert another blood-curdling scream here.

So she did them, knowing they would come back to haunt her again and again and again.

The End

Online edits are proceeding well, as long as I remember which names I finally decided on for my main characters. ;)

35% of the way there. Things are looking very good for reaching my October 31 deadline. Not that anything heinous will really happen if I don't reach that deadline...well, except for that overwhelming feeling of failure, I suppose.

I've also decided to enter this novel into RWA's Golden Heart competition. Crazy, I know, but why not? You only live once. And I'll be 40 next year anyway. :::blinks rapidly to hold back the tears:::

Even the finalist pins look nice. Or so I'm told.

But enough about that novel, let me share with you a tale even scarier than a writer's Visa card statement: the winter coat that almost got away.

It was a cool fall morning when Bonnie opened her closet door in search of her winter coat. What she found was a rumpled heap that screamed 'bag lady' instead of blond babe, so she called a friend and arranged a visit to the local mall.

For some reason, the mall was filled with...people. Couples, singles, families, all kinds and shapes looking for, you guessed it - winter coats.

Insert blood-curdling scream here.

A few stores offered many choices, but all left Bonnie wanting. Her girlfriend Michelle encouraged her to try on some jackets that she might have never tried on in the first place, but they were butt-ugly.

Until they saw the mighty fine red wool coat.

"But I don't like red," Bonnie said, eyeing the coat on the rack warily.

"Who cares what you think?" Michelle replied. "Shut up and try it on."

Bonnie put on the coat, and it felt wonderful. She went to the mirror and was pleased with what she saw. The fit was roomy yet slimming, the length perfect for wearing with pants or skirts, and the sales associate even told her it looked nice. With a degree of sincerity.

Only trouble was, it was a little over Bonnie's pre-determined budget of...ten bucks. Not wanting to purchase on impulse, she decided to take a short cooling off period.

"We'll hold it for you until 4:00," the saleslady told them. "But if you're late, we'll have to summon the floating head of death and everyone in the mall will die."

"Cool," Michelle said. "Lunch?"

They shopped for a while longer, then had a lovely meal at a restaurant with extremely slow service.

"Ohmigawd, it's almost 4," Bonnie said, freaking out.

"Chill, the coat will be there," Michelle replied.

Bonnie waved her arms in the air to attract the waiter's attention.

"It's not the coat I'm worried about, it's the floating head of death."

Michelle yawned. "No big, it happened at the mall near my place last week. It only took out a few people in The Gap."

At 4:01 Bonnie felt an odd sense of loss.

"My coat won't be there," she said as they raced through the mall, drop-kicking the people who chose really bad places to stand and have a conversation with each other.

Suddenly the path before them cleared as shoppers ran screaming in all directions.

"Someone has summoned the floating head of death!" they cried, clutching their purchases as they bolted for the exits.

"We're all gonna die!"

Despite the screams of panic and the threat of human carnage, Bonnie and Michelle entered the store.

There were only two coats left on the rack; both a size 6.

Insert another blood-curdling scream here.

Bonnie raced to the counter and saw her jacket, waiting patiently on the rack for her return.

The evil store manager stood between her and the jacket.

"You're too late," she sneered.

Bonnie pulled out her frequent shopper card and rapped it against the counter.

"Check code 49-F: A frequent shopper has the right to pick up on hold merchandise whenever they damn well feel like it, because they are always right."

"NO!" the manager screamed.

Bonnie tapped the card again. Peaceful Muzak played through the speakers, people grew calm in the hallways. Some small children even stopped crying.

Michelle found a really nice handbag, but put it back when she remembered her condo fees.

The shopper and coat were reunited, and now Bonnie is actually looking forward to winter. Michelle, again playing the part of stylist, returned home without a damn thing.

The floating head of death? We're not sure where it ended up...buyers beware. Bwa ha ha ha.

I don't drink wine, but the DH does. Which always leads to his problem of having a glass and then finding ways to sneak the odd drink in here and there before it goes off. See? Even in a blog post it appears suspect.

Poor guy, he just wants to enjoy a nice glass of wine every once in a while.

Then we discovered Three Thieves. They've created the Bandit line of quality boxed wines in handy 250 ml packs.

Yes, you heard me correctly, boxed wine.

But here's where I need to quote the packaging:

"Leave your preconceptions at the checkout counter."

"This is not a box wine. It's a really good wine that happens to come in a high-tech, cost-effective box."

"The sooner you get over the package, the better it will be for all of us."



The DH says it's pretty darn good too. Makes you kind of want to collect the whole set. He says the Cabernet Sauvingnon is particularly nice.

Of course, I had to check out the website. It's hilarious.

From The Toronto Star:
Cancer (June 22 — July 22)
Your personal business is something for you and for you only. Some information can be passed to others, but there are those things that ought to remain very private. So, be careful whom you talk to and listen.

From MSN:
Cancer
Your creativity is at an all-time high today, dear Cancer. You are inspired to embark on some long-term creative projects and you have the energy to see them through to the end. This is a time for you to take a leap of faith and plunge right in. Hesitation will get you nowhere. Whatever it is you have been dreaming of doing, do it now.

And this is why I'm filling up a post with horoscopes, riding that all-time creative high. :::scribbles on a Post-It and displays it as art:::

Although the muse appears to still be snowed in near Buffalo (it'll all melt soon, won't it?) I can proudly say that online edits for Suds start TODAY. Woot! I'm a week ahead of schedule, time to laze about and eat bon bons. :::takes another dose of insulin to be on the safe side:::

It was really tempting to start the online edits while still revising the back end of the novel, but I resisted and remained focused. So focused that I'm feeling the eye strain big time.

Hopefully I can get a big hunk of the edits completed this weekend so I have time to prepare for my contest club meeting on Tuesday.

Yes, my world is looking mighty fine right now, no matter what the stars are saying.

The DH and I saw Wicked last night. I have now placed it at the top of my list of favourite musicals to see over and over again. I laughed, I cried, I even discovered that flying monkeys aren't all that bad, just misunderstood.

If you can, see it. Fly to NYC or catch it if the touring company stops in near your hometown. The dialogue is delightful, the songs are totally CD-purchase worthy and you'll never be able to see The Wizard of Oz in the same light again. Even if you're listening to Dark Side of the Moon at the same time.

It's all about perspective. Big time.

And this was one of the few times where the show surpassed the novel. While Gregory Maguire's tale was intriguing, the musical filled in even more of the gaps between where the book left off and Dorothy's unexpected arrival.

I'm still giddy and trying to decide how many days I should wait before I see it again... if I could get tickets of course. (Ours from last night were purchased in May.)

Okay, back to finishing the last of the offline edits... have I told you that the honeymoon is over yet? :::hangs head and sobs quietly so that coworkers aren't disturbed:::

Oh shoot, I'm supposed to be working.

Big hugs and kisses go to the DH for putting this together for me as I scream through the last few pages of offline edits.

Had a meeting with a prospective client today. (Gotta love referrals.) Although most of the work would be done online, she wanted us to meet in person just to make sure I wasn't a serial killer, fashion victim or both.

Too bad her address was to the left of Out There, just past Way Beyond. Well, by public transit standards anyway.

I checked MapQuest and the Toronto Transit Commission site to see which route would be the best to take. Now I know that the TTC has never conducted any usability testing on their site, I felt even more lost after being there. With no sign of Sawyer in a bus driver uniform. :::sighs:::

So I took a cab out there and planned to figure out a way back somehow. Getting there was the priority. If I needed to carry some food and water with me, so be it.

After a very successful meeting, I asked the nice gentleman at the security desk in the lobby if there was a bus stop that headed back to the city nearby. Lucky for me, it was a few steps down the street.

After only two minutes, I had a great seat next to the window. Then the tour of the city began.

It was just like those morose public transit scenes you see in movies all the time. One of my favourites is Tony on the NYC subway in Saturday Night Fever while How Deep Is Your Love is playing. It's when the hero/heroine stares as the landscape passes by, the sun setting further in the west, the odd drop of rain hitting the glass.

Okay, it was 11:30 a.m., but I was feeling like it would be a long time before I'd see my home and DH again. ;)

Too bad I didn't have the last few pages of Suds with me, I could have finished off the offline edits in that hour and a half.

The benefits of living in a huge city just keep adding up.

Lara and I have both had poor writing posse experiences which have led us to avoiding the whole writing group/posse thing. Of course, this means that we've been missing out on the cool benefits of sharing and helping others (and ourselves) through the lonely world of writing.

So I've created a simple questionnaire for prospective writing posse members to fill out as an application. Feel free to submit your answers by posting a comment. Not sure where any of this is going to lead, but it's a fun ride so far.

1. True or false: You can read.
A) True
B) False
C) Aks me laater.

2. You are not currently with a writing group because:
A) You fear rejection
B) You have a possessive significant other
C) Your cell block doesn't have one

3. Finish this phrase: Writing is ________.
A) Something I enjoy
B) Something I'm truly gifted in
C) Something to do with letters of the alphabet, but without the soup

4. You are reading another writer's work and don't particularly enjoy it. You:
A) Try to find some good things to comment on, as well as the bad
B) Rewrite the whole thing for the loser
C) Tell the writer you used the pages to build a fire for a sacrificial ritual

5. True or false: Your first drafts are perfect.
A) False
B) True
C) Why are you asking me about hockey?

6. Where do you currently go for inspiration?
A) A number of websites about writing
B) That's funny, because people go to you
C) To the bathroom

7. Do you prefer to meet offline or online?
A) Either
B) Your place and your place only
C) The parallel universe works better for you, or planet Zorcon

8. If someone offered you constructive criticism, you would expect it to be:
A) Helpful
B) Stupid
C) On construction paper

Okay Lara, let's see what happens with this.

With all of the shows out there featuring regular people with superpowers, I thought I'd take a moment to showcase a few people in my life who go above and beyond the call in truly unique ways:

Mom: She has the ability to track down a bargain within a hundred-mile radius in a matter of seconds. And she knows just what you need, even before you do.

Dad: He is able to apply logic to any situation, including the ones in my mother's mind. Dad also possesses the power to become invisible during a crisis and fix problems without anyone realizing that he's done anything.

DH: There are oodles that I can list here, but that would make him more attractive to others, so I'll stick to one. My husband has mastered the art of the one-word reply that few can fight against: "Indeed."

And I can't stand it when he uses it on me. ;)

JJLB: Her ability to watch multiple movies in a row is legendary. She and I co-own a VHS copy of The Boy in the Plastic Bubble.

MR: She denies wholeheartedly that she possesses the power of the pen, yet she keeps on writing and selling books. Hmm. Must be the new condo.

LR: This woman is able to juggle forty-five gazillion projects at once without damaging the furniture or loved ones. When she stops to take a break, she ends up with a hundred more. Makes me tired just thinking about it.

Heck, put all of these people together and you have yourself a pretty interesting television show. Just throw in a tropical island or bank heist and we could have something.

Indeed.

Something strange is happening over here in Revision Land (the theme park with pens, Post-Its and paper cuts): I'm excited about the novel again.

DH made the comment last night as I babbled incoherently about combining characters and revising a scene so it added a heap of conflict in an unexpected way.

"Wow, sounds like you're having fun with it again," he said.

And he was totally right. I carry sections of the novel back and forth to the part time proofing job and sneak in edits during lunch and when the boss isn't looking. Then I take full advantage of my rides on public transit to get even more stuff done.

My kitchen table is a mass of calendar pages, newspaper clippings and an ever-decreasing pile of pages I have not scribbled all over yet.

Part of me knows this is just a passing phase and I'll soon feel like setting all of this on fire or have a shredding party. That's just the way writing is. But right at this very moment, I LOVE this piece of fiction.

I think a big part of it is that I'm now at the stuff at the end that I whipped through in order to meet the Write-On first draft deadline way back on August 1. Sections had been completely forgotten about and now I feel I'm reading them for the first time.

Oh, and some parts are so horrible I need to shred the pages so that no one ever sees them, but at least I can laugh about it. For now.

Okay, gotta get back before the muse leaves the room.

Thanks for finding this Nienke.

In a recent interview Josh Holloway said, "Eveyone has a little Sawyer in them."

Then I had to be alone for a moment.

But seriously folks, I'm about ready to just pick up all the past seasons of 24 to keep myself occupied on Wednesday nights. Right after America's Next Top Model, of course. Oh, and before CSI: NY, which was particularly creepy last night.

Sure, seeing Sawyer locked up and then looking for the first opportunity to grab Kate and/or a handgun is fun and all, but I really miss the big black smoke cloud and the polar bears. I was even considering a vacation to Hawaii when I realized that we'd probably get there after all the characters we really like get killed off by some other character we haven't yet met who's been shacked up with the crazy French babe. That's just a guess.

Of course, seeing Sayid again was nice, even when it looked like he was going to be captured and have to dress in drag for the rest of the season. Oops, confusing my television programs there, that was ANTM.

Too bad about Sun and Kim totally lying to each other for the past few years though. Oh well, bygones I'm sure. It'll all be fine once she gives birth to an alien.

Can you tell I'm at a really heinous part of the novel rewrites? I'm in the midst of a Frankenstein project where I'm morphing two characters into one. It's not pretty and there seems to be an additional eyebrow on the guys's forehead too.

Oh well, only 2-1/2 more weeks to go and it'll be done. I think.

No, this isn't a post about my life as a princess. It's about my fear of dentistry.

I have discovered that the best way for me to get almost anything done (besides winning the lottery) is to use that as a reason to avoid going to the dentist. Here are just a few examples:

"Oh, I can't possibly go to the dentist, I have a novel to revise. Any less pain and I may lose my muse."

"There's a sale at Spatula World? I'll have to call the dentist tomorrow."

"You need 600 brownies for the bake sale? No problem, I can see the dentist next month."

Okay, I'm exaggerating. A bit. But something horrible must have happened to me in the dentist's chair as a child to instill such a fear in me. My blood pressure skyrockets, my pulse races and I even get all sweaty.

Don't get the wrong idea folks: I don't consider my female dentist to be a hot prospect. She's nice, but I don't mix fillings with pleasure.

It used to get so bad that I'd have to book a chiropractic appointment to straighten out my neck and shoulders once I got out of the chair alive. All that stress would trap itself into my upper back. If it could talk, it would probably sound like an angry Ozzy Osbourne tune. Then again, all of his songs are pretty angry.

Then I saw Die Hard, the first one.

After Bruce Willis arrives at his wife's office in the LA skyscraper that's gonna blow up, he follows another airplane passenger's advice and takes off his shoes. Supposedly it'll make him feel better.

For Bruce, it didn't turn out that way. But for me, I tried it out at the dentist.

Yippee-ki-yay, it worked.

Now, when I settle into the dentist's chair, I take off my shoes and put all of the stress, fear and angst into my tootsies. The result? Less strain on the back and neck as well as flexed-out feet.

After receiving a crown a few weeks ago, I was experiencing some major freaking pain. I even took some pain-relieving medication that I had a coupon for. Then the pain started waking me up in the middle of the night. So I had to get back in the chair.

Turns out that my crown was too big for my head. Yeah, there's so much material in that sentence alone that I'm gonna leave it at that and wait for Alan Rickman to show up.

Cracked through page 335 of 407 this afternoon. That means there is some light showing at the end of the One Pass Manuscript Revision tunnel.

The thing is, I know I have to kill off a few more characters. And I'm not talking consonants and vowels. There are way too many people, and only one bathroom. The lineups are maddening and everyone's getting really bitchy about it.

And I'm really getting concerned about my ability to read my own handwriting when the time comes to try and input all of this into Word. (Scheduled in about 14 days, give or take.) Tin foil may have to be wrapped around my head so that I can channel long lost thought patterns. Sigh.

It feels good, but a part of me is getting all freaked out. Okay, a big part of me is already totally freaked out. Enough to make me consider taking on horrible contract work that would kill my spirit instead of putting Suds out there.

My lovely little novel is about to go out into the warm, comforting arms of my beta readers and scary things may happen. Scarier than the effects of eating an entire bag of Double-Stuffed Oreos has on my poor little pancreas.

Not that I've had any... today.

It's all for the best, and one day I'll appreciate the feedback. I've seen it happen before. Perhaps it's best not to think about it right now. :::calls late-night pharmacy for a refill of cheap Canadian meds:::

Oh, and one of my shiny new ideas from last month has now painted up some sandwich boards and is camped out next to the fridge. I'm trying not to notice, but she used glitter and everything...

Tangent alert: I received a few copies of a home renovation contractor magazine that contains the first article I've written for the pub. It looked pretty darn cool... until I checked the masthead. Apparently I didn't write anything for that issue, even though it's in there. I'll just tell people I was registered with the witness protection program when that issue went to press. Hey, I got paid, so I'm cool with it. We'll just see what happens next issue.

I've also won my first prize for October: a blender. Woo hoo! The funny thing is, I just purchased one for a fellow writer's Condo-of-Love housewarming last month. If only I had waited, I could have saved myself some cash. But then we wouldn't have been able to sip on daiquiris that night. ;)

Okay, back to the grind...

It's been a really bizarre week so far. Even without all that crap in the news about guns, politicians and the harmful effects of disco.

At the top of the list is the strangest happening of all. One of the guys I work with arrived at the office today with this piece of news: his house had been hit by a car.

Another colleague asked, "Dude, how fast was your house going?"

Okay, the house was not moving. Turns out that a gentleman was attempting to evade the police by driving like a total idiot. It almost worked too.

Unfortunately for him, the house blocked his way.

My friend is still waiting to see what needs to be done to get his house back to its former "curb appeal" status. Who knows? This could be a new design trend, having a Hyundai rammed into your living room.

Speaking of things that just don't make sense, I'm not feeling the love for Lost. It may have reached the TMotTFW (too much of the too freaking weird) level for me. Sure, they gave Sawyer enough screen time to prevent me from changing the channel, but the honeymoon is over. Time for this show to put up or shut up.

On another note, there have been no reports of horking under the cover of darkness from across the street. Then again, we haven't been hanging around outside too much with all the rain.

Did I mention that my creepy neighbour has a dog that barks a lot because he's so damn bored being left outside? We think the dog's name is "Shut Up," since that's the only thing we ever hear our neighbour say to him.

Shoot, I'm rambling. And I've discovered one way that I can get a ton of revisions done is by staying offline. Sad but true. This quick little "peek online" has evolved into two hours of... stuff. Don't know about you, but I already have way too much stuff.

So I'm gonna duck out for a wee bit and lose myself in novel revisions. Just for a few days... or hours if I start convulsing. ;)

Make sure your house stays out of trouble and keep the front porch buckled up.

The revisions on Suds have been progressing just as I expected. Today I've reached the halfway point, right on schedule.

So why is this a problem?

The first half of the book is where I toiled with turns of phrases, character development and making the plot actually work. While almost every page is marked up, there were only five scenes and one subplot that resulted in big fat x's crossing the page.

Now I'm heading into the danger zone (yes, I hear that song in my head too, just ignore it and the images of Tom Cruise). This is the part where one of my main characters turns into an alien - and I'm not writing sci-fi here.

But when I look at other writers' blogs, it seems the middle is a horrible place for everyone. Okay, maybe horrible isn't the right word. Let's try heinous instead.

While I was expecting this, I must have forgotten about the heinous middle along the way. And, unlike the first time around, this isn't where I can simply add the words "MORE STUFF GOES HERE ABOUT X" and move on to the next chapter. It has to be dealt with now. Like today.

Oh, once I get the paying work done. Gotta love clients!

I look forward to Wednesday night with reluctant anticipation. That's when our favourite show, WTF, will be airing. The DH and I had to rename it due to the number of times that phrase was uttered during commercial breaks last season.

And the current promo voiced by Mr. Leader of the Others is just plain creeping me out. Talk about your scary Halloween tale!

I also want to see if they kill off Mr. Eko because of his driving infraction earlier this year. No one is safe on this island.

And, don't tell Josh Holloway, but I have picked up two new fave shows that I may not be able to live without: Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip and Ugly Betty. IMO both are superbly written and I can't wait to see what happens next.

Kind of like the way I used to feel about WTF. Except now it's reaching the painful stage. If you haven't been watching, this wouldn't be a good time to start. There's just way to much crap to catch up on.

Keeping it light today, WIP revisions are moving along relatively well. Knock wood. Only 29 days left!