In Which I Spend Some Of My Advance

So, as I may have mentioned, my book ALL THAT REMAINS sold this year. WOO!!

It's still awesome when I think about it, (and sometimes it doesn't feel real).

I'd always planned that if I ever sold a book, I would buy something fun with some of my advance money. I think this is something that EVERYONE should do. Because, yes, I have bills. And house repairs. And pet repairs. And a bunch of stuff I should buy for responsible reasons. And I should also just sit on any money and not touch it unless I have to.

But also. I sold a damn book, and that's awesome and really the culmination of a crap ton of hard work over a lot of years. And, you know, living the dream and all that.

So, yes, there should be some celebration with that money. Something that you can keep forever, so you can always look at it and think "I bought that with the money I earned from writing a book".

I know some people buy art, which is an awesome idea. But I am out of wall space in my house, so that wasn't quite for me.

Jewelry was the obvious idea, but I also have a lot of jewelry and I don't get to wear it all, even the pieces I love. But my mom thought I should buy a ring, because I don't have any rings and it's something I could just wear all the time.

I was a little skeptical at first until we started looking at rings.

So I decided I would wait until august when the MN Renfest starts (and of which I hold a season pass) to check out the jewelers there before I bought anything. I figured the renfest jewelers would be good because A) a lot of them are small businesses so it's always nice to support those. B) because they are handmade, everything is unique. C) and because many of them sell wedding rings, I figured there would be some high-end stuff, which was what I was aiming for.

So this weekend I went ring shopping. I had narrowed it down to 2 shops, but one just won me over.
And here's the ring I bought!

I went with amethyst, since it's my birthstone

 

 

I will never be a hand model

So there you have it! I sold a book, and I bought a ring, so I can always remember this awesomeness.

How about you? Have you ever bought anything fun with money you earned from writing? Or if not, what would you think about buying with writing money?

In Which I Went Shopping. Again. Surprise!

Twin and I hit up the MN Renfest this last weekend (Bro is hunting moose in Alaska with our dad and our extended family that lives in Alaska.) (For those of you asking "What is MN Renfest?" I've blogged about it in detail here, here, here, here and here and quite a few more times under the "renfest" tag,) Of course, we have season passes and hit it up every weekend, but this weekend we did some shopping.

I'm always on the lookout for another hat to add to my steampunk hat collection and finally settled on which one I wanted. I had to get the hatband at another store but so far, I luuurve my new hat. I may have to change my user pic in the near future to show it off.

La la la! I lurve you new steampunk hat!

The hat and the hatband should've been enough. But then twin was all like "You need to see this". And I walked over to see what she was looking at and she was right. I DID need to see it. And not leave the shop without it.

A steampunk garter with a pistol!

Here's another shot so you can see the little test tubes on the other side of the strap.
It was not easy taking these pics by myself

It's extra nice because they punched enough holes in the leather strap so that you can fit it on your calf, even over boots if you want.

Oh Renfest. Once again the siren song of your steampunkery snares me in your money-lessening grasp.

In Which I Went Shopping

Hi all, sorry about yesterday's post, The link for the bread recipe was included, but I realized it was kind of hidden between the pictures.

So here's the link to the recipe again, for anyone who wanted it: Cinnamon Sugar Pull-Apart Bread.

Here's what mine ended up looking like. And I'm not going to lie. It was delicious.








So, last week I mentioned shopping therapy at the RenFest. I told myself I wasn't going to buy anything this year because, as mentioned, I am pretty broke (AND Doggy Tula has come down with a serious itching problem over the last few weeeks. She will be getting a second vet visit later this week. Sigh).

Anyway, so they we were, hanging out at Renfest, studiously NOT thinking about how Twin's car was stolen and how someone was in our house while we were sleeping, and THERE IT WAS...

Now, I know I've mentioned before how I'm jealous of Twin's ability to look good in hats. It doesn't come as easy for me. In fact, my steampunk writing hat in my blog pic is really the first awesome hat I've ever owned.


Until. I found. THIS!!!





That's right! A mothereffing steampunk Bowler/Derby Hat! Holy hell guys. I wanted it IMMEDIATELY.

So I bought it.

For reals. I would've totally regretted not getting it.


So, now I have another steampunk hat. This one, though, will be a steampunk EDITING/REVISION hat. I think I may change my blog picture to match the hat of whatever I'm doing at the time. So, for example, since I'm revising Break Free right now, I'll be changing the above picture to match.

So, there you have it. The Siren call of the steampunkery sucks me in again. Man, I would buy so much cool stuff if I had a lot of money.

How about you? Bought anything frivilous necessary lately?

In Which I Give Away Free Books

So I bought a new bookshelf at Ikea and organized some of my books. I sold a few bags to Half-Price Books, but I kept out any that were writing related to offer up as prizes to blog readers.

Yeah, that's right, today's post is a drawing for free stuff!


see more Lolcats and funny pictures


Boosh!


I'm offering two prize packs.

Prize pack 1 includes:




Walking On Alligators: A book of meditations for writers
Word Painting: A guide to writing more descriptively
A blank journal, unlined.


Prize Pack 2 includes:




Chicken Soup for the Writer's Soul
The Complete Idiot's Guide to Romance Writing
A blank journal, unlined.



As stated, these are used books, but they are in very good condition and in the case of the journals, they're brand new, they've just been sitting on my bookshelves.


What do you have to do to win one of these prize packs?

Fill out the form! It's super simple.

You can enter through Jan 31st and I'll post the winners on Feb 2nd.

Easy peasy.


SUPER AWESOME GIVEAWAY FORM

In Which I Did Some Shopping

Look what I bought!

Yes yes, I know I'm pretty broke. But I can be spontaneous when shopping.

Why is it in the grass you ask? Because the lighting is shitty in our house and the sun is outside.

Isn't my handwriting so super? I know, you're jealous (this is why I don't handwrite anything. Well that and I'm sane...)

Also, don't look too closely at the pink star in the lower right hand corner.

I SAID DON'T LOOK!!


Yay! A Whiteboard!
While line editing, it has become clear to me that my scene re-arrangement is not done. Oh not at all.

And I don't want to have to move all my post it notes around again now that they've found homes in the notebook. So the easiest solution was to buy a whiteboard. Then I can write a list of scenes and draw arrows and junk to demonstrate where I want to move them. If it doesn't work, I can just erase it and start over.

I'm a super visual person and can't do it just on the word document. I need to see it.

What about you?
Do you have a fancy whiteboard? Do you even need one?

In Which I Am Delayed

I'm behind on editing.

I know, I know, I was so excited to get started and I'm already behind? But I have some pretty good reasons as to why.

I'm still not done with reading the manuscript. I'm about half way there. It's one thing to read a mass market paperback. That is easy to carry around. But lugging around 300 pages of printer paper is not as easy, even if I've broken it up into four parts.

Also, Sundays are typically my day to do writerly things, but this last weekend we hit the Home and Garden Show. After hours of walking I came away with a new pillow, a garden gopher, a new set of earrings and a cute little owl statue.

my earrings

Twin's earrings

I've wanted an owl like this since I saw a similar one on Things I Yell At You

I was also reading a book on editing, which I hoped would get me in the mood. But the book was OK, and 98% of the stuff they suggested you do to edit your fiction novel was stuff that I already knew to do. So, meh.

So these are the foremost reasons as to why I'm behind on my revision process. Still, no rush I guess.

Anyone else behind on their goals?


Also, Al from Publish or Perish awarded me The Sunshine Award, which was awfully nice of him.

I'll be passing this on to Sonshine Thoughts (because it's fitting, right?)
And AchingHope (who is hilarious)

In Which I Am A Year Older

So it was my birthday on Sunday.
Yay.
To be fair it was also Twin's birthday - two minutes after mine.

We're now 29. 30 is on the horizon.

And we share our birthday with a few friends. Also Ashton Kutcher, Laura Ingalls Wilder and Charles Dickens were also born on this day. Who knew February 7th was such a popular day to have a baby?

On Thursday our mom took us out to get manicures - not that any of us have nice nails, but it's still fun.

I'm never going to be a hand model...

In my fam we celebrate by getting presents (natch) and going out to eat at a restaurant of the birthday person's choosing. We'll be hitting Twin's choice later, hopefully when our youngest sister, henceforth known as Youngest Sister, comes home from a visit from Far Away College (aka Columbia in Oprahland (aka Chicago)). Twin chose Solera which is a delicious tapas restaurant.

Delicious! Cannot Wait! Exclamation Points!

I chose La Grolla, which we dined at Sunday afternoon (because there was no point watching the Super Bowl when it was our BIRTHDAY...duh (also the Vikings weren't playing, so you know, what's the point?)). La Grolla is classified as Italian, and every time we've eaten there the food is so super duper fantastic you pretty much don't want to eat anywhere else, ever again.

This is the dish (cartoccio) that Brother would kill a bear to get at. An honest to god bear...

The chef/owner was once a personal chef for Donald Trump and apparently Mr. Trump has good tastes.

As for presents, Twin got a new jacket along with Casino Royale and season 2 of the Venture Brothers.

If you're not watching Venture Brothers, you need to rectify that IMMEDIATELY!

She also got dog training classes for Tula, who may or may not be an agility champion in the making.

Together, we also got a Ladder, which doesn't seem like much, but we've needed a ladder for almost 2 years now to get rid of the trees growing in our gutters.

Our Grandma has started to give away some of her possessions in lieu of a birthday gift (aka, money) which is awesome because I'd much rather have some of her heirlooms than money any day.

This year we got these wonderful dishes that belonged to, like, her grandmother and therefore are really old. They're made out of carnival glass.

Twin's

Mine

I got District 9 on blu ray and season two of Metalocalypse.

If you love metal, even a little bit, this show is for you

From Younger Sister I received a pretty hair binder and a journal made from REAL ELEPHANT POOP!

made from real poop!

You might be questioning the journal, but it's because I LURVE elephants.

this was my first ever tattoo

I also got a framed print of Waterhouse's Circe Invidosa

It's hanging in my room across from my framed Waterhouse La Belle Damme Sans Merci. Awesome.

So anyway, that's how I spent my Sunday. There was also some Dexter watching as well as Call of Duty playing.

How was your weekend?

Also, as of the posting of this blog entry I have 47 followers, each one unique and precious.

When I get to 50 followers (which could be any time now) there will be a drawing!

Those of you who are already followers will have a leg up!

Yay! Excitement!