Woke up, put on clothes, didn't go to work.

I took today off because I need to finish revisions on the novella. As an added bonus, I'm waiting for the nor'easter. The barometer is dropping so I will have to update that blog later. Maybe I will take photos to put on there tomorrow, too.

Woke up, put on clothes, did more revising.

And will keep doing more. A few more days and it's over! But then I have to catch up on other things. Half the light bulbs in my house burned out and I don't have a stepladder (the ceilings are high) so I've used strategically positioned lamps instead. I should have time to ask neighbors to borrow a ladder when I'm done with all this.

Woke up, put on clothes, went to work.

Supposedly there's a big nor'easter coming Monday eve. Do not leave your home!

Ugh. Thus ends a busy day.

I did some novellA revisions tonight. That'll be going on through Monday. Don't wait up.

Editing feat of the day

Changing a reporter's "wah-la" to "voila."

Woke up, put on clothes, went to work.

Just sent the novel to my agent. Final tally: 387 pages. She will let me know if it's ready to submit to editors to see what they think...and then the real fun begins!!

Next move: Revise the Pilby novella this weekend, then see if I can get rid of the freshman 15 lbs. I just put back on.

Via Gawker, here are some comments from people who dialed numbers on Paris Hilton's phone list.

The revising is almost over.

Tuesday Night Trivia was mentioned in a Daily News article on trivia nights. Thanks to the Wounded Liberal for letting me know!

For anyone interested in the latest on the Terri Schiavo case (via Dawn): http://www.blogsforterri.com/

Woke up, put on clothes, went to work.

The Paris Hilton thing is on the cover of the Post, and there's a complete list of all of her text messages at Gawker, as well as analysis of her phone #s.

That fbi.gov thing actually IS a worm that is sent to people who clicked on Paris Hilton's phone book. Very very clever.

What I am finding most amusing about this whole episode is that everyone who has clicked on the phone book has noticed a different star. A friend of mine who likes Stephen King noticed Stephen King in Paris's directory. A drummer noticed a drummer. Maybe this could be the new parlor game - how many celebs can you remember from Paris's phone book?

A friend of mine writes that the first FBI question is probably "What are you wearing?" Too bad I can't open the attachment to see.

In other news, Hunter S. Thompson killed himself last night. He was 67.

After the edits, the book is back down to 386 pages. I didn't feel like I was cutting a lot, but I never felt like I was adding a lot, either; it just ended up that way.

Apparently I shouldn't have read the Paris Hilton phone list. I got this in my e-mail two hours ago, and it's from fbi.gov:

Dear Sir/Madam,
we have logged your IP-address on more than 40 illegal Websites.
Important: Please answer our questions!The list of questions are attached.
Yours faithfully, [name deleted]
++-++ Federal Bureau of Investigation -FBI-++-
++ 935 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW, Room [deleted]++-
++ Washington, DC 20535++-++ (202) 324-3000

I deleted it, as it's most likely a virus. It's creepy that the hackers can actually have messages sent to me from fbi.gov, but oh well. The attached zip was labeled "Indictment." Wow, that's a mighty efficient agency that was able to convene a grand jury on me tonight!

Another suspicious item is the poor grammar as in "The list of questions are attached." All your base are mine!

It's being reported on three sites so far. By tomorrow morning, probably more.

http://www.mobiledia.com/news/26167.html

http://www.drudgereport.com/flash3ph.htm

Will later wake up, put on clothes, and go to work.

I imagine this will be big news later today: Someone got ahold of Paris Hilton's cellular phonebook and sent around a web address that you punch in and all her friends' mobile phone numbers show up. Two people I know actually called the numbers of famous people and got their voice mails. So it's real. I'm not going to post the link here, because the poor girl has no privacy. I did look, though, because of the curiosity factor. The whole thing is pretty crazy. There are a lotta famous people's numbers there! Most are unsurprising: Lohan, Christina Ag., etc.

In other news, I've been watching the Greatest American Hero episodes on DVD. While the plots were a tad flimsy, the chemistry and dialogue between William Katt and Robert Culp's characters is magical. As the "instruction book" that came with it says, "It's Wednesday night in America again."

Here is a pretty interesting story about a man in NJ who died in his house and was only found more than a year later. He had years of uncashed Social Security checks, etc. in there. It's a pretty fascinating story.

Woke up, put on clothes, worked on book.

"The snow will start flying later this evening and will continue through the night...we are expecting a two to four-inch snowfall as much as six inches possibly." -- 1010 WINS

What a great day to not have to work!

Woke up, put on clothes, worked on book.

A friend writes: Jeez... reading about how you revise your book makes me not want to write one.

Excellent, Smithers.

Responses to recent entries:

>>as to your latest boring entry, I see nothing boring at all; your blog, is very helpful in explaining your work load. If people find you boring it is because thay do not give a rat's ass about you. Let them go someplace else to masterbate.

>>your analogy is wrong. hank azaria is to simpsons as tom hanks is to bosom buddies.

Someone also suggested switching Hanks & Peter Scolari.

Will soon wake up, put on clothes, go to work.

Tonight, due to a kind gift from a friend, I was treated to Spamalot, the Broadway musical version of Monty Python's Holy Grail. Hank Azaria is one of the stars, and not only does he do many wonderful accents, he prances around in tight pants. It is heartwarming to see him come so far since that great classic Fox show, Herman's Head.

Hank Azaria: Herman's Head ::

Tom Hanks: Bosom Buddies

Woke up, put on clothes, went to work.

Here is where I am, how I'm spending my days. Last week and weekend, I printed out allll 414 pages of the book (and here I thought I had been cutting!) I read through every page, making edits on the paper. I took it on the bus and to dinner.

That wasn't quite as bad as what I have to do now, which is input all the changes into the computer. This requires major food for energy and incentive.

I managed to input the first 75 pages of changes at the end of the weekend. I am going to do more over the next few days. By the weekend, I will print it out again and read and proofread again. There are always new mistakes when I input stuff, and things I change my mind about.

But it's almost time to get it back to my agent. I'm actually excited. I see the light at the end of the tunnel. I remember when it was a mishmosh of scenes, when I was still changing characters' names around or deleting or combining some.

And yes, that was all very boring. If you want fun, read the Onion.

Some responses:

hi lady! saw your cute msg on your blog this morning... butyour "Happy V D!!!!!" looks like Happy VD (as in theSTD)...haha!!

I can’t believe I am 32 and did not notice until I saw your blog today that the initials for Valentine’s Day are V.D.

...It's getting around.

By the way - you deserve to fall in love. You do.

Happy V D!!!!!

Anyway...

Congratulations to two of the kindest, smartest, sweetest people I know, who are getting married to each other. It's always wonderful when good things happen to good people!!

(And no, I don't mean Mary Kay Leto*rneau and Vili Fual*uu, although as a scoop in today's Seattle Post-Intellgencer, they are getting married in April.)

Woke up, put on clothes, went to work.

If you're feeling down, look at something really cute.

For those interested in publishing and the vagaries and acceptance and rejection, Publisher's Lunch tells us:

"Today we are treated to two new installments on traditional publishing tales that we're sure would leave an innocent visitor from Mars thoroughly confused: Tom Wolfe's I AM CHARLOTTE SIMMONS is a bust because reviewers hated it and it has only sold 250,000 Bookscan-tracked copies or so (NYT), while Sam Lipsyte's HOME LAND is triumphant, published after being turned down by 30 editors and selling a little over 2,000 Bookscan-tracked trade paperbacks in six weeks. Curiously, both stories lead back to Farrar, Straus."

http://www.observer.com/pages/frontpage4.asp

Woke up, put on clothes, went to work.

Now, that's a sweet potato: 6 tons of pot were shipped to the U.S. in some yams.

Wait a second, I just had a sort of related but not sooo related thought. People are always saying that Shaggy from Scooby Doo was a pothead. But what about the name Scooby "Doobie" Doo? Hmm. And come to think about it, what about "Mr. Doo-Bee" from Romper Room?

I can't believe that all these things were hidden in my '70s TV as a kid. Damn. That's what happens when Hippies get influential jobs.

Now go smoke some yams.

If a PR person calls me and says the following:

"Hi, Caren. How are you? I'm calling to let you know about an event that's happening this Friday in Orange, New Jersey."

Does she really care how I are?

Gawker, as usual, has its own witty take on the piece.

Woke up, put on clothes, went to work.

Here's a link to long article on fellow trivia co-hostess/blogger Dawn in today's New York Observer.

Woke up, put on clothes, went to work.

I actually went to work yesterday, too. I put "didn't" by accident. Oh well. Maybe I'll change it later. Dawn was nice enough to link to my balloon photo below, so I got 200+ new hits.

If you're a new reader who got here via Dawn, I'm a novelist. Here's info about my attemptedly-funny published books, etc. Hope you enjoy the blog.

Woke up, put on clothes, didn't go to work.

Caught

Woke up, put on clothes, didn't go to work.

My condolences to Iggles fans.

My absolute deadline for revisions to the Carrie Pilby sequel is the first week in March, so between that and finishing revisions of the other novel, I'm going to have my hands full on the next few weekends. It's okay, though. What bothers me is people who act offended when I can't go to every weekend event. They have the false belief that I can write anytime. Not true. I can't write from, say, 5 a.m. to 7 on weekdays and then be tired at work all day. Even if they think it's a hobby I do for fun, there are deadlines on it and certain times I have to do it. I've been doing this long enough to know when I have to be doing it.

Woke up, put on clothes, didn't go to work.

One reason to finish re-revising this book and give it to my agent is that I'm getting really tired of reading it. Not that it's ever enjoyable to keep re-reading your own work. But it gets to a mindnumbing point. Three more weekends and it's out.

It's up to 103,000 words now, even though I feel like I've done more cutting than adding.

Superbowl in seven hours. Are you ready for some footbaaaaall?

Woke up, put on clothes, went to work. TGIF.

Woke up, put on clothes, went to work.

One more day, and I can get back to working on the book. Revision-time has been good to it. Those clumsy sentences that I left half-sketchy a year ago because I didn't want to waste an hour finding exactly the right word or phrase - well, they now have the right word or phrase.

Will this sell? There is no telling. But I can honestly say that I'm glad I wrote it. And I think it's a story you'll enjoy.

More than ten years ago, when I first conceived of the idea, I never would have had the tools and experience to make it work, nor the confidence that if I put a few years into it, it would get on the right path to publication. I'm a little better now, and maybe even wiser. Maybe.

Of course, I'm too close to it to see how readers will like it. That's where agents, editors, and my mini-focus groups come in. It takes a village to write a novel.

OK, more newspaper articles to edit. Later, gators.

I guess I know a few people who would be into this.

Woke up, put on clothes, went to work.

I was gonna work on the book a little last night, but fell asleep at 9:30. Oh well.

Woke up, put on clothes, went to work.

Just edited this sentence: "One of the first things the congressman did was to send a letter to President George W. Bush requesting a significant increase for the hiring of fist responders."