Shelli Stevens

I had a really good day. For many reasons. Let’s start with the big one.

MY BOOK GROUNDS FOR AROUSAL FINALED IN THE STROKE OF MIDNIGHT CONTEST!!!! Yup, just got the email tonight. It’s for the contemporary category. Meaning Kate Duffy at Kensington will be reading it. It took me awhile to regain consciousness, but I’m good to go now. I’m super excited. What more can I say?

Okay, the other reasons my day was good. I got a response from one of the companies I requested a gift certificate from for the Seattle conference. I have acquired us a one night stay at the Rosario Resort on Orcas Island in the San Juan Islands. That’s pretty darn fabulous. That place is gorgeous and isn’t cheap. Woo whoo! Gonna bring in some money on those raffles. Which is great, because we donate a good amount of the proceeds to DAWN (domestic abuse women’s shelter.)

Another reason my day rocked. I got my book cover business cards! TONS of cards with my book, my name, and the publishers name on the front, and little calendars on the back. Let me tell ya, gonna hand those suckers out like candy on Halloween “Here, take five, you look like you could use it! And don’t forget to share with your friends!”

Also, I worked out today! Eating wasn’t the best, wasn’t the worst, but I exercised. And that felt fabulous. My thighs are still shaking. In a good way.

And I must add on a happy little cute note, I did write one story this year that had no sex. That Christmas story I subbed to Highland Press. The one that my conservative family can read (should it be accepted.) And so my 11-year-old niece wanted to read it. And I kept putting her off, but finally after constant harassment I gave in. And she liked it! It was so sweet. She thought the french kissing bit was icky, but liked the rest. Even asked if I had anything more in the PG department to read. Hee hee. Um. No. Not yet anyways.

All right. That’s it for now. Not much more to say… oh wait!

Happy Easter tomorrow! Or today, technically!

FOUR THINGS
4 movies you would watch over and over: Love Actually, Goonies, Super Troopers, French Kiss
4 Places you’ve lived: All in Washington state. Seattle, Lynnwood, Edmonds, Shoreline.
4 TV shows you love to watch: Local News, National News, The View
4 places you have been on vacation: England, Ireland, Hawaii, Mexico
4 Websites you visit daily: My Blog, Email, Romance Divas, silverjewelrystore.com (thank you Sara and Loribelle!!)
4 places you would rather be right now: Hawaii, England, Ireland, Bahamas
Tag 4 Friends you think will respond: Jen, Loribelle, Patricia, Jodi and anyone else whom ever signs my blog.

So I’m back. And what a great night I had on Whidbey. It was a little crowded. The rain was pounding down, the wind was so fierce the cabin shook, and the huge fire made it all that much more fun. When Emma finally went to sleep I sat in bed, listening to the wind and just wrote. I got 7 pages done! And another one in the morning! Purty nice.

Then I came home, and totally stopped procrastinating on an Ebay project. I have a buttload of clothes I needed to sell from Emma’s summer collection last year. So I got out the camera, took the pics, set it up on Ebay, and now I’m selling a bunch of baby girl clothes from Gymboree! Woo Whoo!

I’m in a spontaneous chat right now, at the Cobblestone Press website. So I’m really just utterly distracted. So maybe this isn’t the best time to be blogging. All right.

I’ve been writing most of the morning. In fact, I’m in the midst of a pretty intense love scene, so I’m taking a break. Hee hee. Whew, is it hot in here?

I’m so proud of myself. Well, okay, I had a lot of help. But yesterday, I learned how to build a page for my website. Like, build an actual webpage. My head spins and I gasp in astonishment, but yes, it has happened. It all started when I wanted to learn how to add an excerpt for my second book to my website. I hate harassing Jodi to do everything for me, so I wanted to learn myself. So instead I harassed Loribelle. :) She took me through the process, and it wasn’t as complex as I imagined. Then Jodi ended up helping me some too, but now I know. And my new excerpt is up. It’s from my second book I sold to Cobblestone Press, The Pirate’s Booty. Check it out if you wanna (Warning, it’s somewhat spicy! ;) http://shellistevens.tripod.com/ex-tpb.htm

So I’m leaving town tonight. I’m going to Whidbey Island. For real this time, no backing out. My daughter is already up there with her grandparents, uncle, and my nieces. Eek, it’s going to be crowded. I’m gramma sitting for a second day. So nice, I could really use the money and the time to write. But then I’m off to Whidbey and I’ll have no internet. I’ll be back tomorrow though.

No big response from my mailing yesterday about Love, Lust and Other Oddities. Kind of a bummer, but maybe it’ll just start slow and pick up as time goes by. I guess I shouldn’t be expecting people to join the bandwagon yet, most of us don’t even have our books out yet. I think we’re about a month and a half out. Woo whoo! Sooo excited. Look for our add in the June RWR.

All right, I think I’ve blown enough time blogging for now. I should get back to writing. Although I’m already going through internet withdrawal, knowing in a few hours I’ll be without it. I can do this… I can do this…

No weird dreams last night! Whew, thank God on that one. Going through the end of the world in a dream is pretty tiring.

I got about 4 1/2 pages written yesterday. Didn’t quite make the 5 page mark. Why was that? Oh yeah, Emma woke up early from her nap. See, sometimes that happens. And what a bummer, but hopefully I’ll make it up today.

So I sent out a big mailing about our newsletter and blog Love, Lust, and Other Oddities. A wee bit scary, since I never do that kind of thing, but it needed to be done. I hope people don’t think I’m just a big promo queen, hitting all the loops though. Cause usually I don’t. Even though… I guess that’s standard. *Shrug* Obviously, I’m still new at this.

I’m gramma sitting today. So I’ll have lots of time to write, blog, and do other random fun stuff. Woo whoo! And a break from Emma. *Sigh* so nice.

I bought a massively cute/sexy outfit to where to a club I was supposed to go in a week, but it got called off. It was all in the name of research, it’s a slightly… different club ;) In fact, I had to be talked into going. That’s going to be delayed for a bit, but should still happen. Just gotta grow the balls to go.

I am talking about absolutely nothing today, argh, I’m sorry. I just promised myself I’d do a blog entry. And I’m so freaking boring. I’ll leave it at that.

I have to write down this dream, before I forget it. Because it was one of those dreams I was SO glad to wake up from. It left me wondering what the heck I ate last night.

Okay, so I dreamt that it was the end of the world. Last Days. Revolutions. Armageddon. Whatever you want to call it. It was a little freaky. How it happened was, there was a big storm. I watched the lightening hit once, then a second time in the same spot, the third there was a big flash of blue, kind of like a nuclear bomb had gone off. And that’s when the news reports started coming in. How some sort of poisonous toxins had entered the atmosphere and the entire planet would be dead within three days. And sure enough, people started dying off. Some went into hiding in underground bunkers. But it was the end, and we all knew it. The fire department would put up signs on houses where people had already passed on. I kept waiting for giant horses with Angels to come sweeping through, some biblical stuff that scare the crap out of me. I remember looking down at Emma and thinking she’s only two not nearly enough time on this earth. We didn’t have enough time together.

Then I woke up. Totally tweaking with such an intense dream. I went to the bathroom and then went back to bed, determined to not have such a depressing dream. But I went straight back to it. Only, this time I did have more control over it. I realized I was going to die, and I realized I hadn’t had sex in 3 years. So I grabbed this guy next to me. Totally hot. And I said, “Since we’re about to die, let’s f*ck” and he was like,”Okay. Let’s do it.” But just as we were about to, his head grew, his face turned red, and then he died.

Even in my dreams I can’t get laid! ARGH!

And then I woke up for good. Not much to say after that.

I did get 6 pages written on my novella last night. Woo whoo!

First, before I forget. I have two other blogs that I belong to that I really should be talking about more. The first one is the Cobblestone Press blog http://www.cobblestonepress.blogspot.com/ the second is the Newsletter that I’m in blog. So check them out sometime for sh*ts and giggles! www.lovelustandotheroddities.blogspot.com The links will always be on my sidebar from now on!

Sheeze, what a lazy weekend. I know I said if I didn’t write I’d be at Whidbey, but no. My friend bailed cause it was raining basically. K, we’re in Seattle, it’s supposed to rain! So I stuck around here. Kept checking my inbox to see if my cover for Pirate’s Booty was there yet. Alas, no. *Sigh* Of course, last night I stayed up way to late talking to some Divas, and a lot of Cobblestone people in the Diva chat room. That was a blast!

So I’m into the novella I’m writing. Although, I wonder if I’m rushing things since my heroine has already had an orgasm on page eight. But, I’m thinking… no. It’s a big plot point. No, it is. Seriously! I got a few pages written (way under goal today) and where I ended it, I laughed my arse off. Even though I’m doing paranormal aspects, my humor is still coming through a bit. Can’t help it!

Today I did some mega Easter shopping with my mom. I swear to God she bought the entire stock of Cadbury eggs at the drug store. We do this thing where we take in strays on Easter. Well, not strays so to speak, but friends and family who have no where to go. So we make up a bunch of Easter baskets.

My daughter said shut up tonight. She heard it said once, and bam! And we have this battle going on what she’s going to eat. I swear, all she eats is bread and spoonfuls of peanut butter.
Well, she likes other stuff too. But that’s her favorite. Bread, and PB. Hey, I just realized peanut butter has the same initial as my book Pirate Booty. There you have it. PB is good. Buy my book. I’m waaaay too tired to be writing right now.

G’night!

Okay, enough of the toilet blog. Today I’m back on the ball and putting up a fresh blog entry. Of some kind, of some sort.

Emma’s been on good behavior lately, well besides staging anti-nap protests. But her cousins are over today and she’s been moving about a mile a minute. Which means she’ll pass out early tonight… yes!

I also went to Weight Watchers this morning. This is after a really bad March. I mean I was celebrating two book sales, my birthday, and a bad doctor’s visit (k, not really celebrating that last one, but definitely using emotional eating to deal with it!) So anyways, I weighed in this morning and I LOST 4/10ths of a pound. Hoo Ha! So I am back on the wagon instead of running behind it.

On other great news, I started my novella. I’m only three pages in, but I am so impressed. I love where it begins, and I love where it’s going. Do you ever just look down at your WIP and think… this is going to be my best one yet… I’m a bit like that now. Of course, I could be totally wrong. It’s just my POV, hee hee, but time will tell.

I just got done having lunch with one of my best friend’s, whom I never see because of the darn dental hygiene school. But she’s almost done and soon she’ll be making bank. Then it’s going to be caviar and mimosa luncheons. Yuck. All right, it’ll be Quizno’s instead of Subway.

It’s possible I’m going away for a couple of days this weekend… oh, wouldn’t that be lovely? Of course, it means no internet… oh God… I’m not sure…. already going through withdrawal. NO! YES! If I go silent for a few days, you know it’s true. I’m on an Island, drinking wine and walking on the beach. With a two-year-old and her lipstick in tow, of course.

So while I was out gramma sitting today, I guess my daughter was getting into mischief while my parents watched her. I’m not sure what her obsession is with the bathroom, but instead of sleeping during her nap, she snuck into the bathroom and had a little fun with her grandma’s lipstick….

So yeah, I’m sure you really wanted to open my blog and see a pic of a toilet, but there it is. I only wished my parents had taken a pic of Emma, apparently she painted her face too!

Today was productive, and it’s still early. I pretty much plotted my entire novella, and I’m SO excited for it. This is going to be a good one, I just know it. On top of that, I sent out four emails to various companies trying to get donations for our conference in Seattle.

I had coffee with Patricia. We sat outside at Starbucks, I sipping my Americano, she sipping some frothy iced drink. The sun was warm, the conversation always good. My wind down to my day of freedom. Wednesday’s are nice for that. Mucho hours of Emma-free time. Not that I don’t love Em, but come on, we all need breaks now and that.

Loribelle is kicking butt on getting our newsletter up and running. I think we decided on the title Love, Lust & other Oddities. Hee hee. Pretty cute. And we’re doing a group newsletter with five other authors, since we’re all pretty much starting out.

Okay, Emma’s tired today. Skipped the nap (to paint the toilet, remember?) So I’m off….

Umm I’d like to say I was totally productive today and wrote 20 pages. But, that’d be a lie. I started an outline and wrote 6 words. Count them, six. But, I did get out and about today. I spent some time with Emma and my mom. We took Emma Easter shopping, and then to the beach in Edmonds. See this pic to the side?
That’s a picture of Emma, and the grandson of my sixth grade teacher. We ran into them at the beach. My old teacher remembered me. (Patricia, remember Mr. Atienza?) Talk about crazy! Emma’s obviously not impressed with being flirted with.

Today wasn’t totally unproductive, however, I did a read through of the beginning of a friend’s new book. I judged a butt load of contests in the Divas. And I brainstormed Newsletter title ideas with Loribelle. My contest entry in Divas seems to be doing fairly well. Of course only 2 people judged it, hee hee.

When I go to bed in a few minutes, with Emma, I’ll get to write in bed! So… maybe I should just rush along this blog entry and head to bed. I guess I’ve been into the pics in my blog thing lately. It’s just so pretty at the beach I had to take pics!

Ooo and I ate good again today. My jeans felt a little looser. So amazing what a couple days of not eating crap can do for you!

Also, I’ve added a link to my friend Patricia’s blog. She’s my friend, a non-writer, and she’s just started her first blog. She’s under my links section under Patricia R. (my longtime bud) or just click here http://blog.360.yahoo.com/blog-EKdK9d8herI_xi4XDOtVMUMSL.AEk5c-?cq=1 But it’s on yahoo, so no one knows she’s out there, so I said I’m linking her. She’s a fabulous person who’s traveled the world with the army, and was even in Iraq for a bit. So go say hi and tell her Shelli sent ya!