The newest addition: a soon to be scar

Some call me stupid, some call me brave, I call myself not careful enough. While trying to fix something in the iguana's house, he came running in order to chase me away. I did take a few steps back, but he jumped anyway, getting the ball of my hand. I'm not sure if he intended to, but given that he's in mating season, I'd say yes. He then charged me so I had to quickly hide in the bathroom, out of his sight. Probably a good choice, because I'd started bleeding all over the place and needed to stop the bleeding first. However, I pressed something to the wound and put the iguana back into his house.
Interestingly, he becomes rather wild when he has bitten me, as if he had a rush of adrenaline running through him. Moving things get him going, whether it's a towel, a bag or me. You run away, he'll chase. However, I don't recommend standing still; if an iguana charges, he'll attack. If you have something at hand to throw over his head (towel, blanket or jumper) do that. Or if you have something to block him, hold it in his way. A charging iguana is determined to get you and if you don't pay attention, he'll succeed. I was lucky, again, today; the wound is not deep, just cut through the first layer of my skin, which will heal nicely, but leave a scar.

Below are the pictures:

 <--two minutes after he bit me.

 Bleeding almost stopped, already a little swollen -->



Below: Bleeding stopped. You can see that he has literally torn the flesh in three areas.  It'll take probably a bit more than a week to heal.

                               

And a picture just taken (3rd day after bite) before I put on a new dressing:
It is still slightly swollen, because I don't rest it enough and it's in an awkward position with lots of fat and muscle underneath. But it's dry now. It'll leave a scar for sure, but it doesn't hurt as much as I thought it would. I think it'll take another week to heal properly, then will continue to be sensitive for a while.

This picture was taken on the fifth day after the attack --->
Still a bit swollen and slightly infected. I've taken off the bandage for the first time to let air on the wound, which was good. It's almost closed and dry now. I've carefully cleaned it with saline solution, as it's a gentle disinfectant and dries the wound in addition. It'll probably take until end of this week for the swelling to go down and another for the scab to come off. I was lucky he didn't get deeper.

<--This is exactly a week after. I will have to watch the very dark bit on the top, but it's healing nicely. The swelling has gone down and appears now only around the scab. I'll give it about another week to be healed completely. It's still sensitive when I press on it, but that's normal, given that it's still healing underneath.

13 days after the attack, finally without the scab: it's not completely healed yet. I have to find out if the remaining black bit is dead tissue or blood underneath the skin. My guess is the former. Will have to wait and see if it grows out eventually.
It's still rather sensitive and often painful to touch. It would have been better if I had stitches as it's a very difficult area and constantly in use. Another battle scar from the sharp teeth of an iguana.

Stop the abuse!

Its not right

Of the poor apostrophe, that is. Whenever I see the little punctuation mark misused, I feel terribly sorry for the sod. You know, the apostrophe can't defend itself; it relies on the writer's knowledge on how to correctly use it. But almost every day, when reading posts on fora or tweets, in blurbs of self-published books even, I see the crime of the lofty comma being maltreated. It brings tears to my eyes and makes me wonder, dear people, what has that fella ever done to you to deserve this? And I can't help thinking if the apostrophe sometimes might feel lost there, in its position it wrongly had been placed, with no fault of its own. Is it confused, sitting there, wedged between two letters it doesn't belong? Does it cry at night, silently begging to be taken away from where it had been put by a heartless person? Maybe it wishes to have arms and legs to be able to climb into the right spot.
Please, dear people, have a heart and help to stop abusing the tiny, yet important, punctuation mark.

Typical offenders: 

Typo's.
No! Please do not misuse the apostrophe to indicate a plural. It's typos. One typo, two typos. Unless Typo is a person whose belonging (bike/car) you refer to.

Writer's website.
No! Unless you are referring to a single writer's website, it's writers' website.

Writer's retreat.
No! Unless it's only one writer to visit the retreat.

If you are still in doubt, take a look at this post: Possessive apostrophe Part One

The end in close distance: why I hate writing (novels)

Yes, I know, another moan, sorry. If it's too much, feel free to click the little cross to the upper right. That'll do nicely.
But I have to rant. As you can see from the title of this post it's about writing. Novel writing to be precise.
I know I've said I love to write and I do, but I have those moment when I don't. At all. A novel always starts with an idea, something inspired me, pops up in my head and I see the story building. Slowly, but I can literally feel the emotions, see the film. I love that stage of writing. Don't get me wrong, at that stage is no plotting involved, just a floating theme, but it's enough to open that Word document and start to type. I love the stage when the characters develop, when they come to life and surprise me. I love the challenge the genre/POV pose to me. All good. But then, I start to struggle. The reason being is that I just can't plot. I can't sit down and outline a novel from start to finish. I've tried. I've tried so many times, but I failed. Four novels and none of them was outlined. Well, the fourth novel is what gives me the biggest headache.
I've noticed a pattern, though: it's the last 10k that give me grief. Always. I normally know the ending and I have already written 70k. I always aim at 80k. Plus/minus, you know? Proper full length novel. But then I have to connect the two bits. Since I have a clear ending already when I start, there's no way I'd change it. The ending stands and I need to work towards it, tying loose ends and make it exciting on top of it.
In this case, I've written the ending months ago and had a vision on how to get there. Somehow, it had come differently than I've anticipated. My characters wouldn't have it. Me reigning them in, that is. And for the past few days I've been spitting fire, cried blood. I've whined and moaned and started to hate the book. Hate it with so much passion, I wanted to hand it over to someone to finish it. I mean it. But I can't give up either. It's a massive pickle. I'm becoming increasingly aggressive, eat far to much to stuff the anger and frustration down my throat and force myself to write.
Nothing can console me, nothing helps; not the wonderful feedback I get from the beta readers saying it's a page turner, that they can't wait to read the ending; not the satisfaction that I've already made it almost towards the end, which I didn't even think I'd manage; I don't want advice, because nothing anyone says can help me to love the book again. Not for now, at least. I don't want to step away from it, I don't want to leave the house and meet people, the book won't leave me alone anyway. I don't want to write something else, either. I just want this fucking bastard of a novel to be finished! My trouble is that I have already other stories banging on the door, demanding their way out and I would love to start on them right now. But I can't. I have to stay focussed until this baby is finished, then go back and edit.
Yes, that's pain for you.
Only when I hand it over to my proof reader, I sigh with relief, open a new Word document and begin to bleed the next story. It'll only be matter of time until I reach the hate-state again.

That's for all of you out there, who can remotely relate. 

The dragon: a repetitive story

We're at it again. Since April, and therefore earlier than expected, the iguana has been in mating season. It started with a few signs, him being a tad more active, jumping at his reflection or reacting to my movements a bit more. It will gradually become harder to handle him, one wrong look and he jumps straight from his upper shelf at me, aiming at my face. Needless to say that I would probably need plastic surgery if that ever happens. So I'm on my guard all the time when dealing with him. Mature big male iguanas are dangerous animals when they are in season and it lasts a few months. So every time I approach him, I have to be careful. They can jump a meter or more with ease, especially if they are sitting on something they can push themselves off (a sofa, a chair, a table, a side board, a shelf). And they are incredibly fast when they attack. If I had carpet in my flat, I'd only be able to approach him in boots as he'd go for my flesh. An iguana of that size (almost 5 feet) would easily take a piece out of me. And it's painful, too, in addition to the infection that will follow. Now I'm an experienced iguana keeper and therefore know how to read him, but even then, I got bitten before. One careless moment and wham! you're bleeding.

Today, though, it was him who bled. Silly boy had jumped against the window (luckily, I had bubble wrap on it), due to me moving around the room. His aggressions become worse in the evenings and he reacts to anything or anyone going near the vivarium. And I wore white! Not one of his trigger colours. He jumped and must have bitten his tongue. Nothing to panic about, unless the bleeding doesn't stop within minutes. Normally, they will puncture their tongue with their razor sharp teeth, but it will heal quickly. It may swell a bit which will be uncomfortable for the animal, but there's not much I can do. He doesn't eat anyway, as usual in season. But I felt a bit sorry for him. Of course he blames me for his pain, which doesn't make it easier for me to deal with him.

Compared to last year, though, I'm pretty happy so far. He is difficult, but less aggressive. Of course, I can't just go inside the vivarium and clean it. I have to remove him first or I'll have a massacre in my flat and I wouldn't look too good coming out of it. I would never recommend to walk into an aggressive iguana's enclosure unless the person wears protective gear and that means a hat, long (thick material) sleeves, long trousers and gloves. They may seem like they are just sitting there dozing, but they can switch to an attack with a blink of an eye. 

Never mind. I still love him to bits. Sprayed him with the pressure sprayer and 'cleaned' his mouth with it, so everything will be good.

A bit of Friday fun: I ate a penis

  

About a year ago, I started a thread with the title 'I ate a penis', which made quite a few people laugh and others cringe. Probably not the fact that I apparently ate the phallus, but that I mentioned the word penis. How dare I? Well, of course I didn't chop off a man's best bit to eat it, nope; I tried a new recipe with Monkfish, which frighteningly resembled a certain sexual organ when finished. Add the tomato sauce and you have a blood bath after making a man sing an octave higher. Needless to say, that I won't add said recipe to my collection. Imagine you open a cook book and are greeted by a shrunk penis in a pool of blood? It was rather funny to joke about it, though, and my friend Catherine kept teasing me I should have taken a picture.
Anyway, it had sparked a fun discussion with plenty of hilarious comments. ]
Now, today, I felt a bit German and threw a Bratwurst on the barbecue, when it was all done and browned, I poured ketchup over it and dusted it with curry powder. That's called Currywurst and I love it. But when I placed it in front of me and looked a bit closer, I realised I had created another penis. Brilliant, I thought, let's take a picture now. So, for you, Catherine, here's the proof, will you know stop teasing me? :-)
I promise to always take a picture of the penes I'll eat in future.

There you go, a little lesson in how to be a German in style. But fear not, I also had a healthy salad with honey mustard dressing.
The lettuce, of course freshly picked from the garden. You can't get the type of variety in the shops or supermarkets.




Wishing you all a great weekend.

Self-set deadlines and troubles with massive walls

You probably wonder if someone has finally beaten me up for being so mouthy about the quality or better the lack thereof, in many self-published books. No, no, far from it. The only person who beats people up is me. In my fiction, I hasten to add. That's the reason for my not posting anything for a little while: I'm in the finishing state of my thriller, while I have three beta readers going through the book, taking notes of anything that may need addressing. My deadline was the 31st of July, and it looked as if I would be making it easily, but then I hit brick wall after brick wall, and, you see, I'm not really good at climbing walls, so I sat in front of it, pouted and sobbed, whined and complained everyone who asked what's wrong with me. It reminded me a little of a childhood memory: I got lost (okay, nothing new here), tried to remember where I had to go, but couldn't. Then sat on a kurb and cried bitterly. True story, no kidding. Don't know how old I I was, may have been six or seven, perhaps. A nice woman came, asked me what's wrong and I told her, sobbing and sniffling. Good thing I had my grandparents' address hammered into my head. The lady took me to them and the tears dried quickly after that.
I didn't cry at the latest walls, but screamed in frustration. You know when you have your eyes on something in front of you and just as you are about to run for it, someone switches out the light? No? Well, it never happened to me either, but I felt a bit like that. Tapping in the dark. Very annoying. As you know I had scenes written already a few months ago, to use for later. Well, that 'later' is now. And I'm trying to merge those into the book, making it seamless. Easier said then done. A few need rewriting, others, I'm not sure yet where I should put them and I also need to write an additional 7k. Nothing I wouldn't be able to manage, albeit with a lot of huffing and puffing, but it's definitely something I won't do again. It has set me back with my deadline, something I can react to like an autistic person. Even if it's only a few days. I don't like it. I've always been realistic with my deadlines as I know how I write and I calculate the brick walls, but this books takes the biscuit so far.Those weren't brick walls, they were concrete that needed a bazooka to get through them. I had severe difficulties with a few scenes I didn't like and rewrote several times. I can't just move on and go back to them later. I need to fix it right away. And I can't just ignore the book and do something else, I ponder all day long and even at night, stare at the screen, write, delete, write again, and so on. It seems not only my main characters are being tortured. I get a healthy dose of it, too.
Good news is that the beta readers enjoy the book, are hooked and say they can't wait to read more, which, per se, is a good sign and even bigger motivation. Who knows, maybe I manage the deadline after all?

By the way: take a look to the right; I've got a new cover for Candlelight Sinner, too. ;-)

And here's an interview with me. If you have time, stop by and leave a comment.

New Cover celebration!

To those who've known me for longer will now snigger and roll their eyes. I have a new cover for No Wings Attached. Since I only paid for a year for the girl in the picture, I had no choice but to change it again. It had been my problem book no.1. Because of the unusual nature of combined chick lit and paranormal romance, it wasn't so easy to create a suitable cover. In total I had six (including myself) people working on it and about ten different versions, six of them since it was published about a year ago. Even I got dizzy at some point. And since it's a series, it's even more difficult. Yesterday, an author friend of  mine offered to play around a bit and after plenty of e-mails sent back and forth, the following was the end version I fell in love with.
Although there are no wings or angels in the novel (Tom is a wish consultant, more like a cross between a guardian angel and a genie) they are perfect for the title. I woke up today, looked at the cover another time and fell in love with it all over again. It's simple, it's bold, it's just pretty. (Thank you, Sandra.)

Blurb:
Life couldn't get any worse for 32-year-old Celia: single again and working in two jobs she hates; the last thing she needs is falling for gorgeous, out-of-her-league, arrogant Tom.
Being a wish-consultant, Tom has to make up for a failed case and is sent to make her wishes come true without his usual skills. Not easy when she's reluctant to talk to him. In order to help her become happy, he needs to win her trust and unexpectedly develops feelings he shouldn't have.
When finally everything seems to fall into place for Celia, she receives a phone call that turns her world upside down once again.

Read some of the reviews by clicking here.

And if you are curious who Sandra is and what her books are like, you can find her here: