Its the Little Things

For book recs I always trust the ladies over at Smart Bitches Trashy Books, and today is no different. Currently they are running a contest for free books and other awesome prizes. The point of it all is to raise awareness about contemporary romance novels and how they are a dying breed of books.

Last time they ran a contest they did it for a really awesome book: Flat-Out Sexy by Erin McCarthy. Flat-Out Sexy is/was definitely one of my favorite books of the year. A friend and I were talking about this during the weekend and we both agreed that it was the little things that made this book so great. One thing that really made both of us happy was the fact that the author was not afraid of technology. Technology is always changing and most authors really don't know much about it or don't use it themselves. If you are an author of historicals, it is understandable for you not to know anything about computers/phones/internet stuff, but if you are writing contemporaries, your characters are in this world and it makes sense for them to know these things.

My friend and I were a little sad that all it took for us to be pleased as punch was the author to have her characters texting each other like most people do. It might be an age thing, but who knows? The book would have been good without the mention of familiar things (mostly in an unfamiliar -to me- world of race car driving), but real characters in real situations made this book Wonderful.

Now there is another book the Smart Bitches are pimping and I cannot wait to get my hands on it. Talk Me Down by Victoria Dahl looks like a really fun read. It was pointed out that the "critics" didn't like this book. This is a growing trend in our world, or at least in my online circle of people and blogs that I follow. The same thing happened with Repo! The Genetic Opera. The critics hated it, but the reviews from normal people came back overwhelmingly positive. What does this tell us? The media and those who are in charge of telling us what to think are vastly out of touch with the people. I am trying to stay away from my soapbox, but it is difficult. Its very frustrating when consumers are not trusted to form their own opinions about what they want to read and see.

Anyway, the moral of the story is - Buy a book, buy a romance, buy something based on a reviewer you trust rather than some stuffy person who is out of touch with the world!

WINNER!

So after a month of toiling away and perfecting my methods of procrastination I have finally finished my novel for NaNoWriMo. Most of it is crap, but I think around the 35k mark I actually started writing a lot better. I don't know how it happened, but one second I was writing terribly and the next day it was like a switch was flipped and I was putting out sentences that didn't sound like garbage. It was nice, I have to say. And one thing I really liked was the fact that my novel finished right at the 50k mark. It was very bizarre that it ended right at the time it should have. I could have bulked up the story if I needed to and filled in a gap that I left open because I was blocked, but I didn't need to. I am so relieved. My wrist kinda hurts now.



Now I'm off to go donate what little money I have to nanowrimo.org to celebrate.

Repo! The Genetic Opera

So Sunday night was amazing. If anyone follows me on twitter you probably saw random squeeing and arguing with Heather over text messages (we realized that we text each other more when we are standing right next to each other than we do normally, this amuses me). Anyway, so we arrived at The Enzian and I got my ticket from the people I won it from and went to stand in line (side note to the people who don't know: I dressed up as Vagina Dentata for Halloween at Rocky and won a costume contest). We were probably standing in line for about an hour before we were allowed inside. I'd like to note that we saw both Darren Lynn Bousman and Terrance Zdunich while waiting in line. The theater is really really spiffy and the chairs we sat in were cool (I found some fantastic pictures of the outside and inside of it: outside 1 - outside 2 - inside 1 - inside 2).

We waited around a bit more, both Heather and I trying not to blatantly stare at Terrance Zdunich (who plays GraveRobber and who wrote both the play and the movie script), but we were not successful. I don't know about her, I felt like a total skeeze just intently watching this guy, but *swoon* he's awesome. So the movie starts and it was amazing. Holy crap did it rock. It was so funny in parts and my only complaint is that there wasn't enough gore and there needed to be more repossessions. After the movie there was a Q&A which Heather recorded part of and then they said they would be outside to sign autographs and just hang out.

So here I am with the two guys, and gah, I freaking <3 Saw II, so it was awesome meeting Darren Lynn Bousman, and of course GraveRobber is the sexiest character ever

thanks to heather for this pic


my stuff that was signed :D


and one thing that was particularly awesome. If you've seen/heard Zydrate Anatomy (definitely in my top 3 5 favorite songs in the movie) this will most likely be funny.

Crowd: (chanting) Zydrate! Zydrate! Zydrate!
Darren: Did you know Zydrate comes in a little glass vial?
Crowd: A little glass vial?
Terrance: *holds up blue glowstick* A little glass vial
Movie: *starts*

It was AMAZING.

Also - to the people who have never heard of Repo! The Genetic Opera, I don't blame you. They haven't had very much publicity, its all been word of mouth. I urge to you check out the website and the wiki page for more info! :D

Here is the trailer:

Its NaNo Time

Yesterday was November 1st and the official start of NaNoWriMo. For those who don't know what NaNo is see this explanation or I can just summarize it for you - during the month of November you write a 50,000 word novel. Last year I participated and won, and I'm hoping to do the same this year.

Of course, its a very difficult thing, more difficult than some people realize. One of the main obstacles in writing a 50,000 word novel is procrastination. NaNo participants have honed their skills to make procrastination an art form. And of course there are the plot problems. They can outline all they want but sometimes a character will do something unexpected an throw them off completely. I'm only about 2,000 words into mine and I am already searching for ways to make myself like my main character. I have a skill for making my main characters unlikable - I did the same thing last year and by the time I was done I didn't even want to deal with those people any more.

But the thing is, I could talk about nano all day and not even write a word because I'm that good at procrastinating. Right at this moment I am typing this post and have a movie loaded on netflix that waiting for me to watch. So now I've decided that I can watch 5 minutes of the movie every 500 words I write. Sure, that'll slow me down in my daily goal (in order to reach 50,000 words in 30 days you need to write at least 1,667 words a day), but it will motivate me to think quicker in order to watch my movie. The next time I do the 'movie reward system' I will say that every 1000 words I can watch 5 minutes, so hopefully by the end of the week I'll have made it quite far in my novel.

*fingers crossed* Good luck fellow NaNo'ers! You can find me here.

Voting!

I'm sure I don't even need to say it, but voting is important. Yesterday I was able to go down to my local polling place and cast my vote on who I think the next president should be as well as vote on other local issues. I feel very strongly towards one of them, and I think it might actually get passed. I won't go into too much detail, but here is a handy site all about Amendment 2. So many people are misinformed about this and it would be terrible if it is passed.

So anyway, I was very excited to vote. My normal voting place is actually in a church near the home, so by participating in early voting I was able to avoid feeling uncomfortable in the church. Instead I was able to go to the Belleview Town Hall (Belleview is a small town about 5 minutes from the house) to vote. Of course, I don't seem to be able to do anything without encountering some annoying person.

me: *waiting in line for a privacy booth to open up*
lady: soo, who are you voting for? *nudges me*
me: I'd rather not say
lady: no really, who are you voting for? *nudges again* Who are you voting for?
me: the good one *walks away as a booth opens up*

And to those who can't figure out who the good one is, here are some shirts I made the other day:



Doesn't answer your question yet? Well, how about a few pictures where my friend Heather and I wore the shirts?






Still no clue? How about a picture of my new favorite hobby?



I love to flip off McCain/Palin signs. It warms my heart.

OBAMA FOR THE WIN

A Year Older

Yesterday was my birthday. Well, it was my Birthday, with a capital B. It was one of the "important" ones. In my mind the important ones have always been - 13, 16, 18, 21, 30, 40, and so on. So yes, I'm 21 now and its time for me to go party and be crazy. But honestly, I can't be bothered.

I've already put my party days behind me, so I have no desire to go get smashed in public places and throw up on the street like most 21 year olds like to do on their birthday. I do like the idea that I have the freedom to order a tasty beverage when I go to a restaurant, but other than that it was just another birthday, with a lowercase B. It was a nice low-key type of day when I wasn't at work or in class.

There is only one thing I've really been excited for though. Bingo. I love bingo. It is exciting and fun - and now I'm finally old enough to go to the bingo halls here in Ocala. Hopefully next week I'll find a night I can go and I'll play bingo to my heart's content.

"That's different."

HowManyOfMe.com

There are 1 or fewer people with my name in the U.S.A. How many have your name?

I've had almost 21 years with my name and I constantly go between loving it and hating it. The most popular thing I hear about my name is, "Oh, its so different/unique/strange/neat" or "That's a fun spelling" and "Oh, you spell your name differently." No, I don't spell my name differently, my parents did. If I got to pick out my name I might have chosen something a bit more "normal." I always hear the people who have normal names want something different and the people who have strange names want something normal, so its one of those 'the grass is always greener' type of situations (sidenote: just now someone came into the office where I work and when he saw my name he said, "Shae. Huh. That's different. Very stra-cool. Very cool."). When I was younger I used to think about changing my name, mostly after being teased about it constantly.

I go by both Lezli and Shae (my first and middle names), so it is always confusing for me and other people if I can't remember what I'd gone by before. Most of the time I use Lezli for business/banking/school things and use Shae with friends and family. I answer to Lezli, but 90% of the time I introduce myself as Shae. I think I'm pretty much going to be stuck in this limbo of liking my name and hating my name - as well as going by both.

It would be a giant headache to change my name, and most days I think Shae suits me just fine, but I would love to introduce myself without someone commenting on how different and unique my name is. Oh well, maybe in another 20 years when all of the Apples, Pilot Inspektors, Denims, Reign Beaus, and Rockets are older and out in the world my name may not seem so odd.

I Hate Ants

Yesterday I took advantage of the nice weather and went outside (yes, really!!). I got a sheet and a book (alright, it was my laptop, but I was reading an ebook) and went outside to relax in the shade. I was outside for about 45 minutes before I decided to go back in the house (who knew the ground was so uncomfortable). Later I noticed I had an itchy spot. It wasn't the right time of day for a mosquito bite, but I just assumed it was anyway. Then it started hurting and itching at the same time. I realized that I very well could have been bitten by an ant without noticing. So there I am just hanging around the house with an ant bite on my bum. Yes, it bit me on the bum somehow. If you've never gotten bitten by an ant is it not a fun thing. The area turns red, swells up, itches, and then develops a pustule. Not a very fun experience at all. Oddly enough it reminded me of my high school graduation.

I had decided not to go to my high school graduation mainly because out of the 450 people in my graduating class I only knew the names of 2 people (I had been doing a program where my senior year took place at the college, so I attended both high school and college classes there without ever having to set foot in the actual high school and the few friends I had all dropped out). On the last day to reserve a cap and gown I decided that I did want to walk across the stage and get a diploma the normal way (related story: I went into my counselor's office to let her know I wanted to do the lame tradition and she got me confused with someone else. She told me I wouldn't be able to graduate and with my mother in France and all, it would be difficult to contact her to talk about it. After a moment's pause I asked her, "You do know who I am, right?" After giving her my name and her acting embarrassed she let me know that she was sorry for worrying me considering I would be graduating with high honors).

So the big day came, or at least the night before the big day came and I was too excited to sleep. I had slept almost the entire day before so I wasn't tired at all. I decided since the ceremony was at 8am I might as well just stay up the whole night. The ceremony was relatively short and I remember being hit with a beach ball 3 times in the course of it (during boring speeches there were about 10 beach balls being tossed around by the graduates). Once we got back home I decided to take a nap because I was exhausted. What I didn't know was that there were ants in my bed. Or rather, ants around my pillow. I ended up having about 5 ant bites on my right arm (3 of which turned to scars) and 2 on my face, effectively swelling my eye shut and making me look deformed on a night I should have been having fun.

I freaking hate ants.

Hey! That is NOT a fortune!

Anyone who knows me knows I live for Chinese food. I love it! The other day I got my favorite (sweet & sour chicken, no veggies in the fried rice) for lunch while I was at work. After eating it I was full and content - so I got to the fortune cookie. What I got was not a fortune in any way shape or form!



Yeah! That's right! A joke. A really crappy grammatically incorrect joke! And the joke isn't even remotely funny, its just lame. Why fortune cookie company? Why would you do such a thing?

*rolls eyes at "safe driver"*

I was just randomly browsing youtube not too long ago and came across youtube user safedriverpro. This person has over 20 videos of "bad" Ocala drivers. Why are they so bad? Well many of them pass this person and do regular driving type things. Sure they tailgate on the person, but honestly, I think this person purposely drives slow just to get people to tailgate and the like.

The person said in a comment that the only people that oppose to his channel are the aggressive drivers, so...yeah (I may have watched all of his Bad Driver Video series just to see if I was in there, lol). Anyway, the real reason I am posting about this is because he puts up reasons why they are terrible drivers and I couldn't contain my giggles at how dirty this one sounded. So here it is, road pr0n!