Quote of the Moment

"What's Past Is Prologue." - William Shakespeare

Thursday, June 23, 2016

Challenge Accepted! Kind of... Maybe...

This has been a hard week. My husband has been out-of-town for work, so it's been just me with the kids. I feel like I can barely sit down...even when I'm sleeping. I've already been interrupted three times while trying to write this post!

Well, one of my goals this week was to make room in my poor, poor study which has pretty much become a storage room. We need to be able to move our bedroom furniture in there to paint and rip out carpet in the bedroom (and I hope after the bedroom is done I can slowly reclaim my study). And I did it! I moved most of the boxes of papers out and have a nice large space. Sorry didn't do before and after pictures. I mean, a lot of the junk got shoved into the closet, anyway - lol.

But... the girls' bedroom is a complete disaster. It needs some serious organization. I'm not too mad at my eldest with the mess because, well, she clearly takes after me. I'm um, okay, not going to say how old, but you get the picture, and I still can't seem to get my shit together. However, I keep hurting myself when I walk in there, and we want to get the toddler on the lower bunk and the eldest on the top bunk.

My husband told me to wait on taking care of the girls' room until we're done with the bedroom, but I just can't stand it. Everything needs to come out so we can start fresh and put things away nicely. This sadly includes giving up half of the bookshelf that I still have a claim on with my own books (I need more bookshelves!), so I'd fill up the study again, temporarily. We're starting the bedroom next weekend.

So, I said I could have the girls' room done by the end of this weekend. And then my eldest proceeded to take a whole hour to move two stacks of books into the study. Such a pokey child!

Think I can do it? I'm starting to have doubts, but I got to try!

Here's a before pic. If I get it done, I'll write a new post with the results and an after pic (I'm scared it won't look much better, though, because the kids have too much crap - ha).

Monday, June 13, 2016

S.O.L. Air Excerpt

Why yes, it is another release day! It's hard to believe this is the 9th story I've released for my Baker's Dozen Experiment. What a ride.

Well, I started out the experiment with releasing Fractured Fairies, and today we get to read more about Grinka, Syndago, and the fairy brats! The humorous antics continue in S.O.L. Air, which you can now nab from Amazon. As always, this was fun to write. I hope you enjoy it as well! You can find an excerpt below.

And the next Fractured Fairies tale will be coming at the end of November - A Very Grinka Christmas! It'll be longer than the previous stories, but there's plenty of humor to keep things lively. What, you thought I'd stop publishing after the experiment was over? Never! I'll be writing until my body no longer allows it. You're stuck with my stories and characters for a good long time.

Anyway, onto the good stuff!

I take a deep breath as the plane engines rev louder and the flight attendant buckles herself in. Maybe I can jump out of a window. Nope, no way to open this sucker, and someone was smart enough to not seat me in the emergency row. I peer out the window and gulp. Maybe I should have given Syndago the window seat.

I see a flicker of movement to the right, outside the plane, and crane my neck to look closer. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

There on the wing sit the two fairy twits. They wave when they realize I notice them. Guess they’re willing to risk being ground into a sticky pulp so they can make my life more miserable.

“There are pigeons on the wing.” At least my voice is now dry instead of panicky.

“I told you you couldn’t leave them behind.” Syndago frowns. “They deserve a vacation, too.”

“Every day of their lives is a vacation! They drink and drink and drink, and play pranks, and make rude comments, and drive me up a wall, and--” If it weren’t for Syndago insisting we can’t abandon them, the little snots would be living on the street, like proper pigeons, and not with us. The bulb above my head bursts. “And I need a vacation from them.”

“Calm down, Grinka.”

I open my mouth, ready to tick off several reasons why I don’t need to calm down, but the plane lurches forward and fear shoves the anger down my throat.

We’re taking off. No, we can’t. Stop the plane. I need to get off.

“Your mouth is hanging open.” Syndago’s brow wrinkles with worry.

I squeak.

What’s a sea nymph got to do to get a vacation around here?

That whole “life is a journey, not a destination” nonsense doesn’t hold water with Grinka. Especially when she books a flight to Vegas to get away from those two fairy nitwits. She doesn’t quite consider the aquatic ramifications of a sea nymph in the air. Nor does she plan on a chance encounter with her goblin ex-boyfriend, Hrelm. Seriously, what’s it going to take for Grinka to get to Vegas and gamble away her meager savings?

Monday, June 06, 2016

Castle - Series Finale

***WARNING: Yes, there are spoilers. So if you haven't seen the final episode of Castle and don't want it spoiled, move along.

I know it's been a couple weeks since the Castle finale, but I've been planning to post about this for a while. And damn it, I'm still going to post about it, even if I am a bit tardy (at least I'm not a couple months late).

Anyway, I was clearly a fan of Castle - love Nathan Fillion as an actor, and the humor is what kept me coming back each week. Now, though I enjoyed watching the episodes, I do agree the last couple seasons weren't the best. They definitely had their flaws. My husband would usually fall asleep while I watched most times. Perhaps my love of writing kept me more hooked on the show than him (though, really, it didn't have much to do with writing - lol).

Well, when I heard that Castle was going to be cancelled instead of the original 13-episode planned send off, I was sad. I totally understand though that when you lose one of the main characters, played by Stana Katic, it's hard to go on. Someone mentioned to me, though, that in case this happened, they had filmed an extra episode, just in case (and if it wasn't cancelled that episode would be destroyed). This made me feel a bit better. I was hoping the show would have a decent send off at least.

That "extra episode" though wasn't actually a whole episode. Nope. It was a tacked on 30 seconds. And it was horrible.

The final scene of Castle reminded me how so many TV writers have issues sticking the landing with series finales. As a matter of fact, there's only one series finale that comes to mind that was done extremely well, and that's Six Feet Under. I'm sure there are more that were well done, but they're few and far between.

I honestly don't know why it's so hard to end a series well!

For Castle they tacked a seven years later thing on, a little monologue from Castle, and the happy family with lots of kids. This is done just after they're both seen dying on the kitchen floor.

First, the transition is crap. Utter crap. Dying to happy smiling family. Clearly they didn't have a whole episode recorded as a just in case. If we would have gotten a next season, we would have been left with them dying on the kitchen floor. And then next season would have started with Kate dying and castle surviving. That would have been horrible too, mind you. Especially since Castle couldn't be all about the vengeance since Kate's killer was already dead.

Second, it's wrapped up in too neat of a bow. Way too neat. That final flash forward didn't need to happen. Unnecessary.

You think I think I could have written it better? Well, I do think so!

For one, both of them dying on that kitchen floor would have been a better ending. It would have. Admit it. You know it in your heart of hearts.

But I have something better than that. I do! And it wouldn't have taken more than that thirty seconds or so.

End scene with them on the kitchen floor, then into the next with them both being rushed to the hospital. They both survive. Yay! And Kate finds out while in the hospital she's pregnant. Then we could have cut to Castle's monologue. The end.

So simple. And it makes more sense, in my opinion. We don't need to know exactly what happens after seven years. We just need the hint, the hope that they're going to have a wonderful future together.

Enough said. I'll get off my writerly soapbox now. I hope you enjoyed the final episode better than I did!