You can tell I really love WordPress. <3

If looking at other people’s vacation photos is your thing, check out kourtnie.wordpress.com. It’s everything a dumbstruck American could say about NZ, Northland… and it comes with a zest of humor!

I’ve also started another blog – Lose 26 – which is my Violent Ultimatum for losing weight. Like every other human being that makes New Year’s Resolutions, I’m going to drop poundageness in 2012. But unlike the nooblets, I’m doin’ it slow… at a mere half a pound a week. With 54 weeks in a year, this is 26 pounds, bringing me to my early college years.

Don’t you wish your fat ass was dancin’ like me!? (Read Lose 26. Seriously. You’re missing DDR action.)

Anyways, subject #2.

Transmogrify came out in World of Warcraft today, but I’ve yet to log in and enjoy. Another pre-New-Years-Resolution that’s biting me in the ass is the vow to write 1,000 words a day. Most of this is getting dumped into the third rewrite of my novel [shuddershuddershudder], but when writer’s block hits, the blogs call and beckon.

And now I’ve plowed through 434 of my 1000-a-day quota. SHEBANG! KAPOW! KAZAM!

Just a few more comic book noises, and I can wrap this shit up… with an angry e-mail to a penguin-killing Republican.

Anything but the book…!

NO MOAR MANUSCRIPT.

PWEASE ILL BE GOOD YARRRGGGHHH /peaceout.

I know you have a busy life right now, but please, I’m begging you, write a bloody chapter for your book. THIS EFFING INSTANT. If you do not comply with my humble request, I’m afraid you will:

• Suffer from five types of cancer. With no medical insurance.
• Wake up at 9:05 AM to a dead alarm clock and a clown painting your nose blue.
• Realize you will never get medical insurance because your cat chewed up your car keys.
• Realize you will never get this blue paint off your nose because the water was shut off by your favorite Irvine Apartment Company.
• (Realize you are repeating the word “realize” and need to write up a bug about it.)
• Eat the cat litter with a plastic spoon, then gain 30 lbs. from illogical litter binging.
• Fight an epic, metamorphic spoon that voltrons into Mr. Ass-kicking Spork, then stabs vampiric-like wounds into the side of your neck.
• Explain to your coworkers – after mysteriously getting to work without a car – that your wounds have nothing to do with a spork and everything to do with Twilight.
• Stop breathing. *TERROR-STRICKEN SILENCE*
• Recognize you’ve been possessed. Now you must submit to blabbering about books you’ve never read, nor intend to read, for the next 36 hours.
• Go home after this exhaustive, sudden “curse” has destroyed your friendships, career and life. It’s also put more updates on Facebook than you normally manage in a year. (So it’s done three updates.)
• Buy a bunch of Yoshi figurines you don’t need.
• Experience lucid dreams, where your guildies, coworkers and potential agents read your blog and think,

“Holy shit, if only she wrote a damn chapter.“

Sincerely,

Your Writers Block

Friend of mine shares this awesomeness all the time.

Comic from Johnny Wander. Check it out!

So I stopped the querying process not long after starting a new copywriter position at another online marketing company [months upon months ago] and since evolved into a copyeditor position and… no further queries. Then I went out with a friend to lunch the other day and she says, “You should try this new agent out, she requested a manuscript from me and she’s signed on six people!”

She’s from a big-name agency that I’ve read quite a bit about before, so I thought, “Sure, why not?” — and four minutes later, I had a request for my manuscript! Huzzah!

How long I’ve queried: 35 days

Number of queries sent: 25

Number of queries declined: 18

Number of partial requests: 3

Number of partials declined: 2

Creative Writing Progress

I started on another manuscript in first-person present-tense and it’s going spectacular. Unlike my previous manuscript, I spent [months upon months] diagramming out different things that would impact the plot and it’s been like one of those plug-and-paste in formulas you learn to use in algebra class in 8th grade… but with the cool English-ie creative writing part!

Somewhat related, I’m also trying to update my www.kourtnie.net site.

In Other News

Have neither gained nor lost weight, but I’ve become a DDR champion. (Gotta love those genes!) I’ll have my bragging-moment-of-the-day here and say I’ve mastered 7/10 step songs and I’m working on 8/10 steps. Also working on converting others into my ADD-friendly exercising practice, but that’s only rubbed off on the significant other.

We’re moving (I believe the lease ends on November 4th), this time closer to our work places. It’s a logical deduction that took two years of living too-many-unnecessary-freeway-exits away to figure out.

Also sated those lovely addictive genes with an old card game I used to play as a kid. Hurray!

The funniest part of it? The visualization of a person inhaling a lake in an effort to lose a pound.

And speaking of ridiculous things to lose calories, this article talks about some 20-minute activities that could lead to significant weight loss over one year of dedication. Among them, my favorite:

Hunting on a Golf Course
Calories Burned: 200
Description: Exercise ought to be fun. And though it’s good to push yourself from time to time, you want to avoid activities that are too difficult—or too dull. Aging golfers make easy targets, and there are plenty to go around. If you don’t want to find yourself exercising in prison, use a paint gun…or aim low!

I’m hoping I can stop by Happy Nails today for a manicure; I haven’t had one in years and there’s a cuticle that’s trying to grow a tumor on my thumb. I have a date with my friend and fellow fantasy writer / peer editor, so I’m hoping I can coax her in the direction of removing said mini-tumor.

No change in the querying process except +1 day. Still need to send another batch of queries out.

My boyfriend and other peer editor bumped heads with me last night about how I envision the current book I’m [re]writing versus how he envisions it. It’s technically the “sequel” to the one I’m currently writing, but it’s more like how The Fellowship of the Ring is a sequel to The Hobbit than an actual sequel. Not that I think I’m even remotely similar to Tolkien (it gives me shudders than any aspiring writer wants to be like another one — voices are like fingerprints!), but I can’t think of a better example to compare to with prequel / sequel structure. The two novels really do stand alone (and the current one I’m writing attaches to a much larger story than the standalone “prequel” or first book or whatever did.)

Number of queries sent: 24

Number of queries declined: 16

Number of partial requests: 2

Number of partials declined: 2

Creative Writing Progress

Sending more queries! Going to finally start querying agents that use forms and only accept snail mail, just to give it a go.

The second partial I sent out came back declined with some useful feedback. That agent’s great and I will sing praises if anyone asks me about the agent specifically at a conference or other writing locale.

Copywriting Progress

Finishing up the article for the freelance copywriting gig today. We went to Las Vegas for several days, so that delayed progress on–well, pretty much anything. But hey, I won some roulette!

Dietary Progress

Been playing DDR, but all the buffets at Vegas pretty much neutralized that. >.>