Green worked for me.

On the Beach

Grass, short and stubby, pricks the bottom of my feet. It’s warm and smells of summer, along with the salt air wafting from the cove. I look for a good place to lay my blanket, one where shadows won’t make lines in my tan. This place is better than the shore; no sand to get stuck to my skin. The surf whispers, a gentle susurrus unhampered by the sound of slow moving traffic on the street. There’s a nice breeze on the cliff, the grass under me growing cool beneath the shade of the blanket. I like my beach green.

Please to excuse obsessiveness. Will only last for a few days, most likely.

To date: I've broken up what I've written into the Introduction, and two essays regarding describing CS reps and customers and why "The customer is always right" sucks major ass. This makes a total of fifteen whole pages!!

Which, now I say it, sounds a little pathetic. But, hey...it's only been a couple days, right? RIGHT?!

Allyson, if you read this thread...damn, woman, more power to you for finishing your book and not completely losing your mind. You are an inspiration.

I wrote a book too. It blows and nobody can stand to read all of it, but I put the insipid, derivative Raymond-Chandler-bit-my-sisterness of it on paper, damn it. Yay? Still thinking about the challenge thing.

For the record, I used to work with a woman who had delusions of being able to write. In business, she was incapable of writing a simple declarative sentence without at least one grammatical or spelling error. She wrote a book - a romance novel - and submitted it to a publisher. It came back with a note that it was the worst thing they'd ever read. I know getting personal feedback is supposed to be encouraging, but not in this case. (MM, fyi, she's the crazy lady I sent you stories about.)

Lemme tell you, when people ask me what I do for a living, and I say I'm an editor -- even though I qualify it by explaining we publish PHARMACY journals -- 75% of the people still follow that up with (and yes, they ALL say some variation of this): "Oh, that's interesting! I've got this idea for a book, and just need to find someone to read it. See, it's about these kids with wings/tap-dancing unicorns/time-travelling geckos...."

Problem #1: Let's say your idea is actually potentially interesting. You have to actually WRITE it. You need more than "an idea."

Problem #2: You "need to find someone to read it"? I think you don't understand editing.

Problem #3: Dude, tap-dancing unicorns?!?!?

And that's the point at which I nod and make my Interested Face, and then reiterate how we publish PHARMACY JOURNALS, but good luck with finding someone who publishes fiction. ("Do you know anyone who publishes fiction? I figured you might have some contacts...." Well, see, this is Cincinnati, not New York. The only other editors I know sit about 15 feet away from me. And they edit PHARMACY JOURNALS. When I'm feeling nice, I recommend getting the current copy of Writer's Market.)

Yarg.

Weird, Teppy. Not quite as weird as the people who think I can flash the crip signal and get, say, Stephen Hawking on the phone, but weird enough. My book's not that horrible, but I really do think the end falls apart, somehow.

Man.

Somebody stole my time-travelling geckos idea.

Somebody stole my time-travelling geckos idea.

Go with the tap-dancing unicorns.

Go with the tap-dancing unicorns.

Unicorns don't tap-dance, foolish one.

They cha-cha.

For the food and emotions challenge: The Meal Life Cycle The Meal Life Cycle

Day 1.”Yay, chicken. I love chicken. Why don’t we have this more? I’ve missed it.”

Day 2.” I took it for lunch and it was even better the second day.”

Day 3. “Guests...well we can give them leftover chicken...”

Day 4. “I was really hoping for take-out tonight.”

Day 7 “What was this in the covered dish? It kind of looks like chicken. Maybe the dog will eat it.”

Day 20: Nah...don’t want that again. Too heavy. Why not just bake a chicken?”