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‘Twas the night before Christmas Eve, Twitter style

  • December 24, 2010

Wow, look at this. Two blog posts in two days. Amount of work done on manuscript, however? None.

And before I forget, I actually guest blogged over at Totally Tay yesterday. Why? Because she’s awesome and her I Believe posts are awesome too. She’s going to beta read my manuscript and I’m hopefully going to meet her in real life when I fly to Arizona in April to visit Stefani and Mindy. She calls me an author on her blog, which is stretching the truth quite a bit, but I love that Taylor believes in me. Click over and check it out.

In preparation for the winter storm all the newscasters were wetting themselves about, Trish decided to spend the night at our house last night. David and I host dad and Debby, George and Stef and their kids, and Trish on Christmas Eve and Trish didn’t want to risk driving through the snow to get here tonight. She’s a total shit driver when the sun is shining and the pavement is dry so deciding not to risk the snow and ice was probably wise.

She showed up about 4:00 yesterday dragging enough crap to make me wonder just how long she actually planned on staying. The offspring tackled her immediately and Chloe got so excited she peed on the dining room floor. This is typical.

Trish played the board game Sorry with the offspring while I amused myself on Twitter. “Kids, does your mom ever move out of that chair or put down that stupid laptop?” Trish asked.

“No, she’s on it, like, all the time,” said the smart-mouthed eleven-year-old.

“Yeah, all the time,” the sassy eight-year-old said, chiming in.

“For your information, we’ve spent the whole day together,” I reminded them. “We made cookies and I took you to Macaroni Grill for lunch. Most kids probably had baloney sandwiches and you two were sucking down Italian sodas like I’m made of money. I haven’t been on my laptop all day.”

And their father was at a bar drinking in the middle of the afternoon with Jack and Tom but nobody said anything about that.

I already tweeted our evening but I’m going to re-post my tweets here too because I’m in a hurry and you’ll get the general idea of how our evening went down.

Tweet #1 My twin sister just insisted I make her one of my famous cosmopolitan martinis. #happyalcoholidays!

Tweet #2 Just told my twin sister not to spill her awesome martini on my beautiful couch.

Tweet #3 My twin sister just spilled her effing martini on my beautiful couch. It’s all of 7:03 CST time and *someone* is drunk.

Tweet #4 My twin sister and I are fraternal. Two different eggs, people.

Tweet #5 Now my twin sister is insisting we watch some bullshit show called Million Dollar Money Drop.

Tweet #6 My sister has a martini in one hand and a glass of wine in the other. Say it with me: Double fister sister.

Tweet #7 Now she’s pulled my offspring over to the dark side with her. They love Million Dollar Money Drop.

Tweet #8 Just told my twin sister: “Spill martini on my *other* couch, and I’m kicking your ass.”

Tweet #9 Twin sister and offspring are now watching Million Dollar Money Drop in the basement. I am all alone upstairs. #yay!

Tweet #10 My twin sister and the offspring are screaming and cheering from the basement like Santa just showed up w/gifts & booze.

Tweet #11 My twin sister just sent my 11 year old upstairs with an empty cocktail shaker. “Aunt Trish wants a refill,” he said.

Tweet #12 “Aunt Trish is fun,” the 11 year old said. “Tell Aunt Trish she’s switching to water after this drink.” #buzzkill

Tweet #13 Now my 8 year old is juicing a lime for my twin sister. I give up. #happyalcoholidays #whereismywine?

Tweet #14 All I can say is I hope Santa is getting a load of the shiz going down in my house right now. #totalanarchy

Tweet #15 Oh sweet baby Jesus. My twin sister’s totally annoying and pretend southern accent has reared its ugly head. #livedinTx

Tweet #16 My twin sister just busted out a furby. 1999 called. They want their hot toy back. #regiftfail #noonewantsit

Tweet #17 My twin sister just informed me she has Elmo doing the Chicken Dance on tap for someone next year. #Ipeedalittle

The sauvignon blanc was starting to impede the punctuation and spelling of my tweets so I signed off. Dave finally came home from the bar after six hours, we put the offspring to bed, and Trish and I called it a night an hour later.

The kitchen looked like a bomb went off when I came downstairs this morning, but what the hell.

My twin sister and I had a good time.

Happy Holidays!

Have You Ever?

  • December 23, 2010

Laid awake until two in the morning turning over plot points in your head?

Found yourself telling little white lies to people you love? For example, “I’m sorry I can’t go to your party/open house/dinner/sporting event/concert because I’m busy” except busy really means you just want to work on your manuscript instead?

Spent upwards of three hundred dollars on ink cartridges and printer paper so you can edit on a hard copy?

Given up newspapers, magazines, and most television shows (except DVR’d episodes of Glee and Modern Family) so you can work on your manuscript?

Sat in a chair with your laptop muttering lines of dialogue out loud so it looks like you’re talking to yourself?

I answered yes to all of these questions which is why I haven’t posted anything for two months.

Revising the manuscript is the hardest writing I’ve ever done. I’ve been revising 50-60 pages at a time and then e-mailing them to my super awesome author-beta. Revising includes adding, deleting, moving things around, making sure each sentence flows, and that every single scene moves the story forward. It’s amazing how much my novel has changed during the revision process.

I have about 40 pages left to revise. My progress is slow because I can only work on the manuscript for 1.5-2 hours a day (usually from 5:30 AM until 7 or 7:30). Then I go to my real job. I’m very lucky, though, because I usually have at least one long writing day on the weekend where I can get in 6-8 hours. Sometimes I have to lock the door so Dave and the offspring will leave me alone but generally, they’re pretty good about staying out of my hair.

My word count is 80,000, give or take. I don’t expect that to change much, even with final editing and polishing. That’s the number I was shooting for so I’m happy it worked out.

In February, I’ll start final edits which will incorporate feedback from my beta and Trish. Trish has been a wonderful (and totally unexpected) early reader. She paid me a nice compliment when she said she couldn’t wait for the next batch of pages. “I want to keep reading and I don’t even read books,” she said.

Once the manuscript is polished, I’ll send it out to 5-6 more betas. I plan on taking a month away from the manuscript to get some distance so while they’re reading it, I thought I’d make some changes to this blog.

I am planning on splitting it three ways:

One blog will be funny in the ‘hood. Remember when I used to write amusing things on the Internet? I’d like to do that again but because I sometimes use the f-word, I thought it would be a good idea to have a separate blog with posts about my sometimes alcohol-fueled dipshittery personal life.

The second blog will be written anonymously and not linked to this one as I do not wish to be sued by the *jackholes I’ll be writing about.

And the third will be my www.traceygarvisgraves.com address. It will focus on fiction writing.

Making these changes will keep me busy during the nail-biting querying process which I’ll start in March or April.

So. That’s what I’ve been up to. I’ve really missed this blog and I appreciate anyone who is still stopping by to check for new posts. Thank you.

I hope everyone has a wonderful Christmas and happy new year. I am off work today and tomorrow and three days next week. I’m looking forward to spending time with my family and getting in a little extra writing.

I hope Santa is good to you all. I heard he’s bringing me a Kindle (okay, it’s not really Santa, it’s Dave) and I can’t wait to start loading it with books.

Cheers,

Tracey

* My neighbor Julie came up with jackhole. It’s my new favorite word.

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