Skip to main content

My favorite childhood memory

Captain’s Log, Stardate 09.08.2006

Blog book giveaway:
My Monday book giveaway is BAD HEIRESS DAY by Allie Pleiter.
My Thursday book giveaway is A FAMILY FOREVER by Brenda Coulter.
You can still enter both giveaways. Just post a comment on each of those blog posts. On Monday, I'll draw the winner for BAD HEIRESS DAY and post the title for another book I'm giving away.

“Small kid time”: (I think only Malia will get that reference) Delia tagged me to share my favorite childhood memory.

Like I commented on her blog, my favorite childhood memories tend to involve blood in some way. Maybe I should have been a suspense writer instead of a chick-lit romance writer.

Okay, here’s a good, non-bloody memory. I absolutely loved when I was writing my first novel (an extremely bad fantasy) on our old Apple IIe. Does anybody else remember those???

I had all summer and the computer had been moved to the big living room, and I sat and wrote whatever came to mind. I don’t even remember the word processing program I used.

I saved my file on those 5” floppy disks. My dad got a whole box of them just for me. (Once I accidentally erased my entire file, but we won’t go into that because this is a happy memory.)

My brother scoffed while I was writing, but my mom, an English teacher, encouraged me. Finally I finished and printed out the 400-page monster, sticking it into a 3-ring binder.

My brother happened to glance at it one day when it was open on the floor. And he started reading. And he didn’t stop until he was done.

This is MY brother. The only one I have, with whom I don’t exactly get along with. That was the BEST compliment to my writing I’ve ever gotten.

Gone this weekend: Yup, to my husband’s cousin’s wedding in Los Angeles. We’re driving down today and won’t be back until late Sunday night.

So no prayer this Sunday. Sorry, guys. But if you have a prayer request, feel free to leave it here as a comment to this post.

TMI:

Writing:
I posted another synopsis writing tip on my Story Sensei blog.

Diet: I had a nice surprise today. I was trying on dresses to see what I fit in that I can wear to the wedding. I discovered that I almost fit into an old dress that I love. It’s still a little snug around the hips—I could stand to lose an inch or two before it’ll look nice on me. But for the first time in months—no YEARS—I can actually zip it up.

Any old clothes you’d love to get back into?

Comments

Delia said…
Not one drop of blood involved and still a great memory!

Have fun at the wedding! We'll miss you!
ROFLOL! Apple lle? Cami, the first computer I worked on had to be brought into the building with a crane! We were on the 7th floor and they had to remove the huge 12' windows to crane it inside. It filled an entire room. The year? Oh, it was 1970. I was of course, an infant. ;o)
Anonymous said…
Hmm. Well, I can tell you that there was no Apple in my childhood. I didn't even understand the reference here at first.

The first computer I ever touched was in a class my mother thought she'd better take. It was Intro 101 to Computers on a Commodore 64 (is that correct?). We took a class together not long after my father died in April '83. She realized that computers were the future and figured she'd better learn something about them so that she could keep up with her grandchildren. So we took some basic programming. It was fun.

I knew my elder brother had a computer. A few years later he had a program for which he needed two computers. So he started speculating on the phone with me about how he could get two computers to talk with to other. Soon after that, he got a 500 Mb machine which could be expanded to 1 GB. Wow! that was awesome and it cost him something like US$8000 and had to special-ordered from somewhere in TX.

How soon we forget.

Have a lot of fun at the wedding. Unless someone gets very generous, I won't make it to the next one in our family. That's one reason we made such a big deal about Kathi's shower about a month ago. They'll be getting married in Playa del Carmen, Mexico--unless a hurricane carries it off before the beginning of November. The costs are $1500 per person, more than I get in a month and a half.
Anonymous said…
Hmm. Well, I can tell you that there was no Apple in my childhood. I didn't even understand the reference here at first.

The first computer I ever touched was in a class my mother thought she'd better take. It was Intro 101 to Computers on a Commodore 64 (is that correct?). We took a class together not long after my father died in April '83. She realized that computers were the future and figured she'd better learn something about them so that she could keep up with her grandchildren. So we took some basic programming. It was fun.

I knew my elder brother had a computer. A few years later he had a program for which he needed two computers. So he started speculating on the phone with me about how he could get two computers to talk with to other. Soon after that, he got a 500 Mb machine which could be expanded to 1 GB. Wow! that was awesome and it cost him something like US$8000 and had to special-ordered from somewhere in TX.

How soon we forget.

Have a lot of fun at the wedding. Unless someone gets very generous, I won't make it to the next one in our family. That's one reason we made such a big deal about Kathi's shower about a month ago. They'll be getting married in Playa del Carmen, Mexico--unless a hurricane carries it off before the beginning of November. The costs are $1500 per person, more than I get in a month and a half.
lol I never even touched a computer til like 1999. with the exception of a couple times in '87 LOL

Yay on fitting into the dress!! I've done that a couple weeks ago with a pair of slacks. Also bought a pair of jeans today in a smaller size. :o) could have bought it in an even smaller size cuz they fit... they just didn't look good. lol
Great memory, but 400 pages?!?!? That's one long book!

Popular Posts

I’m done

Captain’s Log, Stardate 05.17.2006 Blog book giveaway: My Thursday book giveaway is THE PREACHER’S DAUGHER by Lyn Cote My Monday book giveaway is BLIND DATES CAN BE MURDER by Mindy Starns Clark . You can still enter both giveaways. Just post a comment on each of those blog posts. On Thursday, I'll draw the winner for THE PREACHER’S DAUGHTER and post the title for another book I'm giving away. Stay tuned. I’m done. At the beginning of the year, I made a goal of three books this year. That’s four months per book. I started this manuscript January 15th. I finished in the wee hours of May 17th, so it took me about four months, a day and a few hours. Yay me. I’m going to bed now. Yes, this is the espresso maker on the right, and a professional coffee grinder on the left. By the espresso maker, I mean the one I promised to my long-suffering husband if I got a book contract, as a reward for letting me quit my biotech job and write full-time.

I GOT A CONTRACT!

Captain’s Log, Stardate 03.29.2006 I had a wonderfully funny blog post planned for today, but I got sidetracked by some news yesterday! Zondervan has offered me a three-book contract on my Asian chick-lit series ! I’m still stunned by everything that’s happened. The series is actually a 4-book projected Asian chick-lit series about four cousins who fall under the infamous family title "Oldest Single Female Cousin," and their ruthless, wealthy grandma applies pressure on each of them to improve their lack of love interests. I think the first book is tentatively scheduled to be released in August 2007. The blurb on the series is on my website here . Brandilyn Collins posted to the ACFW loop about my writing journey, and Tamara Cooper asked that I share it. And since you all know how much I like to talk , here it is. My writing journey: Like most writers, I have wanted to write since I was very young. (In high school, I wrote a fantasy novel that will never see the light of day ...

ICRS Tuesday

Captain's Log, Stardate 07.11.2007 I started the day with a great meeting with Al Hsu , an editor at InterVarsity Press. We discussed Asian Americans—fiction, non-fiction, the church, family. He’s been in publishing for many years and is very wise. We had a great discussion. I also met his wife Ellen, who’s totally nice and is also into card-making! I wandered the floor and happened to meet Robin Jones Gunn. She asked if I’d eaten yet, and since I hadn’t, said to join her for lunch. On the way to lunch, we met Mark Mynheir, and he gave me a copy of his book, got The Void . Isn’t that cool? Robin has so much wisdom. I loved having lunch with her. She gave me such good advice, both professionally and spiritually. I hope I’ll get a chance to have lunch or dinner with her at the ACFW conference in September. I met up with agent Steve Laube, and walked with him to his next meeting, but on the way we were hailed by Cec Murphy and agent Jeff Dunn. Jeff had been the first editor to request...

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 ...

Free Christian Romantic Suspense Novels by Camy Tang / Camille Elliot

Curious about what my writing is like? Here’s a list of all my free books and the free short stories, novellas, and novels that you can read here on my blog. I’ll update this post as I add more free reads. Christian Regency Romantic Suspense (as Camille Elliot) The Spinster’s Christmas (Lady Wynwood’s Spies series, Prequel novel) (Posted on my blog as a serial novel, completed) Spinster Miranda Belmoore and naval Captain Gerard Foremont, old childhood friends, meet again for a large Christmas party at Wintrell Hall. Miranda is making plans to escape a life of drudgery as a poor relation in her cousin’s household, while Gerard battles bitterness at the fact that his career was cut short by the injury to his knee. However, an enemy has infiltrated the family party, bent on revenge and determined that Twelfth Night will end in someone’s death … Lissa and the Spy (Lady Wynwood’s Spies series, Prequel novella) Click here to get this ebook FREE when you subscribe to my newsletter In...