Friday, October 27, 2006

Update on My Book

I heard from my agent yesterday. The pitch worked. (Smile) My non-fiction book is with the editors at Random House Reference. Now it's time for more waiting. Keep those body parts crossed a little longer. (Smile)

Thursday, October 26, 2006

V*A*C*A*T*I*O*N

I can hear that old song playing in my mind. The one where you spell out the word vacation. (Smile) That's because I'm on vacation this week. That means I'm doing only a little e-mail and leaving most things until next week. So....if you sent me a message and haven't gotten a reply, just hang on. I'm going to jump into my in box starting Monday morning and catch up with everyone. (Smile)

Saturday, October 21, 2006

The Race

That's hubby finishing the 5K run this morning. He came in 4th in his age division, 11th over all. Not bad. He finished in 25 minutes and 30 seconds. It was only his second race, so he was really happy with his time and his placement.

He missed getting 3rd by only about 40 seconds. He actually had a bus thing pull in front of him on the road and had to stop and go around it, and then just before he made it back to the fair grounds he had to go around some people, or he might have cut off some if not all of that extra 40 seconds. We were still proud of him. (Smile)

Friday, October 20, 2006

It's fair time.

This time of year, every year, there's a big country fair near where I live. We start going to it when we are babies, and when we grow up, we take our babies. I don't have any babies to take this year, but I'm going. (Smile)

My husband, our daughter, our son and our daughter-in-law will be going with us. The first thing we are going to do there tomorrow is support hubby. He has signed up to the 5K. This will only be his second race--don't have them often around here. He's trained so hard though, so we are really hoping the best for him.

After the race, and hubby has some time to catch his breath, we are going to jump right into the fun. I like to go through the section where they have old log cabins and other log buildings, make soap and cracklings and cornmeal and fresh sugarcane syrup.

Then we are going to go see all the farm animals, then go through and see which quilts and cakes and jams got the blue ribbons. There are a few other things to look at and do, including the rodeo and all of the rides, and all of the food booths. They have normal things like ice cream, funnel cakes and burgers, but they also have alligator gumbo and hot pigskins and lots of other fun stuff that taste great but is oh so bad for you. (Smile)

Don't worry, I'm going to be good. I've lost nine pounds so far, and my blood sugar is doing better, so I'm not going to ruin all of that hard work with a funnel cake, no matter how badly I'd love to have one.

Tuesday, October 17, 2006

Thanks & No Mail For Me

First, I want to thank everyone for all the good luck wishes I got, and all of those crossed body parts. It was so nice to open my e-mail program yesterday and see all of those wonderful messages. That goes for those you posted here or sent through the contact form on my site as well.

Which brings me to today's problem. (Smile) My e-mail has been down since last night. I can actually get on line, and get to my on line e-mail program, but that's not the normal e-mail address I use. It's a big outage here, so my normal e-mail address might not work for a couple of days or so. That means if you sent me anything after yesterday evening, I haven't gotten it. That goes for my normal BellSouth address, the contact form on my website, and even all of the group owner addresses for RWC. I'm hoping I'll get all of those messages when things get back up and working. Hope! Hope! For now though, if you need or want to reach me, please use this address
charlotte@charlottedillon.com You can find it on my site, www.charlottedillon.com, on the contact page, but don't use the form. Look below that contact form and you will see a link you can use by clicking on it. That's for the other address, the charlotte@charlottedillon.com

Thanks again for all of the congrats and the so sweet wishes! It's amazing to me how many of you seem to be cheering for me and wishing me only good things.

Friday, October 13, 2006

Good News!

I have good news to share! (Smile)

Not only have I signed with an agent but she will be pitching my non-fction book for romance writers to some editors in New York next week.

Please cross those fingers and toes and send prayers and white light and what ever you got, that one of those editors just falls in love with my book. (Smile)

Monday, October 09, 2006

A Big Change

Other than the website, I've made another huge change in my life in the last couple of weeks. For the last nearly six years I've spent most of every day running the RWC groups for other romance writers. That means approving messages and members, moderating each messages, sending out reminders, sending out talk prompts, writing prompts, writing challenges, and so on, seven days a week from usually before five in the morning until at least nine at night.

At first it wasn't that big of a deal, but the little group I started and hoped to see maybe have fifty or even a hundred members one day, now has almost 1,600, and that's on the main RWC group alone. There are ten RWC groups in all, and since people can belong to any they wish and not any they don’t wish, there's no way of knowing how many RWC members there are in total.

With ten groups and so many members, it has become a draining job over the last three years or so. I finally had no choice but to either close down the groups, are yell for help, and lots of it. There are now about sixteen of us doing what I had been handling all along. I've removed myself from a lot of duties, or at least will as soon as everyone has their sea legs---moderator legs that is. (Smile.)

I've really enjoyed helping so many people with their writing, but I've been short-changing my own writing for too long now. I realized I'm not getting any younger and I've been pushing my own dreams to the back burner and then to the back of that burner even. I either have little time to write, or will to write by the time I take care of every thing and maybe get my head bit off a few times for sending someone a reminder when they broke a rule. In the end, most days I just never make it to my own writing.

I've been through this before because of a sick parent or major health issues of my own, and even because of a hurricane, but those things we have no control over. This is something I do have control over, so it's just silly for me to let more time slip away when others are willing to help me with the groups so it's not too much on any one person. The groups can only become better from the extra time and energy these members bring with them, and time to take care of myself and work toward my own dream can only make me a better person. I think this is a win/win situation for everyone involved.

After I get all of the moderators and helpers doing their thing, I'm going to take a couple of weeks off to get myself together, and then we'll see if I'm willing to put as much effort into my writing as I've poured into RWC. It's easy to talk the talk, but hard to apply butt to chair, fingers to keyboard, and actually keep writing even when you don't feel good, you've gotten a rejection, or the story is just giving you a hard time.

By the way, did you notice my new site is now centered around my author page instead of my writing info pages for other writers? Don't worry, all the same info is still there, it's just that now the home page is my author site and to get to the writing info there is a link on that site to click on. It's my way of saying to the world that my writing is going to come first for a change.

Stayed tuned. (Smile.)

Thursday, October 05, 2006

I Hate Needles

Okay, I know this sounds like a big baby complaint...but diabetic or not...me and needles don't mix. At all. (Smile) I don't have a normal fear of them. I have a full blown phobia. I was in labor for a couple of days and wouldn't take a pain shot. Had surgery and wouldn't take a pain shot afterwards, so I had nothing for pain for hours because the doctor didn't have pain pills in my paper work. I thought I was honestly having a heart attack one day, and didn't go to the ER for hours because I was more afraid of a needle than of the heart attack. See, not just normal dislike of shots. (Smile)

I have to test my blood sugar levels at home, but I was so upset when I first started, for months. It doesn't even hurt really, since I can do it in my arm instead of my finger tips, but it's still a needle. My saving grace with that I think is that it's that little pin like thing. You just put it against your skin, push the button, and the sticks done. So you don't actually see the needle or have to see the stick...and like I said, it doesn't even really hurt. Most times I don't even know I've done it. I'm trying really hard to eat right and work out so I don't need daily shots. That would not be a good thing for me. (Smile)

All of the above explains why I'm doing every thing I can for my Trigger Finger to avoid a shot.

Wednesday, October 04, 2006

A New Look

Notice something different? (Smile) I've updated my website, and the blog's background now matches it. I think it looks pretty good. It did mess up the text of old posts some how. Guess I'll have to try and go in and edit each one over time.

I'm not finished with my website yet. Still have some pages left to do, and some of the links aren't working yet. But when you get a chance check it out and let me know what you think of the new look. I like it so much better. I kind of already miss the opening Charlotte's Web page, but so many people told me I should use my author page as my home page, and then let people go to the writing side or reading side from there. I finally had to agree with them. (Smile)

www.charlottedillon.com