Early Birthday Plans

What's this?  Two posts in one month?  Weird.  I must be on something.

I am.  Sort of.

I'm flying high on excitement, baby!

Disclaimer: If you're not interested in video games, stop reading now.  There is nothing writing related contained in this post. 

If you flip back through some of my older posts, you'll see me mention World of Warcraft.  For the few that might not know, WoW is an MMO ( Massive Multi-player Online game,) set in a fantasy world where you, the player, can big from two factions, a plethora of races and classes, and then set about monster killing, questing, gathering, creating, and interacting with other players.  It is pretty damn addictive.

Well, WoW is coming out with its fourth expansion, Mists of Pandaria.  THIS is why I'm ridiculously excited. Pretty, pretty Mists of Pandaria.

And why yes, I am dork enough that I'm going to be buying the deluxe digital edition as a birthday present for myself.  I mean, a flying Mouse*?  Really?  And a puppy?  How could I possibly resist?

But that's only part of it.

I have two computers.  All right, three techinically, but one is a PC, which I don't like, it doesn't have a wifi card, and has no speakers.  It's currently in the bedroom hooked up to the TV, but there's not a whole lot I can do on it.  Though it's great for playing majong when I'm having issues getting to sleep, so at least it's good for something.

One of these days, I will buy a wifi adapter, tower, lightning rod, thing.  It's just not super high on my priority list at the moment.

So, back to the two computers I actually use.  The desktop is old.  For a computer.  Five years is really old.  But, for all it's ancient decrepitude, it's a really great computer, and let's be honest, I don't have the financial means to replace it.  The poor thing only has 1GB of ram.  That's just pathetic, and I know it.  It knows it too, but by golly, it does its best with what it's got.

Unfortunately what it's got isn't enough to play WoW.

Fortunately I have a laptop that handles the game pretty decently.  Except for Northrend (part of one of the previous expansions) and most a couple bits of the newest areas, including five man (only five mans!  You should see it in a ten man raid.  It's painful) dungeons.  I hear tell that they've upped the graphics quality of Mists again, and while I might be able to play it on the laptop, it would not be fun.

The easy solution?  Upgrade the ram.  On the desktop.  Which has a lovely graphics card.

Now, anyone computer savvy is probably howling about how hard, if not impossible, it is to upgrade a Mac without taking it to the store and paying out the arse to have one an Apple professional do it for you.  It's one of the big reasons gamers prefer PC's, right?  They're easily upgradeable.

Lucky me, I know a Mac guru who can get to the innards of my sleek, lovely machine, and replace the ram for me.

There!  That's the other half of my birthday present to myself.  I'm buying new ram to upgrade my pretty decent even if it is five years-old computer.  And this makes me almost more excited than the upcoming release of Mists of Pandaria.

Not only will I be able to play Mists, but I'll also, finally, be able to play Diablo III.  This makes the nerd-girl in me squeal with delight.

/nerd rant.  Next post will be about writing, or something more to do with writing than my gaming addiction.  I promise.



*If you don't know who Mouse is, high thee to your favorite book seller and start reading Jim Butcher's The Dresden Files.  Best. Book series. EVAR!  

To Clear Up Some Confusion

This summer has been remarkably productive for me.  I have drafted three books, start to finish, and I'm about half way finished (for the second time) on a fourth.  One of these books I've revised, cleaned up, and have started querying.

I'm sure most people that read this blog (hi readers, both old, new, and those poor souls that have gotten horribly lost on the interwebs!) also follow me on twitter, where I ramble and rant about writing on a near daily basis.  This feed is linked to facebook, so my family and non-twittering friends can see what the Hell I spend all my time doing.

There's been some confusion about the books I've been working on.  Probably because I call them all the same thing in the twitter feed, except for the one I'm currently working on, which has earned the idiom The Book That Refused To Die, Or #TBTRTD.

Instead of writing a deep, meaningful blog post for the month of August, I'm here to clear up the confusion about my massive work in progress list.  In order of appearance and/or completion.

(I really suck at writing pitches of any sort, so bare with me.  These are fast and dirty and not well thought out.  Also, these are all working titles and subject to change at a whim.)

FAERIE BAD LUCK: Nym discovers that her bad luck mark has been framed for breaking a goblin mirror, an attempt to keep him from investigating the deaths of faeries in Mundane, the human world.  With the help of her fluff ball muse and the human knight of the Unseelie court, Nym sets out to find the killers and bring them to justice.

Genre: Adult Urband Fantasy
Status: Finished, and querying

A SEQUEL to FAERIE BAD LUCK.  It was written more for me, getting a feel for how things could pan out, and will never see the light of day again.  If ever FBL sees publication, this will be scrapped and I'll pretend it never existed.  It doesn't even deserve a quick summary, it's that bad.  Hell, it doesn't even deserve a title.

Genre: Adult Urband Fantasy

Status: Finished, but trunked

ELEMENTAL FIRE: A new power has come to the small town of Four Springs Montana, and has been starting fires throughout town.  As a shaman, it's Amy's responsibility to help her mother and aunt safe guard the town, and maintain the balance of nature.  After her friend is killed in a house fire, Amy is determined to find the arsonist and see them come to justice.  

Genre: Young Adult Paranormal

Status: Drafted, awaiting revisions

LIGHTNING STRIKE: (Also known as #tbtrtd) Jacky witnessed the gruesome murder of her cousin, and doesn't remember any of it.  The police are convinced she's guilty of the crime, and are determined to make her disappear before her memories can resurface.  On the run from the law, and dodging a couple of agents for a shady government agency she'd never heard of, Jacky must find the real killer and clear her name. Before she ends up vanished or dead.

Genre: Adult Urban Fantasy

Status: Drafting

There you have it! A comprehensive list of the books I've spewed out this year.  I have no idea what I'm going to work on after I finish LIGHTNING STRIKE.  Maybe something new.  Maybe I'll see if I can work on revising ELEMENTAL FIRE without wanting to vomit. (I didn't like it. Still don't. It just didn't come out the way I wanted it to.)  I have some ideas waiting in the wings for me to poke at, but nothing that's screaming for attention.  

Mer.  At least I still have half a book to write before I need to worry about What's Next.