Odds and ends

Captain's Log, Stardate 02.25.2006

Book giveaway:
My Monday book giveaway (A FAMILY FOREVER) is here.
My Thursday book giveaway (HOT FLASHES AND COLD CREAM) is here.
You can still enter both of them. Just post a comment on those blog posts.
On Monday, I'll draw the winner for A FAMILY FOREVER and post the title for another book I'm giving away. Stay tuned.

Bible in 90 Days: Day 47. Still in Isaiah. What struck me today was that God repeatedly mentions that he rescues and blesses His people Israel for the sake of His name. They are His, and He keeps His promises. It's His nature. So even if they completely turn away from Him, He doesn't turn away from them forever. I liked it because it reminded me of God's might, but also that He chooses to love me.

Writing: Got some done today, actually. Hope to get more done tonight. Tomorrow is my writing-rest day, so I'll get my critiques and Genesis stuff done tomorrow.

Diet: I wanted to check in because I've had a GREAT diet day. I went for a 60 minute walk, plus my calorie count ended at 1300!

I even had youth group tonight, and it's always hard for me to not eat snacks with the kids after meeting. Tonight, I brought my laptop and went into another room instead of hanging out with everyone in the kitchen. I had removed myself from temptation, so I didn't eat anything after 8 p.m.

I wasn't completely alone--several kids came and chatted (I can't get away from them! Aaaaahhhhhh!). It's amazing how much writing I can get done with Out of Eden blasting on the CD player, Sarah playing something complicated and a couple hundred years old at the piano, and Mitsuhara blabbing my ear off about something that I can't quite understand.

Comments

Malia Spencer said…

Good for you girl! Way to stay on top of things. :) I'm proud of you for the way your diet and exercise are coming together.

And a 60 minute walk? Awesome! I'm guessing that means your knee is a lot better. So glad to hear it. God's good isn't He?

Take care,

Malia

Sun Feb 26, 09:03:00 AM 2006

Brainstorm - character occupation

Captain's Log, Stardate 03.23.2009 Hey guys, I could use some help. In my current manuscript, The Year of the Dog , which is a humorous contemporary romance, I have a minor character, Eddie. He’s my heroine’s ex-boyfriend, and they’re on good terms with each other. He’s a bit irresponsible, but not so much so that he’s a complete loser. He’s got a very easy going attitude, he forgets to pay his bills sometimes, he’s friendly and charming. He’s adventurous and fun to be around, but he’s a little forgetful sometimes, and he tends to spend a little outside his income. I need an occupation for him. What would a charming, easy going, slightly irresponsible guy do for a living? He’s not too irresponsible, because otherwise readers will wonder what in the world my heroine saw in him to date him in the first place. She was attracted to his charm, his easy going attitude (her family’s uptight, and he was a nice contrast), and his adventurousness. But his forgetfulness and irresponsibility ...

Window shopping

Captain’s Log, Stardate 03.14.2005 Knee update: I went to the doctor today for a checkup, and saw his assistant. I’ve been concerned because there’s still inflammation in my knee joint, and it’s been almost 4 months since the surgery. She said she’d talk to the doctor about it tomorrow and call me. Sometimes he suggests laying off the PT to see if that causes the inflammation to go away, but I don’t know if that will work because lately I’ve been pretty active outside of PT. At PT today, the therapist did ultrasound and some sort of electrical current on the joint. Hopefully that will make the inflammation start to go down. I’ll know by tomorrow, probably. Writing: Mt. Hermon conference starts this Friday! On Thursday night, I’ll be at the Santana Row Borders bookstore to help out (and hopefully learn a bit, too) at a booksigning for several of the ACFW authors who are attending Mt. Hermon . That should be lots of fun. I had a good brainstorming time at ...

Chinese Take-Out and Sushi for One

Captain’s Log, Supplemental My agent sent me an article from Publisher’s Weekly that discussed this incident: Chinese Take-Out Spawns Christian Controversy And here’s also a blog post that talks about it in more detail: The Fighting 44s This is Soong-Chan Rah’s blog: The PCS blog In sum: Apparently Zondervan (yes, my publisher), who has partnered with Youth Specialties, had put out a youth leaders skit that had stereotypical Asian dialogue, which offended many Christian Asian Americans. In response to the outcry, Zondervan/Youth Specialities put out a sincere apology and is not only freezing the remaining stock of the book, but also reprinting it and replacing the copies people have already bought. I am very proud of my publisher for how they have handled this situation. The skit writers have also issued a public apology . (I feel sorry for them, because they were only trying to write a funny skit, not stir up this maelstrom of internet controversy. I’ve been in youth work long enou...

New book idea a la Captain Caffeine

Captain's Log, Stardate 04.14.2009 So my husband, Captain Caffeine, had lunch with a few friends a few days ago. And they asked about my writing, and if I’d been on Oprah yet. (Yeah, right) They then discussed NYT bestselling books, and why can’t Camy write a NYT bestseller. (Sure, let me just open a vein over a blank page and it’ll come right out.) So Captain Caffeine came home with ideas for my new NYT bestselling novel. First it starts with vampires, because Twilight is so hot. But not just any vampires. This one’s an Amish vampire. And he’s not just an Amish vampire, he’s a cop in disguise, infiltrating the Amish community to protect a witness. (Hmm, that storyline sounds familiar ...) But wait! There’s more! To add more conflict and stick with my brand of Asian fiction, we introduce the Tibetan monk! Who joins the Amish community to get away from the pressures of monkhood. But in reality, he’s protecting the Chinese princess on the run, trying to escape from her father’s Hong...

Japanese language learning process in more detail

I blogged a few weeks ago that I’ve jumped back into my Japanese language learning after being lazy and letting it slide. I’ve been keeping my Japanese language study habit for about a month now, and I wanted to blog about my process in more detail. One thing I had noticed about my Japanese is that I tended not to do it if I left it to do at the end of the day. I realized that it was just like my exercise—if I didn’t do it first thing in the morning, it never got done. So I started doing my Japanese right after my exercise in the morning. I treated it like one of my “frogs,” as I read about in the book Eat That Frog!: 21 Great Ways to Stop Procrastinating and Get More Done in Less Time . The book is based off of a Mark Twain quote: “Eat a live frog first thing in the morning and nothing worse will happen to you the rest of the day.” It suggests doing your “frogs”—your important things that you’re likely to procrastinate doing—first thing in the morning in order to get it done, and ...

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