My Classic Namesake

Kind of a spooky thing to hear, while you're doing a story that involves a car, to hear that you have one named after you! But that's exactly what happened to me. Meet Connie--my cousin's classic Nova!

Pep is my cousin only technically. He's more of a kid brother to me, since we were raised together by his mother (my Madrina, which means grandmother) and my mother. You can't talk about our childhood without also talking about his half-brother and half-sister, Danny and Solie, who were siblings-of-the-heart to me, too.

We're all older now, and it seems like everybody's life is so busy. In this entry, I wanted not only to show off my very cool namesake (the Nova has a big "C" on its hood!), but to make a tribute to Pep, Danny and Solie, as well as Pep's wife Marlene, who has also been like a sister to me. They're the reason that, when chatting with people who've said, "I'm an only child," I've responded with, "Oh, me, too! Well, actually no--my Padrino filled my life with two brothers and a sister." So, in addition to my half-sister Sandra and my stepsister, Tammy, I guess I come from a big, crazy, and loving brood of kids!

Slowdown on BIAM

What hasn't happened to slow me down?

Well, I had to exchange Red, for one thing. Got the very same PC, but hopefully one that doesn't do that "check disk" thing every single time I start up the laptop. Every. Single. Time. Y'all.

And...I got a Kindle! Love it, love it, love it!

Also slowed down reading OPERATION PRINCE CHARMING by Phyllis Bourne and I THINK I LOVE YOU by Allison Pearson. Two great books in a row--that's very unusual. Felt like one delicious meal after another! I THINK I LOVE YOU is about a young girl in the 1970s who was in love with...that cute guy in the pic above.

So now it's back to work on my latest project. I have a lot of catching up to do.

If I can stop browsing through Amazon, that is!

Me & Red

We've been spending a lot of time together lately. Me & Red.

Red is my new computer. It's an HP Pavilion dv5, or so it says on the lower righthand section of the screen. Red is--well, red, hence the not-so-clever name.

I'm one of those women that names things. My first car, a 1977 Rally Sport Camaro, was affectionally known to my mother and me as "Rally." After I got married, I got my husband and sons in on the act, too. We owned a Chevy Celebrity named "Joshua," a Jeep Cherokee known as "O'Neill," and we leased a Ford Explorer (we loved that car!) known as "Topanga"--named after the Boy Meets World character played by the lovely actress, Danielle Fishel. Currently, we still have O'Neill, but we've also added my Dodge Neon, "Candy," and our older son's car is "Naomi 2," since he traded in "Naomi 1."

Yes, we ARE a nutty family.

And this is the first time I've got a computer with a name. Kinda makes it harder to exchange it, even though the mouse on this laptop acts weird. I'm already attached to Red, and even more so since we started--uh, I started--doing Book in a Month.

We were off to a good start, though we had a couple rocky days. During one, I didn't get any writing done at all, and during the second day, I only wrote about 300 words. But now I'm right on target, with about 1,300 words to write for the day.

So who cares if Red's mouse disappears? He's helping me write my first YA novel--a paranormal--in many years. That'd be like ditching a friend...or a beloved car!

New Book in a Month

And it's a short month, so my BIAM will be short, too. My goal is pretty doable, too: I'll be penning 1,000 - 2,000 words per day. The hardest part is waiting until the end to edit this baby! Something I didn't realize until years later is that "Once an editor, always an editor." So I'm doing my best to turn off my internal editor and have a new project, one I'm excited to talk about on here, by the time March comes rolling in like a lion!