Book update for August

Number of books read for 2010: 23
I know, terrible, especially for someone who claims to love reading as much as I do. But give me a break here, people! Not only do I read for a living and am trying to write my own novel, but I got stuck trying to finish Les Miserables for four months (and I still haven't given up hope that one day i will finish it, I've just put it on the back burner in favor of more interesting things). So thanks to Mara and me going to the library at least once a week, and agreeing to read books for Aaron, I've picked up the pace a little this month.

August's accomplishments:
The 10 pm Question by Kate deGoldi
The Nanny Diaries by McLaughlin and Kraus
The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan
The Sea of Monsters by Rick Riordan
Electric LIterature #2 (a magazine of short stories)

Next on the list:
The last three in the Percy Jackson series by Rick Riordan
Leviathan by Scott Westerfeld
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
A Game of Thrones by George RR Martin

Check me out on good reads if you want to recommend any books or see what I'm reading.

San Antonio

Highlights from our trip to San Antonio:
Five people simultaneously chanting "Bless You" when I sneezed at Sea World.
Flying off the tube at the bottom of the water slide and hitting my elbow and the lifeguard not believing me when I said I was okay.
Sitting on the far side of the stage at Azul so we could see one of the trainers chatting with a beluga whale behind the stage for twenty minutes before the show.
The fajitas at Hard Rock Cafe, even though we had to wait twenty minutes for more meat because our waiter didn't actually give us a double order because I guess he thought we weren't that hungry.
The little kid with the stuffed orca that we met at a stop light in Burnet (see Sean for full story).
Getting to visit with James and Tonya on the way home Sunday.

I'm sure there's more but I've slept since then so I can't remember.

Lessons from the office

Today I learned:
Patrick is a big fan of strapless bras.
James turns 30 today.
The movie Friday the Thirteen was released the day James was born.
The Knights Templar are the reason why Friday the Thirteenth is unlucky.
"Anybody" can pull off a dramatic reading of Tantacles of Destruction.
My earrings make great wind whistlers.

It's Wednesday. What else is new?

Today I learned that:
Replace All isn't caps sensitive. Which sucks for me because now I can't just find and replace all Heavens with heavens and all CHAPTERs with Chapters. I have to find next for each one and change it myself. Oh well, it keeps me busy.
The office's most exciting revelation today? That CMOS changed the color scheme of their website in honor of their 16th edition release. Kalyn was ooh-ing and ahh-ing for minutes on end.

the Consortium

What is the Consortium? According to the site, it's "a nonprofit organization based out of Oklahoma City, OK, which supports the arts, encourages the development of local artists, and generates high-quality works of art that directly benefit the local community."
So what does that really mean?
It means that they are an organization of writers, painters, photographers, musicians, and other artists who work hard so that they and other artists can be free to pursue what they really love--their art! It's just starting up, but the goal is to let artists make their art their full-time job-instead of having to find those pesky, real world jobs to pay their food and board.
As a long-time aspiring author myself, this sounds like a really great idea. (Even though, at the moment, I really enjoy my real world job.)
The Consortium was thought of by my friend Aaron Pogue. Thanks to him and many of his artist friends, it is slowly being realized. Now that I have a good job that doesn't make me want to kill people at the end of the day (ie I don't work at Sonic), I felt that it was my turn to volunteer my time toward this cause. Sean has already been involved with the Consortium for a while, implementing his programming skills.
Aaron actually used to be Sean's technical writing teacher at OC. But, as we all know, Sean has a way of finding friends in the most interesting of places. Before the semester was out, Sean and Aaron were meeting for lunches and nerd-ing it up big time. Since then, Sean and I have also had the pleasure of meeting Aaron's wife and two kids.
So anyway, here I am, promoting Aaron and the Consortium. Click on the links above to find out more about who he is and what he's been working on. and don't forget to support the Arts!

A day in the life of.....a copyeditor :)

Alarm goes off at 6:30. I think it's part of my dream, but then finally startle myself awake by yelling, "Sean, it's time to get up!"
He agrees, then rolls over and hits the snooze.
Two snoozes later, Sean gets up and gets ready for his new job. I remind him his lunch is in the fridge; he goes to work.
I let Bella in from her morning romp in the yard and play on facebook. Then I get up, get dressed, and stare at the fridge for something to eat. I sit around the house looking for something to do until Mara picks me up at a quarter to eight.
Today, Thomas picks me up. Sun is shining, temperature is already in the eighties.
Get to work a little early, grab my water bottle from my cubby and fill it from the water cooler in the cafe. Mmmmm, coffee smells good. Sit across from Brittany, plug in my computer, get to work. The two Laurens come in a bit later; one is my boss and is in the adjoining office a few feet away, the other Lauren sits next to me and also gets to work.
At ten, every single employee from Tate trickles into our office (because it is the biggest) and we have to shove our table back to make room for them. It's time for the monthly meeting. yay. Meeting stuff happens, Ryan inspires us, and we have awards and announcements and all that jazz. Then we get to move our table back and try to kill time for an hour before lunch.
Lauren asks Brittany (because Brittany's been here the longest) about a grammar question and we talk about our manuscripts and discover mistakes we've been making (surprise, we going to have to go back and fix our work! Even grammar nazis aren't perfect).
Lunch rolls around, we all scatter.
Eat, play on our computers, talk, do some work, paychecks are handed out, we talk while we work.
Boss Lauren, per my request a couple days ago, has gone over my previous manuscripts. Oops, I made some mistakes. But it's okay, it's only my first week so it's good we've caught these early on! I go back and fix them and then do PPCs for Kalyn. I used to do PPCs as an intern, but I still have the email and have been keeping up with it, and probably will until a new intern turns up. I know Kalyn is too busy for it and plus I already have a good system worked out for it.
"Bye, have a good weekend," resounds around the office as people start to leave. There's only about five or six people left in the office by four because Ryan said we could go home an hour early today and most editors have flex hours and get off at four anyway. I'm staying because Sean can't get me until five, and Brittany and Lauren are trying to get in a couple extra hours. So we sit around and work a little bit until five and Sean is here to pick me up.
Sean shows me his new security cards and we go home.
Peek in the freezer and find some pork steaks.
Dinner is cooked, eaten, and leftovers put away by 6:30. Reading, playing on the computer, and catching up with each other's days. If this were a weekday, I would be making Sean's lunch and maybe ironing a pair of slacks for him. Instead, we're waiting for Caleb to arrive from Tulsa.
And that is what I did today!

Many magical musings

"If you must know, I didn't know he was the fiance when he plopped." --Alex
In this movie, Emma is confused how Alex's plot and characters can develop even while he's in the middle of writing the story. Two pages before, the main character meets John Shaw. Then he conveniently finds out that Shaw is planning to marry the main character's new employer. Coincidence? Definitely not!

Although it's a bit contrived in Alex and Emma, and the plot ultimately reflect's Adam's past and poor life descisions, this spontaneous working of the plot with convenient results often happens in real life. I was just thinking this morning about my character Mr. Lukas from my nanowrimo 2009 novel. By the year 1194 in the land of Pocatello (when this novel was set), it's very, very unusual for someone to not have magical powers. But I had already developed the character of Lukas without detirmining what his power was. When I got to his part of the story in November, I had to quickly come up with some passive power for him that wouldn't detract from who he was or his function in the plot. I couldn't give him charisma, because that would make his rise to fame seem fake, and I wanted him to be a strong character who worked his way up the social ladder. He couldn't have anything active (like tekenesis, fire manipulation, or even telepathy) because then the enemy would take him way too seriously and lock him up tight, or even kill him after they had all the necessary information from him.
So I decided to make him an Earwig--I have idea where I got the idea that one could have super hearing, but that's what I gave Mr. Lukas. And suddenly, it solved some problems.
It explained why the Flubberians had left him locked up alone (so he couldn't hear any enemy plans).
It explained how he found out that Phillip was still alive (the two assassins who didn't know where Mr. Lukas was held slipped into a back corrider to discuss the operation where King Carlos wouldn't hear them).
It explained how he managed to escape the castle and get out of Flubber (he could hear their footsteps in the hallways in enough time to go down a different corridor).
And it didn't take away from his natural leadership abilities, it didn't hinder his loyalty to Phillip, and it didn't make him sympathize with the Greens (Lukas' three main character traits).
In fact, I like this power so much that I gave it to another character Last night I indulged myself in looking through my other stories from Pocatello (yes, sigh, there are more) and realized that my hero from another time didn't have any powers yet. The main character trait of this man was that he was a war veteran from the Flubberian civil war, but even by the year 382 (the year of the war), many people had powers, and it would be just ignoring the whole point of the war not to give him one. So what do I do? I make him an Earwig. Now he's essentially the same person, didn't really improve his fighting all that much (maybe even hindered it if the sound of all those bullets gave him a headache) and then the introduction scene to the other main character doesn't have to be an awkward outburst in a bar, instead he can just overhear her heated conversation with the bartender in the back.
Don't you love it when things turn out like that? Unless you're a writer, probably not :)
*For more information than you ever wanted to know about magical abilities and the Flubberian civil war, feel free to ask me, I love rambling about my made-up world*

In other news, first two PAID days at Tate went very well. Working on reading more slowly and getting to know the other girls at my table without sounding intrusive. Sean is trying to get temporary security clearance so that he can start working on stuff at his job, and then I'll never get to know what he's working on because it's a SECRET.

Dream On (The Neil Patrick Harris/Matthew Morrison version, of course)

So now that I have a new job as a copyeditor at Tate Publishing (!!!!) I'll be sitting at a desk reading books for 27 hours a week. This means a lot of time that I can listen to music.

Here's what I've been listening to recently:
Anberlin
Owl City
3 Doors Down
Glee Soundtrack
Keane

As much as I like all these bands and have no intention of stopping listening to them anytime soon, I'm ready to throw something new into the mix. Would anybody like to suggest some new bands and/or get me an iTunes card? I'm open to suggestions!

Words for the day

Lauren: "Would you like the job?"
Me: "Yes, please."
Lauren: "Okay, it's yours."

Goodbye and good riddance

Due to Sean getting a job at Tinker and me hopefully getting a job at Tate, I quit Sonic this week. Sean has been busy filling out paperwork for his fancy Security Clearance with Abacus Tech, a subcontractor with Tinker AFB. I have my official interview with Tate for a copyediting position tomorrow. I can't forsee not getting the job, but then let's not count our chickens before they've hatched. So after three years working at different locations, sometimes only a few hours a week, and sometimes over forty, my last day with Sonic was Today. Here are a few of the things I will NOT be missing:
*Waking at 4:30am to open the store
*Running out of food or cups or lids or straws or napkins almost daily
*Having to go to Northstar for will calls when we ran out of stuff, especially in the summer when it's a hundred degrees outside and I had to sit in my car for an hour at a time.
*Customers complaining to me about everything, including things I can't fix and things that aren't even wrong.
*Employees whining about their jobs.
*Being short-handed and having to do five things at once.
*Continually sending back the headsets to their company and still only have two that work, instead of four.
*Roller skating and having customers ask me, "Are you skating? Have you fallen yet?"
*Smelling like stale tater tots every day
*Rushes where my blood sugar goes low and I can't find time to drink a coke