My Recent Comments

From a posh hotel in Edmonton. I didn’t like the look and location of the motel I had booked, so I cancelled and the only room left near where I need to be for the doll show tomorrow was a suite. Only thirty bucks more than the motel. And wow, it is comfortable and has high speed internet

Kay, there should be a gun at the end of the phone for those pervert! A couple of times after we just moved I got middle of the night calls. After ensuring it wasn’t my son - dh doesn’t wake up - the first time I hung up without a word, the second time I grabbed my dog whistle, very sharp high note, and when the guy started the heavy breathing, I whistled with all my might. I never had another call.

Sam, great about the tooth decay reversal. My dentist told me that with good hygiene and the right diet hairline cracks in the teeth heal themselves. Hey, four projects! Superwoman

Caron, I thought they killed the Everlasting line nope, I’m not going to write an autobiography 

Vieve

Kim, how’s DS?

Roz, it’s fall all right. Glorious gold aspen with now and then and underlay of deep red from the chokecherry and saskatoon bushes. Splattered among the gold are the oaks, still green and bright. Back home in Manitoba there was ice on the dogs’ water pails in the morning. It’s only a handful of degrees above freezing during the day. However, here in Saskatoon, it’s way above normal - the normal being about the same as Manitoba - and I didn’t pack light tops *icon for sweating here*. It’s all part of the prairies continental climate.

Caron, they’ll never bring high speed to our area because we only have 1,100 inhabitants for the 3,600 square miles - or 2,304,000 acres - of land, which is almost two-thirds wilderness. Now virtually all websites are made graphic and animation heavy, which means that dial-up customers sometimes cannot access certain sites with animation, can’t download ipod, or view video. I don’t frequent blogs, not even cigars (except right here in my lovely motel), because I find it frustrating and a waste of my time to wait for a site to load.

According to Canada Environment, it’s medium cool in southern Ontario. That should be pleasant with beautiful fall colors.

Grammar: All I saw was green leaves. All is the remote subject of was and is a collective pronoun, therefore expressed as a singular.

Back to the wip

Oh, I just finished reading "Les choix du coeur" by Roz - (Wide Open Spaces). When I see one of you ladies' translated books in the French library, I borrow it. Always curious to see how the translator managed it (I ran my own translation business for a decade and a half while teaching dance). I didn't think too much of the translation, but then it was a man translating and though it's a long time since I read Roz's book, the French version didn't have the atmosphere I remember from the English, not even when for lack of knowing North-American culture the translator simply used the English word, i.e. pickup, van. And the title would have felt so much better if he had written "Les grands espaces" which is more indicative of what the book is about. Maybe I should offer my services to Harlequin-France

Vieve

I’m totally addicted to this high speed connection I don’t know what I’ll do when I get back home

I’ll be on the road Saturday, Sunday is the show and Monday I’ll be on the road, so will miss the Jaunty Quill.

Hi Anna

Back to writing the wip in the great solitude of a motel room

Vieve

Caron, I lived eight years in the Arctic I’m in Saskatoon till the end of the week, then on to Edmonton for another doll show.

Kay, good vibes going your way. Don’t worry, you’ll pull another great book. You know of course that treadmill are only clothes horses in diguise

And I’m taking advantage of this high speed connection by posting again, between writing two scenes.

Sam, you didn’t kill the thread. Being healthy is all that matters. After all, the scale is only numbers... like the age.

Vieve

Ronda, hear you on the stereotyping. That's why when asked my age - reporters are terrible about that, sorry Kim, but they always want to tell the world about the age of the interviewee whether it's relevant to the story or not, and I have done and still do a lot of those interviews between my unique dogs and my unique dolls as well as my former dance school - I always reply 35 and have done for many years. I love to see their baffled faces and wait for one of them to say that was my age ten years ago, but they don’t dare. DH said that as long as I "look" at them "that" way, they won’t dare bring up the subject. But the Wii machine is wrong. At 23 a woman isn’t mature enough. She still has utopic dreams (well I still have some  ) but at 35, a woman’s brain is functioning to high capacity with a good dose of maturity. I’m flattered to be a role model but wonder if I deserve it. You see the quest for dreams may be rewarding when you achieve it but it is a financial bummer.

Amy, I missed that you made a triple sale  Hurrah!

Vieve

Hi everybody, writing from a motel in Saskatoon after a surprisingly successful doll show

Shelley, I suddenly discovered my wip is about redemption. It didn’t set out to be but after I veered off the Super path, it struck me I was wrong. Redemption was a powerful theme. I’ve now straightened it and for the first time feel deeply happy about it. But you’re right, I have over the years found there were trends, or maybe a direction in which the majority of books seemed to go. This can be dangerous though, because an author spots a trend, jumps on that wagon only to discover that by the time her book gets published the trend has cooled. Look at the lines that have disappeared.

Marcie, well, romance can be born anywhere. However, approaching a ringless female in the store is a little suspicious, indeed, how many cards did he hand out that day? and the previous or next day?

Kim, yep, still get the zing. It should too in real life romance.

Caron, Galloway is right. Dean Koontz set a book in Kyoto (Japan). Japanese readers asked him when was he in Japan and sorry they’d missed him. He replied he’s never been to Japan. Reaction: but his book is so true and detailed he had to have been there. He just did good research - which is a lot easier now with the internet than when he wrote that book.

Jeannie, en garde! and spray the shirt...LOL  Congrats for the runners  And yey for you turning cartwheels. Age is how fit you are and what your outlook on life is. Teenagers who come for sled rides in winter call me Superwoman because I run faster than they do to catch the team they’ve weren’t able to hold onto.

Caron, I’ve lived a couple of months in Yellowknife. You did well in Her Favorite Husband, both the setting and the story

HAPPY BDAY! Kim. Chronological years don’t count. What you feel is the important thing.

On writing: I don’t do cards anymore. I tried and lost them. I then did a storyboard. I didn’t have any room to pin it in front of me. Now I just write outlines with sometimes half a dozen possible directions, split the screen, decide on one, and start sifting the elements from the others, which I then delete. All my characters IDs and any new developments or twists are in files on my computer, lined up behind the actual wip so I can bring up any file I need with the click of the mouse. But when an idea strikes and I'm away from the computer, I have my faithful spiral notebook in my handbag.

Ronda, good that DS will have the eye exam. I certainly never had a clue that my DS had an eye problem despite being home all day and aware, so I thought, of everything about my kids.

Caron, I believe in second careers. Age is immaterial.

Diamonds were discovered in northern Canada about 2002 and production began in 2003. No waste of time!

Kim, I hope there’s nothing serious with your DS Best wishes flying towards you.

Amy, congratulations? I missed something there, so all the same congrats!

Back to the blissful peace of my motel room getting a lot of work done and trying not to miss DH and the dogs

Vieve

Ronda, Have you had DS’ eyes checked? it may not necessarily be dyslexia. My DS reversed letters but could comprehend what he read, and read well enough. His 2^nd teacher asked me to get his eyes checked. He simply needed glasses and became a good speller (and writer).

Block? Hitting wall? I’ve been there and back. My current wip was planned for Super. Then it developed all by itself and I’m not sure it’s still fitting Super, unless I could send it to Japan where they don’t like happy endings  - I want to write two books actually and only the second one will have the HEA. This happened when I decided not to let my prof DH edit my ms. It freed my writing in a new way and my spirit has soared. Might not be any good though...

Margot, your dogs shed half their undercoat in the spring and finish shedding in the fall. Probably where you live they don’t need to keep the insulation on. No, I can’t add spinning to my other crafts, but if I had nothing else to do, I would. I haven’t found anyone who wanted the down. We let it be trampled into the mud at the moment. And in dry times it just gets integrated into the soil when the snow comes. I’d love to see your belly dancing skirts

I’ll be away the whole of next week as I’m going to two doll shows in a row, and staying in a motel in between - cheaper than driving. A week by myself with nothing to do but finish my ms  If I can get a free internet connection I'll drop by

Vieve

Back on the internet and phone. Four days without due to the last thunderstorm and lightning - and of course back to flood level. We had just a few puddles left *sigh*. First days I was hopping mad. Second day didn’t look so bad. Third day I just about forgot about it. Fourth day I can live without it, then I remembered my writing friends and jumped for joy when they came to check the house lines and said service would be back Thursday morning, ok it was afternoon.

[[[Susan]]]

Deb, dog woolly down is a favorite material for birds’ nest. Unfortunately our Arctic dogs only shed according to the daylight. It has to become significantly shorter for them to begin shedding, and that is the end of September, beginning of October (but are early this year!). They shed fast and grow the new undercoat at high speed. Same with Arctic wolves and as far as I can tell our local gray and timber wolves. The thick coat insulate them from the heat during the hot months and also protects them againts pests sucuh as mosquitoes, black flies and no see’ums. But other breeds, especially those who live outside but do not normally have a double coat, shed in the spring. They also have a different metabolism.

Marcie, crunching under your window? CN? Next time your hear crunching, rush to the window and see what it is. Because if it is CN trespassing you call the cops.

Vieve

Margo, Say hi to that musher boyfriend of yours. Did you get to ride the runners? My dogs are freighting Arctic dogs, Inuit sled dogs, not as fast as Alaskan huskies, but strong.

I was a ballet dancer and a rhythmic gymnastic competitor. Since life of dance performers is short, I became a teacher of both. A former student became a teacher and after three years of working for me I decided to hand her my school and retire to my next dream: country living with my dogs.

Vieve

Kim, a running line, long enough is good too. It isn't as secure as a pen. A chainlink pen isn't unsightly and when the dog dies of old age, it is easily taken down and can be sold or given to some other pooch owner. I can understand your DH standpoint. I believe you live in an apartment?

Vieve