After a week of mega frustrations, I'm once again wireless.

My wireless went kaput. I'm sure you all are thinking, no big deal, right?

Well, first the wireless came to a halt in the middle of a timed test. I improvised. The kids and I moved the kitchen table into the front room, and I completed the test.

The next day, after hours of trying to fix the router (it's only a year old) I finally admitted defeat and moved my desk and computer to the front room. It's not my choice of places but it'll have to do until a new router can be obtained. I have found things a little frustrating, but not too bad. I wait until after 11:00 p.m. when all is quiet to do my school. I've been there and done that before.

But, on Saturday, I had a duh moment. Without the wireless, the printer and the computer won't communicate. And I was planning on printing off the first three chapters of HH tomorrow. I really didn't want to take it to the copy place, especially since I have this thing about people reading my work as it is printing off.

Soon, I'll end up in the bathroom doing my school. I seem to get a neighbor's wireless signal in there. Besides, with one kid playing the electric guitar, another the piano, and the dh and ds on the X-Box World @ War game. . . . Well I guess you can imagine how flitty my brain is becoming.

Tomorrow, I'm buying a darn wireless, and moving back to the comfort of my bedroom where my Celiac-self can't smell the cookies or the cinnamon rolls baking in the oven. Not that I need them anyway, I'm just saying.

It's not likes it's my first rejection letter. And it doesn't really bother me. What does sting, is that fact that this particular agent showed interest in one of my other projects, which is not complete by any means. No, I didn't query on an unfinished project. I had replied to a request for five lines of any manuscript. She loved my 5 lines, and asked for the first 20 pages, then asked for the first three chapters. Since, my chapters two and three are incomplete, I wasn't going to force myself to get them done, especially with all my other responsibilities. So, I sent a query for Hellion's Highlander, which was in turn rejected.

I could play the 'what if' game. What if I had tried to push for those chapters on Cherish Me? What if I hadn't emailed her and told her it wasn't finished? What if, what if, what if. . .What if Hellion's Highlander wasn't enticing enough? What if. .

Everything is an experience, from who to query and what to query. At first, I queried to see if my query letter worked. Then I began to research agent's likes and dislikes, which can be gathered by their client list and following their blogs. So, even before I sent Hellion's query to Ms. Johnson, I was pretty certain it would be rejected. 'm not too disappointed, HH has received a lot of interest, whether through contests, queries, etc. And, if I don't have an agent by the time Cherish Me is finished, I hope Ms. Johnson will still be interested.



Hellion's Highlander Accomplishments
2008 SMRW finalist
2008 TARA finalist
Casablanca Author's Pitch Perfect Contest-runner up, Deb Werksman-full request

Hmmmmm. . .

There has been a lot of drama around the Scott household. Thankfully, the last several days have been relatively quiet. And thankfully, most of the drama, was just drama, with no animals or humans harmed, at least not to physically.

It all started almost two weeks ago when 11 tires got slashed at my dd's home. 3 of them belonged to her non-working car. 4 of the belonged to my db's car, which she is borrowing. Since the kid is only eighteen, that left mom and dad scrambling to purchase tires. And, since, we were unsure whether or not they'd end up sliced again, we bought used tires, which were still expensive.

During the drama of the tires being slashed the live-in bf disappeared. As you can imagine, dd didn't know if he was dead or alive and worried herself into a near hysterical fit. (If I have OCD, which I do, she has it 10 times worse.) The boy eventually came home and with a story nobody would believe, but when you're blinded by love, I guess you'll believe anything.

Two days after the tires and the missing bf. Dd had sinus surgery. No biggie. Not really. But in the midst of all this, dd decides she wants the bf to take care of her instead of coming home to me. She was quite belligerent. I guess morphine and fentanyl, right along with loratab will do that to some people. I'm there watching all this. I know she needs to be calm, especially since the crying will only produce fluids where fluids are already leaking, and it'll tense up what was just operated on causing her more pain. At the same time, bf is acting desperate. It is clear, he does NOT want her to go home. Of course, my warning bells start going off like a five alarm fire. But there is nothing to be done. Dd wants to go to her home, since she is the only one paying the bills there, she has every right. The least he can do, the moocher that he is, is take care of her.

After we got her home. Bf stomped around the house like a three year old, he fussed, and all that other good tantrum stuff. I have a lot of patience. I thought he'd calm down. He didn't, at least not until I lost my temper. And that isn't something very many people see or want to see. I was absolutely livid- to understand this a bit more, here my dd was in her recliner- she wasn't even really conscience, this was less than 2 hours after surgery, and she was thoroughly drugged, and dingbat was yelling at her! This is not something a mother handles well. Not well at all. I don't remember ever being that mad at anyone.

During, dd's recovery, while she was still supposed to be watched, bf left, tried to blame it on dh and I. The truth of the matter, thankfully she found out, he hadn't been truthful, faithful, or any of that other crud. Turns out he got another girl into a precarious position. Thank goodness it wasn't dd in that situation.

Sometimes it's difficult to stand by and let things happen, especially when you have first hand experience of the games being played. For a while, I was scared that dd would believe bf's lies and bs. This boy we tried to embrace. We try to encourage and love him, not because he was dd's bf, but because that is who we are, and we try to see good potential in everyone. I don't say this to boost us up on a pedestal. Not at all. But for you all to understand that while we were loving this young man and trying to encourage him to do something with his life other than sit around play video games and drink, (He is five years older than dd, and he was letting her support him.) he was telling dd that I was giving him an ear full and bitching him out, and that dh made him believe he wasn't good enough for dd.

Through all this we understood that we had to let her live her own life, as hard as that was. And through all this, even through the nastiness, we continued to let her know that we loved her. These are always hard lessons to learn. Unfortunately a lot of young girls learn them.

So you all know, this was only a little bit of the drama. I had a relapse with my Celiacs, thankfully I discovered the culprit and I'm on the mend. I also had a wayward thirteen year old son. I threatened to call down the entire county sheriff department. He finally showed up. He's now grounded, which is no fun at all, but oh well. Next time he'll check in sooner than 8 hours. The kids' great grandma ended up in the hospital, they thought she had a stroke, thankfully it was just a UTI. Who knew a UTI could cause memory loss?

We are smiling and we are all happy, well, except for the grounded boy. Are spirits have not been defeated. And I can tell you, it's all about God and His grace and mercy he bestows upon us.

Have a great week! I need to get back to writing essays and algebra. ;)

Through my lit class I've come across some short stories that I don't think I would have ever read. They're all compelling in their own ways, some more so than others. I have my favorites, then, although they were good, there are ones where I can't even begin to understand where the author was coming from.

I have to choose one to write an essay over. And the funny thing is, I'm being pulled toward the one that I'm totally unsure of what the author meant, which is all right, but the others are on the line. There is even one, maybe two that I can relate to in my own personal experience, but they don't speak to me in the way I feel this particular one speaking to me.

If you haven't already read The Lottery, the link follows. It's the one I chose to write a reader's response too, I think. The essay is due on Monday, so I very well could change my mind, especially since there are some very good ones to choose from.

The Lottery

If you'd like to see one of the other short stories, check out Tim O'Brian's The Things They Carried. I was unable to find a direct link to it, but if you can find it, it's not to be missed. It really gives an insight to the Vietnam War.

Renee

Hey-

How is everyone doing? I'm hanging in here, although have the time I feel like I'm swallowing more water than I should. It's kind of hard to keep my head above water, but I'm doing it.

School is probably the worse part. There isn't anyone class that is too terribly hard, minus Algebra, but they are all filled with a lot of busy work. As daunting as my tasks are at times, I'm finding I'm learning a lot. And at least three of my four classes will and have helped me with my writing.

Now if only I could talk dh and the kids into taking care of themselves and all the other household chores, I'd be doing great. ;)

Hope everyone has been writing. For me, I spend more time writing essays than anything, but I have been able to work on some of my projects. Just not the ones I wanted.

I woke up on the right side of the bed this morning. Well, actually I was in the middle of the bed, but as I woke up, I could see the sun shining through the blinds. The early morning birds sung me a wake after having dreamed of a hunky hero and how he would sweep my heroine off her feet. Of course, I don't remember a dang thing except his smiling blue eyes and his Tennessee mountain drawl.

I laid in bed a little longer than I wanted, thinking about the scene I should be getting ready to write. Then the phone rang. And you know when the phone rings before 8:00 am it's usually not a good thing.

That phone call blew my writing plans right out of the water. Not that I have to leave, or that I have to attend other things, I'm just not in the mood anymore. I don't usually let it mess with me. But the past couple of weeks have been pretty darn stressful. And I think I'm all taxed out.

The sad part is, I'm wondering if I didn't enroll in Spring semester if I would have been more apt to deal with the roller coaster ride. I guess I'll never know, and it's too late for me to drop out of classes as if I would.

But I just don't know how long I can hold all these balls up in the air. I'm not a trained juggler.

Do you ever let your moods control your writing?

Last night I searched through some videos for a project I'm working on for the Geography class I'm taking. I came across one of an elderly Irish woman. She was devout, I'm guessing because she knew no different. Then she said something like, "We feared God, and we feared the Devil even more."

Growing up, I remember this same mentality. It so must be an Irish thing, whether you are Catholic or Protestant. It is funny how generations of people hundreds of years ago still influence much of our religious culture today.

I think it's unfair to put the fear of God in somebody if they don't follow the exact edicts given by the church. An individual needs to discover God's grace and mercy for themselves, not feared into it. Don't get me wrong, I believe religious institutions can be a good thing when they are following God's guidance and direction. However,these institutions are led by men. And whether ordained by the church or not these men/woman are fallible.

For my Irish ancestry, oh Lord, my great great grandmother left Donegal and settled in Michigan way back when. Bridget's family was strict Catholic, stern and unhappy. The funny thing is her father was a cooper, he distilled whiskey. Her sister married a man from the village who happened to be a captain of a ship. The ship happened to be a whiskey smuggling vessel.

Ironically, my great great grandmother was disowned by her family at the age of 16 when she married a Mormon. What was a girl to do? After her mother died, she left her homeland with her father and sister. I'm sure there was probably an entire village that came with them since at the time there were some persecutions going on in Donegal. Shortly after their arrival in America, while they were in New York, Bridget's father died. She was left virtually an orphan on foreign shores.


Anyhow, I got off on a tangent. What I meant was, somewhere along the line the Celtic people worshiped with a semblance of freedom. (Yes, I know not all of it was good, but it wasn't all bad) It seems to me they had this freedom to worship their creator until legalistic religion came along and told them how and when to worship. The praise and worship of their creator no longer came from the heart, it became monotonous, just meaningless words someone else told them to speak.