Exhausting work!

Three main things going on in my life this weekend.

1.) Went to Stillwater for dinner with Jen and Sashley, the new receptionist. It was loads of fun, even though neither Sash nor I liked our dinner at all! The fries were excellent though, as always. We laughed loudly through most of the meal and at more than one time I'd judge our volume went from outdoor-voice to obnoxious. I don't even care, it was a hysterically good time. Sashley tried to eat Jen's blue cheese crumbles, our waiter looked like Ron Weasley, and a girl at another table kept looked down my blouse without even trying to be inconspicuous! Our conversations ranged from nonsense to sharing imagination and I even told Sashley quite a bit about Shamahley...it was an awesome night.

2.) For the time being at least I have a new kitten. A tiny teeny tortoise shell who I've only just named Annabelle. We call her Annie, Lil Bit or Small Fry for short. She is 100% feral and a hilarious joy to have in the house. She's young, about 5 weeks old so she's adapting to us very very well. She slept in a blanket in Jen's arms most the afternoon and this evening she slept in my pocket for about 1/2 hour. It adorable. She's just trusting us enough to play with us and realize that she gets lonely when we aren't with her. She's barricaded in the hallway right now and if she can't see or hear us she MEW MEW MEW MEWs and as soon as we come she's like HISS HISS HISS HISS because she is feral and still so scared. But she has not lashed out at me yet, its amazing. It is so awe-inspiring to watch her trusting us. I can't wait to hear her purr, I'll probably get teary! Right now its not my immediate plan to actually keep her. Bella is very jealous and feels very left out. She even tried to bite me today, she never does that. Bella is a very "one cat household" kitty and I totally respect that. The only way I will keep Annie is if she turns out to be a "one person cat" and can't adapt well to a new family. My hope is that I can get her well adjusted so that I can find a great furr-ever home for her.

3.) Becoming the famous author you all know I will be ;o) Today I researched ALL DAY LONG about query letters and the whole process, from how to gracefully accept a rejection letter (one unpublished author recommends setting a rejection letter goal: her personal goal is 100.) to how long it can potentially be from the time an agent accepts your full manuscript. Then there are revisions and etc and hopefully a publisher will buy it. I am excited to get to that point, but for now I just need to focus on finishing The Heart of Shamahley and editing it and revising it myself. I need about 36,000 words to bump it up to 100k and that seems to be a good number for publishing a fantasy. I could probably write 200k and if it ends up being that long I'll break it into two novels, something I'd toyed with anyway.

Aside from the vehicle situation I'm pretty okay with my life right now. As long as Jen doesn't plan on moving to Stillwater this January (which I'm pretty sure she is and she probably won't tell me until December, I mean why give me fair notice? Right?) I feel like I have a good goal in place: Write Last Sunrise in November and until then focus on finished The Heart of Shamahley, and after November I'll start editing it. Before next November I want to start sending out my queries. Plans are GREAT!