I've recently been dealing with the Pennsylvania Department of Revenue as anyone who follows me on Facebook no doubt has heard. The good thing about it is it provided me fodder for today's post at Working Stiffs . Come on over and join the rant.

It’s January 23 rd in southwestern Pennsylvania and the thermometer reads 50 degrees. And the sun is shining. There’s something very wrong about this. Not that I’m complaining. We had single digits, snow, and ice last week. This is much better. It’s just wrong. It’s in my nature to complain vehemently about winter weather. That’s hard to do when you can wander outside without a coat. But there’s something else about this time of year that I can still grumble about. Tax season. If I wanted to spend my life adding columns of numbers, I’d have been an accountant. But I’m not on good terms with math. I prefer words. So I’m a writer. Except this time of year, I’m a writer trying to balance my spreadsheets. It wouldn’t be so bad if I only had one business to keep tabs on. Silly me. I have three. Writing. Yoga. And Avon . That last one is the most involved, so I’m doing it first. Oh, it would be much simpler if I kept up with income and expenses as they happen instead of l...

We’re halfway through January. So how are you doing with your resolutions and goals? Do you still remember what they were? Last week, I crossed off a big one. I finished this round of revisions and sent it off to The Agent on Thursday. Sound the trumpets. No, it’s not “done” yet. But I need a break. I need to clean my house and get my stuff together for my accountant. While I’m taking that break, I figure The Agent might as well take a look at it and give me her thoughts and suggestions. Because right now I feel like I’m bumping around in the dark and could use someone to shine a light on things for me. Hopefully, the comments I get back will involve only revisions. ONLY revisions. What I’ve just spent the last six months doing was a rewrite more than a revision. What’s the difference? Well, here’s my distinction: Revising involves tinkering with words, moving scenes around, fixing odds and ends. Since I live in Pennsylvania , the home of the orange barrel, I compare...

Kensi's new favorite game is to burrow into the folds of the afghan we keep thrown over the back of a chair. From this vantage point, she thinks she can observe without being observed. 

Today, over at Working Stiffs, I'm offering one of my favorite rants regarding parking lots. I also share one of my all time favorite movie moments. TOWANDA!

Yes, it’s that time again. Time to make my New Year’s resolutions. In other words, time to set myself up for failure yet again. In looking back to the goals I set for last year , I did fair. I’ll give myself a B-. I bought a used treadmill and was really good about using it up for most of the year. But then I got into this heavy duty rewrite thing and all my treadmill time got converted into writing time. But I kept up with the yoga and the weights until about a month ago. For some reason, when winter sets in, I can’t seem to drag my weary butt out of bed when it’s still pitch black outside. And the only time I can get a good workout in is before breakfast. The treadmill stuff comes later in the day for me. But the yoga or weights have to be done first thing in the A.M. It’s just the way it is for me. So I always slack off around mid-November. However, for most of 2011, I did really well with the fitness stuff. As for writing every day, I did well with that, too. Whil...

New Year has never been one of my favorite holidays. I remember when I was a kid I couldn’t wait until I was grown up and could take part in the merriment. I watched Dick Clark’s Rockin’ New Year’s Eve and observed the partying from the quiet of my living room. But when I did grow up, I discovered those parties weren’t all they were cracked up to be. I remember getting grabbed and kissed by a lot of guys (generally drunk) I wouldn’t ordinary kiss for a million bucks. Yuck. One year we spent a lot of money for tickets to a swanky party at some hotel. The food was bad. The dance floor too crowded. And again, at midnight I was surrounded by drunks. Maybe the problem is that I don’t drink. At least not in the quantity to numb me to the madness. I’m a cheap drunk and would fall asleep long before I hit the proper level of intoxication to be considered a “good buzz.” So I always took the job as designated driver. And therefore I was the sober witness to my friends making asses of t...

Okay, yes. I'm painfully aware that lately, the only time I post here is to announce that I'm blogging at Working Stiffs . But I'm doing it again. I've posted pictures over there from the Pennwriters and Sisters in Crime Christmas parties. Just so you know, though, I'll be back here in a more regular fashion SOON. My excuse for not blogging is a good one. I'm driving to finish the rewrite of HORSE OF A DIFFERENT KILLER so I can send it off to the agent I've been working with by early January. My plan is to finish this draft (#546) by Friday so I can take the holiday weekend off. Then print it out and give it another quick pass between Christmas and New Years. THEN send it off to my beta readers so they can catch the stuff I've missed. And THEN (drumroll, please) send it to the agent by the middle of the month. At which point, I will collapse for a day or two before picking myself up and starting in on all the stuff I've been neglecting. Like m...

I'm still up to my eyeballs in my revisions, but I'm coming up for air today to get a haircut. And to blog at Working Stiffs . So in the spirit of multitasking, I'm blogging about getting a haircut. Bangs, or no bangs, that is the question.

Nanowrimo is over for another year. However my revision version marches on. I met my goal for November. In fact, I beat it by 17 pages! With that kind of momentum going, now is not the time to sit back and bask in the satisfaction. Now is the time to keep going. So, I've reset my writing clock. Instead of slacking off, I’m determined to maintain the pace. Thirty pages a week. At that rate, I should be done by Christmas. “Done” being a highly relative term. Let’s rephrase that. I should have a revised draft by Christmas. Of course, I’ll still need to read through it to catch the mistakes I made in the rewrite. My critique buddies have already pointed out that I duplicated a scene. Oops. I hate when that happens. Today’s goal? Six pages. Reasonable. Do-able. I’d rather think I could manage 10 pages, but I have to take a break at some point and prepare veggies. Tomorrow is my first Christmas party of the season and I’m taking brussel sprouts and cauliflower roasted with rosema...

I just hit page 230 of my rewrite. That means I only have ten more pages to write before the end of the month to meet my Nanowrimo Revision Version goal. Yeah, I think I’ll make it. Especially since my hubby is leaving tomorrow morning for five days at his family’s hunting camp. During those five days, the only thing I have planned outside the house is a trip to the grocery store. And I’m putting that off as long as possible. I hate going shopping this time of year. Here’s my idea: stores should block off one morning a week for regular shoppers only. No Christmas shoppers allowed. “Regular” shoppers would not be permitted to sneak any gift buying in on their allotted time. I mean, that’s only fair, right? But those of us who have to buy milk and eggs and toilet paper (not to mention cat food) shouldn’t have to deal with the frantic holiday crowds and the parking lots just to purchase our essentials. Yeah, I know. Ain’t gonna happen. But a girl can dream. Okay, back to writing. Af...

...for Skye. Ho hum.

Yesterday morning, when the world here in “farm country” was quiet, I kept hearing a motor running. I imagine in the city, no one pays attention to such things, since there are always cars and trucks bustling along the streets. Even here, there’s a lot of truck traffic. Not to mention we’re relatively close to the Pittsburgh Airport and are under one of the flight paths. But this was different somehow. Like a car idling outside my window. Only there weren’t any vehicles with engines running. I stepped out on my porch. The sound was there, but I still couldn’t locate it. A steady monotonous rumble. I mentioned it to Hubby, but he didn’t have any answers for me. Until today. He spotted the source on his way home from errands. It’s begun. If you’ve followed me here for any length of time, you know that I’ve been waiting for the onslaught of Marcellus Shale drilling to occur. We leased our gas rights over a year ago and rumors have been flying about when and if they would ever dri...

Diversions. Another form of procrastination. And in case anyone didn’t know, I am the Queen of Procrastination. Saturday, I took a day off my revision version of Nano to proctor the written exam for Pittsburgh police recruits. I’d done this a couple of years ago and found it interesting, so I agreed to do it again. I arrived at the convention center at 8:30 in the morning and joined other bleary-eyed proctors setting up the room for the testing. I was assigned to section G and pretty much knew from past experience that my section wouldn’t fill up. But we still had to go through the motions. Label the tablecloth with section-row-seat numbers. Lay out cardstock, answer sheets, test booklets, and pencils. Other important tasks involved stuff like locating the restroom. Always a vital piece of information. We had our orientation at 9:30. And at 10:00, we positioned ourselves by our assigned tables and the doors opened to the recruits. Roughly one thousand aspiring police officers ...

The Dashofy Revision Version of Nanowrimo is going quite well. I only need three more pages to make my first week’s goal. It won’t happen today because I’m spending the morning proctoring the police recruits testing for the city of Pittsburgh . I’ve done this before. It’s an odd combination of interesting and mind-numbing boredom. All the interesting stuff happens in the first hour: setting up the testing area, orientation, watching the shiny-faced eager recruits enter the room and be seated. The rest of the time is spent walking around the same table, making sure no one cheats. That’s the boring part. But it’s a way of giving back for the Citizen’s Police Academy experience. Later, I’m heading to my friend Jessi’s house for a Breeders Cup party. The Breeders Cup, in case you don’t know, is the richest day in horse racing. And it isn’t aired on network TV, which is all I have. So for the second year, I’m hanging out with Jessi and her family and watching it there. It’s fun. I’ve p...

I not only met my goal for yesterday, I surpassed it. Eight pages! Today will be a bit more difficult. I have an Avon order to invoice and a yoga class to teach before I can get to my writing. So I think I'll set today's goal at 5 pages and be happy with 3.

I’ll be offline all day today. That seems to be the only way I can get any serious writing done. And I intend to get some serious writing done today. Annette Dashofy’s Revision Version of Nanowrimo begins! That name is way too long. ADRVN? No. Oh, well. I can’t waste precious writing time trying to come up with something better. Anyone out there care to join me? This is an unofficial, make-it-up-as-we-go-along version of Nanowrimo. Set your own goals. Feel free to post them here if you want me to nag/cajole/encourage you to meet them. You can do the same right back at me. My goal for today is 6 pages. I’m tempted to say 7, but I’m a wuss. I hate to fail on the first day.

Happy Halloween. We get zilch in the way of trick-or-treaters around here. In fact, the only time we EVER had trick-or-treaters was when my cousin lived next door and her kids were little. Often, though, I’ve purchased candy JUST IN CASE. Which means I have to eat it all myself. Darn. But not this year. Lately, writing time battles with treadmill time, and the writing time is winning. So no bag of miniature Reese’s Cups for me. Instead of focusing on Halloween, I’m thinking of this as Nanowrimo Eve. Originally, I’d planned to spend it getting a jump-start on my page count. And since I’m doing my own revision version of Nano, and since I’m making up my own rules for it, starting early would not be deemed cheating. However, I’ve decided NOT to cheat anyway. Instead, I intend to spend the day cleaning house. Boy, do I know how to have fun or what? Seriously, the house needs it. I’ve been letting things pile up (literally) for months now while using the revisions excuse. “I have ...

November is National Novel Writing Month, otherwise known as Nanowrimo . The idea is to pound out an entire 50,000 word novel in one month. I’ve never participated. I do too much editing as I go along to put out those kinds of numbers. But I’m always in awe of those writers who do take part, whether they succeed or not. This year, while I still don’t plan to sign up for the official version, I do think I’m going to do my own adaptation of the challenge. I’m currently on page 120 of my revised manuscript. I’ve decided to set a goal of 30 pages a week for the month of November. That would give me double what I have now and put me within 100 pages of being finished. Do I think I’ll meet that goal? Probably not. But I’ll give it my best shot. Honestly, it’s well within my capabilities to write that much. But as soon as I make any high-minded plans, I fully expect life to get in the way. At least if I set an outrageous goal, I’ll accomplish more than if I don’t push myself at all. I...

We survived the retreat without a major weather event, but that's not to say we got through it without a good story or two. I'm blogging about it over at Working Stiffs today where I ask the question: How many women crime writers does it take to break into a house?