Happy Holidays – I’m off to New Zealand

Well, it’s finally time for my long overdue honeymoon.  Ian and I are heading to New Zealand to hang out with sheep and penguins and do lots of hiking and photo-taking.  I’m well armed with lots of fantastic books to read and I’ll be doing a little travel writing as we go.  While we’re gone, check out the pets on our webcam here.

I hope you have a fantastic holiday!

Best wishes,

Tanya

After my heart

The local librarian wears gloves to work every single day.  Not, white ‘wow I respect books so much’ gloves but fuzzy black ‘I need a quarter inch of cotton between me and everything I touch’ gloves.  I love her style.  It speaks to the germaphobe in me.

I’m back (and getting published!)

Hi all you faithful readers out there.  Sorry for dropping off the blog radar for the past few weeks.  When did it get to be December?  The days have been filled with serendipitous travels, lots of writing, eating, and honeymoon planning.  I hope you can forgive me.

I’ve crawled out of my cave (aka the library) to tell you one of my poems is getting published in the Northridge Review.  Woot!  The Review will be released early in the spring and they (gasp!) want me to do a reading.  The possibilities for embarrassment when you combine me + public speaking are endless.  And that’s just how I like it!

That’s all for now but I promise I’ll be back with lots more fun soon.  Thanks for stopping by!

Productivity, at what cost?

It’s now gotten to the point that I have to bribe my dog with bones to get him to be quiet for me to write.  He’s supposed to be on a diet, so this makes me a bad pet owner.  He doesn’t seem to mind the extra treats, but still.  The good news is, I’m getting a lot of writing done.  I’m in the stages of sewing my scenes together, since everything is written in chunks, and it seems almost like cheating to get so much done so quickly.  I can turn out a chapter a day now, if I can get in a few good hours of work.  Tonight I’m going to the library though.  Let the dog bark all he wants.

The things kids say

Add to the list of things I never thought I’d hear in a library: a two year old dropping the f-bomb at full volume.  You may think that going to the library every day is boring, but the experience never ceases to amuse me.

Out the door

This just in from the Tanya Productivity Department: I sent out my manuscript for the consultation I won at the SCBWI Summer Conference.  It’s nice to get everything out the door and I’m excited to get some more feedback on my novel.

My blogoversary!

It’s my one year blogoversary today and I’m super excited.  For the last year I’ve posted five days a week, pretty consistently.  The only times I’ve really slacked off on this have been the last few weeks, which have been filled with graduation and weddings, weddings, weddings.  My goal with this blog moving forward is to post when I have something fun to say, but not worry about posting daily.  I’m sort of an all or nothing person when it comes to routines, so hopefully I’ll still post frequently.  My bigger focus at the moment is to get my novel into shape and ship it out the door.  Cross your fingers for increased productivity!

Fall happened

It’s getting dark way too early around these parts, I tell you.  When did it get to be fall?  Unfortunately, when it’s nice and dark out, it makes me want to curl up in bed with a book.  This is not good for the writing, or the (cough cough) exercising that I need to be doing.  Bring on daylight savings.

Dog Days

I keep trying to convince my dog that if he stops barking I’ll be able to write my book and if I can write my book then I can try to sell it and if I can sell it then maybe I can buy him some dog food.  He is very food motivated, my dog, however he only understands food in concrete terms.  Since all this food I’m bribing him with is abstract potential food, this does not make for a good bargain.  So until I can get him to understand food in the future tense, I’ll be at the library.

ANT(P)M?

I just want to toss out there that I’m totally into this season of America’s Next Top (Petite) Model.  Sure I promised myself I would stop watching the show four season ago, but my DVR just keeps picking up new episodes at the start of the season.  Then I tell myself that I’ll just watch the first episode, but after that, sadly, it’s too late to break myself loose.

The good news about this season is that it features short girls, and though I personally wouldn’t be at shoulder level with any of the “short girls,” it’s still nice to see them featured.  I would like to point out, however, that there seems to be a rule that the girls aren’t allowed to wear any sort of heel to judging.  They show up in perky flats and Tyra towers them over in stacked platform shoes.  Really?  Also, the fact that Tyra continually calls them “the next top petite model” instead of just “the next top model” like every other season is super annoying.  It’s singling them out for their size instead of embracing their talent, and it’s a totally mixed message.  To me this just perpetuates the cycle of seeing short people as “the other” instead of the norm.  Tsk, tsk, Tyra.

P.S. Oh god, I’m analyzing reality television – some of my media studies classes must have rubbed off on me.  To think – I may have actually learned something in school!