I have an icon over on my other journal that is a pretty accurate description of how I feel sometimes regarding my coworkers. The text reads “Careful, or you’ll end up in my novel”. I wonder if the people I work with on a day to day basis realize this. Just the little things that annoy me could be the things to get someone a bad name in literature, like:

• Only coming in my office when the Starbucks downstairs is closed
• Walking up to my desk and demanding (not asking or even attempting politeness) to see my records of something (Note, this wasn’t even my boss. This was just a random librarian)
• Complaining that the coffee I made for my boss isn’t to your taste
• Dumping out said coffee for boss and remaking the pot to your taste
• Only drinking one cup of paint thinner said coffee
• Giving me more work to do at 4:15, when I leave at 4:30
• Giving me more work to do at 11:15, when I go to lunch at 11:30
• Act like you’re too good to follow procedures

I had a problem with one person – not a coworker, but someone I knew from online and eventually met – where s/he completely annoyed the everliving crap out of me by cranking down the temperature in our hotel room to 68°, despite the fact the rest of the people in the roomeither were uncomfortable at that temperature (D. Marie, Godrod, and myself), were unable to stand said temperature due to metal pins in leg (Heavyarms), or didn’t want his/her temper and/or keep his/her friendship (the final person in the room). It wasn’t his/her apparently constant need for cold temperatures that got him/her in the book, though; it was said temper and attitude. I might work the other half into the story later.

One thing I love about my work is, B brings in candies. I grab a small handful in the mornings when I open up her office. Today they’re getting me through the day, mainly due to utter exhaustion, along with my usual one cup and one travel mug of coffee.

So, I did finally start that fan fiction that had been bothering me the last few weeks. I’m two very short chapters into it, and already it has more reviews than some of the stories I put on FanFiction.net quite a while ago. It’s number 30 out of 31 for hits, actually. For being out less than a week, that’s pretty good, I think. I’m also using it for some free advertising for Amaranth.

And that’s actually a lovely segue to a follow up on a post I made on 18 April, entitled “Tentative Green”: I now have a publishing contract through Cacoethes Publishing for Amaranth. I actually heard from Denise Mosley on Wednesday, April 23, and finalized the plan. On Thursday, I mailed all my information to the company. Friday, it arrived. Now I’m just waiting to see what sort of editing needs to be done. It should be out as an e-book in December and as a hard copy book in January.

So now, I’m working on Verdant and trying to plot out some ideas for Ash and Azure, the third and fourth books in the series. What’s bad is that I have ideas for Azure but not so many for Ash. I mean, I know basic plot elements and some of the major things that will occur, but I don’t know the case that they will be working on. Oh well, I’m sure something will come to me.

And now back to work, both on writing and on dealing with annoying coworkers. Ciao, my silent readers.

So I’m blogging from the new iBook, he who still has no name. (It’s between Bombay, Bakura, and Wraith. Yeah, I managed to drop one from the list.)

I’m still getting used to the keyboard, but overall, I’m absolutely in love with this new baby of mine.

Depending on what we do for food tonight, I might take him around and try to get some work done on Verdant tonight. Of course, after we get a bit of our cleaning done that we desperate need to get done.

And I’m still trying to remember to breathe.

I can’t say too much because this is very up in the air, but I may have gotten a tentative green light.

I can say that I have a kitty in my lap that is determined to kick arse and take names on everything plastic in her general vicinity. There is another kitty in the recliner next to my desk who wants to do the same.

My iBook with no name (though maybe Bakura or Bombay… hmm, or Wraith or Eastwood) arrived in town today, but I wasn’t at home to get it. So first thing tomorrow I’m going up to the post office to retrieve my new baby. Name help, anyone?

In the meantime, though, I’m might take Heero out on a last run and perhaps work on Verdant during dinner at Samrat. I feel re-inspired.

So, after my big babble yesterday about The Dresden Files and my newly redyed hair… the day was actually a bit hellish. Not as bad as the day before, but still not any fun. Well, D. Marie and I did actually end up going out and grabbing One Fresh Stir-fry and Dairy Queen for dinner last night. That was good.

I also splurged and bought myself something I had been wanting for a long time, to make up for my week of hard days: an iBook G4. Yes, the MacBook, MacBook Pro, and Air have come out since this one, to say nothing of the upgrades of the Powerbooks, but it was an iBook G4 that I wanted and that’s what I got myself… at least till I can afford to be rid of my home desktop PC and replace it with a 20″ iMac. Anyone want to donate that kind of funds to me?

It’s strange: the first two computers I ever used were Apples. One was at my childhood friend’s house — and that was a fair indication she was a money kind of friend, since that was the mid-1980′s and she had a computer in her house. The other one was in my sixth grade classroom — and it was shared between the 9 students in my grade and the three grades below mine. Both were old school Apples, but I have fond memories of them.

After that, in high school and onward, there was no option other than PCs, so that was what I used. I bought myself a used iBook G3 in very early 2007, as a birthday present to myself. I call that computer Heero.* Now that my new iBook G4 is on its way in, I’m worrying on what to call it. I’m debating on Wing, Zero, Duo, Deathscythe, Bakura, Omi, or Bombay.

Now that my work computer is updated to Office 2007, I’ve also updated my home computer to the same. I’m really digging it. It reminds me a lot of Office for Mac in a way, especially with the word count at the bottom of the screen. I do dig the custom colors. Yes, both of mine are a black background. They’re awesome that way.

Also, I added some new icons to my group. They’re all pretty spiffy. Most of them are, like my old ones, writing-centric, but one is reading and one is an anime-style girl. Somehow the latter seems most appropriate here.

And now to wait for my new baby… whatever his/her name may be…

* All my computers** have names. The eMachines laptop my father bought me in 2004 is Ultra Sephy. My iBook G3 is Heero. I have a small Strawberry iMac I picked up used called Ichigo. My home PC is Kaichan, with a 2nd hard drive called Setsuna and an external hard drive called TARDIS. My flash drive (with all my stories) is Ryou. If I ever replace Kaichan/Setsuna with a new iMac, it would be Kaiba.

** Not just my computers. My cars have also had names. My first car, a 1991 Geo Prism, was KITT. My second car, a 1993 Geo Prism, was Shinigami. My third/current car, a 2003 Oldsmobile Alero, is Shinigami Hell. If I ever get the car I want, a Honda Civic Hybrid, it will be Shinigami Hell Custom.

I’ve been squeeing all over the place about The Dresden Files lately. Well… I’m not done yet.

Over in LiveJournal land, someone posted an excerpt from The Dresden Files comic 01 on scans_daily.

I think I might be mildly in love with it.

I don’t know which is worse: being held hostage away from my computer at the whims of the Microsoft madmen, being down with writer’s block, getting another “no” letter (and a very brief one at that!), or the cold I’m trying to avoid getting.

It’s a very rare circumstance that I ever feel the need at work to do quotations, but yesterday was the perfect opportunity for one: “No one can serve two masters”. It’s a little tough to have two bosses sometimes, especially when they both want you working on two separate (but equally time-consuming) projects at once. Yesterday was me calling around to hotels with one hand and one half of my brain, while the other hand and the other half of my brain was trying to create a label using the university seal for a notebook that had to leave the office by 3. Somehow I finished, but my brain was ready to fry by the time I was done.

If I haven’t mentioned it lately, I’m up to Book8 of The Dresden Files: Proven Guilty. The story is definitely moving a good pace. I’m still enjoying the characters. I’m enjoying it enough to avoid spoilers; that in and of itself is pretty amazing for me. I love my spoilers. I actively hunt them down sometimes when the mood strikes or I’m a bit bored with what I’m reading/looking at.

And in a final note, I’m back in black! I’ve missed having my hair that lovely shade of black for a while. I had been scrimping and not buying hair dye, but I splurged last week. D. Marie and I dyed it two nights ago, and I think it turned out rather lovely. Well, as well as I can look for snapping a picture with a 1.3 megapixel camera phone at work. Thank you, Photoshop 7.0, for my clear skin, and LG, for said camera phone.

So in today’s tale, I’m updating today from my PDA. My office computer is currently held hostage by a Microsoft Office 2007 upgrade. In other words, there is nothing I can do with it till the upgrade is done.

It actually finished once, but the Outlook upgrade refuses to play nicely with my calendar. So of course, I’m held hostage here till it decides to work. ETA: some time in the next few hours.

I’m still holding out hope on the queries I’ve got out. I think it’s sitting somewhere around 13 at this point in time. Continue to wish me luck, please!

So, apparently, people are actually reading this. That’s fantastic. Hullo out there, people! (Maybe I had better shape up and quit whinging about things… Nah.)

I’ve made it to Book 7 of The Dresden Files: Dead Beat. I only just started, but so far it’s pretty good. For me, the slow books only seem to be the ones with a lot of Michael in them. To me, he’s just a dull character. I can’t really articulate why, but I can’t quite seem to get attached to him enough to make me want to dash through the books with him as I have been the others.

Characters I’m really liking, though: Harry, of course, because I love a good smart arse (and that says a lot because it’s easy for me start to dislike a main character — see my thoughts on the Harry Potter books sometime); Karrin Murphy, who rocks my socks; Thomas Raith, for reasons that are a bit spoilerish; Bob the skull; Mister; and Mouse. Yes, even the animals. Mr. Butchers has obviously had a cat, because he has Mister nailed (it’s like combining my kitty Aya’s personality with my tom cat Roo’s size, plus some, and there’s Mister). Mouse reminds me of a very large (and a great deal more intelligent) version of my father’s dogs.

I think one of the things I like most about the Dresden books is that, unlike some other book series I’ve read that I won’t name the author of but anyone who knows me knows my opinion of, there are negative effects on the narrator. Not everything just serves to power him up further and further. He’s not a Gary Stu, and not all the other characters immediately adore him; in fact, a lot of them immediately dislike him.

And thus are my thoughts on Dresden for now. I might writ more as I read more.