Friday Links, Jokes and Eggs...

Happy Easter Friday! There won't be much here today - I was going to sleep in, but The Husband turned the TV on to get up to the minute information on The Master's Golf Tournament and didn't adjust the sound from last night's watching of American Idol! Result - I'm up at my usual time! Perhaps I'll head back to bed after I post this.

For those interested, we had a very lively discussion over on Karyn's blog yesterday with our very first Carnivalesque: The Travelling Blog Show topic: The romance genre, but is it romantic? If you're interested, head on over and read the comment section - lots of great suggestions I need to remember to weave and layer into my work.

Another fantastic site I came across the other day is Kickstarter. This is a project based website where participants pitch their ideas and readers donate money to get those ideas off the ground. The project managers lay out the costs with their pitch and a deadline - the readers, if interested, can donate anything from $5 and up. If the money is secured before the deadline - Win! If not, the project is done (and from what I can see, open to other's possibly taking it on - haven't found that out specifically, I was too caught up in reading all the project ideas). There's various catagories, including fiction - yes, fiction writers can pitch their work and get donations to pay for the self-publishing costs.

If you're interested, here's the link: http://www.kickstarter.com/ Once there, click on "Discover" up at the top to get you to the next page - then scroll down for the various catagories (Dance, Publishing, Art, Photography, Food, Music - and more). Really Cool!

And, finally, some lame Easter Jokes:

How did the Easter Rabbit dry himself? With a hare dryer!

How can you tell where the Easter Bunny has been? Eggs (x) marks the spot!

What did one colored egg say to the other? Heard any good yolks lately!

Have a wonderful Easter weekend, People of Blogland! Check back tomorrow for Weekend Words if you're not out hopping around, up to your ears in dying eggs or trying to figure out a way to eat the whole chocolate bunny in one sitting!

A Winner, A Joke, A Confession, and Options...

Congratulations to Tess St. John - you're the lucky commenter and will be receiving a digital copy of Grace Hood's Coming Undone! Thanks again to Grace - and to everyone who stopped by yesterday.

My dear friend Connie has been sending me funnies through the e-mail to keep up my NaNoWriMo spirit. Yesterday's was priceless:

If life gives you melons...you may be dyslexic!

Confession time - NaNo is not going well. I did not write yesterday :( Not words to add to the WIP, anyway. I did type up a hearty rendition of our book club meeting. Then proceeded to delve into a couple of books I borrowed from book club members.

The drek I spoke of earlier is pulling me down and I need to find a way to bring some light to the NaNo project. I have a couple of ideas:

1. Change the POV - up until this point, I've been writing in Riley's POV (3rd person). I think if I write a couple of scenes from another point of view, the story may become clearer.

2. Write scenes out of order - there's a couple I have rumbling around in the back of my mind that I could get down for word count. I don't usually write out of order, but this is NaNo and it's all about the word count.

3. Write my dead people scenes - yes, you read that correctly. Riley has conversations with dead people as she prepares them for their funeral (OMG, perhaps this story is just too morbid for my quirky sense of humor). These people have stories to tell - so, in reality, the work would have short stories embedded into it. I could write those short pieces.

4. Spread my writing out over the day - hard to do when I have a Day Job, but a really good idea since I seem to be so exhausted at the end of the day all I want to do is sit and veg. Lu sent me a link to a great post about surviving NaNo - and working on the novel at different times of the day was one of the suggestions. It's a great post: Open Book Fiction - How to Survive NaNoWriMo: 7 Tips to Keep Going

OK, I feel better now. I have options to get me out of the drek. Expect to see word count change tomorrow morning.

Any jokes for us today, People of Blogland? How about some other options for me (and others working on NaNo) if my 4 lifelines above fail? Anything to confess?

Exercise Humor...

Over the past three months, I've been running off and on. I had a fabulous July with lots of miles (71) covered and the 10K Fun Run at the end. August saw 47 total miles. September only totalled 27 miles. OK, I guess I should rephrase that: Over the past three months I've gone from running on to off! My focus had slipped. But I'm back on track, having logged 25 miles already this month (and I started on Oct. 4th).

I have a plan, which I'll share with you another day - a plan that will see me stay focused. Without a plan...well, let's just say the following excuses ring very true (thanks to Alison for sending me these gems).

Walking can add minutes to your life.This enables you at 85 years old to spend an additional 5 months in a nursing home at $4,000 per month.

I like long walks, especially when they are taken by people who annoy me.

The only reason I would take up walking is so that I could hear heavy breathing again.

Every time I hear the dirty word 'exercise', I wash my mouth out with chocolate.

I know I got a lot of exercisethe last few years,......just getting over the hill.

The trouble with jogging is that by the time you realize you are not in shape for it, it is too far to walk back

If you jog backwards, will you gain weight?

What's your exercise of choice, People of Blogland? And how do you stay focused?

On The Lighter Side of Education...

Whew - that was a heavy subject yesterday. So, at the request of my niece, here's something a little lighter. And it still has to do with education. Nothing like a little ingenuity to bring kids into line!

According to a news report, a certain private school in Washington was recently faced with a unique problem. A number of 12-year-old girls were beginning to use lipstick and would put it on in the bathroom.

That was fine, but after they put on their lipstick, they would press their lips on the mirror leaving dozens of little lip prints. Every night the maintenance man would remove them, and the next day the girls would put them back.

Finally the principal decided that something had to be done. She called all the girls to the bathroom and met them there with the maintenance man. She explained that all these lip prints were causing a major problem for the custodian who had to clean the mirrors every night (you can just imagine all the yawns from the little princesses).

To demonstrate how difficult it had been to clean the mirrors, she asked the maintenance man to show the girls how much effort was required. He took out a long-handled squeegee, dipped it in the toilet, and cleaned the mirror with it. Since then, there have been no lip prints on the mirror.

There are teachers..................and then there are educators.

Happy Tuesday, People of Blogland :)

And this formatting better work today!

Pull the Wool Over My Eyes...

It's Sweater Day. The WWF - no, not the wrestling guys, the World Wildlife Fund - is asking all Canadians to turn down their thermostats by 3 degrees in an effort to lower our carbon emmissions and, therefore, help (in some small way) to reduce climate change. And turning down the thermostat means wearing a sweater to keep warm!

I'm extending the invitation to my American Friends. I hope ewe participate.

Here's the link to the WWF - http://wwf.ca/takeaction/sweater_day/

Now to pick out my sweater for today. While I'm doing that, here's some humor to get your Sweater Day off to a good start. Yes, I know climate change is no laughing matter, but I didn't have crazy sweaters to share with you, so you'll have to settle for the jokes.

A cop is driving down the freeway when he sees a blonde knitting while she is driving.Confused he turns on his siren and loudpeaker and says, "pullover, pullover." The blond looks up at the cop and then down and screams, " No, it s a sweater!"

"I say, I say, I say. Did you know it takes a dozen sheep to make a sweater?" "Really. I didn't know they could knit."

MRS Banta knitted a sweater and sent it to her husband by parcel post. With it she sent the following note: I have removed the buttons as they are too heavy and would add to the price of postage. You will find them in the right hand pocket of the sweater.'

Yikes - some of those were pretty baaaad! Shear makes a person glad she's not a knitter! I love sheep thrills!! Bleats depression any day! Someone stop the madness...

Got any good sweater jokes, People of Blogland? How about a great sweater you want to describe to us (I used to have a sweater with sheep on it - irony, don't you love it?)? And let's talk climate change - yesterday was the coldest day, I'm considering 'climate change' to be a conspiracy theory (not really), what about you?

This, That and a Lesson...

Most of you know I was going to overhaul my schedule this week - try writing my blogs at night so that I would have the morning to focus on a work-in-progress. Ha! I managed to write 3 out of the 5 blogs this week on that schedule. Then I lapsed, sat and watched mindless TV, then went to bed - forcing me to then write my blogs in the morning. Did I notice a difference? Not really. Other than I didn't have to force my not-yet-awake brain to come up with something to write and ending up with posts titled "This, That and a Joke..." - which then changed to "This, That and a Lesson..." Never title your blogs until after you're finished writing them (ooh, two lessons).

Last night, the mindless TV really was - the night before, however, was Kitchen Nightmares with Gordon Ramsey. I don't get the Food Network (and thank goodness for that or I'd be glued to the TV - I'm a huge foodie), so was surprised to find Ramsey's show on one of the few channels we get. Brilliant. I watched as he revitalized a cafe in Philadelphia - from the menu, to the chef, to the decor. And throughout the entire show, in between the swearing and crying, he spoke of 'heart'. Yes, I am going to relate this back to writing (my way of justifying a whole hour sitting on the couch watching the TV). To make it in this business (just like in the restaurant business), you have to have heart. The women he was mentoring had been so beaten down, so discouraged, they had lost their heart.

A critic (read editor, agent) had basically trashed their restaurant (read manuscript, query). In a Siskel and Ebert world, they received two emphatic thumbs down. Patrons had stopped coming, bills mounted. They had lost hope and their dream had been squashed. Ramsey stepped in - believed in them - and relit their fire. But - and there is a but here - he only encouraged them to dig deep within themselves and rediscover their dream and passion. They had to do the work. They had to believe. With a little tweaking of the menu and a little revamping of the decor (this was not Restaurant Makeover), he urged them to try again if - and this is a big if - that's what they really wanted to do.

As I write this, my brain is going a mile a minute with the revelation (I think so much better on paper). I feel the need to grab my private journal and do some free writing. So, I leave you with this question - the same question I am about to explore myself: Is it what you really want to do?

Oh, and a joke, since that was the original title of the blogpost:

A hungry lion was roaming through the jungle looking for something to eat. He came across two men. One was sitting under a tree reading a book; the other was typing away on his typewriter. The lion quickly pounced on the man reading the book and devoured him. Even the king of the jungle knows that readers digest and writers cramp.

Oh, and a suggestion to go into the comment section of yesterday's post (Contests - Do You or Don't You?) where Lilly Cain has left an insightful response concerning Chase the Dream's contest. Thanks, Lilly :)