The Wildly Eclectic Me

I've been TAGGED. Ciar Cullen tagged me to play the One Question, One Answer game. I've never been tagged before. I feel special. :-D Okay, so here's the deal. You get to ask me one question, and I have to answer it. That is, of course unless, you ask me something that would get me arrested, divorced or disowned. :-D Yes, I know. That could include a lot of things. LOL So ask and you shall receive. I'm figuring on no questions, since I'll bet about one person in the entire world actually reads my blog with any regularity. hehehe

13 Things Lesley Needs Yes, I'm jumping on the band wagon and playing the "Lesley needs" Google game. :-D I'm not feeling terribly inspired this week. 1. "lesley needs laughs to power her hoverfleet." Wow! I didn't even know I had a Hoverfleet! That's awesome! 2. "Lesley needs 2 stop fancying herself and then she could actually b nice!" Actually I don't fancy myself all that much! And I am nice! ...well most of the time...at least I try to be...oh hush! 3. "Lesley needs to learn to choose her words carefully" Yeah, I sure do! 4. "lesley Needs Our Prayers Desperately" I'll take all the help I can get! 5. "Lesley needs money ya'll, Jaycat spent all her's on porn..." Dang it, Jaycat! What did I tell you about using my credit card to buy porn?" 6. "Lesley needs to die a horrible death the fat b****!" Ummmmmm! POUTS 7. "Lesley needs glasses..." Sure can't see without ...

I just have short rant about a phrase that I heard fairly often early in my life, and unfortunately I still hear ringing in my ears every single time I look in the mirror. That phrase is (and if you've ever had a weight problem, I'm sure someone has said it to you at some point, so feel free to join in): "You'd be so pretty if you just lost some weight." *gapes* WTFH!!! Why would anyone say that to someone!? You know what that says? That says that no matter how incredibly gorgeous your face is you're still ugly because of the size of your butt. Now perhaps what these people were trying to get across was that my beauty could have been enhanced if I slimmed down a bit. You know, I would kill to be as "fat" as I was back then. In fact, when I look back at pictures of that time, I was pretty dang hot. Yet every time I looked in the mirror, I saw a big fat sow. Why was that? Because people were saying things to me like, "You'd be so pret...

I discussed the whole situation with Superfluous Fluff in Dana of the Whispering Wood earlier. Well I finally finished the edits, and it's 7000 words shorter after I removed phrases and paragraphs that add nothing whatsoever to the plot. Go me! That puts Dana at a whopping 115k. Now I'm on to do exactly the opposite to Arianna Penndragon . I left things out of that one that need to be there. I don't know why I just assume that you all know all about the vampires in my world. How are you going to know if I don't tell you?

Okay, so first there was the ant thing. Then there was the cleaning up of the ant thing. Then there was the Tick bite of DOOM. Well another thing I didn't mention was what happened Friday at the lake. Lishy and I took the little ones to the lake Friday afternoon to go for a swim. Now neither of us are big on lake swimming. We both like bodies of water that you can see your feet in, i.e. mountain streams, the Caribbean sea, pools, that kind of thing... Well we sucked it up and got in, after a little screaming and crying and hissy fit throwing. And that was just me. We won't go in to how the toddlers reacted. So when we finally managed to get everyone in we were just sitting there chilling on the little wall that is next to the water while the little ones splashed relatively happily. Someone said, "Is that a snake," and was looking into the water about twenty feet down from us. I was thinking. Silly city folk! It's probably just a branch floating in th...

So, a little over a month ago, I found an tick on me. I have no idea how long it was on there, because it was in a spot that I can't see unless looking in the mirror. So this morning I noticed a big, red circle around where the bite had been. Now I've been feeling kinda tired and having alot of headaches lately, but I have headaches often. I always have. And I'm the mother of a toddler. Of course I'm tired! Well anyway I googled it... That is one of the first symptoms of Lyme Disease . So I went to the weekend clinic across town and sure enough! I have Lyme Disease. The doctor didn't seem terribly concerned though. It's actually pretty common around here because we have so many ticks. The doctor had even had it. I'm going to be taking antibiotics for two weeks though. Oh joy of joys! Okay, I just had to get my whining out! Off to clean the house!!!

No, you naughty, naughty person! That is not what I was talking about! I mean chapters. Do you like it when there are lots of different scenes in a chapter and have it last maybe thirty pages or would you prefer that the chapters only have one or two scenes and are shorter. I'm torn now. I used to like long chapters, but now I think I like short. I don't have a great deal of time to read so I love to be able to read a quick chapter and move on to all the other things I do in life. They also seem to make the book move faster for me somehow. I ask because I'm editing Dana and making huge changes, and I'm seriously considering breaking up the chapters. I think it would pick up the pace some and that's really what I'm working on now. Well anyway. I'm off to slice and dice my novel. ;) Happy Summer Solstice!!!

Thirteen Things that take My Breath Away 1. This little Guy... Need I say More? 2. Eden Falls at the Lost Valley This picture doesn't even remotely do it justice. The first time I saw Eden Falls was in the middle of the summer after a big rain storm so there was water absolutely gushing from it! It made getting into the cave at the top somewhat more difficult than usual, but it was absolutely beautiful. I had never seen anywhere like it in my life. I thought places like that only existed in wall calenders! 3. The Ocean The vastness of it. The sound of the waves. The smell of it. That humid, cool wind that blows off it. The way it moves. Pretty much everything about it! *Lesley desperately needs a trip to the beach* 4. The Ozark Mountains My home! The very first time I came here I just knew this was where I wanted to be. I grew up on the delta with nothing but rice fields and flat land as far as the eye can see. There is a place on the drive up the mountain where you come around a c...

Alrightie... The uprising has been put down, but I think I'm permanently damaged from it. If you don't know about the original incident then by all means go read up. It was truly and absolutely horrific! So I finally got up the courage to give the scooter a nice detailing. The first thing I did was unscrew the taillight cover. *cringes in horror at the sheer memory of it* And a mass of wiggling squirming ants and larva fell out. It looked something like this... I have a video too, but I don't want to shock and horrify anyone that throughly. I thought I would die! In fact, I was much too traumatized to continue. So I screwed the cover halfway back on and ran away. Yes, I fled like a scared little girl! Sometimes you gotta run! Hush! Living to fight another day and all! This worked to my advantage, however, because the next day when I went back to finish all the ants had abandoned their posts and taken their creepy, little larva with them. So in the end I conquered...

Ugh! I'm working on Dana of the Whispering Wood. I wrote the rough draft going on five years ago, and I've edited it alot since then. Still I'm having to do some major cutting. It was too long anyway, but for some reason when I wrote it I felt the need to put in all this superfluous fluff! It slows the story down terribly. I've already cut about 1500 words, and I'm sure it'll be alot more before I'm done. And contractions! What the heck was my problem with contractions! I still have trouble putting in contractions to this day, but at least now I can usually catch it in the editing. I think I must have written too many research papers in my life. hehe Also Dana's personality is so incredibly different than Fiona's. I guess I've got Fiona on the brain since I just finished writing her book. The whole tone of how she deals with things is different. Every time someone bosses her around or is rude to her, I want her to put the smack down o...

13 Things that Unless You’re One of My Girlfriends or my Husband You Probably Don’t Know About Me 1. I like costumes! A LOT! I would even go so far as to say I absolutely freakin’ adore costumes. All types of costumes! I have fairy costumes, vampire hunter costumes, vampire costumes, witch costumes (Cute ones! Not the stereotypical witch with green skin and warts. My witch hat has feathers!), a nun costume, a French maid costume (as you can imagine, that one was actually a direct request of my husband LOL), an elf costume, medieval costumes, a fifties costume…I could go on, but I think I’ll stop now. 2. I was a Goth in High School *insert shocked gasps here* I know! I know! It’s hard to tell nowadays because of the insane amounts of pink I surround myself with. But Pink is the new black! Didn’t you know that? You didn’t? Well now you do. :-D Well to be more honest, I was as Goth as I could be in my very conservative Southern town and still be allowed to go to school, which me...

I was working on my 3d model of Marie and finally got her more like I wanted her. This is about a 10 times better representation of Marie and her personality than the old one I did was. So, Meet Marie Moonstone! But Call her Marie Smith...she HATES her last name. ;)

I've added the first chapter and a blurb of Fiona O'Sithein to the homepage. I think the blurb sounds good, but to be honest I've only slept a VERY little bit in the last few days so I reserve the right to change my mind about it at the drop of a hat. :D Ugh...I just realized that I forgot to remove it from the Works in Progress page. Off to do more webpagery .

My sweet, darling, wonderful husband just bought me the most absolutely beautiful ring! I adore it! I don't get to pick it up until Thursday though! *pouts* I want it NOW!

13 First Lines of Chapters from Fiona O'Sithein Which the rough draft of is FINISHED! *does a happy dance* 1. The princess of Sithein’s golden curls fell in front of her sapphire blue eyes as she sat spinning the jeweled dagger on the table. 2. The little girl shivered in fear and hid under the big bed when she heard the sound of footsteps nearing her door. 3. The night was still and so chilly that Arianna felt as if her nose should be growing a little icicle. 4. The next day Fiona was still weak and dizzy from losing so much blood. 5. “I’ll go and sleep in the great room,” he said turning to go, but when Beltran looked he could see the morning rays of sun already filtering through the shutters. 6. Fiona had no idea how many times they’d made love or what time of the day it was, but every inch of her body ached deliciously. 7. Beltran rolled up the portrait he’d been working on of the little girl and shoved it on the small shelf beneath his bed with all of his other pic...

Fiona O'Sithein, the final book in my Women of Sithein series, is done! Wooters! Okay, she is actually not ready to meet the public yet as she has to go through about fifteen different edits. I just can't leave a book alone. Dana of the Whispering Wood and Arianna Penndragon are getting a run through as soon as I've done my first round of edits on Fiona. Perhaps if I continue to edit eventually they will get published. hehe I'm still waiting to hear back from Tor Paranormal Romance. They've had the partial of Dana for twenty weeks. An agent I like has had the same partial for eighteen weeks and still no word. I understand they are busy. Especially this time of year. It's just so darn frustrating! If they don't want it then I wish they would just say so, because I'm dying to submit to Samhain Publishing . Yes, I admit it, I was originally drawn to them just because of their name, but they are doing some amazing things over there, and I woul...

Okay, now you might think I found this doing research, but in fact I found it because my husband asked what an Ossuary was. Never having heard that word before I naturally abandoned my very, very close to being finished manuscript of Fiona and looked it up. An Ossuary is a building, chest or vessel meant to hold the skeletal remains of a person. Okay...Weird enough, but we've gotta have a place for skeletons right? But do we really have to make them into chandeliers??? The Sedlec Ossuary is a Roman Catholic chapel in the Czech Republic where they took the bones of the people and made them into decorations and furnishings... And I thought the catacombs under Paris with the Heart made out of skulls was creepy... Okay, Beltan's in trouble I have to go save him! Off to finish Fiona!

I have to say that I have probably the strangest cat on Earth. Her name is Aine. Yes, I named her after the fairy queen in Celtic mythology. Yes, I'm completely aware of just how geeky that is. I won't mention my dog named Fippy. Yes, Fippy like Fippy Darkpaw from Everquest. Now why you might ask is my cat the Craziest Kitty on Earth. For an assortment of reasons actually. She goes through slightly schizophrenic episodes where she can be completely loving with a stranger and then suddenly go berserk. Just ask my best friend's husband... She was snuggling on his shoulder one day, and for no apparent reason...HISS, GROWL, SWAT! I think she even left his cheek bleeding. It was terribly embarrassing. Now she never does this with me. Being part Siamese she is a one Mommy kinda kitty so I'm sure that is why, but good grief! I'm bringing this up now because she has been spinning around chasing her tail for about the last ten minutes... I have NEVER seen a cat ...

Thank goodness!!! The town can now settle into the lazy days of summer! It's such a nice laid back place when all the college students are gone. I love it! Of course I love it when they're here too. :D Heck if they weren't, I wouldn't have a job! A vacation from the traffic is always lovely though!