Arrant Nonsense

Book in a Nutshell thing is subbed.

We who are about to die salute you.

Oh, god.

And now I guess I have about ten days to come up with a title for the thing.

Rolled in Friday afternoon, remembered where our buddy Greg's house was, got the motorhome set up. Didn't have much time for much of anything but dinner and socializing, but we hit the arena for some Hubby retail therapy. He didn't buy anything, and we went to the Moab Brewery for dinner. I had the sausage plate, which is always good, and their home-brewed grape soda, which was delicious, and added (yet another) glass to my collection. After that, we hit Potato Salad Hill, which is never a dull moment. Last year, we saw a snowmobile go down it. This year, we saw two rigs go up it backwards. No rollovers, but one guy did get vertical on his two back wheels before his rig decided that it wouldn't mind staying upright. Lucky him, because, while most of the time people don't get hurt when they roll in Moab, Potato Salad Hill can be the exception to that, and it would have been a nasty end-over-end one. Another guy busted a drive line. Make it or break it... We didn't do it this year, just ran out of time.

Saturday, we got up early enough to watch the parade thingy, then headed out to Area BFE. That was really really cool--there's lots of stuff there, from minor obstacles to ohholyshitwhatthehell ones. We saw a couple of people roll, nothing serious. Definitely going to have to go out there again. Our friend Josh (one of the Rangely Boys) broke his front inner axle on some obstacle. Ate at Bob and Ruth's, a couple of other friends. Found out that one of our other friends broke (probably) his pinion gear in his rear axle on some nothin' trail (Porcupine Rim, I think), so...yeah.

Sunday, we did the Rusty Nail with a couple of hardcore buggies and the Rangely Boys. We were going to do the Pickle as well, but got too late of a start. Sean (Rangely Boy) bent his tie rods on the very first big obstacle, which was...interesting. We fixed it by using a bottle jack, a tow rope, and rocks as anvils and a three-pound hammer. Yay? Rest of the trail was uneventful, although the Hubby's radiator decided that it was unhappy and we thought we might be done. An application of Bars-Leak put paid to that problem, so we were good to go. Ate at Pasta Jay's, yummy yummy pizza.

Monday, we were all supposed to get together and do the first part of Poison Spider, and then turn around and do Moab Rim. But we got separated, were supposed to all meet up at the trail head, and we get a call: "We decided to do Steel Bender instead." Problem was that one of our guys was already up at the Poison Spider trail head and we had no way of getting ahold of him, so our group decided to stick with Plan A and do what we planned on. Poison Spider was uneventful, and so was Moab Rim, until we got to the top, when the radiator problem decided once again to rear its ugly head. We stayed with the Willys, while the rest of the group motored up to the sand hills farther up. Beautiful vista from there, you can see the whole town, place was loaded with lizards and ravens, I saw some kind of falcon fly by...it was lovely. Our friends came back, we started the Willys again and it ran like it didn't have a care in the world, and we made it back down no problem. Ate at Eddie McStiffs, where I had the best steak I've ever had in Moab, the Sirloin Steak Mojo: "8-oz. marinated steak in a Cuban-influenced sauce with garlic, oregano, cumin and fresh lime juice." OMGSOVERYGOOD. Also, a Mai Tai and a coffee ice cream dessert that was just yummy.

And then today we came home. It might have been easier to get out of the camp site had the Hubby remembered to disengage the parking brake on the motor home, and we ended up pulling the thing all the way out and to the road with the Willys, which was...interesting. I don't ever want to do that ever again. SRS.

Weather was actually pretty decent. It was fairly warm, only rained at night, and that kept the dust down on the trails. Win.

In between all that, I managed to work on my three-sentence query thing, which now pops like a popping thing--I think I've ironed out the boring words and replaced them with ones that have some life to them rather than just laying there on the page. At least, at this point, there's nothing that jumps out at me and says "Dude, horrible. Call yourself a writer? This sucks."

I wasn't very social, partly because I feel like a little bit of a fish out of water around these guys and their talk of power to weight ratios and all that happy horse poo, but I also just ... wasn't feeling very social. It's tough being the only nerd in the room. I obeyed the siren call of the querything, and this wasn't necessarily a bad thing.

So, yeah. Everyone broke something, libations were enjoyed, food was eaten, and a querything was pretty much completed. I've got it in a GoogleDoc if anyone wants to have a crack at it--you'll need a Google account, and I can send you an invite. Just holler.

And that was my weekend. *wipes brow*

We're home from Moab. Details and pictures later. Just about everyone broke something, so all in all, a successful trip. ;o)

I have no idea if I'll be able to catch up with my flist.

I've got my three-sentence hook/query thing just about done. Now, if the book just had chapters, and, you know, a title, that'd be great. I have six days to do it in...

My inbox didn't go as nuts as I expected. Came home to an Honorable Mention from WotF (which you guys knew about) and a rejection for another story, so need to flip that puppy as soon as possible.

But first, I have to wrestle the taxes into submission. Which has already been an exercise in frustration, and I haven't even cracked open the forms yet...

So. We're going to Moab to the Jeep Safari tomorrow.

Normally I'm excited about stuff like this. Moab is my favorite place on the whole planet, y'all.

But I'm so sick of interacting with people right now that I'm almost ready to bag it and just tell the Hubby to take Da Boy and go have fun. But if I bag it this year, there's no guarantee we'll go next year, because we're trying to sell the Willys and the Durango just can't be the same beast on the trail that the Willys is. Plus I only get to see these people once a year, so...yeah. And I like them, they're good people.

Maybe I'll tell the Hubby that I want a couple of days away after we get back from this, just me--or maybe I'll send him to his Mom's with Da Boy in the plane, since he'll want a shakeout flight after its annual inspection. Wanting to choke people every time I talk to them is not a good frame of mind to be in, and I feel shaky with repressed rage and stress. This is not normal for me. I wonder if my uterus is acting up...

The tax thing? So not helping my state of mind. Also, I've been a lazy bitch this week and my kitchen is a wreck. I should go clean that.

Frell, frak, dren.

Well. In homeschooling news, I actually sat down, figured out what I need to do on a weekly basis, broke that down to a daily basis, and now we have some sort of schedule. We had a loose sort of thing going before that I decided wasn't working out too well; this will be better for everyone involved. We'll all know what to expect. Routine = a good thing.

And I'm still beating away at the query/hook thing. I've got two pretty good sentences for that three-sentence thing I told y'all about the other day. I just need one more that makes actual sense for a strong conclusion.

Oh, and a title. A title would be good. Chapters would help. *headdesks repeatedly*

I should be editing this monster into some form of not sucking so I can figure out three sentences to submit to the Knight Agency.

What am I doing instead?

Writing a scene from an alternate POV, that I'm going to throw up as a sort of DVD extra. Not only that, but I'm doing an AU of that scene, from the alternate POV, that will never actually see the light of day. A few of you know why. Gaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah. *snuggles YIM buddies*

Seriously, stoppit, self. I don't know why, when it's thisclose to being actually finished, I'm balking.

Maybe because if I finish it, I'll actually have to start seriously thinking about the next project, and I'm comfortable with this one. It feels like home. Which makes sense, seeing as it's been eating my brain since the end of July 2008, but...time to move on. Yes.

Also, when I finish this, I'm going to have to think about marketing it. And this intimidates the hell out of me.