Diana

Yay, got an acceptance today from The Kids' Ark magazine. They want to publish one of my stories in their Sept. 08 issue. :) The editor called me to tell me. My first writing-related phone call! :)

Check out my recently published content on AC:

The Nine Types of Convenience Store Customers

I feel like I am starting over today. My writing had become nonexistant during a relationship I had.

So...I broke it off and today is the first day and I feel rejuvenated. :D

I've started looking at my stories again, and am even considering writing about this whole experience and creating a story from it. Too bad I won't have any more new material from this guy to keep it up...but, I'm a writer, I can just make it up as I go along! :)

Online games for writers

http://www.writingfix.com/gamesforwriters.htm

Revisions, revisions, revisions.....why do I take so long getting to them?

Haven't worked on a thing in about 2 weeks, but today that changes. New goal is to submit at least one thing every week.

Sent off my first erotica story today...made up a different name for it and everything. I had been thinking a long time about a good pen name to use, and the other day my friend Tony was over looking at my bookshelf and was like 'You should use this name..' and said it, and I was like wow, that's perfect! So there, problem finally solved.

Working on revisions now for that romance story...want to have it all sent out by next Monday, a week before the deadline. I hope there aren't too many more changes after that. :X

I also went through my files and made a list of stories that I need to find homes for. Looks like I have 6 stories that are all finished and doing nothing but sitting here.

I don't know why I've become so lazy...researching markets is my favorite part!

Still recovering from an awesome St. Patty's day...I'll give myself another day. :X

So, Beth drops me off at home after a few hours of shopping, and I'm carrying like twenty bags when I go to pick up my mail.

I see one of my SASE's in there, and am thinking 'Oh no, I don't want a rejection today', so I throw my mail in one of the bags and head upstairs. Once inside, I drop everything on the counter and pull out the envelope to see which place rejected me now.

I open it up and inside is....

A CONTRACT FROM HIGHLIGHTS!!!!!!

They are buying the story that I sent to them a year ago! I totally thought it was a rejection....I'm so glad it wasn't. :) This is my first acceptance so far this year. :)

What a happy day, I'm going out to celebrate!

Haven't updated in awhile...Nothing new to report actually. Just heard an update on a submission I sent to a horror anthology...If I haven't heard back yet, that means my story is still in the running. :)

Highlights is back to considering my story again...she must have liked the changes I made to it this time.

Hmm...what else...there is so much snow here...I LOVE bad weather, but this was just scary. I finally felt good today driving to work...the other day my normal 10 minute ride to work took 40 minutes. Luckily I was one of the only people on the road at 5am (besides the snow plows).

Big scandal at work right now...wish I could talk about it...someone's going to get in big trouble though. :X

I have two writing assignments due on February 28. Why am I procrastinating again?

FINALLY finished the first draft today and emailed it to my editor. She emailed me back later on asking about a typo I had made...in the first line! :X

In my defense, it was there because I switched lines around at the last minute. :D

Hmm, what else is going on...received my soon-to-be-published story back to check over the final copies of it. How exciting. :)

Saturday is Clara's birthday so we are going downtown to the male strip club. :X Should be some fun times there. :)

That's all for now, will update when something exciting happens. :)

*sigh* Well, I did it.

I have a MySpace account. :X

Thanks alot, Beth! She dared me. :D

In other news, received a very nice rejection the other day, she told me what she liked and didn't like about the story. Coming from a major publishing house, I was surprised but also glad. I made some changes with her suggestions in mind, and now I've got it sent out to another place.

Getting a rental car on Tuesday because that's when mine will go into the shop. It snowed really bad last week for like one day, and a lady ended up rearending me and screwing my car up majorly. Still driveable, but broken.

I am seriously procrastinating SO bad on writing this romance story that is due Feb. 1. I've got about 10,000 more words to go and I can't seem to get motivated. Help!

I just spent $50 at Borders.

I need to stop doing that. :(

Last night was funny yet scary. Me, my sister, Clara and Beth all decided to go to a singles party held at a hotel near my house.

First we went to dinner at a restaurant, and ended up staying there 2 hours because the waitress was that slow.

So we finally make it to the party. We pay $40 EACH to get in. At first we are a bit scared, because we see a bunch of older people hanging out near the entrance. But we decide to go in anyways, thinking that the people our age are just hanging out on the dance floor or something.

Let me just say, it was the worst place I've ever been to in my life. Total meat market, and there were no people there under 40. Which would have been fine with me, I like the older crowds (usually more mature), but this was different. None of the men were dancing, they were just standing off to the side watching women dance with each other. Some of the women wore such skimpy outfits that I'm sure by the end of the night most of everything was revealed on them.

So after careful consideration (I wouldn't leave unless I danced off at least $5 worth of the entrance fee) we all decided to leave.

We drove around until we found a suitable bar...Clara wanted to go to one called Cronies, I said no.

We ended up at a bar around the corner and had a great FREE time there. Oh well, I guess we learned our lesson. Never go to a singles party on New Years Eve.

It was fun though, we had a lot of laughs over that one. I woke up with a sore throat...probably because I blew into a party favor that was already used. :X

Thanks to C for driving us around all night! :)

This has been my first day off in weeks. Have to work on my romance anthology story. Only 30 more days until first draft is due.

I also have to come up with a goal list for the year. I did pretty good with my list from last year.

This year I had 21 rejections and 6 acceptances.

My goal for 2007 is to get 42 rejections and 7 acceptances. :D

Oh no...why did I eat so much????? I seriously can't move right now.

I'm going to try and make it to my bed to sleep. If not, I'll just fall asleep in my chair here. :(

Worked on two stories today and are getting ready to send them both out tomorrow. One is for my ICL class and I have to include a short note updating my instructor on my progress so far. The last time I wrote her was about six months ago, and I've had a lot of news since then.

Karaoke on Saturday was so boring. Now I remember why I don't go to bars anymore. I would have rather been sleeping (like I should have!) because I had to wake up for work early the next day. I also remember why I don't drink anymore (not that I drank a lot anyways). The beer tasted like spoiled milk. Yum.

I must be getting too old because I didn't like the crowd of young kids at the bar. They were obnoxious and too loud. Makes me wonder if me and my friends used to be like that. :D

Tomorrow I'm going Christmas shopping with my mom. I think I'm pretty much finished except for Clara and a few other things for my dad. Of course I'll be spending money on myself as well, since I can't seem to stop doing that lately. But I haven't been out to the malls in forever, and there are so many cute things to buy! :)

Last night I went to Clara's Christmas work party. I didn't think I'd have a good time and didn't really want to go except to see the drama with Clara. But I DID go, because I told her I would.

I had the most fun I've had in a long time. :)

I met this really cute guy named Tony that was also dragged along by his friend. We sat and talked the whole night, and I ended up missing most of Clara's drama, but that was okay, because we drove around until 2am analyzing what had happened. So Tony and I made plans to get together sometime this week, I just have to call him when I'm free.

Tonight me and a few girls from work are off to karaoke at the local bar. We haven't been there before, because the place changes names like every other week or so. We invited a bunch of customers from work, so we're curious as to who really shows up. :)

And then tomorrow it's off to church with Beth again so that we can drop off our donations. They have a Giving Tree, and I picked up an ornament that said 'Single Mom - Gas Card' which seemed like a sign or something, so I got her a gas card from work. :)

I just received my sweet 19" Widescreen LCD monitor today. My brother came over and set it up for me. Mostly because it was my day off and it got delivered to the store and I didn't want to go pick it up.

But I just have to say...

I LOVE IT!

Everything is so much.....wider now.

In other news, I went to a new church with Beth last night. It was a service mostly geared towards teens. I was so surprised at the number of younger people that were there. It was really nice to see that. I'll have to keep that church in mind. We are going to try out a few different places and see which ones we like best. She would know more than I would though, I'm kind of just starting out with the whole church thing. But I had fun. :)

Okay, my new goal is to save up to that I can take this course:

http://www.asuen.com/w.ezch.html

It starts in February, so I have until then. I've always wanted to take one of her courses, but just never had the time.

Christmas party this Friday. And then it's off to a new bar on Saturday for karaoke. One of my customers sings there, so she invited us all to go. I haven't been to a bar since I stopped smoking. By the way, on Monday it will be 3 months. :) Yay!

Received my first payment in the mail the other day for that first story accepted. How exciting! We are going to frame it. :) It's just the beginning. :)

Okay, I totally have to stay out of the malls. I have spent WAY too much money these past two days, and it was all (except for 2 things) on MYSELF!

And the most important thing I wanted, I left in my friend's car. I was all excited about the cotton candy I bought, and now it is with someone else!! That's what I get for shopping too much.

What a busy week so far. I sent in my revisions and also got out some new submissions as well. I can finally get back to normal now that November is over. :)

http://articles.news.aol.com/news/_a/search-intensifies-for-missing-father/20061204123509990015?ncid=NWS00010000000001

This is such a sad story. I'm praying that the father is found.

This has turned out to be a pretty good week. I finished my Nano novel last night around midnight. It felt so good to finish, I feel like I have all this free time now. :)

Also, my story is up at KidVisions.

And tomorrow, I get to go to Dave and Busters and party with my friends! :)