Friday Fiver.

1. Still thinking about Harry Potter (saw the movie on opening night) and surmising how book 7 will turn out. It's so much fun!

2. Wiped out by last night at 7 pm. Too many early morning/late night combos and a lot of being put on the spot with work. I feel great today.

3. We're headed to see the baby niece tonight. Can't wait. She's so cute.

4. Major query team rally this weekend (I will be sending out a lot of queries and LOIs today/Monday). Time to step it up.

5. Big project just about outta here. Majority of it is done, just the glossary left, and a missing appendix file. The next one is here now and due shortly, so here we go.

Have a great weekend! Happy writing!

Still Overly Warm

Harry Potter 5 was fantastic. Probably my favorite so far. Harry has humility! He finally realizes his destiny and it scares the crap outta him.

Welcome to life.

A must-see movie this summer, even if you have to go rent the first four and watch them quickly to see it on the big screen. Fantastic. To see the Ministry of Magic come to life and how they handled Professor Umbridge. Great job, fantastic job, kudos to all who made that movie.

Okay, to the writing: Back in the saddle again. I definitely missed it these past five days. I start to wilt without my writing. I am working on my articles, accepting some editing work from my favorite clients, and finished Francine Prose's excellent book "Reading Like A Writer" (her chapter on Chekhov alone made buying the book worthwhile).

Finishing up the other big project today (the glossary has a hang-up and will have to be next week), meeting with a new client at Kent Station, and reading and writing!

Keep Moving Forward

Hot Sun.

Yep, we're scorching out here in the PNW. We love it, but we're very warm, so if you'll excuse me, I'm off to sit in front of the fan to work on projects, and off later tonight to sit in an air-conditioned theater to see Harry Potter. Cannot wait!

Not much progress on anything, but I'll be back today. Work has been kicking me in the rear and I am glad to say a major project is out the door. Another one goes this week and then I'll be feeling good!

I'll leave you with a link to Galleycat and their profile on Harry Potter's U.S. editor, but scroll down to see my Backspace colleague, Sara Gruen, looking laidback and cool. Go Sara!

ETA: I've recently been appointed by Backspace (www.bksp.org) as their content editor. I'm proud to be a part of a such a quality organization and to be in the company of such esteemed writers!

Enjoy the sun!

Amazon versus Library

In light of our impending move, I've been working really hard to not buy books (our shelves are burgeoning already and groaning from the triple shelving system I've implemented to keep books off the floors) and because have a King County library card, why not? Thus, my dilemma has been how to make sure I can remember books from Amazon while on my library web site adding books to my wish list.

Jon Udell's handy Library BookMarklet saved the day (from 43 Folders; see blogroll) and my sanity.

With this simple plug-in for Firefox (IE is possible, but is a tad bit more complicated), you can quickly search Amazon for books you are interested in, and then once on the Amazon page of the book you want (ISBN must be in the url), the Library bookmarklet captures the URL and plugs it in your library search page, basically making cut and paste unnecessary. And for me, this technology helps make my library wish list grow much faster, plus, since we're taxpayers of King County, the books are free! (Luckily, King County is a large library system and the books that are available number into infinity; all right, so maybe not.)

Also, if you are ever in downtown Seattle, just go inside and visit the Rem Koolhaas-designed Seattle library. It will blow your mind.)

Seattle Public Library


So kudos to Jon Udell.
Library Bookmarklet screencast
Library Bookmarklet Generator

Fun Birthday Weekend

It was birthday weekend over here. Todd's was Saturday, and a friend's was Sunday. We spent most of the day on Saturday out and about: stopping at Home Depot for Todd's present, eating out for his birthday lunch/dinner, and than spending the rest of the day in the theater to see Ratatouille and Transformers, both of which were pretty good. Todd was delighted, even through his terrible allergies this year, and all in all it was a great day.

Yesterday, I spent most of the day wrestling down 24 pages of references for a project for work. The job stuff ebbs and flows for sure and I intend to make sure that everything gets done on time and well, instead of just simply clocking my hours. So I worked yesterday. It wasn't bad. I had a icy Coke, Todd was home (sleeping because of all his allergy meds he took), and it was a beautiful day with a breeze blowing in the windows. Love days like that.

So, my two writing assignments are here and fantastic fun. I cannot wait to work on these. I am finishing up a freelance editing project all week in the evenings and once it's out of here, another project shows up. :)

I read a lot in the past week, finishing about three books. I am deep into three more and hope to finish those this week. It's all research, yes.

We've got three weeks to go until we know for sure about Texas. I'm excited and completely freaked out of my mind.

Keep writing!