"It was imprudent of us, in the first place, to become authors. We could have become something regular, but we managed not to.
We were lucky, but we were also determined." Roy Blount Jr

"I don’t change the facts to enhance the drama. I think of it the other way round, the drama has got to fit the facts,
and it’s your job as a writer to find the shape in real life."
Hilary Mantel

Wednesday, January 11, 2006

Owl-less

Celebrity owl flew his perch sometime on Monday (his Day of Fame) and hasn't been seen since. We look forward to his return. As I've been out and about this week, people I meet have commented on his gorgeous photo in the newspaper.

Now that I don't spend so much of my free time owl-watching, my schedule has room for answering a couple of a couple of meme's. I was twice tagged by Teresa and due to one thing and another my response was delayed.

First Meme:

What were you doing ten years ago?
I'm the kind of compulsive sicko who will actually locate her Filofax from 1996 and look it up. Although I don't have anything written down for this specific day, I'm guessing I was nursing sore muscles, because I'd just had 2 days in a row of cross-country skiing lessons.

Also, I know for a fact that I was planning a new rose garden and simultaneously working on the outline for the novel that became The Proposal, my first long historical and a leap forward in my writing career. (The roses I planted that spring were eventually featured in the cover painting.)

It was an incredibly creative phase in my life.

What were you doing one year ago?
Again, I checked the datebook and this particular date was a blank...in fact, the entire week was. Which means I was constantly at home, busily writing chapters of my contemporary novel.

Five Snacks You Enjoy:
1. anything chocolate
2. anything almond
3. anything hazlenut
4. anything raspberry
5. fruit

Five songs to which you know all the lyrics:
1. "Sultans of Swing," Dire Straits
2. "Writing," Elton John
3. "Mr. Jones," Counting Crows
4. "Basket Case," Green Day
5. "I Saw a Bird Fly Away," Dar Williams

Five things you would do if you were a millionaire:
1. Increase my donation to the local library's building fund
2. Build a third bay onto our 2-car garage
3. Convert our attic loft to a second home library
4. Increase my pledge to my church
5. Give what's left to my husband

Five Bad Habits:
1. Cursing (I gave it up for Lent a year ago but sometimes I have a lapse)
2. Cursing (which I don't do as often as I used to)
3. Not tidying my office
4. Too often leaving my clothes lying on chairs, dressing table stool, side of jacuzzi tub, wherever I take them off
5. Cursing (only occasionally)

Five Things You Like Doing:
1. Reading
2. Thinking about Writing
3. Gardening
4. Sitting on our dock staring out at the mountains and lake
5. Finishing a manuscript

Five Things You Would Never Wear or Buy Again:
1. micro-mini skirt (never bought one, never will)
2. poncho (ditto)
3. hot curlers
4. high school gym uniform
5. betta fish

Five Favorite Toys:
1. My digicam
2. My Dana
3. My new Laptop
4. My new pump-action pepper mill
5. My Shower Bug shower radio

Second Meme:

10 Reading Secrets

1. I read War & Peace a long, long time ago, so it's not one of my Desert Island books.

2. I nearly always read the newspaper in section order.

3. I sometimes learn more interesting U.S. news in the London newspaper.

4. Magazines are my addiction.

5. I have almost as many U.K. magazine subscriptions as U.S. ones.

6. When travelling, I carry along a "plane book" (usually written by a friend or acquaintance) and purchase any other necessary reading material once I'm there.

7. I can still read French, though I hardly ever speak it any more.

8. I read lots of nonfiction, and of that nonfiction the vast majority is biographical.

9. I really, really like literary fiction. But not all of it.

10. I still read my own novels sometimes, to see how they hold up over time. And usually it feels like somebody else wrote them....


No comments: