The Gina Channel

12 Things I've Learned Since Being Laid Off

2008-07-19T12:10:00.000-07:00

1. The DH hasn't dusted in some parts of this place in ten (10) years. Really.

2. Dawn detergent gets oil out of fabric.

3. The Pooh wants to eat ALL DAY LONG, and would if we let him.

4. I've sure started a whole lot of things I never finished.

5. I have way too many books.

6. I remember how to eBay them.

7. Some books aren't going for as much as they used to.

8. A person doesn't need ten email addresses.

9. A person needs to wear something other than pajamas.

10. A person needs to get out of the house more than once every two or three days.

11. When a person does get out of the house (wearing something other than pajamas) they discover things like the building where I had my first apartment is now green instead of gray and flaky.

12. When a person gets out of the house a sunhat does not protect the top of the shoulders from the actual sun, so they should remember to use sunscreen. (Duh.)

Perusing Real Estate in Central CA

2008-07-18T09:19:00.001-07:00

We're going to move. I don't know when or where, but there's no reason to live where we do anymore and many reasons to be somewhere else.

I'm ready to go now. The DH is ready to go . . . later.

So when I woke up at 4:30 this morning, unable to sleep a moment longer (although I tried, lord knows I tried), I found myself Googling real estate again and came up with this little gem of a write-up:

Holly Smokes! This home is cheaper then spending money on Rent. Corner lot, Nice open beam ceilings, Detached Garage, Covered Patio, large yard, Basket Ball Court and alley axcess. Grat for R/V parking. Nice back yard and Ryan Park is just accross the street with tennis courts. What more can you ask for. Bank Owned and they want it gone!

Actually, the photos make it look like it would work great. Or rather grat.

How many errors do you count? (Not including the caps.)

Can Anybody Guess . . .

2008-07-14T15:32:00.000-07:00

. . . where I had lunch and worked on my manuscript?
Click on the picture for a second clue if you need it.

When I was Eight . . . Thoughts on Big Sur

2008-07-10T10:30:00.000-07:00

In 1962, my mother was able to fulfill one of her dreams when she bought a cabin on 5.23 acres in Big Sur, California. It was a tiny little thing, lovingly made of redwood, with a kitchen on one end and a fireplace on the other. My brother and I slept on bunk beds on one side, and she had a pull-out double across from us. The dining table sat in the middle of the room.

My mother had the shower removed so she could have a washing machine put in. That will tell you a little bit about her priorities.

She bought an old-fashioned aluminum bathtub just the right size for a kid, but spent the next year creating an involved collage on the outside of it. She never finished; the tub was never used, although I do remember taking a bath or two in the kitchen sink. I was a happy, dirty thing that year.

My mother had gone to Big Sur to be an artist, rejecting the role of the picture-perfect housewife who greeted her hardworking husband with a martini at the end of the day. What she got instead was poison oak (badly), raccoons digging in our trash (who scared our dog), the mumps (courtesy of me and my brother), and a year that had the largest rainfall of any for the prior twenty years. My father came to see us on the weekends.

This past week Big Sur has been on fire, so I've been thinking about it more than usual. An article in the L.A. Times brought back even more memories, when it told of the bravery of our up-the-hill neighbors, brothers Micah and Ross Curtis, in saving their place. They set a controlled burn that kept the fire from consuming what the press is calling a "compound" and in doing so, Ross was arrested.

I was a lucky eight-year old because there were two other eight-year old girls within short walking distance and one of them became my best friend. We would pack lunches and hike deer trails together just for the adventure of it. I got to know her family. Her mother was very impressive. She had a long braid, was always making something with flour (my mother barely knew how to cook), and could cut up a whole chicken in a quick moment.

Janie's father was a writer, the first writer I ever met. Interesting, as I look back, that was the year I decided I wanted to be a writer. I don't think that decision was because of him, although knowing him probably helped make it seem more real. Yes, Gina, there are people who write, and Jack Curtis is one of them.

He wrote Westerns, mostly, and lots of scripts for TV shows, and that's likely how he was able to purchase the Lyons place (as it was called then) and move his family up the hill to a 56 acre parcel. It was a strange spooky property in those days. No one had lived there for a while. (When one is eight a while isn't as long as it gets to be later, so I'm not sure how long that really was.) In those days, no one would have called the place a "compound."

We moved from Big Sur not long after that. We were rained out, really. My mother's dream had dissolved into an undriveable road over a steep slide, a water tank full of silt and mud, and an almost week-long period when we had no electricity. She discovered that to live in the country, at times you had to be totally self-reliant. You had to have food available for when you could not make the hour ride up to the Safeway in Carmel Valley where they had pre-cut chickens. In our case (because we had our own water tank without a filtering system), you had to have stores of water, too, for those days when you turned on the kitchen faucet and dirty water came out. She found out that living in Big Sur wasn't just surviving without television and having a four-digit phone number; you had to know what to do in a crisis--any sort of crisis. Living remotely like that, there were times when there was no one to turn to. You had to survive on your guts and your instincts and what you knew.

Our little cabin burned down in the early 90's because one of the many tenants my mother found over the years did something very thoughtless like leaving the stove on or a candle burning before they left for the afternoon. It was a total loss. She didn't have fire insurance--you couldn't get it there then (and I imagine you still can't). She sold that property a couple of years before she died. I've always wondered if giving up the dream wasn't part of what killed her.

Fire is one of those things that happens in wooded areas. If it isn't campers who fail to completely douse their fires, or hikers who smoke, it's nature herself who provides the lightning to burn back the overgrowth, as she did this time.

Thank God and all those brave fire-fighters that it is down to mostly just hotspots now. And thank the Curtis brothers for knowing what to do, and having the courage to do it, thereby saving their homes and stopping the fire from advancing to the homes of their neighbors.

Our cabin, lovingly painted by my mother in 1984.

I'm Free

2008-07-03T17:05:00.000-07:00

It's been a busy week on many counts.

First, I got laid off from my job on Monday. It was not a surprise. Ever since my show ended in December I've been waiting for the other shoe to drop. I'm relieved--actually--that it finally did. I believe they were waiting to see how the replacement show was going to be produced, and it appears, now, that it will be produced without the need for someone in my capacity. I'm relieved to not have to go to work anymore when there is nothing to do. I am sad to have lost my job--I did love it, and sad too, not to be in daily contact with my friends, some of whom I've known so long (thirty-two years) it's really like they are family. I'll just have to be back from time to time, and hopefully there will be some daily hire opportunities because for sure I will also miss the paycheck!

It has taken me much longer than it should have but I finally finished the damn synopsis to the current WIP. I had actually put off writing it almost as long as a person could, but then I went and won one of the Barbara Samuel critiques, and she said 50 pages including a synopsis . . . which meant I had to come up with one because I definitely want someone with her writing goddessness to vet it for me.

So, the synopsis is in the mail along with the first five chapters (they are short). Next, I finish the book. Not much more to write, so hopefully all will be done by the end of next week and then I shall start submitting. Although . . . I'm not sure how I feel about submitting before I get Barbara's feedback. Then again, if I send a query and five pages it could take agents a while to get back to me. Judging by the agent blogs I frequent, just about everybody is behind in their query reading right now.

Still, I'd like to get some submissions out before National, especially now that I have become a full time writer. I'd like to stay this way for as long as possible.

In other news, the WT is home! Twenty-three countries and at least 10,000 photographs later, twelve pounds lighter, and about an inch taller he is a beautiful sight, and I'm happy to not be working the day job so that I can spend time with him before he goes off to college in September. Here for less than twenty-four hours, he's already got a job, and World Traveler morphs back into Coffee Man, just like that! What a super hero. :)

ETA: Apparently he won't be Coffee Man after all, but Book Shelving Man instead.

Blogging Elsewhere Again

2008-06-26T06:18:00.000-07:00

I was the blogger at the HEA Cafe today. Go forth and read what I have to say about my inability to finish things and how that affects my writing.

Monday, Monday

2008-06-23T16:00:00.000-07:00

Maybe I should say thank god it's Monday after this tough weekend. Felled by food poisoning (or something equally noxious) on Saturday morning, I was actually feeling worse on Sunday. So no Getty, no beach, not much writing, a bit of blogging, a spot of knitting, and lots of feeling pathetic.

Fortunately my DVD of Jane Eyre arrived on Friday so I watched most of it. I had seen it when it first aired last January and loved it. Maybe because I wasn't feeling well, I found myself overly distracted by Ruth Wilson's lips. And Rochester seems altogether too flirtatious in this viewing. But I have to say it was a lovely diversion.

In slightly good news, I finally have a Barnes and Noble ranking, which means they've sold at least one copy of The Raven's Revenge, and I see at Amazon that someone who bought my book also bought What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington's Culture of Deception. Not an obvious pairing--and it makes me laugh--which is one sign that I'm feeling better.

Oh--I blogged at Titlewave today. We are changing things. Now we're blogging on Mondays only--and participating in Travis Erwin's My Town Mondays--which I think is a brilliant idea, because it's less of a grind and more creative. I had planned on writing about the Getty or the beach, but since I ended up in bed instead, I recycled (and slightly updated) an old blog I did a couple of years ago. Check it out.

Goodbye George

2008-06-22T22:46:00.000-07:00

I remember when he did this bit on the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour. Not the same edge that he developed as he got older. Not as much anger. But very funny and part of my formative years.

Rest in peace baby.

Mr. Pooh

2008-06-22T10:44:00.001-07:00

has a new toy

Hotlinkers of the World . . .

2008-06-22T07:00:00.000-07:00

. . . you are in so much trouble . . .

Not that I think any of my regular readers would do such a thing, but there are many who would, and who do, and there are cyberfolk out there who don't know it's wrong. So please induge me on my rant.

First off let me explain what hotlinking is. In a nutshell, it's stealing someone else's bandwidth by linking directly to images (or other media files) on their site. It really pissed me off when I discovered someone in Russia and another in Japan not only using my images but linking to them directly. This is totally rude. Instead of stealing my bandwidth, they could be using one of the many places that will host images for free.

So, when I woke up at 4 am (I have been doing so much of this recently that it behooves me to learn how to take naps) I went into a tear about this and learned how to prevent it. Now if someone tries to link to an image they'll get my fierce watch-kitty.¹

And that should just nip it in the bud . . .

Time to go back to sleep.

---
1. There is also the possibility that I will find my watch kitty on sites I've used to share images, so I suspect I'll have a bit of cleaning up to do. When one has been on a tear, this is often the case.

Website Update

2008-06-20T14:07:00.001-07:00

Today was clean-up-the-website day. So, I got out the broom, duster, and paper towels and really went at it. I did a slight amount of rearranging and added a whole new extras section, that includes (among other things) the original epilogue to The Raven's Revenge (because my editor had me replace it). But . . . (do I have to say this?) . . . don't read it if you haven't read the book.

If you find any broken links or strange piles of stuff that didn't get put away, let me know. Okay?

Meanwhile, I was up at four a.m. (ack!) for a chat with my American Title sisters. We're revamping our blog, making it more of a writer's blog and something that is more fun for us and easier to keep up. Win-win. I'm first out of the gate on Monday and I'll post a link once my blog is up.

This weekend I'm writing, going for a stroll on the beach, and seeing an exhibit at the Getty Villa before it closes. How about you?

Not Quite End of the Week Roundup

2008-06-19T08:00:00.000-07:00

I was ready to do a Friday End of the Week Roundup when I realized it was Thursday. Unfortunately, since it's actually Thursday, that means I have to go back to the doctor and let him take a little bit more of my leg.

On the plus side of the day, it seems that The Raven's Revenge is finally showing as In Stock at several online retailers (notably Barnes and Noble), although Amazon is slow to catch on. I'm sure they'll figure it out today or tomorrow.

Have you been to Wordle yet? It's good for several minutes worth of distraction. This is the scene I'm working on. In an odd way, seeing it like this is helping. Now I'm getting back to it before Dr. Wickwire gets hold of me.

Gina vs. the Spammer Scammers

2008-06-18T09:19:00.000-07:00

I tell you, they really need to employ copy editors on these. And I need to get away from these distractions and back to work.

After all, what else can you do when Bevon thinks you have a stupid face¹?

---
1. And a Mac with Photo Booth

An Offer You Can't Refuse

2008-06-16T08:51:00.000-07:00

This post is for the writers who stop by here . . .

One of my most favorite-in-the-whole-world writers, Barbara Samuel, will be participating in the Avon Walk for Breast Cancer. To raise the last bit of funds she needs, she's offering three critiques for auction via eBay. Here's a link to her announcement (with the eBay links).

I have to tell you that I attribute my finding my writing voice to Barbara's amazing Voice Class. If you are looking for the critique opportunity of a lifetime, this is it: a rare and wonderful opportunity. Don't let it pass you by. Go forth and bid.

Or, if you'd like to donate directly to help this worthy cause, you can do so here.

Happy Father's Day

2008-06-15T16:50:00.000-07:00

When I was a little girl we would go to the "city" (which was San Francisco) to picnic at the beach. I ate plenty of sand in my sandwiches on a plaid blanket while bundled up in my coat because the weather was always gray and cold. The water was even colder. That didn't keep me from wanting to get my feet wet. And it didn't keep me from getting the rest of me wet too--only that was because one of those big waves would knock me over.

I'd get rescued by my daddy, wrapped up in his big red sweater, and pulled into a big hug while my teeth chattered away. Yes, I remember it fondly.

To my daddy and all the other wonderful daddy's out there (including my wonderful DH) Happy Father's Day!

What's Up With This?

2008-06-14T08:30:00.000-07:00

Am I the only one who has noticed?

Creepy.

It's a Mystery

2008-06-13T14:51:00.000-07:00

The answer to the most frequently-asked-question this week is . . .

The Raven's Revenge is temporarily out of stock at Amazon (and elsewhere too) because my publisher has redone the back cover to include the lovely quotes I received from authors Claire Delacroix and Lisa Valdez that got missed the first time through. (Hang on to those early printings, maybe they'll be collectible some day hahahaha.)

As to why it's taking this long . . . it's a mystery. But heck, I know very little about the process.

In the meantime, Amazon has the price down to $10.52. w00t. (Get it while it's hot.) And I've noticed people are still buying it even though there will be a delay in shipment. Double w00t.

Snap Out of It

2008-06-09T20:29:00.000-07:00

So today I was subpoenaed to appear as a witness against this guy who did a hit and run on me at this intersection two years ago. He was not being prosecuted on my account--although he should have been.

I had blogged then on my now defunct LJ blog about the experience. Here's part of that post:

I noticed this guy in an old white van weaving around on the freeway--not I'm-in-a-hurry-and-I-have-to-get-from-here-to-there-before-everybody-else weaving, but the la-la-la-I-am-out-of-control-of-my-vehicle type of weaving. I decided to stay Far Away from him and was delighted when I got off at my ramp.

Somehow he ended up in the left-left turn lane (I was in the right-left turn lane) with his car pointing at my car. Gulp.

As soon as the light turned green I went. He went too, right into my car. And, of course, he didn't stop. I immediately got his licence plate number and identifying information (can you believe he had a very faded HOW AM I DRIVING? CALL 1-800-XXX-XXXX sticker on his bumper??) and took off after him. I was able to pull up beside him a few blocks later.

"You hit my car. I need your driver's licence number," I yelled into his car.

"(something unintelligible)," he replied quite amiably.

"You hit my car. I need your driver's licence number," I yelled louder this time.

"Thank you very much," he said.

I got a call late last week that they would need me to testify. I easily agreed, glad to do my part to keep this guy off the roads and away from other people if I could.

It was awful. Completely awful.

Before I'd even got into the building they confiscated my bottled tea because it was glass. Glass, of course, is a dangerous weapon. It was a glass bottle that I'd been using for about a month as a way of not using plastic (which is truly dangerous to landfills and us). They missed the Swiss Army knife I forgot to take off my keychain and didn't take my pens, apparently unaware of what they can do. (I guess they never saw Grosse Point Blank.)

Once I got inside the courtroom, the City Attorney--who was prosecuting the guy--asked relevant questions. But his attorney tried to trip me up in all sorts of ways and wouldn't look at me directly during her cross-examination. It isn't easy to remember an event that happened over two years ago. Although the moment of impact and after are probably burned into my mind forever, she asked me so many questions about the time before the accident that I had not thought about since then.

At any rate, I left there feeling completely disturbed. It wasn't all that great having to face that guy again to begin with, and then to be subjected to at least ten minutes worth of nit-picky questions, many of which were just there to discredit me. I didn't like it. Not one bit.

On the bus home, I shed a tear or two and then reminded myself that it wasn't about me, and I needed to snap out of it.

Which is one of my very fav lines in Moonstruck. Fortunately I have a copy of said film. I noticed that unfortunately it's standard format. What's up with that? I never buy movies that have been modified to fit your screen. And then I remember when I bought it widescreen wasn't available. So, I'm doodling around Amazon, checking out the widescreen version, and I read this review that says:

I found out that most 1.85:1 aspect ratio movies are actually shot in a 1.33:1 aspect ratio, with the intention that the top and bottom of the frames will be trimmed (matted) for 1.85:1 widescreen theatrical presentation. The cinematograper and director frame the shots with this in mind. The result of this is that the movie can be transferred easily to video without doing a pan-and-scan treatment of the photography for full-framed TV presentation. In other words, you're not missing anything in the full-screen framing.

And I'm thinking, the hell it is. But . . . because I'm in a funk I decide to check it out. I find a bit on YouTube and grab a still:

And then I find that same shot on my standard format DVD and you know what . . .

They were right. Look at all that extra muscle. :happy sigh:

Very Mysterious

2008-06-06T21:45:00.001-07:00

Remember how exciting it was when The Raven's Revenge showed up at Amazon almost three weeks early? Does anyone remember what day it was originally scheduled to release?

That's right, it was TODAY!

And guess what happened today? For some very strange and (most likely) ironic reason, the book has gone temporarily out of stock at Amazon, Barnes & Noble and even Powells.

Go figure.

That Theresa . . .

2008-06-03T09:21:00.000-07:00

she blogged again.

As for Gina, not much to update. She chipped a tooth about a week ago. It was a bottom tooth one that did collide from time to time with its counterpart on top. Finally the top one won.

When she isn't watching her Amazon ranking, she's working very hard on Theresa's book, but not making progress as quickly as she would like.

She keeps getting the same weird Spams:

And this morning when she woke up from a dream about the WT¹, he called her within seconds from Vienna!

---
1. World Traveler

Found in my Spam Folder

2008-05-30T09:19:00.000-07:00

Why ever would "alessandro" think I would open that?

Ode to a Little Bit of My Leg

2008-05-29T20:53:00.000-07:00

I had a pink thing on my leg
But now it's gone.
I thought it would be frozen cold
So very cold that it would fall
Off my leg and evaporate
Into the atmosphere.

But no . . .
Doctor Wickwire cut it off
That pink thing that was on my leg
And now it hurts instead.

I miss it too. Kindof.

BEA

2008-05-28T07:30:00.000-07:00

I can't believe they are having the biggest book party of the year here in my very own town, and I'm not going.

I mean I could go. But why? Well, it would be fun to rub elbows with all the people who are there to rub elbows. It would be great to get all those books. I just got rid of almost two hundred, but why not load up again now that my TBR shelf is almost reasonably stuffed.

I'd love to attend the Writer's Digest Writer's Conference. But that's today and it starts in an hour. There's a fab Pitch Slam at the end of the day. But the cost ($199) for the day and the Pitch Slam seems a bit steep, especially when I can query anyone who is there who is looking for what I'm writing.

I look at the list of authors who will be there, and I want to be there too. However, I know in my heart there really isn't a good reason to go when I could be at home finishing the damn (delightful) book and getting it ready to sub so that some year soon--after it has sold--my publisher arranges for me to attend.

But BEA it won't be in my town then, and I hate to fly. So, maybe I should go this year after all.

Oy.

In My Hot Hands

2008-05-24T19:50:00.000-07:00

I held my book today for the very first time. I'm visiting a friend in Arizona, and I got to fondle her copy. My copy has not arrived yet.

There is a green border around the artwork. It looks nice. I didn't know it would be there. Too bad my cover blurbs didn't make the cover. But, that luscious kiss sure is prominent.

I'm in Arizona this long weekend for a wedding. A friend the Tootz made when she was nine-months old is getting married.

Did I say it's really hot here? It was raining in L.A. when we left this morning.

Saw Indiana Jones this afternoon. It was air conditioned. That might have been the best thing about it. Not that it was bad, but it wasn't particularly good. Still, I wasn't expecting good so I wasn't disappointed.

I got only five hours sleep last night (which is better than the World Traveler who slept on a bench near a hostel in Hamburg last night). I'm wondering just how early I can go to bed without being too much of a partypooper. Or waking up too early tomorrow.

Then again, if I wake up early I can start my revisions on that impossibly difficult chapter I just finished now that my CP has suggested how to fix it.

Flustered and Distracted

2008-05-22T12:00:00.000-07:00

Can I tell you how distracting it is to have one book come out while you're trying to finish another? I am in awe of authors who do this all the time. I imagine they don't check their Amazon.com standings every few minutes (ahem), and I'm going to join a twelve-step program so I will stop doing this. Soon. (OMG right now The Raven's Revenge is at 28,296 in *all* books.)

:happy sigh:

And now, back to writing that first kiss . . . . (I mean the very first kiss.)