Rocky Starts and Better Finishes...

I've had better weekends.

While I managed to relax a little, this was not the best weekend I ever had. It started with my having to fire someone...that's never good.

I've done it before...fired someone, I mean. Sometimes, it's easy because it makes sense. Then there are the times, like this one, where it makes no sense at all and it simply feels wrong.

In this case, it was my candidate who I'd got to know so well, I knew the contents of his freezer. He's a very nice man. His references were stellar. I was excited that he was going to be working for us. He started work on this past Monday. He reported back to me that he loved his job. We tried to reach out to his boss to find out if they loved him as much as he loved them and...nothing. Repeatedly, my account manager reached out to her to see how things were going and...nothing....

Well, nothing until Friday at 3 p.m. at least. At this time, his boss called us to tell us that we needed to inform him that he no longer had a job and that it was effective immediately.

I was, naturally, devastated. It's one thing when you get a warning that the consultant isn't performing well. Normally, we get a warning and we get chance to reach out to our employee, give them the feedback and give them time to fix their errors.

Not this time. They were done with our guy. Never mind that he'd had five days to get up to speed. Never mind that he'd moved his whole life to take the job. Never mind that he'd taken out a huge loan to cover the expenses of moving his life...he was done.

Without trying to sound dramatic, it was one of the worst calls I've ever had to make. It's a different thing when you know it's deserved. In this case, it was only five days worth of work. He never had any warnings. Neither did we, no matter how much we dried to reach out and find out how things were going. They wanted him gone. I pleaded with my account manager to try to work something out so we offered our client a week's worth of 'free' services. This means we would simply pay our consultant his wages and our client would not have to pay a pennny.

This offer was refused. Sadly, this was the point at which I realized that no matter how good my candidate was, they had an agenda and he didn't fit. Otherwise, why on earth would you refuse a week's worth of free labour with the addendum that if the employee didn't improve, that was it?

My guess is that they either found someone cheaper to fill the position or, more likely, someone who'd left wanted to return.

Either way, it left my candidate stranded and jobless, 2000 miles from home and left me feeling like the worst human in the world.

Telling someone they're now unemployed is NOT the best way to start the weekend. This is a new fact I've learned. I don't recommend it so don't try it if you don't have to do so.

No matter what I did for the rest of the weekend, I couldn't quite shake the dark cloud that had fallen over me on Friday night after I'd fired our candidate. It's a human thing, I think. I am human...thus I felt horrible for treating another human the way that I did. Sure, it was my job. Certainly, it was better coming from me than someone he didn't know but...well, either way...it was not fun.

I did manage to get some fun in...I went back to Farmer's Market. I really need to stop that. My desire for farm-fresh, organic vegetables is far outweighing the actuality in which I can use said vegetables. Yet still I buy them anyway.

I managed to see "Harry Potter and the Deadly Hallows Part 2" again. It was just as good the second time because it wasn't so 'momentous' this was NOT the last time I'd see the last move for the first time. This was the last time I'd see it for the second time...not such a big deal. I enjoyed it.

I also got to have dinner with a friend which is always a good tonic for a sad soul. When I returned home on Saturday, I felt infinitely better than I had a mere 24 hours prior.

My Sunday has been great. I worked outside, cleaned inside and managed to conceptualize almost my entire next novel. I'd had an inkling of the plot for a while but only after letting "Emmy" go to fly free into the world of the e-book was I really ready to move on. I'm ready now and I think my new characters are ready for me too. Only time will tell.

In short, it's been an odd weekend that began worse than it ended. I suppose it's better than it ending worse than it began because it means that the week ahead is hopeful. I'm trying to be hopeful too...I just hope that I don't have to fire anyone else. As much as I love my job...it's not always easy.

Then again, I suppose that's true of life in general.

Happy Monday!

Accidental Early Starts...DirecTV and Other Weekendness

This has been another of those weekends that has just flown by. It was one where I had few plans other than to stay home on Saturday morning and wait for the DirecTV man to come. Since it was time to renew my contract, I called them up to cancel with a secret hope they'd lure me to stay by offering me some free goodies. Since I bought an HDTV after I'd subscribed to my original service, I was hoping for a free HDTV upgrade. Lo and behold, my threat of leaving their service guaranteed me a free HDTV receiver and free service for 24 months.

Thus, that was my plan for Saturday morning- to stay home and wait for Mr. DirecTV to come. My window of time was 8 a.m. to 12 p.m. I was pretty sure they wouldn't be there at 8 a.m. but, just in case, I planned on getting up by 7:30 a.m. to be ready. Well, that was a fine idea. I set my alarm for 7 a.m. so I could doze for 30 minutes. When it did go off at 7 a.m., I changed the alarm so it'd go off in another 30 minutes. At least I thought I had.

I dozed. Then my phone rang. It was an automated message from DirecTV reminding me that I had someone coming at 8 a.m. I glanced at the clock- it was almost 8:15 a.m.! I flew out of bed and got dressed quickly. I didn't fancy the DirecTV man coming while I was still in my pajamas.

I let the pups out and ran around and cleared up. Then, finally, I sat down. I glanced at the clock in my living room. I blinked. It appeared to say it was not quite eight a.m.

Well, it turned out that Silly Captain Monkeypants had accidentally adjusted the time on her clock rather than the alarm and my dozing which I thought had lasted an hour had in actuality only been about five minutes of dozing. Yes, i had been up since 7:10 a.m.

Mr. DirecTV came at 9:30 a.m. He had a bit of trouble with my old dish. Apparently there was a hornet's nest up there and he was deathly allergic so he didn't want to take it away like he was supposed to. Instead, he put a new dish up and left the old one so now I have two dishes. I think when the weather cools and the wasps die off, I may have them come and remove it just because I really don't want two dishes.

The installation of HDTV took quite a while. By the time he left, I was quite glad. He was a nice enough technician but he had been working outside in the heat and he was a little stinky. Also, he put those plastic footie things over his shoes so he didn't mess up my carpet and he ended up wearing right through the plastic so his shoes were only covered at the top. I didn't care but i thought it was a little pointless wearing the footie things. Also, the dogs were penned up in the kitchen/Tuscan room area and they don't like strangers in the house. Sookie likes to have a good woof. I call it her "STRANGER DANGER" bark.

I finally freed the dogs around noon. I immediately headed off to a local farmer's market. I'd made the mistake of spending the morning reading Bon Appetit and it had a ton of recipes for fresh veggies, particularly tomatoes so I really, really wanted some fresh tomatoes.

In the end, my Saturday ended up flying by and it was Sunday. Today, I spent most of the day getting "Emmy Goes to Hell" ready to be published as an e-book. It's a lot of work because you have to be very, very specific regarding format. The format for e-books is pretty much the complete opposite of print books so it's all rather tedious.

I perservered and the book is in the final approval status by my publisher. Once it gets approved, Emmy will be on sale for the low price of $2.99 on every electronic device out there. It's also available from Amazon as a hard copy, just in case you don't own a Kindle, Nook, etc. And yes, that was another shameless plug.

All in all, it's been a good weekend so far. The girls and I are currently enjoying a thunderstorm that brought some wonderful, much-needed rain. It's been pouring for a while and I can already see that my parched garden is drinking it up and appreciating every drop. Even when you water with a hose, it's never the same as organic rain. I expect my vegetables to grow a little more quickly for a while.

I love weekends like this where I have no real plans. I only really had the plan of waiting for DirecTV and possibly seeing "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2" again. I didn't end up seeing Harry but that was intentional. I do want to see it again quite badly but I decided that if I wait another week, I'll appreciate more again because it won't be quite so fresh.

For the rest of the weekend, I plan of spending some time with the neglected pups. They hate it when I sit at my desktop and work because I'm ignoring them and despite her best efforts, Sookie is just not a lapdog. I love having her on my lap but the length of a dachshund is not really conducive to comfort or convenience while trying to simutaneously type on a keyboard.

I also plan to go outside in a few minutes and spend a little time dancing in the rain because it's been so long since it rained and it's just so pleasant to feel those drops falling down and cooling everything down. I think that sounds like a lovely way to wind up a weekend, don't you?

Thanks, as always for reading. I hope you had a great weekend. Happy Monday!

Monogamous Reading and Writing

I haven’t really blogged much about writing lately which is slightly ironic since the original purpose of my blog was to talk about writing.

The truth is, I haven’t actually been writing much lately. This is a combination of wanting to take a break. I wrote ten novels in 8 years and I felt like it’d be nice to take some time off. So I did.

Also, I finished my last novel in January and it’s taken a while to deal with that. Since I published The Reluctant Demon, I’ve had several people tell me that it wasn’t edited as well as it could have been and there were typos in it. This is slightly embarrassing, I admit. However, since I just found a couple of typos in the book I’m reading, A Storm of Swords by George R.R. Martin that’s currently in the top ten best selling books list at the moment, I don’t feel so bad.

However, with my sequel to The Reluctant Demon, I wanted to take more time to edit and make sure it was as polished as it could have been. This is one of my excuses for not having written much lately.

Editing takes time. I’m not a fan of it. My normal process is to finish a book, go back and edit and then leave it for a few weeks/months and then edit again. It’s hard to edit something when you’ve been staring at it. It’s also hard to edit something you know so well. I find that my eyes tend to miss a lot of typos or punctuation mistakes.

This time, I decided to have others help me with the editing. I enlisted the aid of a good friend who is a ‘grammar’ queen. She was very helpful but I did discover when I got the edited manuscript back that while she had found a lot of the typos and given me a lot of constructive criticism, she’d also missed quite a few errors. My assumption is that she got sidetracked by the story and didn’t catch everything.

I was still grateful because she found a lot more stuff than I had. Still, it meant I had to go through and re-edit. It was easier this time since I hadn’t read the book in a few months. I found a lot of typos, punctuation errors and even some continuity problems.

Still, I didn’t think it was quite ready so I decided to run it through a final filter, my friend Saz. She is one of those very organized writers who is excellent at punctuation and detail. I sent her the book. She was kind enough to read it and let me know of other errors/typos she’d found.

When I got it back, I made the changes and, finally, it felt like it was done. This whole process pretty much took from January through June.

During this time, I thought about writing something new. I’ve been percolating an idea in my head but I seriously don’t feel like it’s ready to write yet. Also, the idea of writing something while trying to get Emmy ready to publish just didn’t seem like a good idea. I’m one of those people who simply can only read one book at once. By that, I don’t mean that I’m holding a book in each hand and trying to read both books at the same time. I mean that if I’m reading one book, I don’t like putting it down and picking up something else until I’ve finished the first book.

I just don’t like to do it. I am a decidedly monogamous reader and if I read two books simultaneously, it feels almost like I’m ‘cheating’ on the other book. Weird, I know, but it’s true. Also, I like sitting down and getting absorbed in the fictional world behind the pages and if I’m reading a different book, I have to jump between worlds. I like to read one, get absorbed into that world until I’m done and then move on.

You get the idea. This is why I have the same mentality when it comes to writing. I can’t write two books at the same time. I need to focus my energy and passion on one book and then move on. I can sometimes work on other things like short stories but then again, I’m ok with reading a magazine and a book at the same time. They’re like apples and oranges.

So, since I intend to publish Emmy Goes to Hell, I didn’t feel comfortable starting something new until Emmy was off my plate and completely done.

Well, Emmy is finally done. It should be up for sale on Amazon.com in the next week as well as through online retailers. The last step is to get it up for e-readers like the Kindle and Nook. This is not as easy as it sounds as it involves rather a lot of formatting changes in order to be converted into the many and varied formats for each type of e-reader.

I’ll be glad to be done with Emmy. It was fun to write but I’m ready for something new and different. Once the e-reader version is available, I’ll finally be able to put the book aside and move on. It’s taken a while but I’m pleased with the result. It’ll be nice to get back to actual writing again rather than the nitty gritty of publishing. Of course, there’s the marketing but…well….that’s not the same. That’s not cheating on my new book.

So, aside from this being a blog about writing, it’s a shameless plug for Emmy Goes to Hell. Please buy my book. It’s quite funny, quite dark and, as always, just wee bit twisted. I like it more than The Reluctant Demon because there’s a little more to it. Neither book is ever going to be my magnum opus but I think they’re fun reads.

Now it’s done, I can move on and write something new. I’m not quite sure what that will be but it probably won’t involve demons this time around. I’ll keep you posted.

Thanks, as always for reading!

Happy Thursday!

Beautiful Weather, Mundane Days...

Today was one of those sort-of-nothing days where not much of any significance happened at all. I was woken early to the wonderful sound of Dog Whisperer’s Beasts barking themselves into a frenzy very close to my bedroom window. They like to stand at the gate and bark. My window is probably six feet from the gate. Thus, when they bark and I’m trying to sleep, it’s frustrating. Even Rory had a good moan about it. My pups used to sit upright when they’d hear the yapping. Now, like me, they grumble and try to shut it out so we can sleep longer. I find that amusing.

When we did finally get up, it was to a day at work that was busy but not terribly productive, if that makes sense. I’m trying hard to fill jobs but the ones we have are the hard ones that no one in Cincinnati has been able to fill. I did manage to get two interviews set up for candidates but since it’s for the same job, it really only counts as one since only one of them can get the job.

I also did lose a candidate who my account manager and I have been working very hard to make happy. He got an offer from our client which was a very good offer. Unfortunately, he had another job offer- ironically from my old company- for a lot less money.

For some reason, he decided to reject our offer and take the one with my old company. I’m sure something about it appealed more but, well, I can’t help but think he’s making a bit of a mistake. It’s not just about the money. When we met with him, he told us he was looking for a position where he could move up, learn new technologies and rise in his career. I don’t think that’s possible at my old company, honestly.

Still, it’s his choice. I didn’t tell him that in my soon-to-be-published novel, Emmy goes to Hell, there’s a whole level of Hell dedicated to my old job. Maybe I should have done. Still, he made his choice and as frustrating as it is, there’s nothing I can do about it.

Aside from that, my day was rather dull. I had another candidate come in who’s been out of work for a while. He actually lives in my neighbourhood and the dogs and I walk by his house on our sojourns fairly regularly. He was very nice but a little odd. Still, at the very least, it was nice to meet another neighbour.

All-in-all, it wasn’t the most exciting day on the planet. My boss is out of the office. This, of course, means that Mr. Lazy Account Manager in our office left at 1 p.m. Today, he had a stomach ache. Last week, he left each day by 3 p.m. One day, he had to pick up his kids, another day, one was sick, another day, he had to go help his wife, another day, he had a meeting. He’s very good with excuses. He only does it when my boss isn’t around. Also, since he tells our administrator his reason for leaving, it’s oddly different from what he tells the rest of us. While I think it’s nice to get out of the office early once in a while, he’s got to the point where everyone knows he’s just not doing any work. Well, everyone except my boss and I have a feeling that, thanks to my endearingly interfering coworker, he’ll know very soon.

Fortunately, it’s a beautiful day outdoors which redeems the somewhat dull indoor day. On days like this where it’s in the mid 70 degree range, my favourite thing to do is sit outside and either read or, as I’m currently doing, edit the proof copy of Emmy Goes To Hell. I got it back from the publisher last week and while I like the cover, there was still quite a lot of edits to make inside. It’s nice to sit outside with a cold drink, my book and my pen. Usually, I have a Sookie trying to sit on my lap which not only makes it a little hard to edit but, also, makes her sister rather jealous and having two dogs on my lap is just downright uncomfortable. I don’t have that much lap.

The trouble with the evenings is that they go so fast. By the time I get home, walk the pups and make dinner, the evening is waning away. I probably could cut down on the time I spend making dinner but where’s the fun in that?

On the plus side, after a slightly dull day at work, it’s a sheer pleasure to sit outside and relax with the pups milling around my feet. Except for the barks of the Beasts next door, it’s a peaceful thing to do. While I still hate their incessant yapping, I’ve got to the point where I can literally ignore it when I’m outside. It’s all I can do.

Besides, it’s an even nicer pleasure when they finally go inside and, suddenly, there’s a blissful silence.

That makes it almost worthwhile.

Happy Wednesday!

To Sleep...Perchance to Dream

Have you ever had a dream that’s so vivid and clear that, when you wake up, you’re disorientated for a brief moment and find yourself wondering which is the real world?

I’m sure you have. I’m sure, at some point, everyone has a dream like this. After all, if you watch the movie “Inception,” that’s pretty much the entire premise.

It’s amazing the landscapes our slumbering minds can create. We get to go places in our dreams that we’d never be able to go in reality. Reality is twisted and distorted and everything is possible.

I had one of those dreams last night. I won’t bore you with the details because our dreams are never as exciting to others as they are to us. I think it’s because while we’re dreaming, we feel like it’s real and, when we awaken, we still have the sense that something happened, even if it was just the makings of our subconscious mind.

The hard part about dreams is that they slip away from us. We can try to hold on to them but, over time, though we remember the main component of what happened, we don’t remember the tiny details that made it so vivid that we woke up feeling strangely exhilarated and as if we’d actually experienced them.

I try to write down dreams like this. I do it as soon as I can after waking so I can remember as much as I possibly can before it fades away, a distant whisper of something we dreamed but never as alive as it was upon waking.

The interesting thing is to go back and read about those dreams a few years later. I actually had a dream journal where I tried to capture the essence of the most vivid of my dreams. I read it recently and rereading them, I’m often amazed at the things my sleeping brain devised. I might remember having the dream but reading the details amazes me.

The one I had last night was like that. To some people, it would be alarming. To me, it was fascinating. Essentially (and without the too boring details), it involved an apocalypse, a Beast, me selling my soul to Satan in order to become a powerful demon who was immortal.

The thing I remember most is the detail of the dream. Even now, I can pinpoint the moment in the dream where I made the choice to sell my soul. It sounds weird and twisted but I’m fascinated that my subconscious was able to make it so realistic and actual. There was panic in the dream, mass chaos and lots of fear. Then there was an otherworldliness to the Hell my brain created and the exhilaration of feeling power and control.

(Note to people who know me: I promise I’m not contemplating a change in faith or becoming a satan worshipper. My brain is just a bit odd when I sleep. And when I’m awake. But that’s another story).

Granted, if you’re familiar with my book, The Reluctant Demon, demons and Hell aren’t exactly a stretch of my imagination. Since I just finished the sequel, Emmy Goes To Hell, it’s not even a surprise that I can visualize Hell since that’s entirely what composes the framework of that book.

However, the Hell of my subconscious was far scarier and, dare I say it, than the Hell my sleeping brain concocted. The demon I became was nothing like the demons I made up in my book. There were processes in my dream Hell that were surprisingly logical: I had to get baptized into the name of Satan, eat some form of offal and have dinner with Satan himself.

Naturally, as a writer, I’m quite fascinated. It’s like my brain wanted to write a new story, something darker and creepier than the comedic effort I just composed. If I had to analyze it, it’s probably due to the fact that I wrote my demon books to try something lighter and new but I’ve missed the dark and twistier tone I usually use. This was my brain’s attempt to reconcile what I actually did with what I subconsciously wanted to do.

This is not to say I don’t like the books I wrote. I do. I think they inject a little darkness into the chick-lit genre while still keeping a somewhat light tone. My heroine has trials and tribulations but she’s intrepid and determined and is never really in any danger. It would be a different book if she didn’t make it out of Hell but got stuck there forever. It definitely wouldn’t be a romantic comedy, would it?

It’s just that, well, danger is exciting, isn’t it? It’s thrilling and it makes things interesting as long as it ends well.

I think my next book needs to have a little more danger and darkness. I think my dream was my mind’s way of reminding me that while it’s fun to create fluffier things, what I really enjoy is a dark and twisty tale where my heart pounds a little and I never quite know if my hero/heroine will make it out intact.

Whatever the reason, I have to admit, I was disappointed to wake up this morning, even if it was to a puppy frantically trying to wake me up so I’d let her go outside to do her business. I felt a strange let down because I would never find out the end of my dream-tale. Dreams are not like DVR’s where you can resume the spot in the TV show where you left off and they’re not like books where you can bookmark a page and jump right back into the story.

Instead, dreams are an amazing place that’s always different and you never, ever know where you’ll end up when you lay down to sleep.

You just go along for the ride.

Happy Friday!

Reflections of a Life at Work...

Today started as another stormy day with the sky so dark, it didn't feel like daylight at all. When the rain came, it came down with torrential force. It cleared up eventually but now it's starting to cloud up again and Mr. Weatherman told us that we should expect more storms.

I don't mind a good storm. I find them therapeutic. At the moment, especially at work, I could use therapeutic. It's one of those times in which I'm trying to be zen but each day presents yet another challenge and I have to remind myself of my mantra: "It's only a job, it's only a job."

It is only a job but it's disgusting how much of a bearing our jobs have on our lives. Sometimes it's just impossible to convince yourself it's only a job. After all, for me, at least, I work 40 hours a week. I get 12 days off a year. If you want to be mathematical about it, at 40 hours a week, for 52 weeks a year, that's a total of 2080 working hours. Take away the 12 days off I get, at eight hours a day times 12, that's 96 hours of vacation/sick time. That leaves 1984 hours per year in which I work.

Yes, I used numbers. Scary, I know. But when you stop to think about it, 1984 hours per year is a lot. That's a lot of time to be spending with coworkers and bosses who drive you a little crazy each day. It's no wonder that sometimes its easy to lose perspective as to the fact that it's just a job.

For me, now I have puppies to come home to, it does make work easier. It doesn't make it better but it gives me an escape. I come home for lunch each day and that hour is the best hour of my day. I get to hug my puppies, eat my lunch and escape from my office. Even on the worst days, I've found that this hour can make any day better.

It's all largely due to the puppies who, in spite of their penchant to dig up flowers, rip up paper, eat my books and chew my shoes, are too easily forgiven. They're currently staring up at me as if to say, "hey, lady, why aren't you paying attention to us."

Of course, on the downside, this makes it incredibly hard to write. I tried to get some time in tonight. I got some writing done. I'm working on the sequel to The Reluctant Demon which, I've probably mentioned, is tentatively entitled, Emmy Goes to Hell. I'm stealing a little from Dante and his nine circles of Hell. Oddly, the sixth circle, the first level in which is considered "Lower Hell" bears a striking resemblance to 'Emmy's' office.

I know I'll have to be careful because it's easy to get sued for libel these days. I'm being careful. However, this time around, Emmy's office in Hell often, conincidentally, resembles mine at times. Strange how that happened. I did make the concession that coffee would be worse in Hell though, in truth, I'd challenge that in real life. Sometimes the coffee in our office is so vile, it's like someone sprinkled coffee in a jug of chlorine and called it 'fresh coffee.'

The fun of being a writer is that you can draw from real life without stealing completely. You can use your observations to be creative. It's one of the joys of my life. I try hard not to be passive agressive in my writing though, to call out friends and foes who I feel have let me down or upset me. I know people who have done that and it never ends well. Instead, I try to add a sardonic layer to my writing in which I gently poke fun at people without being malicious. For example, my heroine in "The Reluctant Demon" calls one of the managers "Voldemort" because, to her, he bears a striking resemblance to the Ralph Fiennes version from the Harry Potter movies. Let's just say that I might have projected one of my own thoughts from one of our own managers there.

By that, I wasn't being mean. I just observed that, to me, this manager did look like Voldemort. Of course, now some of my coworkers have read my book, I have had them giggle that they never thought about the manager like that but I "am so right!"

Oops.

But there's a strange pleasure in that. It means people are really reading my book and remembering small details like that. Ok, it does make it easier if you know it's written by me and you work with me and know that there is a manager who looks like Voldemort. Of course, you probably wouldn't have noticed that until "Emmy" pointed it out in The Reluctant Demon. Still, people noticed and it's fun to have them act shocked but amused at the observation.

Whoever it was that said, "The Pen is Mightier Than the Sword," was definitely right. I have to confess that it gives me a lovely feeling of power over my sometimes miserable work situation to know that no matter how much I'm made to feel like Harry Potter, I can retailiate in fiction. It's therapeutic and it makes for some great writing; nothing is more powerful for writing than a bad experience that riles you up so much you have to do something about it. Me...I choose words. I write in a furious frenzy on days like this. If words could throw up dust as I typed them up, my 'office' would be so cloudy, you wouldn't be able to see me.

It's one of the reasons I do love being a writer, even if things on that front don't always go as smoothly as I'd like. There is a benefit to writing, even if it's not in the form of recognition and sales. It's days like this that remind me, once again, why writing is my chosen form of expression and no matter how much I threaten to quit, I couldn't. It's my coping mechanism and everyone needs one of those.

Unless you're a puppy and your coping mechanism is digging up flowers.

Thanks for reading! Happy Thurday!