Friday, February 23, 2007

Donald Maas is a Genius and other life oddities

Did you know he's a genius?

Well, he just is because I say so. LOL!

If you're an aspiring writer, I think his books are one of those MUST reads.....like once a year at least. There are certain craft books that I read over and over.

Donald Maas' Writing the Breakout Novel and the Writing the Breakout Novel Workbook are two such books.

I'll be listing others along the way.

Short blog today....got several women coming over for prayer this morning and my house is a wreck.

My husband is shaking his head, reading over my shoulder...he's like, "Who cares about your house? Everyone lives the same. Only all you women don't know it because you nutt up on a cleaning spree thirty minutes before folks show up."

Okay, confession time....I actually DO have an entire (small) walk-in closet that I insist my family keeps empty so when I see someone pull up, or call to say they're dropping by, or as in the case of this morning...when I've been on a revision spree and haven't had time to clean....I start tossing and shoving stuff in that closet. I even got those cheap 88cent apiece white round laundry baskets...yes you guessed it...to throw stuff in and stack in the closet.

Can't believe I'm admitting that.

Oh...and I posted yesterday via email but it still hasn't shown up yet so I guess internet goblins ate it or something but I had a writer's worst nightmare happen yesterday. IN the middle of my CONTRACTED revisions....my less than a year old laptop computer crashed. So I call tech support and all I hear is a message that says, "For tech support, please visit our Website." LOL! Okay, now, thankfully I have a desktop in order to do that, BUT how do they expect people to do that who only have one computer? And that computer crashed so bad it won't even start up in Safe Mode? LOL! Oh the oddities of life.

Thankfully I had recently backed up my files on flash drive....so I only lost a few hours worth of revision work. I already made the work up yesterday, then I realized while looking at my flash drive that I think I lost two stories I typed in my alphie then transferred. Well a story and a half! ACK! Now THAT is a total bummer. So I'm praying God and the Geek Squad come through for me and are able to retrieve those files. The guy looked at me wierd when I said, "If it comes down to saving the computer or saving files....I want the files."

He kind of looked at me wierd...but only another writer would understand such a loony request. LOL!

Okay, people are pulling up....talk to ya's later.

Squirrel

4 comments:

Shauna said...

ROTFLOLOLOLOL!!

I love it!! I, too am one of those "quick clean" types. Only all my closets are full and I've resorted to throwing everything in rooms and closing the doors. I also hide things in the bath tub and draw the shower curtain closed! LOL!

Now, I know I'm not the world's best housekeeper, but it seems I've attracted all neat-freaks as friends. 90% of my good friends ENJOY CLEANING!! That's just not right! LOL! But one of those neat-freak friends confessed that she hides her dirty dishes in the oven! Made me feel a bit better. :-)

And "Geek Squad"? LOLOLOL! Love it! I know some of those people! It's like they have their own special language - Geek Speak! :-) When one of those warnings pop up on my computer I play eeny-meeny-miney-mo, close my eyes and click on "Ok", "cancel" or "close" and hope for the best. When my cousin's husband, a certified member of Geek Squad, actually read and UNDERSTOOD the gibberish, I burst out laughing! I mean, come on, it's a bunch of letters and numbers with a few dashes thrown in! LOL!

I hope you get your stories back. Even if they have to open up the computer and physically remove those files...or doesn't it work like that? LOL!

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the giggle. BTW--and you probably already know--the washer and dryer are great hiding places, even if you haven't yet unloaded them!

PatriciaW said...

I used to throw stuff into garbage bags and stash them in the bottom of closets. If you use the dark ones, no one notices.

I've tried hard to reform, though. The answer is less stuff, LOTS less. I feel a lot more sane now when I have visitors, even if things are perfect.

BTW, my laptop died last summer. And all I want are the files. Luckily, I had pushed a good number of them out to online storage. But if I could just get the rest, and all my IE bookmarks, they can keep the machine. LOL!

Mindy Obenhaus said...

Man, I wish I had a closet like that. The rest of the family just uses my office. A habit I'm hoping to change since I'm in the process of redoing my office, a birthday present to myself.

And don't you hate it when hubby reads over your shoulder? I can type for minutes on end without hitting the backspace key--until he walks in the room. (big sigh)

Hope your prayer group appreciated your efforts :-D