On Etsy.com, where I sell my craft items and vintage, members can create "treasuries."  These are just collections of other members' stuff, and they are fun to look at.  Right now I have items featured in two treasuries:

http://www.etsy.com/treasury_list.php?room

and

http://www.etsy.com/treasury_list.php?room

Look for items from "Vintagedazzle."

It's always a nice compliment when someone includes you in a treasury.

Kara

That is not at typo.  Yard + art = Yart!  I am participating in this promotion on Etsy, the online marketplace where I sell my crafts and vintage items.  I have marked selected items off twenty percent!  Sale goes from now through Sunday.

Here is my craft YART SALE section:
http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=5689490&section_id=6188462

And here is my vintage items YART SALE section:
http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=5689490&section_id=6188462

I am busy putting the finishing touches on my online "Plot Doctor" workshop, offered by the RWA Online chapter. It's only $15 for two weeks, including ten formal lectures and personal feedback on your plot problems.   If you would like to find out more about this class or sign up, click here.

Okay, the commercial segment of this blog is now ended!

That makes three in one week, but I think that's all for a while.  Have to write something else, now!

I've also been working on my online Plot Doctor workshop.  I have more work to do than I thought.  I have the workshop, but it's all in key words, very abbreviated, so have to flesh it out.  I have ten lectures and I've done 1.5.  Yikes, it starts next Monday!

(If you are one of my students, don't panic, it's going to be awesomely informative, I promise!)

Date Night tonight.  We didn't put a whole lot of effort into it, just went to Cafe Brazil and pigged out on nachos.  We sat out on the patio and it was quite pleasant, it's cooled down some from this afternoon when we walked to the post office.  (That was hot.)

Thanks for stopping by,
Kara

After a nice breakfast at Norma's Cafe and an unsuccessful detour for a non-existant garage sale, I puttered around this morning, not too productive.  Then Rob and I had to get lost so someone could look at the house.

We drove to the neighborhood's most popular taqueria, El Si Hay, and ordered an array of soft tacos (they don't serve anything else).  We took it all to the park and sat on a shady bench, gorging and watching birds. (El Si Hay gives you tons of fresh cilantro, yum).  I saw quite a few unusual birds today, including a brown thrasher, an Eastern kingbird, a goldfinch, and two yellow-crowned night-herons.  We also saw Great and Snowy egrets.  Oh, and a pair of mallard ducks with six babies.  Five of the babies were brown and one was bright yellow!  I had to wonder whether he was adopted ...

I've been mostly reading and crafting the rest of the day.  Fixed pasta for dinner.  I cheated and bought a jarred pasta sauce, because Ragu makes a "light" version that doesn't have a ton of salt.  But I found it disappointing, way too sweet.  Rob makes a homemade meat sauce with ground turkey that is just the best I've ever had.  We also had salads with vine-ripened tomatoes, which was nice.

Our Realtor e-mailed to say it was a good showing today, and if these people can get their condo sold ... well, 'nuff said, I'm not going to hold my breath.  But it does seem like we're getting some good showings, people like the house.  Just have to get the right person who can actually buy it.  Meanwhile, our offer in Long Beach just sits there, growing moss ...

Hope you had a nice weekend.  Check ya later!

Kara

Today's MWA meeting was a sales associate from the Spy Store, who brought all her sneaky gadgets and personal defense devices and told funny stories about some of her whacky customers.  Like the wife who comes in to buy a GPS tracking device, and two days later her husband comes in wanting a detection device for GPS trackers ... lotta trust in THAT marriage!

Afterward I took Rob to the bridge studio where he was working today, then went garage sale-ing (but it was a lousy day, didn't find anything except one clipboard that I'm going to decoupage).  Came home but couldn't really get involved in any crafting or cooking or gardening projects because I had to vacate again shortly for a house viewing.  But then the people were real late so that sort of spoiled my dinner fixing plans.  I ended up grazing for dinner (cheese, crackers, carrots, V-8 juice and a couple of prunes).

I've been reading.  I just finished one YA book (Me, the Missing and the Dead by Jenny Valentine) and I'm halfway through another (Devilish by Maureen Johnson).  Lately it seems YA books are the only ones I enjoy because they are so creative!  These ones are, anyway.  Lately, every romantic suspense book I read is a cookie cutter imitation.  Same with mysteries and thrillers.  They're good, but they all feel so familiar.  Whereas these books--well, that first one is about a teenge boy in London who runs across an urn with an old lady's ashes in a taxi office.  He "rescues" her, feels some mysterious connection to her, and sets out to learn about her life and discovers she has a very close connection to his missing father.

It was just downright fantastic.  I couldn't put it down.  And it's rare I feel that way about ANY book these days.

Take care,
Kara

I love submitting.  Get your mind out of the gutter, I'm talking about submitting manuscripts to publishers.  I remember when I first discovered the joy of submitting manuscripts, back in college.  I took a class on magazine writing and as part of the class we had to write and submit articles for publication.  My first try, I sold an article to Texas Highways magazine, and I was hooked.  (Sadly, Texas Highways folded before they published my article!)

Back in the old days, I used to have five to ten manuscripts floating around at any given time.  A trip to the mailbox was filled with trepidation:  Would there be a rejection?  When the phone rang, I was seized with hope.  Would it be a sale?

Then I got an agent, and I gave all that up.  It's one of the drawbacks of having an agent, giving up that power.  Of course, I would still have lots of submissions out.  One of the benefits of having an agent is that they can do multiple submissions without anyone batting an eye.  But they can be slow, and sometimes I felt like I didn't know what was going on.

Now I'm back at the epicenter of Submission Central.  I've sent out two manuscripts this week, and a third will go out tomorrow.  It motivates me to know that when I finish something, I can get it into an editor's hands (or rather, her e-mailbox) in the blink of an eye.

Eventually I'll get another agent.  But not right away.  Agent shopping is a lot of work.  I'm planning to enjoy being captain of my own ship for a while.

This has been a great week for me on Etsy.  I've sold several pieces of jewelry and one notebook-necklace.  If every week were like this, I could start thinking of Etsy as an honest-to-goodness second income.  Let's hope it keeps up!

Have a great weekend,
Kara

A few weeks ago I parted ways with my agent.  I won't get into details.  My agent really is a very good and well thought of agent, but perhaps not the agent for me at this point in my career.

So, the dust has settled, and I'm back in business.  I just made my first submission--I sent a manuscript to Sourcebooks.  The acquiring editor there requested it some time ago (April) so it really was time!

I also had three orders to mail off to customers--2 vintage items and one Wear-A-Note notebook necklace.  I luuuuuuv getting orders and mailing them off.  It feeds my entrepreneurial spirit.  I also went to the library and checked out numerous YA books, since I am preparing to write one.  One of the books I checked out was HELL WEEK by my friend Rosemary Clement-Moore.  The first book in her series was PROM DATES FROM HELL and it was such a fun read, I'm looking forward to more.

That was my day, see ya tomorrow!  (I am committed to blogging every day for at least a week, and who knows?  Maybe I'll get back into the habit again.)

Thanks for stopping by,
Kara

Since my blog is being FEATURED this week, maybe I should add some content???

Well, I've been busy.  And lazy.  Busy and lazy.

We've had nibbles on the house, nothing in writing yet.  And no word on the offer we made in California!  Can you believe the banks just sit on the offers and do nothing?  So strange.

Now that I am done with renovations, I am transitioning back into full-time writer.  I've been working on my romantic suspense HOT PURSUIT, which has been requested by Sourcebooks, and tomorrow it will be ready to send.  I am also reading some books on writing YA fiction, in preparation for another run at my Young Adult witch book.

Now that spring is here, I'm back to watching the birds.  Every morning I put out food for them, then sit on the deck, eat breakfast, drink coffee, and watch their antics.  The past couple of days I've spotted a wren hanging around one of my bird houses.  I put the houses out two years ago and have never had a taker.  Really, they're meant to just be decorative.  But I think a wren might find the houses attractive.  I would be thrilled to have a wren family, they're one of my favorites (along with chickadees and kinglets--all the teeny birds with attitude).

Rob is busy planning our summer bike trip with his sister.  We've got a big group going, but I can't seem to get motivated to train so that I will be in shape for the 40-50 miles a day they're planning.  (I really prefer something a bit more leisurely).  So I've volunteered to drive the support vehicle this year.  I'll still bring a bike and do some riding, but only as much as I feel like doing.

That's all my news!  I'll be back soon.

Kara

I'm a bit tardy mentioning this, but I am teaching a month-long online class on setting and achieving goals as a writer.  The class is hosted by the Yosemite Romance Writers, and it starts TODAY.  If you sign up in the next few days you'll have no trouble catching up.  I've only posted one lesson so far.

The cost is $25, and here is the website where you can sign up:

http://www.yosemiteromancewriters.com/6.html


Just scroll down to the May class "Aim High, Shoot Straight" and click the button at the bottom, it's easy peasy.  The class is conducted on a yahoo group.

I just read about this new diet.  You take a cell phone picture of everything you eat, before you eat it.  (Not after, that would be gross.)  It's like keeping a food diary, but you have to record what you eat BEFORE you eat it.  A clinical study proved that people who do this eat less.

Since I've gained 5-7 pounds in the last few weeks for no good reason, I'm doing it.  I started just after lunch today, and here are my results:  The last two were at a Thai restaurant.  I did not eat all this, only half of it, so I'll eat the other half for lunch tomorrow.  Oh, also, this:  My cell phone takes pretty lousy pictures!

Rob and I made an offer on a house in CA and we're waiting to hear something, but since it's a foreclosure home it might take a while, as banks are very pissy about homes these days.  We've shown our house in Dallas a few times, had someone pretty interested (enough that she's looked twice) but so far no offers.

And now my roof is leaking!  Roof guy is coming tomorrow morning to have a look.  We might need a new roof.

If you haven't checked out my etsy shops lately, I have listed a few new Wear-A-Notes (http://karalennox.etsy.com) and tons of vintage stuff (http://vintagedazzle.etsy.com).

Oh, writing ... well, I am writing, just kind of slowly.  I am polishing the Sniper book, almost done.  I have an editor waiting to see it, so at least I have some motivation now!

Thanks for reading,
Kara