Yay!  I love this time of the year.  I'm working on Djinn: A Love Story and it's coming along great.  I've got a couple hang ups as far as names, so rather than spend the time on the names now (which is what I normally do), I'm making the names on the fly, something stupid and silly, but it works to keep me moving forward.  For example: my Djini King is named King Whosits.  My librarian is named Miss Hoopastank.  My Anthropology instructor is named Mr. Anthroguy.  They work, right?  But they are not my final names. 

Names are so important in a story.  I spend more time naming my characters than I do thinking up their appearance and their favorite color.  The name has to mean something.  These characters are, after all, my children, in a manner of speaking.  And I would never send them out into the world with a name that didn't suit them.

So, since I'm nanoing, I don't have a lot of time for blogging.  But I wanted to stop in and touch base with everyone.  I'm behind in my word count, so I'm going to go and get caught up.
 
I'm Back! 10/26/2009
 

My husband and I went on a week-long trip to Jamaica!  We had a blast, got caught in the rain a couple times, got drunk, swam in the ocean, and relaxed, relaxed, relaxed.

But my horror-writer's mind was brewing with the storms.  While there, I came up with some fun ideas for horror stories.  There is so much going on with this island.  The island has a rich history.  I want to learn more about Jamaica.  I want to write about Jamaica. 

What places have you visited that could feed fuel to the horror-fire?  What story could you write that no one else could write?

This week, I start the actual writing of Djinn: A Love Story (still a tentative title, but more appropriate the more I continue).  This is going to be a tough story for me, but I accept the challenge.  I'll keep you updated with my progress, the trials and tribulations, as I go along.

This weekend will be a horror movie marathon--for obvious reasons.  And I'm going to check out a Scary Stories book from the library.  We love Halloween in my house.  My daughter wants to trick-or-treat.  I think we'll bring the dogs this year.  It should be fun!

Once I'm finished writing Djinn: A Love Story, I'll create a screenplay for Women Scorned.  I loved writing the Screenplay for Breaking Threshholds and can't wait to do another one.  It was an amazing experience allowing me to discover aspects of that story I never knew were there.  I had to boil that novel down to its most essential elements.  I now know why movies are so different from the books we read.  They have to be.  Sorry, but that's just the way it is.

I'll tell more about that another time.  I've got lots to catch up on but wanted to drop a quick line here.

 
 
You walk into the dark room and hear murmuring in the corner.  You have to squint through the gloom to see the woman huddled in the corner.  Her hair hangs in her face as she rocks back and forth, whispering to herself.  It sounds like she is saying the same thing over and over again.  Heart pounding, you walk closer, palms starting to sweat.  You swallow.  Your throat is dry.  Your eyes are too wide as you creep closer, closer, closer.  Now you can see her well enough.  Her hair is lank, greasy as it hangs in her face.  Her skin is filthy.  Her long, white nightgown is torn, hiked up over her thighs.  She hugs her knees to her chest, rocking, chanting.  You crouch down to hear her better.  As your face becomes level with hers, she snaps her head up and glares at you.  She screams what she's been chanting this whole time:

"You're in second person!"

Ha!  That was fun.  Okay.  So, you get the idea.  Point of View has nothing to do with what character the reader views the story from.  People often mistake perspective for point of view.  An understandable mistake, but a huge one.  When reading a novel, the reader is presented with numerous perspectives, often times.  One bounces from the mind of character to character as the plot unfolds.  This bounce is a bounce of perspective, a shifting of minds, of how we view the story.

Point of view, however, has nothing to do with perspective.  Well, not nothing, but very little.  Point of view has to do with the voice of the story.  The scene above is second person point of view.  This is where the writer uses "You" as the subject of the actions.  One often finds these stories in the "Choose Your Own Adventure" books where "you" get to decide which way the plot is headed.  Often writers use the second person point of view (POV) to make a point.  It's best not to use second person POV in this case, however.  If one has started with third person POV (I'll explain in a minute) then one must stick to third person POV.  I started with second person POV because it is the least common way of writing, however, it is the most misused.

Second Person POV can be very effective if one is writing a story where the reader becomes part of the action.  This throws the reader into the story.  However, it is difficult to use because the writer has a lot of assumptions to make about his audience.  The writer has to determine how the reader might react in certain situations or the writer loses the reader.  This is why this POV isn't as popular because it's more difficult to manipulate the reader's emotions with this voice.

Third Person POV is one of the most common forms of writing.  This is where the main nouns are "he, she, it, they, one..." and so on.  There is no "I."  There is no "You."  Essays are written in third person.  Most novels are written in third person.  Most publishers prefer third person.  The reader is experiencing the actions of a character or group of characters as if outside that group. 

Third person has varying degrees of omniscience.  Omniscience has to do with how much the narrator knows.  Limited omniscience means the narrator knows very little, if anything, about the thoughts and feelings of the characters.  The narrator is simply observing and reporting.  This is how I wrote Women Scorned.  Throughout most of that book, the reader/narrator knows very little of what the characters think and feel.  However, there are many stories out there (Stephen King does this a lot) where the narrator knows every detail about every character.  The narrator knows what they think and feel and why they think and feel this way.  My book, Breaking Threshholds, was written in this way.  It was very difficult to turn this book into a screenplay (thought I did this successfully) because of all the thought writing involved in the book.

Now, when using omniscience, there are several techniques writers can use.  I prefer to use something called "free indirect discourse."  Jane Austen was one of the first writers to utilize this very effective tool.  This is where the narrator's voice suddenly becomes the thoughts of the character without adding the tag, "he thought."  For example:

Amanda walked into a grocery store.  The stupid clerks scanned customers' articles without seeming to give a shit that she existed.  Did she exist?  She looked down at her shoes.  They were there.  Stupid black shoes.  Her toes hurt.  She wiggled them.  Yes.  She existed.  Like anyone in this store cared.

This is using free indirect discourse.  The character's attitude and thoughts are shown throughout the paragraph without me needing to explain this.  The reader understands.  I love using this tool in my writing.  Another way to write this, however, is without the free indirect discourse:

Amanda walked into the grocery store.  The clerks scanned customer's articles.  She thought they were all stupid, that they didn't care that she existed.  She wondered if she existed.  She looked down at her shoes.  She hated these shoes, thought they were stupid.  She wiggled her sore toes.  Since she could feel the pain, since she could see them wiggle, she thought she existed.  But, she didn't think anyone in this store cared.

Free indirect discourse gets at the thougths and feelings of a character more effectively than using the tags.  Sure, the sentences and phrases are more clipped because it is exemplifying the thought process.  But it throws the reader into the story far more efficiently.

Lastly, I would like to address First Person POV.  I have a pet peave with this particular POV.  First person is when the narrator is one of the characters in the story.  It's written as "I."  Memiors are written in first person.  The Twilight series and the Vampire Chronicles from Anne Rice are written in first person.  There are numerous books and short stories written with this voice.  Delores Claiborn, by Stephen King, is one of my favorites written in this way.  The pet peave I have, however, is that it seems often times the writer forgets that when a story is in first person, this means the character is telling the story to someone or something (journal).  The language needs to  reflect this.  It isn't going to be as smooth and eloquent as a third person story because most people don't talk or write like that.  Writers forget that this character is either talking or writing in a book. 

Questions that need to be asked for first person to be effective: Why is this character telling the story; what do they hope to achieve by telling it? And who are they telling it to?  I love first person when done effectively because the narrator can't be trusted.  With third person, you can take the information given to you at face value because the narrator has no stake in the story, nothing to gain by telling it.  It's just "the narrator."  However, in first person, the character has a reason for telling the story.  Their motives behind what they say goes a long way in revealing who the character is and what happened.

For example, in Interview with the Vampire, Louis is attempting to explain how lonely and awful it is to be a vampire.  He is trying to convince the reporter that his eternal life sucks (pun intended).  But what happens?  The writer sees the glamour of being a vampire, sees the beauty, is lulled by this exotic new life and wants it.  Louis has failed to make his point, but the reader understands the point he's trying to make, even if he doesn't agree.

I have seen stories, however, (and I won't say which), where the first person was used out of laziness.  The writer uses it, but not in the right way.  It's never clear what the character's reasons are for telling the story and it's not clear who the audience is.  When it's first person, present tense, I cringe.  A writer should never say, "I walk into the room.  He grabs me and I scream."  Is this person talking like this in real life?  Because that's how it sounds.  I imagine this person walking arround narrating their life as it happens and I automatically hate this person.  How irritating.  First person should almost always be in past tense, the character telling of things that have happened in the past.  And be leary of writing a story where it's first person but the character dies at the end.  This opens questions that, unless answered, don't work.  If the person dies, then the reader wonders how this story came to be.  Did the character write it from beyond the grave?  There's no other way it could've happened?  I've written stories in this way, but made it clear that, yes, it was from beyond the grave.  And it can be done in present tense as well, but the writer has to make sure they are doing it that way for a reason.

If the writer wants present tense, the best POV to use (unless there's a damn good reason to use otherwise) is the third person.  She walks into the room and screams when the masked man grabs her.  Ah.  Better.  I didn't even like writing that scene above in first person.  I cringe, I tells ya! CRINGE.

Okay.  I'm done for today.  I've got lots to take care of but felt an urge to write something new regarding technique.

Thanks for reading.  If you have questions on POV or have any comments on this, feel free to contact me.

Until then, read some good books and, if you're in Northern Cali, enjoy the rain for the next couple days.
 
Holy Crap! 09/14/2009
 
I'm so friggin excited right now I can hardly stand it.  Breaking Thresholds has caught the attention of a production company.  They read the book.  They liked the book.  Before they decide if they want to make a movie out of it, they would like to see a screenplay.  They want me to do the screenplay.  I've got two weeks left.  I've never done a screenplay, so I'm learning a lot.  I used to gripe when going to see a movie based off a book I'd read.  You know, the book is always better than the movie because in the movie, they change things and cut things out.  Well, now I know why that is.  I understand.  I've accepted it.  I'm just happy that I get to be the first one doing the screenplay for my novel.  The changes I've been making will make the story work so much better cinematically.  And the heart of the story is still there...mainly, who and where is Desmond? 

Still loving our new home.  The newness hasn't worn off yet, but I'm really starting to feel like it's "my" house.  It's so nice. 

I've put off working on Djinn: A Love Story to do the screenplay.  I'm almost finished in making my outline, or "treatment" (tee hee hee...screenplay lingo).  I'm excited about this and can hardly think about anything else.

Oh, if you haven't already, go see Repo! The Genetic Opera.  Great movie!  Seriously.  And Coraline is sufficiently creepy for those into Tim Burton's stuff.  Truly amazing work.  The Mysterious Case of Benjamin Button was awesome!  What a great meditation on life, love, the aging process, and who we are.  We watched these movies this weekend.  It was a good weekend.

Something else I've been getting into...Wii!  Yes.  I play games.  And Wii is a blast!  I love doing bowling night with my family.  So fun.

Anyway, there's my latest update.  Not much to report.  And not much time to muse on various things.  Drop me a line sometime!
 
 
Just nod if you can hear me.  Is there anyone at home?

Seriously.  Does anyone even read this blog?  I'm beginning to wonder if I don't just write this for my own gratification.

So I came to the realization the other day that unless I step it up a notch at work (not my writing, but selling insurance), that I will not be able to maintain my income.  This does not please me.  I've been stepping it up a notch and it's paying off.  But now I'm stressed about my financial future.  See, I have this tendancy to think that one day, one glorious, shining, beautiful day (so unlike the stuff I write about), some editor out there is going to read something I've written and believe in it so much that they want to publish my work, promote me as a writer, and help kick start my career thus hurling me into the inevitable stardom I KNOW I will eventually claim.  However, there is this annoying thing . . . you may have heard of it . . . It's called reality.  Reality checks in every now and again just to remind me that those who get ridiculously famous off their writing are far and few in between.  So then what?  Because I KNOW I will "make it" as a writer, I don't try as hard as I should be at my "other" job.  My "real" job.  You know, the one that pays the bills, the one that won't keep paying the bills if I don't do what needs to be done.

While this type of confidence is needed as a writer, it could severly damage my future, because, you see, confidence isn't the only thing that gets a person published.  It helps, but it is most definitely not the only thing.

My novel, Djinn: A Love Story, is coming along really well.  I've submitted Women Scorned with Leucrota Press.  My fingers are crossed as this seems like an amazing market.  For those who don't know, Leucrota is a fairly new, small press.  By the end of next year, they will have published 17 books since they launched in 2007.  Some of their books have won awards.  Most of the books are now on my reading list as they sound amazing (and I'm not just saying this because I want them to publish me . . . the books look incredible).  If you are interested, you should check out TJ Vargo's Low Man, Shaun Jeffery's The Kult, and Richard Maydak's One if by Heaven, Two if by Hell.  Also, if you are into fantasy, Erin Durante's Damewood Trilogy looks very good. 

My book Breaking Thresholds has made it into the 2nd round of reviewing through two different publishers, so fingers crossed there (and eyes and toes and hairs . . . but not the wires . . . one should never cross wires). 

Right now, I'm supposed to be working on my Djinn novel.  So, I suppose I better go do that.  I skipped writing last night (bad baby! Bad baby!) to spend some much needed time with my husband.  Tonight, I'm just tired.  Worn out.  It's hard to focus when my house is 80 degrees because my air conditioning isn't working.  Thank the powers that be for my home warranty.  Seriously, if anyone is going to buy a house, GET A HOME WARRANTY!  For $55, they are going to come out and fix it.  That's it.  This pleases me.  I suppose something has to.

Anyway, if you read my blog or ever stop into my site, I'd like to hear from you.  You can comment here, or you can shoot me an email through the suggestion box.  I love chatting with other writers as well as other readers.  I'd also be curious to know how you stumbled upon my site.  I'm trying to figure a few things out here, so knowing this would help.

Good night, boys and girls!  Unpleasant dreams . . .
 
Busy Little Bat 06/23/2009
 

Okay, So, yeah, I haven't written in my blog for a wee bit over a month.  Um...I've been busy?  So busy.  Big news! My husband and I bought a house!!  We've been married for almost 10 years and this is our first house together.  It's amazing.  I'm so pleased.  So we've been dealing with escrow, packing, moving, unpacking, cleaning, painting, landscaping, and the average set-up stuff.  In this time, I have even neglected my new novel since I had other pressing matters.  Not a good thing to do, but when I work 40 hours a week and am also trying to set up a new house in the evening, it kinda takes up all the available time I would otherwise have for writing.  So there you have it.

However, I made a promise and I intend to keep it.  This blog post will be specifically about word choices. 

The words we use in our day to day lives have an enormous impact on how others percieve us.  However, in spoken word, we have the advantage of voice tone and body language.  Think of all the different tones you can use for the phrase, "nice tie."  Said in an excited tone, the person would take it as a compliment.  Said sarcastically, the person would get their feelings hurt and possibly think you are being a jerk.  Said in a neutral tone, the person would think you didn't care.  So it's not just the words we use but how we use them.

The dilemma in writing is that the words have to convey the tone.  If you want a character to show her distaste, but your character is snarky and sarcastic, you wouldn't just have her say, "nice tie."  You'd have her say, "nice tie," words dripping with sarcasm as she rolls her eyes.  But we aren't talking about how to show tone in description.  We are talking about how to use just the right word for your description.

Imagine this...you are walking along a riverbank covered in stones.  Let's focus on the word "stone."  Sounds pleasant, smooth, comforting, and warm.  It would be easy to walk across these in your bare feet, yes?  Okay, now imagine this...you are walking barefoot along a riverbank covered in rocks.  Sounds painful, doesn't it?  Rock sounds jagged, harsh.  It's cut short in the mouth.  You almost choke on the word as you say it.  The word itself conveys what you are trying to say.  Though stones and rocks are essential the same thing, the astute writer knows they are not the same to the reader.  Each word conveys totally different meanings.

So, when describing something, take the time to choose the right nouns (person, place, or thing for those of you not as up on grammar).  These "thing" words create a huge impact on your writing.

Let's move onto verbs.  I'm sure you've heard it before, but listen anyway.  If you haven't heard it before, please, take note...adverbs are not okay.  Typically if you are using an adverb, it's because you are using the wrong verb.  Once again, I will digress for the benefit of those who aren't as keen on grammar.  A verb is an action word (i.e. drink, slam, run, hike, drive...you get the idea...every sentence needs at least a noun and a verb to be called a sentence...and, by the way, any form of "to be" is a verb, meaning "am," "was," "is," "are," and so on).  An adverb is a word that describes the verb.  Typically adverbs end in ly, but not always, so don't let the ly fool you. 

Let's see some examples, shall we?  Follow me.  See that girl over there on the beach?  She's running quickly toward us.  Or, is she sprinting?  Do you see the difference?  She is running quickly or she is sprinting.  You can remove one word from the sentence by using the right verb in this case (by the way, reducing word count is an excellent way to tighten a story and make it stronger...more on this in a future letter). 

Another thing adverbs do is create a redundancy.  Avoid redundancy.  It's not okay.  Here's an example of redundancy: She screamed loudly.  Well, by all definition, isn't a scream loud?  If someone is doing a soundless scream, then yes, the destinction is needed.  But if it is a normal scream, it's going to be loud, so "loudly" is not needed.  If you are trying to show a more intense scream, then look at your individual word choices.  She could shriek, bellow, cry out, hollar, squeal, and so many other words.  Your thesaurus could be a great tool in this exercise.

Now, mood is created by word choice, as well.  You could say the rabbit hopped through the field or the rabbit bounced through the field.  The words mean the same thing, but bouncing gives the sentence a more carefree feeling.  When describing a summer's day you could set a relaxed mood by describing the cool breeze, the hum of dragon flies, the dance of butterflies, and the warmth radiating from the sidewalk.  But if you want to give this summer day an ominous feeling, then you would choose to describe the hum of a mosquito right next to the ear, the intense heat blazing into your character, the bright, almost blinding noon sun.  Word choice is you choosing what to describe and how to describe it.

I do hope this has been rather helpful.  Please let me know.  This is my first attempt at writing something like this, so feedback is welcome.  I often give advice to individuals, but thought it would work well here so others could read it too.

My next article will be about Point of View...what it "really" means and how to use it to create the best effect in a story.  I'll also be discussing common mistakes when using first person point of view.

If interested in reading any of my work, or if you have work you'd like me to look at, sign up for a free membership at writing.com.  It's a wonderful writing community where you can share your stories, gain feedback, and read some amazing works and provide feedback as well.  When you give feedback to others, it helps you understand your own writing that much better...believe me.

Here's a writing exercise: Write a short story (1,000 words or less) that is scary and intense, but in broad daylight.  No shadows here.  Nothing going bump in the night.  Challenge yourself.  The second challenge to this exercise is to write the story paying particular attention to word choice...and no adverbs.  I don't want to see any adverbs in these.  If you write the story by July 25th, email it to me and I'd be happy to provide you with feedback on your work.

Thanks for reading.

 
Something New 05/04/2009
 

Hey everyone!!  I came up with a wonderfully dark and sinister idea...mwuhahahaha!

Ahem...anyway, I'm going to start doing a normal-ish type blog.  While putting in the typical updates as to what is going on in my life, I'm also going to add some posting on things such as style, voice, characterization, grammar tricks, and publishing for those of you looking for a bit of advice in these areas.

So, stay tuned for the next post.  This is all I have time for today, but the next blog I post will be specifically on word choice and how it effects the tone of a story.

Thanks for your continued support

 
 

My mom has moved back to Chico...YAY!!  I'm glad she's here.  Lot's of new things happening for me, but I can't say what just yet.  Let's suffice it to say that I'm super excited about life in general right now.

I'm waaaaay ahead of schedule with my writing.  I'm nearly done with my snow flake for my Djinn novel.  I'm not going to call it Djinn: A Love Story anymore.  As of yet, it is untitled.  But I'll find one.  Never fret.  Anyway, I didn't expect to start snowflaking this novel until May first.  Right now, there's no reason to think I won't be done snowflaking it by May First.  That means I can start writing the novel a month ahead of schedule. 

I recently finished reading She Wakes by Jack Ketchum.  Great book for those of you who haven't had the pleasure.  Lot's of nudity, sex, glistening pubic hair (yes, he uses this description a lot in this book), zombies, psychologically derranged people, gods and goddesses, oh, and did I mention sex and nudity?  A lot of the characters are naked throughout the book.  It's great!  Oh, and the plot and characters are pretty awesome!  I really enjoyed this book.  Jack Ketchum is definitely a writer I'll be visiting again.

I'm currently reading a book by a new novelist, Kevin Dunn.  It's called The Necromancer.  I like it.  It is based around the Salem Witch trials.  I'm about halfway through it and so far I don't know what's coming.  The book is keeping me guessing the whole way.  Dunn has done a great job with this first book.  I hope he keeps writing.  Once I finish it, I'll do a better review here.

After reading She Wakes, I watched The Girl Next Door, which is based off of another of Jack Ketchum's books.  In the start of the movie, he describes something that happened to a character in She Wakes.  Now, for the moment, it is unclear to me as to whether or not he is refering to the same person or if he is simply reusing an event.  This got me thinking, though, that Ketchum may have known someone who experienced this thing or he may have experienced it himself.  He goes into great detail about it.  I started thinking about how writers often use real life to make their stories more palpable.  I know I do it.  There are certain things I always describe the same and now I'm thinking that I could potentially turn something into a cliche in my own work simply by not thinking of a different way to describe it, even if it is the first time the thing has been described in this way.  Or if I use the same event to illustrate a point.

Anyway, this thought is going off on a tangent that doesn't make much sense.  I'm going to stop here.  My puppy is nudging my arm and it's making it really difficult to write.

I'll post more when I

 
 

Not much to report on, but I thought I ought to check in.  I'm really excited that my mom is moving back to California.  I miss spending time with her, so that's pretty awesome!!  The question right now is, where is she going to stay?  She's coming here next week and still hasn't found a place.  Oh well.  Things will work out for her.  They always do.

I've completely finished editing Women Scorned and am now reading it to Talal.  He has final say on everything I do, so I can't wait to get his reaction to the work.  He's so awesome.  I'm almost done editing Sanitarium, too.  Way ahead of schedule as far as I'm concerned.  Tomorrow is April 1st.  I expected to be finished editing Sanitarium by the end of April, not within the first week, but I'll be done with it by the end of this week.  There wasn't much to change.  Most of the stories were already well polished and gone over and the new stuff didn't need too much work to be done.  I'm actually surprised.  I thought I had a lot more work ahead of me for it, but I guess not.

I can't wait to get started on Djinn: A Love Story.  The title may change.  I don't know.  We'll see.  Maybe something more exciting.  But I'll be starting my snowflake on it really soon.  I feel like starting it today...you know, at least coming up with my one sentence description or something.  Hmmm...that could be fun.  I just might do that today.

Oh, and I've also been communicating with Crystal Dreams Publishing.  I'll let you all know what happens there.  They are looking at Breaking Thresholds, Women Scorned, and Sanitarium.  I have high hopes.

 

 
 

Yay!  Today I've officially spent 28 years on this planet.  I've laughed, I've loved, and I've cried.  In fact, I'm still loving.  My wonderful hubby, the great guy that he is, greeted me with a beautifully prepared breakfast in bed.  Half a grapefruit with a cherry in the center and a sliced, hard-boiled egg.  Soooo good.  I love that kind of breffy.  Oh, and my seven-year-old daughter got herself up especially early, took the doggies potty so that I didn't have to, and made me breakfast in bed, too, not knowing her daddy already had something in mind.  She made me sliced carrots with bar-b-que sauce on them, sliced apple with peanut butter and vanilla, and toast with vanilla, and water mixed with seven-up and vanilla.  Can you tell she likes vanilla.  Considering she's not allowed to use the stove without permission, I think she made me a marvelous breakfast with what she had on hand.

I got a phone call from one grandma to wish me happy birthday and an email from the other.  My mom hasn't called yet, but she sleeps late.  I should hear from her later.  Oh, and my friend from forever ago sent me a hilarious heavy metal happy birthday clip from a great cartoon.  So funny. 

I also took my puppy, Layla, in for her last vaccinations today so now we can take her outside to do doggy things without worrying about her getting sick.  She's now allowed to potty with the big dogs!!  Such a big step for her.

I wasn't planning on cleaning today, but it seems I've been bitten by the cleaning bug.  I tidied up the house, and am doing laundry.  I did the dishes...you know, the stuff I said I wasn't going to do because I wanted to spend the day being lazy.  But it's nice to be lazy in a clean house rather than a dirty one, don't ya think?

For the rest of the day, however, I'm going to continue my second edit of Women Scorned.  The people I've allowed a sneak peak at this story LOVED it, by the way.  And even though I'm reading it for the second time, I still find it enthralling.  Considering I'm usually really harsh on myself in terms of my writing, this is pretty amazing.  I thought I'd be bored with this story by now, but I'm not.  I can't wait to finish editing it and get it out there.  The public will love this book, I'm sure of it.

Look for it, all of you following my writing.  Look for Women Scorned.  I'm sure this one will be on the shelves.  So, to get back to my laziness in my clean house...Happy birthday to me, happy birthday to me, happy birthday to meee, happy birthday to me...c'mon!  You know the song!!...ha ha ha.

Anyway, catch you kiddies on the dark side.  Thanks for listening all this time.