Lynsay Sands

It’s been so long since I posted, nobody probably checks here anymore.  That’s all right though.

Anyway, I thought I’d update on what’s been happening and what’s upcoming.   So, let’s see . . . well, we spent a good portion of the time after returning from St. Lucia prepping the house for sale.   That translates to decluttering and a bit of painting, nothing major.  And then we put the house up for sale in May.  It perhaps wasn’t the best time to do it, I had two books due June 1^st, but when do I NOT have books due?  So, whatever.

 Anyway, we put it up for sale and the showings started.  Every showing we had to clean up, pack up kitty and evacuate the premises.  IT WAS DRIVING ME NUTS.  As was Mr. Spice who was also being driven nuts, so was in turn, adding to making me nuts as well.  So, I packed up the computer and moved to a motel for a month. Mr. Spice and Emma sometimes visited during showings, but otherwise it was very quiet and productive.  It was also really annoying to be in a little motel room when you do have a lovely big house you could be working in (grimace). Ah well.  I came back a week and a half ago. 

My editor and agent are already reading the latest Argeneau I sent them.  They’re half way through and both claim to love it.  They kinda have to say that though, don’t they?  I mean, it’s my agent and editor.  The story gave me a hard time.  I wanted light, it wanted dark (as it often seems to do when I’m revealing Argeneau family secrets).  I finally gave in to the dark and then it wanted to go for an extra 30,000 words.  I had to cut it back and managed to cut 20,000. But that was the best I could do, my editor will have to see what she comes up with.

And now I’m working here around showings.  Miss Terri (aka Tori the house elf) has moved out to her own place . . . Did I mention miss Terri has a boyfriend?  She’s had him a couple of months now and his name is . . . wait for it . . . DAVE!!  Seriously, lol. She’s dating a Dave.  It gets a bit confusing when we’re yipping now cause we sometimes confuse which Dave she’s speaking about.  Ah well.  We like him.  We had dinner together and he’s a nice guy.

So . . . hmmm . . . I think that’s all the news I have.  Oh, except we’re supposed to be going to RWA in San Francisco.  I am saying supposed to because there’s this Murphy’s law about if it can happen it will . . . and I’m thinking that someone will offer to buy the house and give us a short deadline that coincides with the conference or something and forces us to not go but to be waist deep in boxes instead.  I’m hoping not, but you just know something weird will happen.  If not though, Tori, Dave and I are all going to be in San Francisco the end of July.

Well, that’s it for me.  I’m off to torment my historical guy.  Hope you’re all well

Lynsay

I started to write this blog last night while cooking.  Yes, cooking, shocking as it is to everyone in this household, I finally took a turn.  Usually Dave and Terri man the kitchens here at Spice acres while I write, but I got the story done and sent out Monday and, not having any corrections at the moment, have been running around trying to get ready for the trip to St. Lucia.  However, I also ran out and grabbed the fixings to make a homemade Lasagna.    It turned out lovely, by the way (Thank God!!!  It’s been so long since I cooked I feared I might set the house on fire or accidentally poison everyone, but no.  YAY!!)  Only now they’re thinking I should help out with the cooking more often. 

Hmmm.  That wasn’t very clever of me, was it?  LOL.

Actually, it turned out okay, but I suspect the compliments came more from love of me than love of my cooking, if you know what I mean.  Family are lovely that way.  Well, except me.  I can’t lie worth a poop.  If something tastes horrible or looks horrible, or reads horrible and someone is cruel--or foolish--enough to ask my opinion, I will get this wide-eyed, deer in the headlights, “OH GOD!” look on my face and say, “It’s nice,” in this high, panicked type voice.  Don’t know why.  I think it’s because when we were kids we were told, “Everyone makes mistakes and we won’t be angry at you or punish you for that, but lying about it is bad and we will be very angry and punish you twice over for that.”

Much to my parent’s dismay, I took this too heart.   I think I made my poor mother crazy.  I would skip class to hang out in the bathroom smoking and writing (Yeah, I was a geek delinquent.  Other’s skipped out to go OFF school property and party, I skipped out and headed for the girl’s washroom because I just had to write this one scene . . .   I was and still am a very sad case (grin)  

Anyway, I would skip out and then later when I went home and Mom would ask how my day was, my answer was , “Okay, I skipped Consumer studies and English.” (The English class I skipped was the only BAD English teacher I ever had.  I shall explain later.)  Mom would get this expression, it was priceless, It was part “I can’t believe you’re telling me this” and part, “Oh crap, because you ARE telling me this I CAN’T give you real hell.”  I really don’t think my mother knew quite what to do with me.  Actually, now that I think of it, she often had this somewhat befuddled look on her face that was very similar to one Dave often gets around me.  Hmm.  Terri sometimes has it too, but after all this time, more often than not just shakes her head and walks away. 

Anyway, that’s my explanation for why I don’t seem to be able to lie.  I never bothered as a kid, got no practice and simply can’t be bothered to learn how now.  Although, I do think it would be nice to be better at it when it would save feelings, like when a new recipe tastes like dog food but you know the person worked hard and don’t want to hurt their feelings even though they do have taste buds in their mouths and probably know it’s dog food too.  Then it would be good to be a better liar.

So . . . Back to the bad English teacher.  First I shall say that I had some WONDERFUL English teachers.  Especially Mr. Brady.  There is a man I would love to find and thank.  He really nurtured and encouraged my writing.  Unfortunately, the school where he worked is no longer a middle school but a grade school and I couldn’t find him through the searches I’ve tried.  But I digress, back to the crackpot English teacher.  That sounds rude, but truly, she was a bit of a flake.  The woman kept taking me aside and telling me she thought I should drop out of high school.  I thought she thought I was a moron or something and couldn’t pass her class and found it terribly demoralizing.  Then, one day, maybe 3/4s of the way through the year, my History teacher came to me with an essay I did on Napoleon for his class.  He told me he’d been sure I’d plagiarized my essay.  He said, he was so sure I’d just lifted it out of a history book that he’d checked the reference books in the school library and--not finding anything like it-- finally took it to my English teacher to ask if this really could be my writing.  I believe I flinched when he said this.  I mean, this is the same woman who kept telling me to drop out of school.  I figured she’d trash me.  But, he then added, “She said, ‘Nope, that’s her work.  Actually, it’s sloppy for her.  She can do better.” 

Well, you could have blown me over with a feather.  She’s saying things like that to him, and then telling me I should drop high school?  What the heck? (Heck is not the word I was using at the time.)  I was something like 16 or maybe 17.  Teenage angst was riding my back and those horrid hormones were messing with the brain . . . so, I stormed off on a witch hunt. I found her at her desk in her empty classroom.  I flung the A++ paper on her desk with all the dramatic flourish only a teenager can pull off and said, “What?” 

She raised her eyebrows in her usual supercilious manner, but said nothing.  Well, that was it.  I was all righteous anger and, “What’s this crap about I can do better and I’m an excellent writer and meanwhile you’re telling ME I should drop out of highschool?! What the hell is that all about?” 

“It’s about your future,” said she, perfectly calm. “I do think you should drop out of school.  You will be a fine writer someday, but you need to suffer for your art. I think you should drop out of school and experience what’s it’s like to truly live.”

I think my jaw actually fell off my face.  I mean, COME ON!!  What kind of crack pot crap was that to spout to a teenager?  Suffer for my art?  What?  Did she mean live in the gutter? Become a drug addict? Try prostitution maybe?  I stared at her, thinking she was completely screwed up, and then I’m afraid I told her so.  She’d caused me no end of misery with her constant prodding at me to drop out, I’d taken it horribly, feeling more stupid and useless each time she returned a story unmarked and said I should drop out, so I blasted her one.  Don’t regret it to this day.

So that was the one bad English teacher I had. Considering we moved a lot when I was a kid, and then you have a different English teacher each year, I’d guess I had more than 12 English teachers before university.  So one bad one is pretty good.  Not even ten percent, right?

Well, I’m off to do last minute shopping before the trip to St. Lucia.  Be sure to stop in and say hey to Mr. Spice who will  be here all by himself with Miss Emma, the cat.  I’m sure he’ll enjoy the peace and quiet for a day or two, but . . . well, come on, the place will be a tomb without Terri and I here to annoy him.  LOL.  Hey to all!

Lynsay

I am sitting here irritated with myself.  Why?  Because of this attempt to sleep 8 hours a day and take at least an hour or so out of a day for me-time (read time with Dave and biking for my health) rather than work from the moment I get up until the moment I go to bed. 

This nonsense really slows me down in my writing.  I mean, sleeping a whole eight hours means at least four hours less of writing a day and sometimes as many as six or seven or even eight because I previously ran along on four hours sleep a night and sometimes as few as two or none, skipping bed altogether prior to this to get a story done.  And then the hour or two of me-time takes more time away from writing. 

This is, of course, all an attempt to be healthier.  You see, I read in the paper that disruptions in sleep have been linked with the risk of diabetes.  Weird huh?  I thought to myself, Nahhhhhh.  And then I started testing this theory and here’s what I found. 

After only 4 hours of sleep my blood sugar is over 8 (sorry, I’m not sure what the U.S. equivalent is, but 8 is basically a very bad count for fasting blood) 

After 5 hours sleep, I wake up with a blood sugar over 7 (also bad). 

After 6 hours it’s 6.8 (still not great). 

After 7 hours I am running 5.8 (this is a good number)

And after a full eight hours of sleep I generally wake up with a blood sugar level of 4.8 which is excellent. 

Yes, it is usually the .8 and yes it is regular as clockwork that way with a variation of maybe a point or so.

Huh, I thought.  That’s kind of weird.  I guess I have been wrecking my health with this no or little sleeping business.  No wonder my blood sugar was off the chart after months and months of all work and little sleep.  So, I determined to sleep 8 hours every night as the first step to taking better care of myself.  And, oddly enough, while I used to wake up chipper and chirpy on 4 hours sleep, with 8 hours of sleep I often wake up kind of grumpy.  (I will deny that if anyone else says it, but it IS true.)  I’m not sure why, I suspect it’s because my body is used to having thick, sugary blood and that it is just a temporary thing until my body adjusts to these lower, and healthier, levels.

Despite that grumpiness, once I had got that going and settled into sleeping 8 straight hours a night (this is harder than you would think.  For the first week or two I kept waking up at the 4 hour point, ready and raring to go and had to force myself to go back to sleep, where upon I would wake up at the 5 hour point, and then the 6 hour point and so on until I snapped the leash and let myself get up at 8)

Anyway, once I stopped waking up every hour and started sleeping 8, I then added the bit about “I will have me time.”  I actually planned to have weekends off like most people do, and then evenings off too, but I’m just not that good.  I intend to, plan it, and then I get annoyed because I’m not writing as quickly as I used to when I had those extra hours without sleep and so I stay working longer than planned and . . .well, you get it.  But I am trying.

We’ve also switched to a healthier diet with lots of fiber, which, embarrassingly enough, also takes away from my time.  I am considering setting up an extra computer in the bathroom so that I can continue to work despite those irritating visits to that room.  Honestly, has everyone else always spent so much time in the “john?”  I’ve been told this is normal and that my previous state of hardly ever visiting it (It took six months for me to notice there was no wallpaper on the wall in there before this) was the abnormal state and that everything I used to eat must have been immediately shifted into the fat cells prior to the fibre business and now it is not.  (By the way, I am saying this all as delicately as possible.  And I’m sorry to say it at all,  however, if there IS someone else out there like me, I really want them to know this stuff, cause you just have no idea what you are doing to your body if you are doing what I used to do.)

The point is, SLEEP.  It is important.  And eat fiber, it too makes a hell of a difference and nowadays with all these fast food and frozen options it is just too easy to miss out on fiber altogether as well as foods with anything at all close to a nutrient in it.  And if you don’t get the fiber and nutrients, your body will just store away what you are eating as fat and send you out to eat again because it is lacking both.  I used to also skip meals, eating once or twice a day thinking that surely, the less you eat the better the chances of losing weight.  Not so.  I am presently eating twice as much as I ever have in my life and about twice or more often (pretty much every three hours like a baby) and I have lost about a pound a week for the last six weeks or so and that with only biking once or twice so far because I am too worried about getting this book done.  WEIRD. 

And why didn’t someone tell me all this nonsense ten years ago?  Or twenty even?  I am thinking they should teach kids this in school or something because it isn’t rocket science, but goes against all logic.  Eat more, gain less or even lose weight?  Sleep more and lose weight?  I would have thought the extra hours awake would have used up more calories and helped with weight loss, but apparently I knew nothing when it came to my own body.  The good news is, I know it now and am doing it. . . Still, I get irritated at that loss of time for writing and because it takes longer to get a book done than it used to.  However, I am hoping that the long term benefits will make up for that.  I mean, I may write less in the short term, but more in the long term cause I’m not working myself into the grave.

So that’s my boring blog today.  Health.  UGH!  Oh, and we had to get a tire changed cause we had a slow leak (Lovely Mr. Spice did it while I went to the doc’s), and Gran and Aunt Leigh and Uncle Wil came to tea Thursday which was a nice break in the week for me so that’s how I justified not taking today off.  I had time off Thursday so working Saturday is okay, right? (grin) Tomorrow I’ll have to find a different excuse not to take time off cause I really want to get this book done and out of my hair.  At the same time I don’t want to finish it and have to leave the characters behind, so I end up in this struggle . . . But that’s another story.

Hope you’re all well and getting your eight hours.

Lynsay

Well gees, here it is a new year and I’m already behind (grin).  The house elf Tori is off in her room, yipping on the phone, Dave is in the tub, and I’m taking a time out from work to say hello.  And it pretty much will be just a hello because I really have little in the way of news to share.

Our Christmas was lovely and quiet.  We spent Christmas eve at Jackie’s with her crew, and then Christmas day at Leigh’s with the rest of the family.  And then boxing day, Jackie and hubby and kids came to visit with us.  I have a lovely family by the way.  If there is anything in the world you can be jealous of me for it’s my hubby and family.  I expect I’ll never win the lotto and be a millionaire cause I got lucky in the family jackpot.  And that’s okay with me.

Other than that, I did take a day or two off to play games with Dave.  Anyone who reads Mr. Spice’s blog knows that the big laugh this Christmas was that he and I each bought the other a Playstation 3 and games for Christmas.  The second playstation has been returned (The one I bought unfortunately, since I now have to sort out what to get him instead) but surprisingly enough, we didn’t double on any of the games.  That, at least, was fortuitous.  Anyway, my editor had admonished me just before Christmas to STOP WORKING and take some time off, so I did.  The day after boxing day we went shopping which included a stop at Chapters to sign the books in stock ( you didn’t really think I could completely quit working even for a day, did you? LOL.  And I will admit here that I kept up working on emails every day too) Anyway, we also hit various shops and while Tori and Dave did some shopping, I came home disappointingly empty handed.  There was just nothing I really wanted.  I spent another day tending to health stuff, and then a couple of days playing with the Playstation with Dave, but am back to work now, finishing off this historical.  I’m hoping to have it done by the middle of next week so that I can take some time out and prepare for the trip to St. Lucia I’m taking with Jackie and Terri at the beginning of February.   Can you guess where the Vamp I’m writing for March is based? (grin)  Now why would a vamp be in sunny St. Lucia? LOL

So that’s it from me.  All the news I have.  I hope you all had a lovely Christmas and New Years and are raring to go for 2008

Lynsay