Saturday, July 17, 2010

My World

Whew. So it has been an interesting few weeks for me. The Good, the Bad, the Ugly.
Mostly good.

A steady paycheck again. Ah, how I've missed that. Books, yes! I can buy you! Shoes, yes! I can buy you too. Weather muy caliente? No problemo, let's crank up the AC. And buy new clothes! And lots of iced Starbucks!

Okay, so my time is no longer my own. It's billable. And I get home late. So late that I am 20 hours behind the rest of the Twitter and Blogosphere. And I'm too tired to change the channel with the remote control. And my paralegal looks like Morticia Adams and scares me a little. Okay, a lot. Enough so that I've taken to emailing her everything in explicit detail so she won't feel the urge to come into my office and ramble on and on about nothing for 45 minutes without once looking me in the eye.

In the midst of all the readjusting, four ceramic tiles mysteriously fell off my bathroom wall. For no apparent reason. Okay, maybe old age. Maybe the heat. Maybe the humidity. Maybe they just decided to give up the ghost. Miraculously, none of them broke.
Carefully preserved them, got some goopy combo tile adhesive/grout stuff and a plastic trowel from Home Depot and decided to do-it-myself. I mean, not exactly rocket science, eh? I can read directions. I have degrees! Yeah-sure-right.
The little plastic trowel was not precisely cooperating with me. Soon I was slathering the stuff on in handfuls. Manicure, ruined. Cuticles white and pasty. Goopy stuff all over the floor and sink. Tiles, sliding like slimy escargot down the wall. Plop. Crash. Smash. Carefully preserved for a week, now all smithereens. This is why plumbers and tilers and contractors command the big bucks, butt cracks notwithstanding. Now we know.

On the fiction front, not much work. Days spent writing motions and Pre-trial Reports tend to leave your brain as mushy as tile adhesive and as fractured as the ceramic tiles that skate down your bathroom wall. And, of course, it's been muy caliente!
Trying to get back to Lara & Cole. Left them in sort of a precarious place while trying to create a new beginning for them. Think it works. At least it works for me! (Trying to take care of some of the later backstory feeds, also to set up their situation, their meet, and to provide an intro to characters who might pop up later. Evil and otherwise.) Characterization is key.

And last, but not least...

Yesterday, I got a Call. A sort of The Call, I think. Voice mail message on the machine. Nothing definite to report. Someone interested in talking about my Regency novella. Someone I'm very interested in talking to in turn!
As the weekend ticks by, I am trying not to do the happy dance prematurely. But it's increasingly hard for me to believe that any busy editor/publisher/agent on this oil-soaked planet would bother to call and leave a message on the answering machine in order to tell you why you should consider taking up tiling as a avocation, stick to reading rather than writing as a career, and never bother him/her with your worthless prose again.

So...Adam and Emma: Here's looking at you, kids!

15 comments:

Gina Rosavin said...

Hey! Great news - I imagine you're right about the reason for The Call. Fingers crossed for you!

Taryn Kincaid said...

Thanks. As an addendum to My World and Welcome to It and just to illustrate the ups and downs of life...

No sooner did I hit "post" and go into my bathroom to brush my teeth (I know, TMI), but my bathroom sink exploded. The hot water faucet blew sky high hitting the ceiling, spewing scalding water like Old Faithful, flooded the entire bathroom in seconds, then the hallway, and from there, the kitchen on one side and the bedroom on the other. And tons of clothes hanging from the handles of the treadmill. Water, water everywhere. Couldn't get the super on the intercom. Is that broken too? and had to run out to the hallway, sopping from head to toe, to get the number, super arrives, can't turn off the water because it's so hot until he draped himself in half the towels from my linen closet, then calls two of the handymen for mopping detail. Oy. Plumber can't come until Monday. Won't be home, of course. Can use the shower and the john, not the sink. Thank goodness for the "show-the-guests" bathroom!

Wendy S Marcus said...

So sorry for your water crisis.

But Yay for the potential 'call'. Good luck! I'm hoping for the best. Doesn't it work like that?...available for weeks and weeks, back to work and BAM the tiles, the sink, the call.

Taryn Kincaid said...

Right. And since I can't take Monday off, I'm trusting the super to vouch for the plumber. He's sworn to me that he does. Can't get out today. Will mail your pin tomorrow!

Anonymous said...

Everything always happens all at once! I hope you get your water problems sorted out soon. Congrats on getting The Call! I'll keep my fingers crossed for you to get good news.

Taryn Kincaid said...

Thanks, Heather! Mine are crossed for you, too.

Kat Attalla said...

When it rains, it pours. Semi-literally I guess. Welcome back to the working world. Not that my paychecks covered new shoes or anything much beyond the bills. Congratulations on the 'call'. I'm not sure if I ever heard the Regency but I always did love your style in historicals. Sorry about the bathroom troubles. Best of luck with the plumber.

Taryn Kincaid said...

Thanks! My hard wood floors are now beginning to reek. Hoping against hope that they won't warp. Trying to retain the semi-buzz of yesterday. But seems to be an array of forces conspiring to kill it for me. Pretty sure my entire paycheck yesterday will go toward a down payment on the plumber's new boat on Monday.

Janet Lane Walters said...

Terri, Glad about the call and hope it is a good one when you touch base. Plumbers are a pain. Had one come in for a small problem, I thought, ended up with a larger bitt than I could believe. I think we've chosen the wrong profession. Janet

Taryn Kincaid said...

It's where I want this novella to be, so if it finds a home there, I'm content. Regencies were my first love, really, so it's full circle and appropriate. I'm not certain I'm immersed in all the conventions of the subgenre the way I used to be, though I still love reading them. Maybe it's time to rewire and retrain. Maybe even pull out Spider Webb and the 25-page kiss and see if there's anything worth salvaging. God knows, I love Webb. So I sure hope so.

Shoshanna Evers said...

Oooh A Call!! Can't wait to hear how it turns out :)

extreme quilters said...

Hey Terri,
Try to think positive. Flowing water means good fortune. Your broken faucet is a sign, yes, a sign of success. You just wait and see, that regency novella will be sold soon!


Geeze, how come I don't have any broken pipes. Oh, that's right, I've been procrastinating. There is no way I can make a sale if I don't have a finished manuscript to go out in the mail.

Good luck with your novella and your plumber.

Taryn Kincaid said...

Thanks, Celeste! Good to see you here. How are things at OCRWA? Don't they motivate you? If not, join us at HVRWA and we will. From afar! Come on, girl. Let's get crackin'!

Taryn Kincaid said...

Thanks, Shana.

I'm trying on pen names. ;)

Taryn Kincaid said...

PS: I did not know that about the flowing water. But I intend to use it. One way or another!

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