Heather Foeh

This last week I was in Toronto for my work. It’s a lovely city, but I had to get there — and that meant stepping on to an airplane. Unfortunately, it was one of those little “regional” airplanes that have 13 rows, and yes, I was in row 13. I’m not superstitious, but my experiences on this trip could turn me that way.

First of all, a gentleman four rows away would NOT stop talking to his seatmate. He shared his entire life story, and not just with the poor schmuck next to him, but basically with all of us because he was a Loud Talker.

Then the real fun began as we descended into Toronto. Apparently, many planes had been delayed that morning because the winds were around 100 miles per hour that morning. For some reason, we were not delayed and boy do I wish we would have been. The final 20 minutes of the descent were the bumpiest I’ve ever been on. It wasn’t just the up and down bumpiness of turbulence. Think of a leaf floating down from a tree and tilting left and right, dropping down, floating back up a bit, tilting again, all the way until it reaches the ground. We were that leaf. I gave myself mental pep talks (after verifying that I did indeed have an airsick bag in the seat pocket in front of me) and consoled myself with the fact that I could visit the “washroom” (as the Canadians call it) as soon as I de-planed. But it was not to be.

We climbed down the little airplane steps and headed for a bus which would take us to the main terminal. Unfortunately, we had to wait for another plane to land and all of those people to get on our bus too — so it was about 20 minutes of standing on the bus waiting. Thank goodness I’d mentally gotten my nausea under control by then. What would I have done?! Here’s how hard the wind was blowing at this point… the ground crew had taken the gate check bags and placed them on a 3-tier trolley so people could grab them as they came off the plane. The suitcases on the top two tiers were blowing off onto the ground!

As a final little bit of icing on the cake, my taxi driver from the airport to my hotel (about 25 minutes) apparently did not believe in bathing regularly. It was extra special.

Last week I pooled together my Christmas money and it was just the right amount to buy a new iPod. I’ve been wanting a new one for a while — mine was 3 years old, black and white display, no videos, and has been randomly freezing up. So, I am now the proud owner of a beautiful 80 GB color/video iPod Classic.

While I was loading my old music to the new iPod, I also downloaded a couple of music videos and TV shows to watch on my flight to Toronto this past week (that flight is a whole other post…). In addition, I checked out the iTunes Best of 2007 Podcast list and found one to download: Grammar Girl.

I AM IMPRESSED! Grammar Girl is short and sweet - segments are between 5 and 7 minutes long and they focus on one point. Examples: affect vs. effect, commas in dates, sit vs. set, lay vs. lie, etc. The podcasts are very professionally produced and I like Grammar Girl’s voice, delivery and wry comments.

So I’m giving two thumbs up to Grammar Girl! Even if you don’t want to listen to a podcast, you can read the entire transcript on her site. Click the All Episodes link to see which topic interests you. My personal favorite so far: lay versus lie.

I was geeking out tonight on my Blackberry and Google, learning about some new features. I’m especially impressed with two of them:

1. SMS searches: Text your search query to GOOGLE (466453) and voila, they text you right back with the answer. There’s a whole list of sample queries here - you can do weather, flight status, translations, local restaurants, you name it. It’s amazing.
2. Google Maps for Mobile: I downloaded the newest Google Maps for Mobile application and there’s a new “My Location” feature that bases your location off of your nearest cell phone tower connection. So even if you don’t have GPS on your phone, it gets you pretty darn close.

Enjoy!

I read about this in a recent issue of Wired (15.12) and this cracks me up for some reason, although, it’s also darn cool. Wakerupper.com is a free web-based wake-up call service. Just enter your number, time zone, and wake up time and voila. You can set reminders to take your medicine, schedule a call to help you get out of a bad date, etc.

Wow - it’s been ages since I posted. Interesting - I’m not really sure why. Maybe December is just a busy time. Maybe my day job was too busy. Maybe I used up all of my creative juices in November for NaNoWriMo. Heck, who knows?

But now I’m relaxing (”chillaxin” as my kids like to say - I have no idea how to spell that!) and it’s definitely time to post again. We’re in Red River, NM for Christmas week and what a wonderful little town this is! We’re staying in a little cabin nestled right up against the mountain and there’s over a foot of snow everywhere - it’s perfect. It even snowed on Christmas Day - how perfect is that?

Today the boys are off skiing while my daughter and I are hanging out in front of the warm fire with our dog. I think we’re the smart ones. On the agenda today: reading, Sudoku, knitting, and laundry. Since we packed everything on the top of our car, we had limited space. That meant that we couldn’t bring 7 days worth of clothes for all of us. So, I’ll be parked at the laundromat for a few hours today with a good book and lots of quarters.

Happy New Year to all of you! I hope you had a wonderful Christmas.

YES!!! I did it! I am a NaNoWriMo winner. 50,129 words in 29 days. Man is that a wonderful feeling.

No, my manuscript isn’t complete, but it’s darn close. Probably another 7000 words to go. Then revisions, revisions, revisions.

It’s been quite an adventure, full of twists and turns. Some interesting plot changes along the way that I hadn’t foreseen, but I like them. Two secondary characters popped up and I really love them both — Peter and Martha. They’re a great foil for my hero and heroine, Jack and Laurel. The bad guy turned out much creepier than I had envisioned - he kind of scares me actually.

I think I’m going to go drink a glass of wine and celebrate! Many thanks to all of you who cheered me on along the way.

The current magic number is 42,815. That’s my word count for NaNo! I’m closing in on 50,000 and man will I be thrilled when I cross that finish line.  I’m at the stage of writing where the ideas are flowing fast and furious twenty-four hours a day. My friend Kate Williams described it as “a hamster on crack running around in my head.” Well said. That’s exactly the way I feel…a bit manic, a bit crazed.

Our NaNo Pep Talk a few days ago was from Deanna Raybourn and I really liked this passage:

“When you write every day, you are always in the story. There is never a period of reconnecting with your characters, of trying to remember what mood you were attempting to create the last time you worked. And by working every day, you engage your subconscious in a way that simply isn’t possible when you keep a more whimsical schedule. There is no need to summon the muse because there is no time for the fickle little strumpet to go anywhere. I become so immersed in my story that I seldom write more than an hour a day, but I am typing the entire time, with no breaks to think or to wonder where the story is headed. I write flat out because the other 23 hours I have been thinking about the book while going about the rest of my life. (That includes the time I’m asleep. I seldom wake up without thinking of the scene I’m preparing to write. When I sit down to work, I’m essentially taking dictation from myself.)”

“Taking dictation from myself.” I love that. That perfectly describes my writing experiences of the last week or so.

Home stretch here I come!

It seems that almost every year someone in our family is sick or under the weather on Thanksgiving. This year it was my turn. I don’t have a fever, but I’ve been achy like the flu. My throat is sore and swollen and I have zero energy. Yesterday (Turkey Day) I barely moved from the couch. I covered up with a quilt I’d tossed in the dryer for a few minutes (ahhhh) and propped myself on a couple of pillows and read on and off all day, took a four-hour nap, and watched “The Lake House.” Nothing like a little Keanu to make a girl feel better.

Today I’m on the road to recovery and plan to get back to working on my NaNo manuscript. Only one week left — eeeeeek! But I may have a nap first…

My friend Lexi blogged yesterday about the things she is thankful for and that prompted me to do the same:

• My family: my wonderful, supportive husband, our two talented and funny teenagers, and our big ol’ Collie.
• My original family: my Mom and Dad (who served a homemade Thanksgiving meal to 25 soldiers in Kuwait - bravo!) and my little sister who is four inches taller than I am
• My friends: too many to name - how lucky am I?!
• Freedom: to express ourselves without censorship, to walk freely on the streets without curfew, to pursue the American dream

I have a good life. Slowing down and being stuck on the couch gave me plenty of time to think about how truly great it is. Happy Thanksgiving weekend, everyone!

Well, my goal was to be at 30,000 words at this point, but I didn’t quite make it. I’m at 25,152 - which means that I wrote 10,156 words today. That’s 47 manuscript pages, in case you’re wondering. My brain has turned to mush, my fingers are going numb and my rear is very tired of this chair. Whew!

One good tidbit, I now have a title! My new manuscript is called “A Woman in Red.” I’ll have to post about it one of these days and explain the meaning, but I’m too tired to do it justice right now.

I would like to mention my fantastic new writing pants. Some people have riding pants, right? Well, I have writing pants. And they rock. I bought them yesterday at Target in the men’s department. They’re made out of sweatsuit material, have a drawstring waist and the legs are wide and don’t taper down to elastic at the ankles. Super comfy and wonderful! They made it through over 10,000 words on their opening day. A very respectable start to their writing career.

For all three of my regular readers, you’ll notice that I haven’t been posting very often lately. That’s because I’m in the throes of NaNoWriMo. I could also phrase that as “throws”…as in “throw myself off a balcony.” Eeek, I’m behind. Yesterday was the halfway point, which means that I should theoretically be at 25,000 words. Um, yeah. Okay. Not quite there.

However, by Sunday night I will be at 30,000 words. I may not sleep, but heck, sleep can be over-rated, right? (Sadly, I don’t really believe that. I LOVE sleep.) I’ll post again on Sunday night and let you know my status - and my level of sleep deprivation.

All of the email pep talks that we receive from the NaNo fearless leaders keep reiterating, “Editing is for December.” I have to keep reminding myself of that. Boy, it’s hard to turn off that inner voice!

Okay, back to the story, which by the way is currently called “Laurel’s Story.” Compelling, isn’t it?