Revising, revising

Editing Chasing AllieCat for the publisher--for my editor at FLUX Books. I forgot how much I love revision. This is very satisfying. However, it's always easier to revise when somebody has purchased your manuscript, so you know the revisions count.

Some of his comments made me mad at first, and I was fully prepared to fight my side of the disagreement; however, as I work through the manuscript, more and more of his insights make sense. I'm finding I disagree with him less and less. Am I getting wimpy? Or is John McIntyre right? I think it's the latter.

Love this blog:

http://johnemcintyre.blogspot.com/2009/12/you-dont-want-your-editor-to-be-your.html

I feel like I always learn something from John. Or at least he makes me laugh! Wish I could meet him. I imagine there'd be never a dull moment.

Snow, snow, and more snow: it's why we live in Minnesota, right?

Snow!
This was my deck when I got home after a week in North Carolina. I had to get a friend to plow me out. Too much for my faithful, sturdy little John Deer garden tractor, even with chains.

Freya and I waded through the snow over my knees, and up to Freya's ribcage. The snow has a rather unrelenting crust after the wet stuff that fell on Christmas, so I "tripped" and fell. More than once. Freya came inch-worm bounding over, pounced while I was down, snatched my hat, and took off. She dropped on it in a drift...and the snow plow buried it. So I had to rake the snow to find my hat. Something wrong with raking snow.

Christmas Day

An absolutely relaxing, delightful day.
The best Eggs Benedict I've ever had for breakfast....

I actually wrote and edited quite a bit today! Woke with a brainstorm for a sequel to AllieCat, so I hammered out a few pages before I forget what I was thinking.
I edited AllieCat quite a while, and I did work out.

100 crunches/sit-ups
20-25 push-ups
50 bicep curls each arm
50 lunges with shoulder presses.

Franklin insists on licking my face or climbing on me while I do sit-ups. It's quite the operation, but I did it!

Christmas Eve

So my Christmas present to myself is that I'm going to write and work out every day, no matter WHAT else I have to do. School overwelms me, and I refuse to let it consume my life this semester. Refuse. Did you hear that?

So--I'm working out and writing day by day. I don't have a bike in N.Carolina, so I'm walking, doing pushups and sit-ups, and lifting Nikki's weights. Franklin, my grandpuppy, licks my face the entire time I do sit-ups, so it's a challenge, but I can feel it already. I've been slackin' and I can't if I'm going to try for Leadville! And eating right is a huge piece of working out, too, and even though it's hard at Christmas, it's not impossible!

At this lovely Christmas Eve moment, Nikki is practicing her trombone (love listening), and Tom is cooking and amazing-smelling ham and lentil soup (leftover bone from the early Christmas ham dinner).

Gonna blog about this training regimen, and my ideal goal: That my characters Sadie, Allie, and Joe race Leadville in an upcoming year in another novel. I'm pretty stoked.

I'm in!--

to the lottery for entering the Leadville 100 Mountain Bike Race. But just getting so far as to register for the lottery took an hour an a half on a jammed website. But I'm this far, and I have to treat it every day as if I'm doing the race. Let the serious training begin!

This morning: oatmeal and berries instead of the fat muffins/bread I've been eating for the holiday.

The race might put me in the hospital, knowing my propensity for broken bones and crashing and such--but as Shelby (Julia Roberts)in Steel Magnolias said, "I'd rather have thirty minutes of wonderful than a lifetime of nothin' special." Me, too. In this case, it's 12 hours of wonderful agony rather than a lifetime of nothin' special.
So let the training begin!

Leadville? Leadville!

Today begins my Leadville Odyssey. I'm on another computer, trying to register for the Leadville 100 Mountain Bike race.
Lance Armstrong twittered that registration was open, so I jumped on that immediately.
It might just kill me, or put me in the hospital, but I have to try.

Christmas time!

At Nikki and Tom's house, along with Josh and Emily. Balmy N. Carolina weather and the very definition of relaxation: reading, movies, eating, doing a puzzle, more eating. Did I say eating? I'll never be ready for Leadville 100 (if I get in) unless I QUIT eating crap the minute I get back to MN. But for now, it's all good. It's Christmas and I'm with my kids.

Done!!

Finally, finally. Entered grades about 10 p.m. last night. Helping with registration for a few hours in the middle of the day didn't help! But I'm done.

Cannot wait to see the kids.

Wish Freya could come, but Tom will be good to her.

The day is almost over

And I'm still grading. D2L has not worked at home at all, so I'll have to enter all the rest of my grades tomorrow morning at school. I hit "save," and four minutes later, the screen changes. Not good.
I can't wait to be done. I'm tired. Tired. Going to bed, getting up at 4:00 again...

snow?

I do love snow, but since it took me six hours to plow out after the last dump of white stuff, I could stand for it to wait until finals are over for the next onslaught.
My garden tractor has chains on it and has a mighty little motor, but even so, the Durango had to pull the John Deere out four times. And people wonder why I drive a gas-hog car. It's cause I HAVE to if I'm going to navigate my driveway in the winter! (And haul a 147-pound dog and a bicycle).

A Snowy Day

That's Ezra Jack Keats, thank you very much. A perfect picture book.

But it's also a day to stay in and grade papers like a maniac, watch the lovely whiteness pile up outside the window, drink tea, grade papers, play with Freya in the drifts, ride my trainer, grade papers, eat the soup I made last night, and grade papers. You get the drift.

My only regret: that it's my next to last day with my Humanities class; they are a ton of fun, and we needed the two hours.

Dream big...

Levi Leipheimer (pro cyclist, outstanding contender for the Tour de France, seems like a truly good sport, good soul, for those of you who don't know) on Twitter today, said that he wouldn't be where he is today if he had listened to some people (probably telling him to be practical or realistic). He says, "dream big." I knew I liked that guy.

Snow.

Snow and 10 degrees this morning, walking Freya--there was even ice on the Minnesota River! Glad that a trainer is an option.