I feel like writing about random crap. So hi.

1- You know what ticks me off? This. I mean, first off, eww. Secondly, no. And last of all, how dare that crappiness start invading my 3D world! At least the artist put fangs on it. Yes, vampires do have fangs.

2- However, a friend sent me this screen shot that’s apparently floating around the internet. It’s from a game called Persona:

Remind you of anything? Heh.

3- So I’ve signed up on Facebook, to keep up with friends who apparently refuse to read my blog here. If you have an account there, look for me under Samantha R. Anderer and ask to be friends or whatever, and if I know who you are, I’ll add you.

Most fun features have dumbness attached. Like the Flairs. I don’t feel like trying to earn points for anything. So I stole this one for my blog here, because it’s so true:

I’ll be putting that on my About page.

4- I’m really glad Lost has been low on Kate for the past few episodes. The one they aired around my last blog post annoyed me so much, I was going to throw my television if I had to have any more Kate. But I think I’m rested up from that now, and can put up with her again.

Just for the record, I’m more of a Jack/Juliet shipper. Though at the beginning I really wanted Jack/Sun.

5- Amazing how obsessed people are with appearance. Ads I’ve seen on Yahoo mail lately, aka Extremely Bad Photoshopping:

Thin lips are ugly on anyone. Is that so? That has to be one of the most shallow remarks I have ever heard in my life. And personally, I think fake plump lips look awful. We’re getting to be a scary looking people with all this fake crap. All because of obsession with youth and beauty.

(I added in the word  “Photoshopped,” just so you know). I mean, look at that. You can just see that the picture in the middle is edited. And poorly.

If your lips are really that big, I’d say you have a problem. If these advertisers are going to push this b.s., the least they could do is hire people who actually know how to manipulate photos.

Dude, how vain can people get? If you don’t have big lips, you’re ugly. If you aren’t thin, you’re ugly. If you aren’t young, you’re not worth anything. If you don’t have a huge chest, you’re not worth anything. SAYS WHO? I hate fixation on appearance.

6- I’m back to editing Wilder Side. Carla came through with her edits. Yay! It’s slow work for me. I wish I could go faster, but I can’t help it. I must say how glad and grateful I am to have Carla’s input. You simply cannot see you work the way other people can. If you’re going to write for an audience, you MUST take said audience into consideration. Some authors actually think they don’t owe their readers anything.

7- DAZ 3D waved the Poser 7 carrot under my nose, so I bought it. Now I just have to get around to trying it out.

8- I had a dream about my character Isaac. He was shoe shopping, and I was his assistant. He was his smiling, pleasant self, and I was having to fetch one pair of leather shoes after another. Pretty strange.

9- Must have pudding. Goodbye.

Stories of Old - Depeche Mode

I thought I’d better not let a month go by without posting. You know, in case anyone is using this blog to monitor whether or not I’m still alive.

Except I don’t really have anything of value to post. Still doing anything but writing/editing. Meh. All burnt out right now. Will probably get back to that eventually, but right now I couldn’t care less whether I ever write anything again. My characters, however, are in the back of my head shaking their fists at me. They have stories to tell. I’m enjoying artistic endeavors right now. Behold, my beloved Isaac:

It probably needs some more work; I may change my mind about the background, too. It’s kind of wild but it’s also conceptual, in some way that eludes me. I don’t know why I like Isaac so well. He’s mentally disturbed, as you’ll find out when you read Wilder Side, and as you may have been able to tell if you read the Frog Chronicles story he was in. “Knives are a bit crude, but they scream ’street violence,’ don’t you agree?” sayeth he.

This post is kind of bizarre. I’m listening to “Southpaw” by Morrissey while I type this out, and it’s distracting me so I have no idea whether or not this randomness is making any sense. Should be fun to read through later on.

~ * ~

I also made this, after watching this week’s episode of Lost:

It traumatized me so badly, I had to express myself via Photoshop. Kate is kind of a Mary Sue. Jack’s all mooney over her, and Sawyer is all mooney over her. I don’t know who is more pathetic about her between Sawyer and Jack, actually. Sawyer is stepping right out of character this season with his Kate fluttering…and telling Juliet about it? Dude.

I’m just not a Kate/Jack fan. I don’t mind her as much when she’s with Sawyer because they’re both pretty much morally depraved (which is why I didn’t like her raising Aaron–what ever happened to Raised By Another?), but I hate that she keeps bouncing back and forth between the two. She ditches Aaron, tells Jack not to ask about him (and he’s such a sucker he goes along with it–if it were my nephew I would most certainly demand to know where he was), sleeps with Jack, then tells him something along the lines of “Just because we’re going back to the island together doesn’t mean we are together.” So, Kate, does that mean Sawyer’s better than Jack?

This epsiode almost failed, actually. All of a sudden everybody’s gung ho about going back to the island. I know they’ll explain how Hurley and Sayid were convinced in a future episode, but as for this episode it seemed really rushed and artificial. And Kate was like, “If you’re going then I’ll go.” So, what, she just suddenly decided to drop Aaron and return to the island with Jack but not with Jack? Yeah, gotcha. The only thing that saved this episode was Hurley buying out the rest of the plane tickets. I know Hurley was forced by Oceanic to buy two plane tickets because of that extremely prejudiced airline rule thingey, and they had to recreate the first plane crash circumstances as best they could, but he could have stopped at two tickets. He didn’t; he bought out all the rest to spare other people from having to go through a crash and get marooned on the island. He is such a sweetheart; what a humanitarian! I was really touched. Unlike Stephenie Meyer’s novel “Eclipse,” where the Cullens, who are supposed to be humanitarian, place a bet on how many people Bella will kill in her first years as a vampire (and we all know how that really turned out). ‘Cause you know, taking lives should be made into a joke. Especially when it’s just human life–vampires are so above humans. And as I recall, Edward called it infantile. It’s a little more than infantile, my sparkly friend. It’s sick.

Anyway, back to Hurley. He very aptly described seasons 1-4 a few episodes ago. Here’s some video:

Lost in 88 seconds - Hurley Explains All!

Best summary ever. I heart Hurley.

~ * ~

That’s all I’ve got. End useless post.

Morrissey - Southpaw -

I’m excited today. First of all, because I finally got one of the rare dragons! See?

Isn’t it pretty? *pets it* I never would have been able to get it on my old computer, and as it was I got it by a lucky fluke. There happened to be two gold eggs on the Abandoned page, and I just happened to click quickly enough on the right one. I’m still amazed.

So, one dragon on my wishlist down, three to go.

Edited to add: Lookie! Not only did I get another gold, but a silver as well!

Eeeeee! Are the rares no longer rare? Because I am just not this lucky!

~ * ~

I’m also excited that Lost season 5 is premiering this coming Wednesday. Check this promo, dudes:

Eeeee!

~ * ~

Also, I have replaced all the washed outimages in my blog with new ones that hopefully look better. *sigh* Technology’s cool and everything, but it tends to ruin your art sometimes.

Oh, and I updated Jamison’s site too. Finally got a form mailer that hopefully spiders and bots can’t hijack. Grrr.

Dude, it’s hard to get any participation from my Jamison site visitors. What’s up with that?

~ * ~

That is all.

Love like Blood - Icehouse

Holy! I’ve got newness coming the heck out of my ears. Dude.

I was finally able to get myself a new computer! Yay…I’m pretty sure. It’s a Dell Studio MT. Here it is, if you’re interested. I picked it out based on my 3D rendering needs. I also got a new monitor. It’s a 19″ widescreen LCD; not what I would have picked out under ideal circumstances, but I’m stuck with it now. I don’t like it very much, but I’m slowly getting used to it. See, this is my first really new monitor. I’ve been on the old fat VGA monitors forever. I like the flat screen aspect, but this monitor washes the color right out of everything. I’ve been looking at my 3D images with horror; they look so pale and awful.  I do like having more room onscreen, but things are smaller and that takes some getting used to. I can’t make many adjustments, either. Brightness and contrast doesn’t help with the too-bright look of this monitor.

So, please tell me. Which picture looks better on your monitor:

A                                                         B

Image A looked fine on my old dinosaur monitor, but it’s all washed out on the new. Image B looks fine on my new monitor, but it would have been way too dark on the old one. Isn’t that just wonderful to know that your art will one day be destroyed by the newfangled monitor of the time? Whatevs. I guess I’ll have to update all my old images. *grumblegrumble*

I’m pretty sure I like my new computer, though. To be honest, I’ve had it almost two weeks now and I still haven’t done anything with it. All I’ve done so far is experiment and tinker. I don’t exactly like the Windows Sidebar feature of Vista, but I decided I did like having the slideshow on my desktop when I realized it could showcase my Alan Wilder photo collection. I experimented a little with rendering in DAZ Studio, and discovered that not only does the new computer run everything much faster than poor old Compy, but my new graphics card picks up details that the barely-supported card in Compy didn’t even touch. So, that’s going to be great. I may even go crazy and get Poser 7.

I also got myself Microsoft Office Home and Student 2007. I must have Word. No more Office Assistants though (I’ll miss the kitty), and the new layout is confusing. Oh well, it’s not like I’m doing anything productive right now, like editing my numerous books that need editing or, heaven forbid, writing anything completely new. I meant to be using this time to work on my Finding Faith series, but I just have not been able to get myself to do anything of the sort. I am exhausted and burnt out from finishing the writing and initial edits of Wilder Side books one and two. I just really need a vacation from writing/editing, I guess. Plus, I haven’t been feeling very well since October. Various stuff.

Dude, it’s hard to get used to a new computer! I really like the way this keyboard feels, but I keep making typos with it; the keys are flatter than the ones on my old keyboard. I’ll be glad when I’m fully used to this new machine!

It’s wonderful to be rid of Compy, though. That damn thing took ten minutes to start up, 2-3 minutes for Firefox to load, half an hour to get used to being on the internet before I could start “surfing,” a restart after being on the internet (and said restart took 15-20 minutes to complete), several grinding halts every day, and up to ten minutes to shut down. All the while I would be moaning, “Cooooommmmmpyyyyyy!” or growling, “Come on, Compy!” or asking, “Are you going to make it, Compy?” and generally bemoaning how much time I was losing out of my life. Yes, five and a half long years with Compy definitely contributed to the decline of my sanity. I should acknowledge that a lot of the problem was Norton 360, though, because Compy got a lot worse after that. It couldn’t handle that life sucker. I loathe Norton 360; what were they thinking, trying to become an operating system?

And now an upgrade to WordPress. It’s annoying having to upgrade my sites so often, but I really like the new look of the WordPress administration. All this newness!

So, if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to procrastinate and feel lost and confused on my new computer. Heeee!

Warning: I use the words ‘awful’ and ‘though’ a lot in this entry.

That’s Carly’s opinion of the Twilight movie. Amanda, however, advises you that Carly thinks everyone copies her (Carly and Amanda are two of my characters, in case you didn’t know. They were in The Frog Chronicles, and they both made the leap to Wilder Side).

And yes, Carly’s shirt does say “Troublemaker.” I’ll have to do a render with this shirt not partially obscured by anything one of these days. It’s perfect for Carly.

~ * ~

So, yeah. I managed to see the Twilight movie (don’t worry, someone else paid). It was…I think the best word to use is ‘wooden.’ Maybe ‘artificial.’ I’ve never seen such wooden performances in my life. Charlie and Bella, for example. They’re supposed to be awkward around each other, but they seem more like they don’t like each other that well. I know awkward families, believe me, and this was not it. Charlie seemed more like he was thinking, “What did I do to deserve having this emo brat come and live with me?” The score and cinematography were both awful. I hate spinning cameras (which makes me wonder why I like Lost so well), and the music sounded like a funeral dirge most of the time. The “flashbacks” were half-hearted, and man oh man, were the wirework and the dialog cheesy. I hated how fast the scenes changed–you could barely switch mental gears fast enough to keep up. Sloppy editing. I can’t believe they used the “heroin” line (honestly, doesn’t Meyer realize she’s glorifying drug use? And how great can a relationship be if it can be compared to drug use and drug addiction?) and the “lion/lamb” line. And we just can’t get through one single movie without the mention of “boobs,” now can we? That’s a fine thing to teach girls–your real worth is in your chest. The whole thing seemed more like a made-for-TV movie than a big screen movie.

A huge problem I have with both book and movie is Bella shrugging off the attempted attack by four or five men. Any real person would be shaken to the core. Being raped by one man would be awful enough, but several? Even an attempt would have you shaking and crying and generally hysterical. Not Bella, though. She’s so obsessed with Edward that nothing else seeps in. My gosh. Edward was the hysterical one.

Oh, and they really should have hired a Quileute as an advisor for their script, the way Dr. Quinn had Larry Sellers (in fact, Meyer should have done this for her books, too). I have a hard time believing Native Americans go tromping around the forest in headdresses for no reason at all. Those are for ceremony, not for discovering vampires hunting on your land. And saying they descend from wolves makes it sound like they experimented with crossbreeding. Eww! I believe the real Quileute legend is that they were transformed from wolf to man, not that they descend from wolves. And I have a hard time believing that Jacob, born and raised on a reservation, would snicker so much at his tribal legends–or think it’s weird (in the books) that people listen to his father who is a tribal elder.

And way to go, Meyer, for allowing cursing! I’ve heard she had a lot of input in this movie, so apparently cursing doesn’t bother her.

There were bound to be a few things I liked:

• Jessica saying, “Foster dad slash matchmaker.” I think that was the best line in the movie.
• Not all the actors were bad. Just like Jacob in the book, Taylor Lautner managed to breathe some life and personality into the scenes he was in. He wasn’t too bad (though I can’t get a mental image of him crushing on a baby/young child out of my head *shudderBreakingDawnshudder*). Neither was Anna Kendrick. Gil Birmingham was great; the subtle look at Bella when they were talking about the attacks being perpetrated by “humans” was carried off so well. Solomon Trimble was great too, even though he only had one or two lines. I want to say I liked Ashley Greene as Alice, but I just didn’t like the character after she became a bubblehead in Eclipse. I liked Rachel LeFevre, even though she reminded me of Carly in a way. She even looks a bit like Heather Graham, the actress I used to portray Carly in my Frog Chronicles images (check my banner on my Frog Chronicles page for comparison with my picture posted in this entry–Heather is on the bottom right). Actually, I pretty much like Movie Victoria. Too bad she can’t kill the Cullens and Bella.
• Jackson Rathbone is pretty good-looking. Except for the ultra coiffure. Something tells me men didn’t wear their hair like that in the Civil War era.
• At least the screenwriter made an effort to have the villains show up throughout the movie, instead of only toward the end like in the book.
• I did like that Robert Pattinson decided to play Edward as a self-loathing manic depressive (though casting Pattinson was a pretty obvious move to draw in the Harry Potter crowd). This character really does have serious mental problems. In reality, Edward’s personality would be full of warning signs that every girl should stay away from, not be encouraged to hold up as her ideal man. Bella even said, “Your mood swings are giving me whiplash.” Apparently that’s a turn-on for her. Of course, she’s completely mentally ill, too, so….
• Bella’s internet search on the “Cold Ones.” I love those violent medieval images. I know, I’m strange. Though if it were real life, she would have got a lot of beer results.
• Bella’s housewifeyness (I just made that word up) was nonexistent, and they toned down Edward’s condescending attitude quite a lot. I also hate it in the books when he binds her wrists or puts his hand over her mouth or holds her in place. It makes me want to go after him with a flame thrower. Bella also isn’t quite as whiny and snobbish in the movie as she is in the book (Movie Bella only had one expression, though), but probably only because we weren’t subjected to her running narrative.
• The sparkling was understated. Based on the books, I was expecting to have my eyes put out, but it just looked like sweat. I know I’ve said this before, but really, sparkling vampires. The hell?

Overall, I can’t decide whether this movie is a cheese fest or a turkey. Honestly, if it didn’t have a built-in fanbase, it would have bombed at the box office. I’m not surprised they’re going to do New Moon, though. Can’t wait to see how they muck up werewolves. To be fair, most movie werewolves are terrible. In the 60’s (possibly the 70’s too, I can’t seem to remember) they were just guys with a lot of extra hair glued to their heads and hands, and they…wore…clothes. Oh, dear. In the 80’s they were these awful puppet type things (there’s a proper name for it, but I can’t remember that either), and now the CGI never looks that great.

However, Twilight definitely isn’t the worst movie ever made. Here are some worse ones (in my opinion only, that is):

• The Beast of Yucca Flats (1961) (Just see if you can sit through all 8 minutes of this clip, then try to imagine watching the whole thing!)
• The Brain That Wouldn’t Die (1962)
  
• Godzilla vs. The Smog Monster aka Hedora (1971) (Okay, it’s a given that Godzilla movies are cheesy, but I actually do enjoy some of them. This one, however, was awful!)
• Gargoyles (1972)
  
• The Lost Continent (I can’t remember which version I saw, all I remember is my brain going into a stupor because it was so dull)
• The Fog (1980)
  
• The Children (1980)
  
• Mortuary (1983)
• King Solomon’s Mines (1985)
  
• The Brain (1988)
  
• Flesh Eating Mothers (1988) (couldn’t find YouTube video for this one, but that’s okay)
• Heathers (1988) (Sorry, Raeann. My memory banks are trying to tell me you liked this one. I like some dark humor, but to me dark humor too often becomes tacky. Sorry!)
• The Wedding Singer (1998) (I know I am very much in the minority here, but I HATED this movie and all the childish sex jokes. I refuse to even find video for it)

I may add to this list if I think of more. I used to love finding really bad movies and laughing through them, until it became a fad, then it wasn’t fun for me anymore. You know me and my nonconformist tendencies. I don’t watch enough newer movies, so I can’t have any of those on my list. Suggestions, anyone?

~ * ~

Okay, back to my regularly programmed procrastination.

So, here I am again. Blogging slightly more frequently, aren’t I? It probably won’t last. I really just wanted to make up for my last emo post.

I also wanted to mention that I finally finished putting together my Wilder Side soundtrack playlist thingie. It isn’t a soundtrack for books one and two, it’s more like a soundtrack for the series as a whole. Actually, the best description would be that it’s a group of songs I kept coming back to while writing the first two books. All but two songs are available to hear. I broke down and created an account at playlist.com because they had three songs that Deezer did not. I don’t know what I have against playlist.com–I guess it’s just because everyone else uses it and I have to be different. I’m such a dork.

Anyway, if you’re interested, check it out here.

~ * ~

I’m finally burning my Frog Chronicles “audio books” onto CD’s! I wonder how long this has taken me? Probably around eighteen months. I know last year around this time I was going over the stories, improving on pronunciation and such. Oh well. If you want quality work you have to take the time. Nothing rushed ever turns out very well. I won’t consider this project finished until I’ve listened to all the CD’s and there are no errors.

~ * ~

So, the Twilight movie is out now, and we “uber Mormons” as Stephenie Meyer calls us are making a big fuss over it. How embarrassing. I will not be seeing it in the theater. I’ll wait for the DVD release and then get it from the library. Then I won’t have put a dime into it. I guess Stephenie Meyer would consider me one of the “uber Mormons,” because I have issues with the examples she sets in her books (if you’ve ever existed under a control freak, you know they are not doing it for your own good–and that’s just one of my issues). I heard her say in an interview that she doesn’t think while she writes. That much is evident, or she might have noticed some of the messages she unintentionally sends through her writing. I know it’s difficult as the writer to distance yourself from your own material and look at it objectively, but you should at least try. But if you have anything negative to say and you’re LDS and live in Utah, that makes you an “uber Mormon” according to Meyer. Way to insult members of your own religion!

Anyway, it kind of miffs me that she looks down on Utah Mormons, and yet they are among her biggest supporters. Aside from bored housewives, I mean. Actually, what miffs me is the showy support we give her in this state when she calls us “uber Mormons” because some of us see what she’s written as jaw-dropping bad examples for the young and impressionable. She responds to criticism like an emotional fanfic writer.

So why do I even want to see this movie at all when to me it looks boring and cheesy? Mostly I just want to see how absurd vampires look sparkling. I mean, sparkling. The hell? In the Twilight series, vampires are more like bloodthirsty rock monsters. But I can wait for the DVD release/library rental scenario. If it never gets released on DVD, then oh well.

I’m curious to see if I get trounced for writing this. It’s the same thing as writing anything bad about U2; readers you didn’t know you had come crawling out of the woodwork to tell you that you’re an idiot. *shrug* We all have our own opinions.

~ * ~

I had a little trouble with my heart racing thing yesterday. All I did was wake up, turn on my back, and stretch, and it felt like my heart was pulled up with my arms. Then it raced. *sigh* Some day I’ll be able to afford to see a cardiologist about that. I need to write down the various triggers and conditions under which it seems to happen so I can show it to said cardiologist in the future. Yeah. That’s what I’ll do.

“Planet Earth is slowing down….”  — Lonely Planet, the The

Before I start, let me just put out this disclaimer: I only speak my own opinion. That doesn’t mean I’m right.

Do you ever feel like you’ve been left behind? That the world keeps on changing and you just can’t change with it because none of these changes are for the better?

And this wangstfest of mine is mostly about minor stuff. Like food. Well, you do need food to exist, but I’m talking snack foods.

Mother’s Cookies has gone out of business after almost 100 years. My life comes to a grinding halt. I cannot say how much I love Mother’s Double Fudge cookies. I managed to snag the last 8 bags at Albertson’s, but that’s the end of the line. After that, no more Double Fudge.

You know what this means? Nothing is permanent. Reeses Peanut Butter Cups could be next. Pepsi will probably stop making caffeine free Mountain Dew.

Some other favorites of mine that are gone/I can’t get locally:

• Mystic Mint cookies
• Tropicana Orange Ade Lite
• York Peppermint Cookies
• Keebler Fudge cookies (it’s been so long, I can’t remember what their proper name)

I think I’ll add to that list as I remember stuff. I have difficulty recalling on the spot. Do you see a pattern there? I kinda like cookies. When I was a kid I liked Chips Ahoy and Oreos, but they aren’t the same. Chips Ahoy has way too many chips, and there’s an unpleasant vanilla aftertaste. The Oreos of today are the Double Stuf of twenty years ago, I swear.

~ * ~

Another thing that seemed reliable but no longer is: thrift stores.

I don’t mind saying that I get most of my clothes from thrift stores. I’m poor, is it a surprise? Yesterday I went to the Deseret Industries with my mother. I wanted a couple of T-shirts, a couple of pairs of jeans, and I was hoping to find a 100% cotton sweater. I may as well have gone to a new clothing store.

I know that sounds like a compliment, but it isn’t. You see, I’ve always had this problem with fashion. I cannot keep up with it. For one thing, it doesn’t interest me. For another, I’m way too nonconformist for that. I’ve always worn my own style, which is why I was made fun of in school (wow, like I cared what the popular kids thought). But the current fashions are hideous. They look like 70’s hybrids. I cannot wear jeans that are new but look old. I hate flares and hipsters. I hate designs on the back pockets. I hate those sickly greenish tints. I hate fringe belts! I don’t want to wear jeans that make my butt look like an inner tube, thank you.

Thrift stores used to be reliable in that they were a few years behind in fashion. That isn’t the case anymore. I couldn’t find anything that wasn’t hideous. I couldn’t even find a T-shirt that wasn’t polyester blend.

On a similar vein, you can’t even find nice shoes anymore. I do not want to wear athletic shoes, or shoes that are new but look frayed, or sequined shoes, or curduroy shoes, or furry shoes! I never thought leather shoes would go out of fashion. I love leather oxfords, but I can’t find them anymore.

Now, I know I’ve already admitted to knowing nothing about fashion, but what the hell happened?

I’m trying to figure out what I’m supposed to do. Conform, or wear potato sacks? Hmmm….

~ * ~

Maybe my inability to accept current trends and changes is just because of my life long struggle with depression. I don’t go around feeling depressed anymore, not like I was in my teens and twenties, but I’ve heard that you don’t have to feel depressed to be depressed. Guess I should go to an analyst and get diagnosed–so I can refuse to take medication for it! No, just to make it official. I don’t know, I just haven’t been able to function the way normal people can for years. I can’t get myself to do much work on my Finding Faith series right now, even though I’ve been looking forward to it.* I keep procrastinating and doing other stuff, but I’m really sick of everything I’m doing right now. But I don’t want to do anything else.

*You know, the funny thing about that–when I work on Finding Faith, I do tend to feel pretty depressed. But when I work on Wilder Side, I feel more cheerful. Finding Faith is the much lighter, more positive series. Emotional counterbalance on my part, perhaps?

Beh. Ready or not, life goes on.

~ * ~

I need to go take some aspirin. My left knee is aching. It’s going all the way up my leg. Plus, the back of my head is hurting. Aren’t you glad I told you that?

*shrugs* I’m in a really weird mood today. Hence this post.

Happy Halloween, from my mind to your eyes:

This dorkiness is the product of a dream I had yesterday, only embellished with my 3D arsenal. I don’t know if it even makes sense, but I think it goes to show that you shouldn’t take your dreams too literally.

Also, Quinn would like to wish you a Happy Halloween:

That’s him hiding in a box, waiting to get me. Isn’t it funny how cats like boxes? This one was especially fun for Quinn because it had paper wrapping too. He loves to chase and be chased, and he loves to threaten my life. What a nutter.

Okay, I’m finished setting up my blog’s new look. I kept with the same WordPress theme, but I changed the colors and graphics. Do you like? (For credits, see my About page).

~ * ~

Sammy Frog is a happy frog today, for the following reasons:

+ My migraine cycle started getting better last Monday, and I’m feeling better every day. It’s nice to feel human again. That’s the longest migraine cycle I’ve ever had. It started on Sept. 24th and went on until Oct. 13th.

+ I am back at work on the Finding Faith series! Last Monday when my migraine lessened up, I suddenly felt that I could resume writing the new story line to go into Planning it Right, and I finished it up on Sunday. I started it quite a few months ago, but had to abandon it because work on book two of Wilder Side became too intense. I can’t write two books at the same time; it divides my attention too much, and I don’t want to end up doing a sloppy job.

Anyway, it’s finished now, and it makes the book tons better. So all I have to do is finish typing it, blend it in with the existing material, edit it, and then send it to Carla for her keen editing input. Then on to book three, because I’ve already rewritten book two, and chronologically from there.

I love this series, mostly because it is so much easier to write/edit for than Wilder Side. It’s nice to have something less complicated to work on. Finding Faith doesn’t make my head feel like it’s going to explode.

+ Michael 4 is out, and we Platinum Club members get him for free first! *bounces up and down* I can’t wait to give him a test run, though already I can see that his arms and chest are much better than Michael 3. Yay!

…a new layout/color scheme/whatever you want to call it is in progress, so things are going to look funny and mismatched for a while until I can finish. My apologies for grossness in the interim. Crazy.