Funkadelic

Well if Skye's in a funk about school, I'm allowed to be in a funk about something, right? Ok, well, maybe I'm not. After all, my life is pretty awesome right now. I like my job, I got a cool new haircut, I'm selling stories on the side, and, oh yeah, I'm going on a two-week Caribbean cruise in September.

And yet, selfish creature that I am, I can still find stuff to be in a funk about. And, let me tell you, funkiness is not becoming on me. I do not have a cute pout.

So what do you do to get out of your funks? Shop for office supplies? Play with cute little kittens? Stay in bed all day with the covers over your head (which is my method of choice, heh)? Tell me in the comments and I'll put your name in the hat for a free PDF of "Love In Shadow."

Platitudes, Schmatitudes

Unlike my darling critique partner, I don't need someone else creating annoying acronyms to keep me on track. I consider myself extremely lucky that i can announce that i just finished my WIP! Battle for Valhalla, an exciting urban fantasy about a kick-ass Valkyrie heroine, is now done. Woo hoo!

And, even better, the agent i met with in Dallas, at the RWA National Conference, emailed me and said "You have an interesting premise and some intriguing characters, and I’d love to see the complete manuscript." Pitching rocks, no matter what Sonja says.

Which means, of course, that Sonja now has to rework her priority list (I'm always throwing things out of whack) and make editing my most recent writing! And, of course, while she's doing that, I'll be relaxing in the south of France. Yep, that's right, I get to go on vacation. Lucky me!

Of course, not so lucky is the fact that as soon as I'm back, school starts. Anyone have any study tips? If you do, I'll send you a book. Yeah, that's right, I will. Not Sonja. She can't be the only one in this partnership giving away things (or paying for postage). So send me either a study tip or a horror story from school and Sonja will pick a winner and I'll send off a book. When I'm back from France, that is. :)

I'll actually have internet access in France, so you might even get a post from me. But don't hold your breath, since there is an awful lot of cheese and wine calling my name.

Should i rub it in some more? Or maybe i could create an acronym... SUCKS: Sonja Unfortunately Can't Kill Skye.

A Hairy Weekend

It's my turn to post again, but I was just giving you all some time to mull over whether you want to leave a comment on Skye's post and win some stuff. So I'm giving you an extension. You have, like, another 2 days to scroll down and leave a comment on her post and win an unnamed (but totally awesome) prize. Do eet.

I have nothing exciting to share with you besides the fact that I dyed my hair. In fact, I don't even think I've told Skye about this yet. Whoops. Well, we'll call it even since she's been withholding big important pieces of news from me too. Because my hair is totally big important news.

Anyway, the change-my-hair bug bit me on Friday night. I looked through my "emergency" stash of hair dyes and found a lovely midnight black and an equally lovely platinum blonde. The platinum blonde I'd never attempted before because my hair is naturally dark and platinum blonde usually turns puke orange on my head. But, somehow, I convinced myself that this time, it would be different, and I was going to do a strip of blonde in front a la Rogue from X-Men and the rest in black. I was very professional about it. I used foil and everything.

The professionalism wore off a little when the peroxide sort of oozed into my eyeballs in the shower and I screamed, "Oh my god it burns!" I don't imagine professionals do that too often. Still, I soldiered on. By the paltry light of nighttime, it didn't look too bad.

By the illuminating light of morning, my poor retinas screamed again, this time in fear. What had I done? The funkadellic streak I'd been going for was, in fact, white at the roots and pink everywhere else. Jeez. Not only that, but I'd managed to miss large swaths of hair with the black dye, so I had a pink and white strip in front and chunks of black and chunks of faded red in the back. I cried. A lot. And then put on a hat and went to the store to buy another box of midnight black.

Saturday night, I dyed my whole head midnight black, hoping to correct the pink strips and the red chunks. It's slightly better now, but there was an unintended side effect: The blue undertones of the black hair dye show up a LOT on the parts of my roots that turned white from the platinum blonde dye. So now my hair is mostly black... with navy blue strips in front.

I give up though. Funkadellic blue strips it will be. (Thankfully, you can't see the blue too much in this picture. Hopefully that's what it really does look like and not the electric blue I imagine it to be. Although my boss said to me this morning, "Your hair is less blue today." Um. Thank you?)

Make me feel better: Tell me your worst hair disaster story and be entered in the running for The Shoe Queen by Anna Davis.

The Marvel of the Internet

Up until just recently, I was convinced that the internet was the best invention ever (thanks Al Gore!), but today, I'm beginning to rethink that statement. After returning from the RWA National Conference, I had 3 requests for partials that I needed to send in (hooray for me!). One of the agents even asked for me to email them to her, which I thought was a great idea.

"Wow," I thought, "someone who understands the interwebs! How handy for me!"

And since i was already submitting three sets of partials, I decided to query two other agents who I was very interested in. Both accepted e-queries as well, which made my day. So the night before last, I arranged all my stuff, organized the queries and sent them off into cyberspace. It was around 11pm, I think, since i do my best work at night.

"How simple that was!" I said, dreading my visit to the post office the next day to send off the two remaining partial requests.

Until the next morning. When i woke up and discovered that I had ALREADY received a rejection from one of my slush pile queries. Less than 12 hours had passed and already I was crushed. Usually, you have time to come to terms with submitting a query and the possibility of a rejection. But i was still riding high on the euphoria of actually submitting again, after a very long hiatus.

Sigh.

Still, no worries. I'm sure that the others will do better. After all, now it's been more than 24 hours and I still haven't gotten any more rejections. Hoorah for me!

Also, I'm told by Sonja that I'm supposed to post the winner of our fabulous "What Personality Type Are You? Contest" I'm pleased to announce that Becky is our wonderful winner of Bite Me If You Can, by Lindsay Sands. Please email Sonja with your address and she'll send it right off to you! Congratulations.

Back to my pain... Anyone else have any excruciating rejection stories you want to share? Post them and I'll give away... uh... some book. Maybe one of Sonja's! :)

My Psychopathic Tendencies

Well, we're back from Dallas, and both intact in our opposite corners of the country. Skye managed to survive my raving psychopathicness regarding conference with grace and aplomb. (I'm not really sure what aplomb is but it's a cool word and I'm pretty sure she has it.)

As it turns out, my raving psychopathicness actually paid off. I went to all my psychopathically planned workshops and learned a whole bunch about the topic I went to conference this year to learn about: characterization. By far the best workshop I took was Marliss Melton's workshop on using the Myers-Briggs personality test to profile and match your hero and heroine. It was a BIG lightbulb moment.

But I got curious and wondered where I myself would fall on the Myers-Briggs scale, so I went and took the test. Apparently I am an ISFJ (Introverted Sensing Feeling Judger), otherwise known as a Protector Guardian. And, lo and behold, it explains my psychopathic tendencies regarding filling every minute of conference with useful stuff. See that J at the end that makes me a Judger? That means I like to plan stuff. I like to have the decision made, and then stick to it. It's not my fault, it's my personality's fault.

Other stuff about me, according to my ISFJ status, that will make Skye laugh because it's so true:

And although they're hurt by being treated like doormats, they are often unwilling to toot their own horns about their accomplishments because they feel that although they deserve more credit than they're getting, it's somehow wrong to want any sort of reward for doing work (which is supposed to be a virtue in itself).

Poor Skye has heard me whine about my day job often enough to groan, "dear god, so true."

They are capable of forming strong loyalties, but these are personal rather than institutional loyalties; if someone they've bonded with in this way leaves the company, the ISFJ will leave with them, if given the option.

Ooh, again with doing that exact thing in my day job.

They are usually as concerned with being "nice" as with strict propriety.

This trait makes me an endless target for Skye's mockery. Luckily, I don't feel the need to be "nice" to her.

They are often unable to either hide or articulate any distress they may be feeling.

So Saturday night I was wandering aimlessly around our hotel room going, "I don't want to pack. I don't want to go home. I don't want a day job. Life sucks. I feel like crap." Wisely, she saw through my inability to ACCURATELY articulate my distress and recommended rum and sleep, which in fact cured most of the yuckies.

This childlike Ne is the likely source (coupled with fun-loving Extraverted Feeling) of the practical joking, punning and (usually harmless) impishness of some ISFJs.

Impish is such a good word.

So what are you? Go take the test. Come on, don't pretend like you don't have an hour or two to kill gazing at your naval.

Skye says we're supposed to give away books as prizes since we both brought home a buttload of books from conference, so if you go take the test and tell me what type you are, you're in the running for a copy of Bite Me If You Can by Lindsay Sands.