Success!

Maybe?

Last night I did an experiment! Mostly because I was tired, but really because I've been wanting to do this since Brandon left. I didn't put Dexter in his crate last night. We were planning on not doing that until he was a year old but I was really tired of him asking to be let out in the middle of the night. Sooo... I left him out!

He growled asking if he could go on the bed (he's so nice, he doesn't just jump up. Good training on our part!). I let him jump up and he got comfy and fell asleep. Then I feel asleep! It was weird at times because he would be trying to push me off... but really, it wasn't bad. We both woke up around 6am and I was very surprised that he hadn't even gotten up once during the night. He just slept calmly on the bed.

So I know I shouldn't be teaching him that the bed in his bed, but I'm so glad he didn't even get up once during the night. When he got up at 6am he went down to chew on a rawhide I had brought to the bedroom. It was a nice night!

Tsunami?

Non-existant!

I got woken up around 4:30am by my phone ringing... I get excited, thinking it must be Brandon! and then see that it's my friend Michelle. I automatically start worrying because why would she call at this time? When I answer she asks if I've seen the news (no, sleeping) and then mentions that there was an earthquake and they were evacuating the coastline because of a tsunami. Could she, another friend Ashley, her neighbor Mandy (with her mother, 6 year old and 1 month old daughters), and 2 dogs, come over?

Sure!

So I'm up, organizing, watching news... there was a pretty large earthquake in Chile (right near where one of my Mormon friends is doing a mission! Yikes!) and it triggered a tsunami warning in Hawaii, among other places. Already by 5am there are cars on the roads, people evacuating, gas stations full, lines in grocery stores, wow! I'm not panicking though.

My friends arrive and we start watching the news. When the news gets old, we watched random TV shows. Then we'd switch back to the news to see if anything is happening. It was mostly a morning of waiting. I gave them food, drink and accommodations and they were all so grateful!

The tsunami was due at 11:05am on the Big Island. We waited, then waited, then waited. By 11:45am we were hungry, and seeing as nothing was happening, we walked over to the PX to grab some lunch. There were tons of people there, mostly people who got evacuated, waiting outside or eating lunch. When we got home we watched some more news and after an hour or so discovered that the tsunami warning was cancelled and they could go home.

Anti-climactic.

I'm happy, though. I got to speak to Brandon finally! He called me on someone else's phone and then used his own when it was charged. Two calls from him! It was hard to talk because it kept breaking up though. Oh well. Also, my friend's houses weren't destroyed, which is good. Disaster averted!

Bleh, I'm lonely!

I just want to talk to Brandon! I'm usually ok during our separations but geez, this sucks this time. I've been spoiled every separation we have because we get to talk all the time... this time he called me a couple nights and then it's like nothing. No warning or anything. He would text me and say "Busy day!" and hardly anything after that. Yesterday I heard from him a couple of times... and then today all I heard from him was at 12:45am when he said he just got... somewhere... and is only going to get 2 hours of sleep. I miss my husband! I just have to suck it up, I guess. I think his phone is dead too because none of my texts are getting through. Hopefully I hear from him soon!

Exhausted!

It seems my sleep dilemmas have disappeared for the time being. Other than still being woken up early by my lovely dog and cat, I've been so exhausted by the time I go to sleep. It's a combination of getting up early and keeping really busy.

Socializing wears me down! Tuesday I spent much of the afternoon with my friend Michelle at the dog beach and then at lunch. Yesterday I spent the afternoon with her again at Petco, Ross and Target... and then spent the night with my new friend Courtney at her house watching TV and eating homemade pizza. Granted, I love it and am grateful for all the socializing. But geez, I'm getting tired! I'm not 16 anymore, lol.

I got Dexter groomed yesterday and now his front paws are all dirty again. Useless lol.

Other news... haven't heard Brandon's voice for a couple days. He's been super busy. I've hardly gotten texts from him! He texted me in the middle of the night and surprisingly my body woke me up. I answered him but he never read it. I'm sure his phone is either dead or off now. Oh well, that's the life. I've gone longer without hearing his voice. Not that I like it!

Also, something is wrong with my right foot. I think it's just my plantar fasciitis but it's killing me. When I wake up in the morning I limp real bad and can hardly make it down the stairs. I've forgone working out on my Wii Active because that calls for me to be standing up or jumping or running in place and my foot can't handle it in the morning. I'm contemplating going to the doctor's, but what are they going to say? Take an X-ray and see nothing? I dunno. It's been hurting since Brandon left and I went to the dog beach and ran on the beach... maybe I got a stress fracture. It's not as bad as the first stress fracture I got. Geez, my feet are so dumb!

And lastly, with all this stuff going on, I've had difficulty concentrating. I can write for a bit but when I sit down to read, I just can't! All my brain wants to do is watch TV or play games - something mindless. I need to buck down, there's 3/4 books I'm trying to read right now.

I'm feeling good, thanks!

The last month or month and a half I've been feeling kind of depressed at times. I don't know why, I just felt out of it, not wanting to do anything, just blue. I still did what I needed to do and felt happy most of the day. Something was missing. I think I've discovered it!

I'm a social person by nature, but this staying at home and writing thing didn't offer me many chances to interact with people other than my husband or the cashier at the grocery store. However, I've joined a spouses club and have already made a couple friends through it. One of those ladies lives right down the street from me - wonderful! I've also made friends with the wives of a couple officers my husband works with. It's been great.

Yesterday I went on a walk with the girls I met through the spouses club. It was great! Today I spent a few hours at the dog beach and having lunch with a friend of mine. I just feel good. I guess I need friends and I need that interaction. Granted, I don't need it all the time, I do like my alone time, but with Brandon gone it's nice to have others to talk to. I hope we all become good friends!

So if you were to ask me how I'm feeling... well, I'm feeling good, thanks!

My Writing Website

I've finally worked a bit on www.chantalmshelstad.com. Please check it out!

I figured I needed to do SOMETHING with it because I did buy the domain name and all... I finally sat down to figure out the layout, theme, pages, etc. It was actually easier than I expected. I'm still tweaking it and messing with it and the theme might change sometime (though I do like the arrangement of this one), but it's still pretty good so far. Tell me what you think. :)

Books & Boredom

Currently I'm reading "On Writing" by Stephen King. It's a good book with some good advice from a good author. I'm soaking it all in and trying to remember all the little tips he has thrown in there. Almost done with it too!

Next up will be "Self-Editing for the Fiction Writer" about, you guessed it, editing. I need all the help I can get! I have some foundations and idea of what I need to do for editing my novel but there is still so much I need to find out. This book was written by real book editors so I can be assured that the tips are well worth it. It's come highly recommended.

Another book I'm reading is Andy Adams's "The Log of a Cowboy." It was written in 1903 and is basically a semi-autobiographical story about the authors time driving cattle through the western plains. I'm reading it for research for my next novel, though it's actually quite interesting. It's set in the same time of my novel so I'll be using it as my main reference.

I think I might start reading another fiction book sometime soon...

Anyway, since Brandon's been gone my day has been filled with boredom. I try to stretch out everything I have to do so I fill the hours so it's rather hard sometimes! I have a thing planned for every day this week but most days it'll only take an hour or so at the most. The rest of my hours are spent writing, researching, TV and movie watching, dog playing and internet surfing.

Last Thursday I was at my second Spouse's Club luncheon. It's nice! I met a nice girl there and we're sort of becoming friends. I joined a few clubs (Book Club, Adventure Club, Wine Club). The Adventure Club is meeting on Friday for an easy hike and I'll definitely be going. It's nice to get out of the house!

Today I might go down to Borders and Old Navy... I've been wanting to go to Borders to do some research and wander around a bit but I'm wary about going on a weekend. I think I'll go anyway. The Farmer's Market is open today too but I don't know if I really need to go... might be fun though!

Energized Again!

Ever since I finished my novel I was wrestling with what I wanted to do next. I had a few options:

1. Start the sequel I came up with while writing
2. Work on other novels I have
3. Just do some short stories and stuff like that

They're all good options. The first option I wasn't sure about because all my other novels I've been working on for years and this one is so new, I'd be afraid to just jump into it before I'm ready. Who's to say when I'm ready though? Option two is good but I have so many other novels, what should I do? Option three is also a contender and I can also submit those stories for publication and contests.

I did some soul searching and decided to follow my heart. This is what it was saying: Work on some short stories and do the sequel to the novel. I found I was always thinking of the sequel and story elements. Yesterday, I began research on the sequel and even after a brief period of time, I was energized again! I was writing notes on the time period and setting, writing down plot elements, names were coming up, and now I have two story ideas that I can work with for this novel.

Of course, I plan on working on some short stories. I really need to get back into them! I have a couple ideas I'll be exploring. I'm just excited that I have something to work on now, even if it's only research at this point. "Calista" will be in the editing stages starting March 1 (I figured it's a good date to start, just over 2 weeks since I finished).

See, even with Brandon gone I have something to look forward to.

Last Day

Brandon found out yesterday that he's leaving tomorrow morning. And by morning he means 1:30am. We decided to not even try to sleep because really, what's the point? Luckily today he has only a half day (if everything goes well) and then we have errands to run, laundry to do, last minute packing to finish and figuring out what's for dinner... then he leaves. Of course in between we'll watch his last Netflix and last night's episode of Lost.

I feel like I should feel more panicky by now. Maybe I'm just used to him leaving. Isn't that sad? There's also the fact that even though he's leaving we've been through it before so we can get through it again. It's only like 7 or 8 weeks, right? I can handle that. There are worse things in the world than that.

Like I said before, I'm more worried about being bored. However, I did get a call back from the Outdoor Recreation Center here to be a guide on adventure tours around the island - how fun! We'll see if that pans out. It won't pay much but it'll give me some money that I can use towards my trips and my writer's conference.

Other things I have planned for when he's gone included...

1. Starting that awful revision of my novel (you'll be getting a copy to read early March, Mom!)
2. Playing some video games (Hours and hours can be spent on Sims2 and WoW)
3. Working on other writing projects
4. Reading lots and lots of books
5. Watching TV and movies, haha
6. Working on my website, www.chantalmshelstad.com (Don't worry about looking, there's nothing there)
7. Training that darn dog of mine
8. Wearing that dog out with some hikes and beach time and fetch time at the park
9. Trying to make some friends, joining clubs, volunteering, etc.
10. Oh, and working out and stuff.

Doesn't seem like much but it'll keep me busy for most hours of the day. I'm sure there will be some days that just drag on but at least I'm expecting it!

Ugh, that darn dog of mine is eating poop again...

What a sweet dog!

Click here to view these pictures larger

I'm amazed I actually got a really good picture of him. I was about to take a picture of him looking out the window but he turned his head right as the camera flashed. Perfect!

Other news... Brandon now leaves a day earlier than planned. Only two more nights with him. I should be sadder but I guess I kind of expected this. I'm actually more upset I wrote it on my calendar than he's leaving Thursday but then he wasn't so I crossed it off and now he is! OCD anyone?

Also, my birthday is in a month and a half. I'm not expecting anything from anyone but if someone were to buy me something (hint hint) I'd really just like some money to go towards the Hawaii Writer's Conference in September. I super duper want to go to it and it's $500. Of course we can afford it, but could always use some help, especially with all the flights I'm buying to Canada and Colorado. Oh, and I wouldn't mind some area rugs to throw around the house to control some of that dirt the dog brings in...

What I did this weekend

Brandon had a four day weekend to commemorate Presidents Day. I believe we had a very good weekend!

Friday: Friday was kind of an errand day. In the morning we lazed about before going to the library (to find a book that wasn't there), to Brandon's work (to pick up something he forgot) and then to the seamstress (to sew some stuff of Brandon's before he leaves). Then that afternoon I drug Brandon out to the beach I went to before with Dexter, Mokuleia Beach. We had fun! We swung by Matsumoto's to get some yummy shave ice before going home. Then it was more TV watching then watching the opening ceremonies of the Olympics. Bedtime.

Saturday: The morning saw dog training. Brandon didn't want to go so I went alone with Dexter. He's doing real well! I talked to the trainers about his pulling and they suggested I get him a prong collar. I spoke with the trainer who sells them and she fitted one for him and showed me how to use it. Let me tell you, the difference is amazing. He hardly pulls anymore and if he does it pinches him a little so he backs off. It's wonderful to walk him now! Alright, so after class we had lunch and then chose a new beach to go to: Kawela Bay. It was hidden and surprisingly enough, on a Saturday, there were 11 people there. It's a good beach! Saw turtles, swam a bit, read, walked, it was great. And it's another place where they filmed Lost ;). Home, TV, Bedtime.

Sunday: Valentine's Day! Just an ordinary day, I suppose. We spent the morning again lazing about, but it was so beautiful I said we needed to go out. So we went down to Petco to return something I bought then wandered around Office Depot, Sports Authority and Target. Then we went home to play some fetch with Dexter before having dinner at Cholo's in Haleiwa. It's a Mexican restaurant. The food was ok, the margaritas watery... but I wanted to go and I enjoyed going out. We came home to watch a love movie! We chose Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. A different kind of love story I suppose... And bedtime :)

Monday: Brandon started to get depressed because he has to work tomorrow. :( I tried to keep him occupied though. We've been watching Season 5 of Lost so we did that all morning, then I drug him out to go grocery shopping. We hardly had to buy anything, which saved us some money. Then we came home to eat and lay about. We had decided the day before to go on a hike so we packed up Dexter and went way out to Makapu'u Lighthouse, a hike up a big hill. It was hot and very beautiful! The water color was amazing and the views were spectacular. You could see the reefs and even some whales. You have to see it. Dexter loved the hike and now he's been sleeping all night. So we came home to watch more TV and make some ribs for dinner. Except the grill ran out of propane. So we just ordered pizza!

Brandon leaves on Friday and won't be back until sometime after my birthday. I have stuff planned for when he's gone but otherwise I'm a bit nervous... mostly of being bored... but I'm sure I'll be ok. I'll be sad during March because he won't be able to call me at all, but I should just get used to it for when he deploys! Anyway, time for more TV ;)

THE END

Sooo...

I finished my first draft today!!!

Here's some stats:

Began: November 1, 2009
Ended: February 11, 2010
First Draft Final Word Count: 103,613
MS Word Pages: 262
Chapters: 26

It's been an awesome ride. I've had doubts from time to time but in the end, I finished what I started. It's a good feeling.

The next step is to let it sit for at least a couple of weeks and maybe work on something else so I can clear my mind. Then I'm jumping into editing. I'm scared to do that because I've never done it, but I'll spend a couple weeks reading up what I need to and get to it. I plan on spend some time editing until I'm comfortable with it, then starting to query and find myself an agent.

WOW!

Losing steam!

I fear I'm losing steam on my novel. I guess I feel better today because I did take a 3 day break over the weekend, but today I'm nervous. Maybe it's because I'm so close to finishing my novel, I don't know. Right now I feel as though my writing is horrible and I'm missing so much stuff and I'm losing focus.

I just need to reread my novel and become re-acquainted.

Anyway, life is good so far! Friday we had a Hail & Farewell which we missed (Brandon thought it started at a certain time, we got there at the end, haha). It was downtown, though, so we went for a walk around Waikiki and went to the Swatch store... where Brandon bought me the watch I wanted!! It's for Valentine's Day, even though we weren't going to exchange gifts, I said he could get this Army vest thing he wanted, so he decided to get me the watch. I love it. It's an analog watch, silver, the flattest watch in the world, with etched flower designs. Here's a picture: http://www.swatch.com/zz_en/watches/ss2010_corecollection.html (it's the Climber Flowery watch)

After that we met some friends at the movies to see Dear John. It wasn't great, but it was fun to be out with friends. The next day we did dog training like usual, though Brandon spent the training cleaning up the puke in the backseat, ick. After training we went to a BBQ on the other side of the island hosted by Brandon's platoon sergeant, where some of his guys and their families were. We brought Dexter and he loved it! He loves the beach and playing in the water. It was a fun afternoon.

Sunday we sat around basically all morning, then did some errands, then sat around all afternoon watching the Superbowl. Brandon explained football to me a bit more and I'm understanding it now. It isn't too bad of a sport now that I get it lol. That night we made some ribs and played fetch with Dexter and watched a movie. It was a good weekend.

This week is full of stuff! I'll keep you updated :)

Yesterday's Adventures

I was depressed yesterday. Most likely caused by an excess of girly hormones because of PMS. Everything was making me angry, nothing was working out, I was pissed at Brandon for no good reason... all bad.

So after talking with Jessica on the phone for almost an hour I decided to go on a drive to the North Shore. So I packed up Dexter in the backseat and we headed through the country north. I decided to go to the beach with him, a beach on the west side of North Shore across from the airport where they do skydiving. This beach is called Mokuleia Beach and it's where they filmed large portions of the show Lost (which made me excited, because I'm all over that!).

This beach is pretty cool because, even though there are huge waves on North Shore, there are reefs so hardly any waves crash on the beach itself. The big ones are further out to sea. Here they are tons of kite-surfers, people who attach surfboards to their feet and then use the wind with a kite type thing to propel them around the waves. It's neat to watch. The beach was all but deserted except for the kite-surfers on the waves.

Dexter had never seen waves before, so that was an experience for him. When we got close to the water he freaked out and didn't want to go close. Finally, once I showed him it was ok, he got the courage to go close. He became really brave and started attacking the water, barking at it and jumping at the waves and biting the water. It was hilarious. I wish I had my good camera with me to videotape it! I took him off his leash at one point and he ran back and forth, chasing the water, biting it and running to get out of the way.

He was tired so we started back to the car. I noticed an old surfer guy parked beside us and he said hi then started talking about how his wife wanted a border collie. He was really nice. He said that this beach was a perfect place for dogs and it was very dog friendly, so I plan on coming back again with Dexter and Brandon.

On the way home we swung by Haleiwa, driving through town and then stopping at McDonald's for a McFlurry. I had been craving ice cream for so long! After that we started home. It was a great afternoon, I was feeling better!

Then half a mile from home, Dexter puked in the car. He puked A LOT. I don't know where it all came from! And dumb me, I had forgotten to put a towel down on the backseat before we left. So now I have this huge puke stain on my backseat, it's horrible. This morning I bought a waterproof backseat dog travel cover for the car for Dexter, and this weekend we're buying a steam vacuum to clean the car (and for the rest of the house, we've been wanting one for awhile). Oh well, the joys of having a dog ;)

(BTW, I'm outside right now and Dexter is sitting by the fence and trying to lick/eat something off of it. It's kinda funny)

Click here to view these pictures larger

Click here to view these pictures larger

Building my platform

I now have a fanpage on Facebook for my author-ing! I'm excited, I invited all the people on my friends list and so far 74 are my fans. People are excited for my novel and encouraging. Awesome :)

I've also started getting tons of fans on Twitter. I am following this YouTube video that was recommended to me that gives 7 very easy steps to get 500+ followers in a week. So far just from yesterday I went from 18 to 41. It's amazing! I have a lot of work to do but I'm loving it.

I'll be working on a website soon, something I've never done before. I suppose I'm procrastinating because it's unfamiliar territory. This website will include yet ANOTHER blog of mine. Don't worry, I'm not leaving this one! This is more of a personal one while the other blog I'll concentrate more on writing than anything else.

I'm feeling great. I'm feeling nervous. I'm feeling anxious. Once I finish this novel I'm going into unfamiliar territory: Revising, querying, publishing, marketing. This is all new to me. I've finished a book before but I've never gone beyond that. It scares me! But I can do it!

What's Happening?

So my sleep is still not good yet. It doesn't help that for the last week or so Dexter has been getting up in the middle of the night, making lots of noise and then whining because he needs to go outside. I'm the one who gets up every night with him and let's him out so my sleep is further interrupted. Even when I take medicine my dreams are still crazy and I don't feel totally rested. This morning I woke up at 5am with Brandon and didn't go back to sleep. I was wide awake.

I haven't felt exhausted in a long time. In college that was practically every night. Maybe because I was busier: Waking up before 6am, going to PT, then home, then class or work, then home for dinner, then bedtime at 9. Now I don't have such a busy day and I have tons of time to think. My mind is always going a hundred miles an hour. And then I force myself to bed at 9 or 9:30 when Brandon goes to sleep because I like to go to bed when he does. I read for a bit but then I feel bad for having the light on while he's trying to sleep.

Maybe I'll be exhausted tonight.

I guess life is good otherwise. I feel as though my writing isn't up to par but I'll find out when I reread my novel. I feel like it's lacking something. It's only my first draft though, my job right now is to just get everything out, and then I can go back and edit.

I've been working out every morning and feeling great about it. I restarted my Richard Simmons diet after a couple week hiatus. I didn't gain much weight at all but I have been feeling sick because I haven't been eating healthy enough. Though tonight the diet is on hold because I'm making perogies - yum!

Brandon leaves soon and he just told me that for almost a month he won't be able to call me. Not too excited, but I guess it's the life I live! I'll survive, there are worse things in the world. It'll give me more time to think, huh? ;) I'll be blogging a lot while he's gone I'm sure, just for lack of having someone to talk to every day other than my dog...

I need some friends!