Courtesy.. common and otherwise

I was going to blog on the rash of hurricanes lately.. but as I sat down to do so, I experienced a hurricane of my own. Into my office spills a stream of people, and out of all of them. Only two wanted to just say "good morning". The rest didn't even bother to say "good morning". The rest were 'I need this fixed', 'can you make..?', 'how do I do..?'. I'm not sure its chivalry that's dead.. its manners. I see small evidence of chivalry all the time. Nothing overt but its there. Manners seem harder to come by. Don't get me wrong, answering questions like that is part of my job and I accept that (With enough coffee in the morning I can even handle the instant 'pressure cooker' stress level it puts on me first thing in the morning). But some days.. saying "Good morning" or "How's it going?" and actually mean the sentiment.. well now, that would go a long way. Just my humble opinion, take it for what you will.

Next part of Spec Ops is up on: http://swspecops.blogspot.com/ for any that haven't dropped by. Had a bit of trouble with the intro this time. I think I rewrote it a dozen times. What I've got there I'm the most comfortable with. The character development took a jump forward this time. I like how that's progressing.

Almost done with the latest edits for Cold Case. I'll start back through it.. got new scenes to add. I'll be adding in a small passage talking about PulseWave's origin, how he got his powers and so on. And of course, costume description. I had that lower down in the manuscript but it really needs to be higher up in the story.

I got fed up with Kinloch 2 recently. I really didn't like where the manuscript was going. So, taking some advice from Karen Traviss (most excellent author of "Hard Contact") who said: If a scene is impossibly hard to write.. it may be that the scene really doesn't work for the story. So.. I nixed a TON of scenes. I adore the first half of the whole manuscript... so I'm pulling back to those chapters and moving forward from there.

Now if my day job would quit keeping me busy for 15+ hours a day.. I'll get more than a few pages edited or a half a page typed every few days.

Last but not least... your cool link of the day:
http://devilspanties.keenspot.com/

GREAT webcomic!! Talk about serious fun.

Back from Vacation ... and into the cooker

Greetings all. Been back a week from Dragon Con. It was fantastic! The costumes! The contests! The panels! I still say Dragon Con is like a modern day Circus Maximus.. only without the gladiators vs lions. Unless you count the mosh pit. ;-)

But.. back to work I've been. Can you believe that I was gone a solid week and not a single software bug was fixed? I showed this one guy, he's no dummy mind you, how the software worked and what it did when. And he didn't touch a single thing! Just let it pile up while I was gone. Unreal. As a result this week has been a mad dash to get things done. More working insane hours under intense pressue. ... yippee ...

ok.. big warning.. I've got to vent to get this off my chest so I won't think about it anymore.

Today tops it all. Today, because a lady who works with QA ( doesn't run it mind you but sometimes acts like she does ) had to work on Sunday ... I get told "We're going to have daily morning meetings to figure out how to become more efficient and speed you up so she won't have to go through that again!" What a crock! I've been working most weekends and nights for most of my employment at this company! There was another lady, really cool person, she had to work this weekend as well... what about her? Are we to work like maniacs to get work done so this ONE PERSON doesn't hav to work on a weekend? I was so insulted. It came across as "How dare you cause HER work the weekends? Obviously, the people around here like you are not really working because SHE had to work!" Jeez.. I swear I'm living out that movie 'Office Space'... now where's my red swingline stapler?!

Anyway.. I really do have the next installment of Spec Ops done. Just need to polish it some and I'll post it. Also, I'm still working ( slowly, remember I almost have no personal life ) on two other manuscripts. I think if I can get a few days to myself I might can get at least one manuscript actually finished! How bout that?

Oh at Dragon Con, I ran into Mesha Merlin Publishing ( I think I spelled it right ) again. I was not expecting to see them there! They are mega-cool people, it was great to see them.

Well ... as usual signing off now. Need to go check the laptop to see how the latest software test ran. Again.. sorry for the rant and I hope I didnt offend. I just had to get that out of my system.