Excuse me while I bask in the sound of silence....

Okay it's not silent now - I have music playing. But the nice thing is, I don't need to use headphones or earbuds because there is NO ONE to drown out. It's Monday, and school is back. Hooray!!

I'll do a wee re-cap of our weekend and then I'm going to read Flashbyte and send it back to my glorious editor over at Rebel. Woot!!

We've had a few odd things happen of late... First Squealers timer has disappeared. No one can find it. And I discounted it as carelessness on behalf of the child, but, now, I'm not so sure because a few days later, I discovered my American charm bracelet was missing - I knew exactly where it was but when I went to get it and wear it - it had disappeared - from the top of my jewelry box and reappeared right under our bed, still in the jewel box it came in. (Which is not small nor is it light.) To reach it Action Man had to lift the bed - there is no way the cat knocked it to where it was found or one of the kids.
Then - my kindle disappeared in the middle of the night. That's right, the middle of the night. It was on my nightstand. I got up to make a hot chocolate at 1AM and went back to bed to read (couldn't sleep cos the clowns would eat me) but my kindle was gone. So back downstairs I went. Not there. I checked Squealers room. Not there. Action Man turned back the covers on the bed and there it was. WTF?
Then - Action Man took his usual glasses off and put them in the case - he put on his reading glasses and went downstairs to sew (something going on with his tactical belt, I don't know what, but he fixed it) - he put everything away. Went to change his glasses and they were gone. Everything else was ready, lined up on the end of the bed, (wallet, keys, phone etc - we were about to go out) glasses gone. I went to look. And they were almost exactly where my Kindle was found two nights before.
THEN: we get in the truck. Kids, us, dog. Action Man turns the car on - and our heads almost explode!!! The stereo was turned all the way up.
Knowing how annoying it is to turn the stereo up or down - makes this very very odd. It's not just one turn, it's about 5 turns of the knob to change the volume SLIGHTLY. So it's not something that can happen by accident.
The song that was playing was Matchbox Twenty's 'Unwell' - so I couldn't immediately blame either of our usual incorporeal visitors. Not a usual song. But, the song used to play to callers ringing my cell phone instead of the boring ring tone you usually hear.
Next.... the GPS went haywire.

Yeah, it's been fun.

And all that coincides while I'm writing this NZ novel. And having a lot of fun doing so. hmmm


I'm not even going to mention the oddities with my laptop...

Took Romeo out yesterday to play with his girlfriend Cleo. That was fun. I think we all enjoyed ourselves. The kids certainly had more fun being able to run around with the dogs in a relaxed atmosphere. We had fun. The dogs seemed to enjoy themselves. Romeo is slow to warm up but he did warm up and then he and Cleo ran and sniffed and hung out... he was muddy and tired when we got home. He much prefers to play one on one, and not with a crowd of hounds. He likes to be able to come up for a hug and not be separated from us by fences etc - it's a security thing. So running around freely with Cleo and being able to come back whenever he felt like it, was great for him.
Next time I think he'll be faster to get into it.
The dogs didn't really start to run until Joe fell off his scooter and Dave ran to make sure he was okay - with hounds running along with him. Then dogs both took off, making the most of the grass and large area. I think they waited to find out if Joe was okay first. :)

The last week of the holidays!!

Kia Ora!

It's Friday night. So that means the freaking winter holidays are OVER. Oh yes!! (Can I get a yee hah??)

It was not the best possible week but it's over. Breezy is still sick and on another course of antibiotics -different ones. Hopefully this time...

Today was hugely productive - it's amazing what I can accomplish with earbuds and awesome music. (Thanks Lorenza - for saving my sanity and for helping the writing of 'Wherefore Art Thou' go so swimmingly today. Mystic Fiddler is groovacious.)
Once I got some actual writing out of my system I jumped into Flashbyte... this morning I had half the manuscript to go. Reading through Jayne's edits and making changes - by five o'clock this evening I was done.
I'll send it back to Jayne on Sunday for round two. Until then I want a day to let it sit and to read and tweak anything I come across. I LOVE this part. It's so much easier tweaking a manuscript than writing it to start with!

So, writing "Wherefore Art Thou" - finishing touches to Flashbyte and maybe over half-way through the writing of Soundbyte. It's never dull here work wise.

I'm also reading a lot at the moment and have reached for the tarot cards for the first time in a long time. I tend to leave them until they call me, it works better that way. Now they're talking, so I'm ready to listen.

Also, I joined Google+ - because what I need in my life is another social network! I think I like it more than Facepalm. But as I need to be everywhere I can't see me leaving Facepalm entirely... but one never knows what's instore!
Actually I joined Google+ because one of the coolest and nicest guys on the planet sent me an invite, and I thought I'd check it out. At first it was scary... now it's not so much. :)

Sunday is Romeo and Cleo day - we're taking Romeo down to play with Cleo, that will be awesome. They will run and do Greyhound stuff. Let's face it, there is no other animal here that can keep up with a Greyhound. (There are no cheetahs in NZ so I'm fairly safe in saying that.)
I MUST remember the camera this time and actually use it!!!

Trying to think if there was anything else of note this week.

I broke a nail half way down the nail bed and it hurts a bit when I type... been typing all day. Kinda annoying. :)

Time for a glass or two of wine. I've earned it this week!! 

How was your week???

I shall leave you with this because I miss it:

A bit of childhood reminiscing with Admin One

Yesterday Admin One got Breezy to write a list of things she wanted to do this week. There are all sorts of things on the list but one we did today was make a tent.

Both Admin One and I used to make tents out of a blanket and either the dining room table or dining chairs... bet you did too!

This is Breezy's tent, she shared it with Romeo. He lay on the outside, as close as he could to her and when she realised where he was told him it was okay to come in.  :)

To start with he was in but his head was out...

When Romeo realized Breezy was drawing him, he started to take notice! lol  










As for the rest of the day... I think I got about half an hour of work done!! Are the holidays over yet??? :D


Oh yeah and it snowed. Just a little bit. :)

A birthday and a giveaway.

Good morning.

It's Sunday, and today we're going to give away a copy of Torrent.

If you'd like to be in to win - simply tell me the name of your favorite TV show from the 80's or 90's. Go on, what are you waiting for... leave a comment!

Yesterday was The Boy Wonders birthday:

The Boy Wonder cutting his cake.

Admin One and Admin Bubbles.

It was all too much for Romeo.

Multitasking

Good morning, we survived another week! Hooray it's Saturday.
This week has been another week of illness. Pretty much sucks to be Breezy at the moment. First week of school holidays and she has been ill all week, and as of last night still wasn't showing any signs of improving.

Today is the Boy Wonder's birthday. He's already had his birthday present, so will only be getting a little something today. It's a fun little something that I picked up from Radio Shack in Fair Oaks mall.

We're also having a birthday dinner tonight, for the Boy Wonder and Kane (aka Mac).

I haven't so much enjoyed this week. But I have been getting some work done. Not as much as I'd like. I'm doing something a little odd at the moment. Working on two things at once. I never do that. Unless it's two Byte books - because there is some flow there. But this time I am working on the edits for Flashbyte (yeah, a byte book) and writing Wherefore Art Thou - not a byte book at all - not even in the same version of English!
It was always something I wouldn't do, for fear of screwing it up - two different works at once?? Insanity! But it's working. If I were writing both, I think there would be issues. But was one is edits only - it seems to be okay and even fun.
I do a bit of Flashbyte then write some of the other book.

Wherefore Art Thou is all new characters, some of them are easy to write, it's almost like they're old friends. :) Suspect they might drink Dolcetto and one of them probably makes a damn fine port. Think I've figured out how to translate Nooooo to the story. It'd have to be within conversation.
Something like, "Stalkers in blue cars?... Nooooo."

You can imagine how much fun it is, right?

I can imagine a couple of Admins having another drink having read this. :)

So anyway - tonight is a birthday dinner. Today - I need to do something about Romeo's harness, it was rubbing the other day, but I think I know how to fix it. I shall cover the straps in a softer fabric. (Like those seat belt covers you can get.), I need to go to New World because for some reason they have better chicken than the other stupidmarket. Walk the dog, it's raining but he doesn't care. (Okay he cares a little bit, but once he realises it's the weekend and he gets to go in the car, he'll be okay with the rain.)

A question... it may seem a little nuts. How many of you have seen the commercial for Maxalt melt? (Migraine medication?) Looks easy right, the woman quickly opens the packet and pops the thing on her tongue?? Talk about FALSE advertising.
 At no point do they say "You will need scissors". Seriously. Maxalt is in a blue plastic container (which isn't too hard to open, but it does take a  bit of force.) then a foil packet and then as if that wasn't enough a fuc'n bubble pack inside the goddamn foil packet. WTF? And can you press the freaking wafer through the foil on the bubble??? NO. Not without the whole thing crumbling. And the foil doesn't peel off. I needed scissors. so now I have smalls scissors inside the blue container.
I think the packaging fairy went a little nuts on the Maxalt. While I'm at it.... that's not a wafer. It's a big fat round pill that crumbles. The peppermint flavor does not mask the disgusting taste of the 'wafer'.
The package should come with a warning "do not try to open this during a migraine."


Here's a pic of sicko and Romeo.

Bit of a rant!

You've been warned... read on at your peril.

A few things are pissing me off at the moment. Let's tackle them one at a time.

This whole News of the World scandal... it's way more than a scandal. They broke the law, they violated people's rights, and that makes those journalists no better than the paparazzi who chased Diana to her death. What's more it taints journalists who do report the news. In my opinion...It taints everyone involved in any of Murdoch's media enterprises.

So many journalists work very hard at reporting, investigating, and getting us a balanced view point without breaking the law and violating people.
Where does that sort of shit end? Really? Where is the line in the sand that says hacking phones is okay but wire tapping isn't? They're both illegal. I can't see how anyone who thinks it was/is okay to hack phones would draw the line at actual wire taps or roving bugs.
Yeah, it's pissed me off. It sucks.
It's way up there with shitty gossip magazines and the lies they tell.

Funnily enough I had a discussion with my doctor yesterday about both the phone hacking and gossip magazines. Which leads me to another pet hate and rant!!
 She, like me, has not bought or read a Woman's magazine in YEARS. I see them in at the check out and they make me feel sick. There is nothing they won't print to sell magazines. It's disgusting the way take a photo of someone going about every day type business and turn it into something sordid or dramatic.
Really, you morons with your super duper cameras cannot possibly know what the person who photographed was doing, thinking, whatever... so you lie. Which makes you scum. But you lie to sell magazines full of lies... and 'justify' it by declaring that anyone in the public arena is fair game??? That is even more diabolical. There is no regard for privacy or the families of these people... they even pick on the children. For fucks sake!
I've always thought that if people stopped by the trash then the market would dry up... but sadly there are too many people who believe everything they read in shiny magazines.

And for the last thing...

The mossad thing that came out of the Feb earthquake... get over yourselves... we as a country have every right to investigate suspicious behavior by foreigners. Let me point out the little fact that in 2004 Israeli's were caught trying to procure NZ passports. That's not playing as a good friend, is it?
Suck it up Israel, if you behave badly and get caught, do not be surprised when your weird behavior after the earthquake draws interest.
I'm more likely to believe our Police and SIS than a foreign govt agency who has already been caught with its hand in the cookie jar.
And it's got nothing to do with racism or anything else... you're not being persecuted for being Israeli - you are being investigated for behaving badly. You could be purple with pink stripes and from space for all we care... it's not who you are, it's what you were doing.

On that note I shall go give Breezy her medicine and make another coffee.

Team work

Last night, I was almost asleep and I heard Romeo shake his head. Now that shouldn't be possible. He sleeps downstairs in a very comfy bed in the living room. We sleep upstairs.

But I heard his bling rattle. (He wears a few tags on his red and gold collar... his name tag, his registration and his  microchip tag - needless to say when he shakes he makes noise.)

I got up and opened the bedroom door. Romeo was in the girls room. The door was wide open. Suspicious. He won't open doors. Missy (the way-too-clever-cat shot past me into my room... hmmm, she can open doors.)
Romeo was delighted to see me, he walked by me, tail wagging and lay down on his 'upstairs' bed.

I don't think so.

I shooed the cat out.

Called the dog. He reluctantly stood up, made out like he'd been there all evening - stretched twice - then ambled over to me. I took him back to his proper bed, downstairs.

The kitchen door was wide open.
The cat was sitting on the dryer in the laundry smirking at me.
Two WIDE open doors.
Interesting.

I tucked Romeo into his bed, said goodnight and shut the door behind me. I checked it was firmly shut. Because he won't even try to open a door or go through a door unless it is WIDE open. We usually leave the kitchen door not quite latched.
I gathered up the cat and stuffed her in bed with Breezy.

There is no way in hell the dog opened those doors by himself. Missy usually opens the door wide enough for her to fit through.

This is not the first time I have suspected team work with my animals. When I thought about it, I remembered the cat was in the living room with Romeo when I went to bed. I had also heard some playful noises after I'd gone upstairs. Earlier in the evening Romeo had sniffed the cat. Usually he won't even make eye contact, never mind getting close enough for a sniff. Missy often goes up to him, because she knows he'll do everything in his power NOT to look at her. Yesterday, however, they were outside together for a little while.

This is not good.

Two smart animals working together. The cat knowing she has to open the door all the way to let the dog through.... this smells of trouble.

On that note, I nest get ready. Romeo is going for a LONG walk today. I suspect the homeward leg will be SLOW.

Between Breezy and Romeo - I'm working here!

While I try and think of a blog title I shall write the blog!
It's Tuesday.
The day holds bugger all promise. It could have, but it doesn't. Breezy woke us at some ungodly hour - her temp hit 40 and my thermometer refused to give me an exact reading after the 6 seconds it took to reach 40. She's had Pamol and Nurofen, a cool cloth, and ice to chew.
Now I'm waiting for the doctor's surgery to open.
Tiresome is an accurate description.
Poor Breezy is miserable.

As for the weekend...
Saturday morning we went to the Crash Rescue Champs - it was very very interesting. But apparently I was the only one who thought so, so I didn't get to go back on Sunday for the finals. Which was as shame because it was fascinating. Both the Admins were on duty at the Rescue champs over the weekend. We were lucky enough to have Admin One to explain what was going on and so forth.

Saturday afternoon we took kids and Romeo over to Mana for a GAP run.
It was interesting to see Romeo with other hounds. I hadn't realised how big he is. Obviously we knew he was a big dog, he takes up a lot of room! But in comparasion to other Greyhounds - I had no clue how big he was. Well, he's big. He was one of the biggest on the field.
I know Romeo doesn't like to hear barking - but I didn't realise how much he hates that sort of noise. He was happy to run with the other hounds right up until a few of them got really excited and barky... then our big boy started looking for a way out of the pack. He ended up running by himself. He waited until the group were busy then took off, and was on his way back before they all realised.
But, despite him wanting to hang around humans more than play with his own kind, he had fun. And we had fun meeting all the other dogs and a bunch of hound owners.
The thing with Greyhounds is they are VERY friendly. They have no qualms about coming over to say hello, leaning on you, shoving a nose at you, waiting to be patted. I knew our boy was super friendly but it was awesome to be around so many friendly hounds.

We finally met Cleo and her family! Romeo was quite taken by the young and beautiful Cleo. We'll get the dogs together for a playdate, which I think Romeo will enjoy more than the all out craziness of 25 hounds running. So nice to meet other folk with a hound and young kids!!

Way down by the fence is a white and black blur - that's our boy. And somewhere is a blonde blur, which is Cleo. This pic was taken before all the dogs were let loose.

Sadly lacking in pictures of the hounds. Although it is pretty hard to photograph them in mid flight!!

Right, that's it from me.

Almost...
One last thing.

I got a mention on Good Morning yesterday. The discussion topic was "How the internet changed your life." Yeah, a little bit... lol. Being a kiwi thriller writer with a South African Publisher - writing books set in Virginia and DC.  :)


Back to work for me... I am trying - really trying - not to work through the edits too quickly. But I'm failing. I'm over half way, and now I've started re-writing stuff because I want too and not because Jayne marked it.
Must slow down... am guessing there will be a HUGE chunk out of my day once we get a doc appt, so that should help slow things down.

Take care. xx

Inspiration comes from everywhere!

It's Friday. We've had a VERY wet and wild week, weather wise. This morning we had a frost. No rain. Just frost. Instead of his waterproof coat Romeo wore his camo jammies for our walk to school.

True to form he made another friend. The school caretaker met Romeo this morning. Drawn by the camo coat, I've no doubt! :)

And that is not what I was writing this blog about.
Back on track now people.

On our morning walk, Romeo again wanted to investigate St.John's hall. I can understand the lure of the field next to the hall. He's a Greyhound, he sees open space and wants to run like a maniac. But today, he pushed me toward the hall. He's done it before. Usually I tell him 'no' and we play on the field for a bit. We played, he kept looking over. I distracted him and when I was ready I took him to the hall. I guess I want to know what the lure is too.
Whatever he sees and can smell over there, I cannot. I don't know what it is that interests him so much. He spent a good deal of time inspecting the exterior of the building before wanting to go inside.
Well, it was closed.
No one was there. He had to satisfy himself by standing on the ramp outside and staring into the dark interior.
(I love how he admires himself in shiny surfaces... ear up, cocky expression on his face... as he wonders who the gorgeous hound is he can see.)
But today he was looking past his own reflection.

Now this gave me an idea.

I'm currently knee deep in edits for Flashbyte - which I know I have to do with less haste than usual, and that is problematic. When I get stuck into something, it's finished in short order. So... in the interest of taking my time... I'm currently also writing a kiwi mystery novel. (Which you probably know if you read this blog regularly.)

In this novel, my main character is a Private Investigator who has a Greyhound.
He's a smart dog, (as Greys are), and when his owner is looking for someone, he likes to help out. And that got me thinking as I watched Romeo show abnormal interest in St John's hall this morning. Could the person the main character is looking for be hiding in the church or church hall? Which got me thinking about sanctuary.
Okay, we don't live in Seventeen Century England. Still, it's a brewing idea... knowing who the missing person is, he could very well ask for and maybe even receive sanctuary from the church. He hasn't broken the law, but he does need a safe place away from prying eyes.
All that from watching Romeo inspect the building.

And last night, I had a whole scene arrive - nothing to do with Romeo - I was watching Police Ten-7. I figure my main character will recognise someone on the show. That would be a bit of fun. Especially if it's the troll who is stalking her. :) 

Nothing like the arrival of edits to spark the creative juices. About time too, I've been stuffing about writing sweet F-A recently.

Can someone please remind me to take my camera and spare batteries tomorrow? And maybe the girls should take their digital camcorder to the GAP run.

Gotta get away.

Flashbyte:
An excerpt from Chapter one.
Gotta get away

  Heat rose from the sparkling sand. From where I stood, within the internal shadows of the thick walled building everything outside looked bright and hot. I was cold to the bone. Waiting for Dion to return from what was supposed to be a short recon trip was driving me to distraction. Wouldn’t have been so bad but I was stuck with Ameer, a greasy son-of-a-bitch whose smarminess turned my gut. He argued in front of me with Dion, saying a woman should not be working in Iraq. I liked him even less after that.
  Wind blew sand across the open landscape. Dion emerged from sand against sand, a dark silhouette against tawny beige. My head filled with pleas and shouting. It was all wrong. Beads of cold sweat trickled down my face.
  Panic took over.
  Jolted awake with my long damp hair wrapped around my neck like a noose. My fingers unwound it without my bidding, it wasn’t the first time I’d woken like that. I doubted it would be the last.
My cell phone buzzed, loudly. The display flashed illuminating the clock on the screen. I seized the phone before it rocked off the nightstand and answered it.

  “It’s zero-four-thirty, this better be good.” I shook off the remnants of the nightmarish reenactment of a past life.

  “A woman was found strangled in a parking lot an hour ago.” Lee paused as if collecting his thoughts.

  I waited.

  “She was carrying ID,” he said, his voice sounded a little stressed for so early in the morning.

  “Good that will make it easier for police,” I said sitting up and turning on the bedside lamp. “I’m awake, I’ll play your silly game…who is she?”

  “You,” he replied flatly.

  “Nope. Don’t think I’ve been strangled tonight, try again.”  But how life mocks my waking state. Death by dreaming.

  “I saw her ID. I saw what she was wearing. Her name is Gabrielle Conway. She’s five foot nine inches tall, blue eyes, long blonde hair, and slim. Ellie – she’s you.”

  “You didn’t really think…” I didn’t finish my sentence. A car door closed on the street outside. I scrambled out of bed and hurried down the stairs. “You’re here?”

  Oh my, he wasn’t sure. How much like me, was the other Gabrielle Conway?

***

Copyright Cat Connor 2011

Monday – now this is more like it!

This is the most normal Monday I’ve had in weeks. Everyone is at school or work. It’s just me, Romeo and Missy (aka Fat-fat.)

This morning we baked. Cherry cupcakes, coffee cupcakes and banana cake. Yesterday I baked too, but it was quite the fail. I made banana muffins and forgot the sugar. I made Apple cinnamon muffins – and remembered the sugar but added too much topping.

Yep, fail. Today, however, it’s deliciousness all around.

All that’s left is to ice Breezy’s banana cake. Yeah, it’s mostly for her, and the Boy Wonder. They’re the banana cake eaters. Coffee cupcakes for Squealer. And Cherry for Action Man.

Have had an issue with my voice today. It keeps disappearing. Makes it a bit hard to call the dog. Luckily he’s figured it out and has tuned into my odd whisper. He even heard me say his name when he was upstairs – just proves he can hear when he wants too. He doesn’t listen very well when he’s off running around. In fact, he doesn’t listen at all. Which is what I expected being a sight hound an’ all. We’re working on that at the moment, with dog chocolate as extra incentive!

It’s not that he runs off, it’s that he doesn’t come back when called if he’s off on a wander at the park, and that could be dangerous.

Well, now that the internet is back I can work on ‘Wherefore Art Thou’ again. Am loving the break from Ellie’s world. Think I needed it. And it is rather fun writing this new book. It’s sitting at a very healthy 30K. Whereas Soundbyte is still languishing at 35K – after months… and I have no desire to finish it at the moment. Not to worry – Flashbyte is the next release in the _Byte series, so you folk you love Ellie aren’t missing out because I don’t feel the urge to finish Soundbyte just yet!

The weather today has been most interesting, well I expect it thinks it’s being interesting. Thunder, rain and wind gusts. It’s suddenly got quite dark… and here comes more rain. Nice. No doubt it will be full on stormy by the time I have to go collect Breezy from school. (Or should I say, will still be full on stormy!!)

Oh, man, I hope this stops, soon cos I don’t wanna go out in it!

Thunder, lightning, Hail!

Thunder, lightning, HAIL!

It started out gray today. Gray and cold.

We took Romeo down to Silverstream for a walk – no we didn’t walk him all the way to Silverstream… part of his weekend walk is also the car ride, which he loves.

He met a dog we met last week, not a Grey, a friendly old mixed-breed critter. (Yeah, I know me trying to be PC it’s a waste of time, he was a Mutt, but a friendly one.)

A crazy (no really, freaking insanely crazy) border collie came to say hello… well, it came over at full run, did some weird dog dance, which involved turning in circles while wiggling – and ran away. Leaving Romeo horrified. No, really, that was the expression on his face. Had he been able to talk I suspect he would have said, “WTF is that? And keep it the hell away from me!”

We walked on.

On the way back, Romeo saw the insane dog playing with an equally insane dog. Insanity knows no bounds, the crazed animal raced over ran around us in a big circle and raced back to his/her dad. Romeo wasn’t too disgusted that time, mainly because he was walking between Action man and I with the girls in front of us. He was firmly surrounded by his pack and that insanity couldn’t reach him.

Next it was take Romeo home, then head off to do battle at the Stupidmarket. Never good on a Saturday, especially not good after 9AM on a Saturday. The crypt doors are open by then and the relics have hobbled out to get in everyone’s way in the stupidmarket.

Then it was home… for a little bit. We had a few errands to run. On the way back the lightning and thunder started. Then came the hail. The road cleared in front of us as car’s pulled over, unable to drive in the ice. Yay for 4-wheel drive. Ice floated in the flooded gutters. It was an impressive storm.

We got home to this:





Friday in our house

For the last two and a half weeks there has been one or other (or both) kids home sick. Breezy with pneumonia and Squealer with the flu!

This pretty much sucks a big kumara work wise. Very hard to concentrate on writing when there are kids in the house.

Worse still... it's only a week until the school holidays!!!
Have I not been punished enough? :)
Apparently not. Am suspecting I was very very bad in a former life.

Very Very bad.
Yep.

Meanwhile, I have started a new WIP. A mystery set in good ol' Upper Hutt - you can stop laughing any time. (Can't say the idea didn't amuse me, can't say it still doesn't... yeah, Upper Hutt... what could possibly happen, right? - you'll be surprised!)

I needed to take a break from the Byte series for a moment, to get a different perspective on my work. Sometimes it's easy to get lost inside the words and forget that this is supposed to be fun. Plus... I REALLY hate where Ellie has taken book 5. REALLY hate it. So it's break time, fun time, the perfect opportunity ti write a kiwi mystery... and also rip the guts out of one I wrote  along time ago.
Big fun in little Upper Hutt.
The new book is called, "Wherefore Art Thou."  :)

And for more fun, Romeo is in the new book.
That's right.
He is.
In all his sight hounded glory.

Typicall the IE spell checked has no clue what a kumara is.
Oh, it's Maori language week.

so to that end:

Kua haere au. (okay I'm off.)

Ka kite anō. (See you again)

Monday – bit of a waste really.

Today started with promise – Breezy was well enough to go to school. Which meant Romeo got his walk, he was a happy yet tired dog when we got home. I needed to post a letter so we walked the long way home. Someone was walking behind me on the last stretch!! Poor Romeo, he much prefers running on grass and cantering along grassy verges with Action Man to walking on nasty old concrete footpaths.

Breezy lasted a good 3 hours before school rang; she had a headache and was vomiting!! Dear God, now what? She looked like death warmed over when I picked her up. Spent a few hours lying on the couch. Then perked up.

Which is about when the trouble started.

A perky sick child is trouble.
She annoyed the dog. She annoyed her sister. She’s annoyed the living shit out of me. They annoyed each other, and argued over the DUMBEST things, as children do. And on and on and on.

Time I had another holiday. Another LONG holiday.

Other things happened today but they weren’t of much note really…

I joined a site (can’t actually remember the name of it) – some sort of social networking site for artists. Took me forever to figure the basics out – like viewing my own profile … still have no idea what to do with it. Like most of those types of places – looks like just another time sink, and I really can’t afford to waste any more time. I’ve become a world class procrastinator of late – mostly because every time I try and work someone asks for something. All day long at the moment it’s, “Mum, mum, mum, MUM.”

I’M RIGHT FREAKING HERE!!

Which brings me to this – social networking is not working for me. Twitter - I like, but the rest of it seems like a HUGE waste of my time. I can’t see the benefit – at all.

A couple of years ago I was encouraged to join FaceBook and then to create a fan page – WHY? (I’m still trying to figure that out!!)

I was no stranger to social networking… I used to love Myspace, although it was fucky at times and that was frustrating -but as a social networking site it worked, it was fun.

So anyway, I did what was required of me. I went to Facebook (I still have Myspace, it’s so different now it was unrecognizable when I went back to do stuff there! And I don’t feel so at home there anymore.)

I’m not exactly sure what does work, but social media doesn’t seem to be doing anything increase readership etc, I mean let’s face it, I’m not writing for the good of my health – okay sometimes I am, ya know –when I kill people on paper to avoid jail time in reality… but apart from that, I’m writing to entertain people which pretty much means I want readers! But how to get them is the question… and it’s a fucn good question.

 I now know that having a story about me and my work in 80 plus newspapers across the USA does bugger all for increasing readership – you’d think that’d do something, right? Yeah, me too… but it hasn’t.

Quite bizarre. About the only thing that did was get a few more hits on my website than usual. We’re talking a very small increase. Gotta say, that was disappointing.

The biggest geeky fan thrill I got from the article being syndicated was that it was in the Mt Shasta News… and Flappy Man used to live in Mt Shasta (Come on, surely you know I’ve called Steven Seagal Flappy man for umpteen years!) which is totally cool, cos well, it’s Seagal and he kicks serious ass.

On that note, I’m off to watch Criminal Minds.

Take care out there… and if anyone has any ideas where to snag more readers… don’t keep it to yourself!

 This is one of the photo's Squealer took today -finally a pic of me and my big boy, Romeo.