No surprise, but hubs and I loved every pound kitty we've owned. They’re totally a mess, semi-defective, and that's what gives them...character.
 
In case you think dogs are better than cats, let me describe my two current “preciouses” and change your mind.
 
#1) They are automatic foot warmers. Even in summer. How fabulous...
 
#2) We do not have to let them out to use the bathroom in inclement weather. They’ve got their own box. Indoors. We do not have to walk them. They wouldn't go, if we tried.
 
#3) They stare at us adoringly for hours. Or maybe they’re plotting some sort of revenge.
 
#4) Excellent actors. The younger, ridiculously hairy cat had us totally fooled by the look-at-how-sweet-I-am act at the pound. Now that she has a roof over her head and blankets to shed upon? She’s the devil.

So, it was my first year scoring RITA’s for the RWA yearly contest. On the RWA website, there’s not a lot of explanation as far as what a 1, 5, or 10 means. Is it bad to get a 6? I don’t know. Can you only give out one 10 because that means “best book in the universe”? I don’t know. Is it only people with an average above 8 who make it to the finals? No idea.
 
Besides, who am I to be judging anyone, anyway?
 
And don’t even get me started on decimals…which is like the ultimate splitting-hairs hedge option. An hour of my life disappeared as I grappled with “is it 9.4 or 9.3”? Yeah.
 
In my day-job, the rule is to always give patients the benefit of the doubt. Easy enough. Sounds like a good rule to use for the RITA’s.
 
Therefore, in all transparency, I present to you – how to score RITA entries – Dr. Jill style.
 
#1) The scale starts at 5 and stops at 10. We’re going to call this the “RITA gonad” scale. You have to have serious writerly balls to simply enter this contest. If you have the guts to write, edit, publish, and enter an entire book, the contents of which are still glowing with the pieces of your soul that you ripped out and laid down on the page – that’s automatically worth a minimum score of 5. Just for making the massive effort and taking a risk.

Sometimes writers are just too tired to write. Sometimes we have day jobs or families or general insanity that sucks up every last minute of the day. Well, now what?
 
 During this week's call block, I started thinking about everything I get done besides writing when I'm on call. Here goes...
 
#1) Blogs. Ta-dash. Case in point.

 
#2) Research. This activity fits well into small, interrupt-able attention packets, which is nice when the ICU + med-surg floor + Ob unit + ER + 5 nursing homes all have my number on speed dial. You know it’s been a bad weekend when the switchboard operator at the hospital begins her spiel with an apology. Sometimes a few minutes of research is nice. Like thinking about really hot men and how they might fit into a novel, hypothetically-speaking of course. Yum!

​Hate “springing forward”? Not me! Why daylight savings time is fabulous
 
It's understandable -- most people feel hung over on Monday from “springing forward”. Enter lots of grumbles. But here’s why I love DST….
 
#1) Taking hospital call on the spring time change weekend? 1 less hour of call is always a good thing!
 
#2) The cats’ circadian rhythms are less aggressive at 5am. For a while.
 
#3) Leaving work in the dark isn’t any fun. There’s something to be said for going for a walk after work.
 
#4) I’m a morning person.
 
#5) Who wants to wake up at 6 or 6:30 and it’s already light out? Not me. It’s nice to get some dark-to-dawn so as to ease into the day.

​#1) How come everyone speaks American English? (Ok, besides Jean Luc Picard, but he’s really French or something.) Did America win the universe and now every place in the galaxy has to speak standard English?
 
#2) How do we know that the entire series isn’t all happening inside of Q’s little snow globe of amusement?
 
#3) Rock climbing in the holodeck. How high can you really go?
 
#4) Why no changing rooms near the holodeck? Remember the mud bath with Mrs. Troi, Worf, and Alexander? Did they track mud through the ship until they got back to their quarters? Or did the mud magically disappear because it came from…a holodeck?
 
#5) How come only the Romulans and Klingons get cloaked vessels? That’s a bit unfair to all the Vulcans, humans, and well -- everyone else -- in the universe...

​            Recap: Because of some questionable decision-making on my part, I ended up fastdrafting a paranormal romance novel over an approximately 4 day period. Part 1 and Part 2 give a good recap of those four days of insanity.
 
            So, the first draft of the novel was completed as of 2/23/16. Deadline to send it to the developmental editor: 3/6/16. My personal preference? I hate being late, so I generally try to get things in a little early, mostly to reinforce to my latent OCD. So late is not an option.
 
            That meant I had to take the novel from first draft (37K words) to ~45K words – my second stage goal. No, the book is not done yet – not by any stretch – but I wanted it layered enough for the editor to take a look and make revision suggestions before I go back for another rewrite and expand it some more.
 
            Disclaimer: I make no claims as to the quality of the manuscript. Also, no claims as to any expertise other than how dumb I was to attempt something like this in such a short period of time. Making bad choices? I'm a level 11 certified expert.
           
            So. 12 days to revise the book. 160 pages divided by 12 = 13.5 pages/day. Should be easy, right? (Spoiler alert: This scheme doesn’t work well if you have a day job.)