Jax's Artistic Journey...

The holiday season always does something to me. Absolutely. You can call it Lazy Winter Disease. All I want to do is hiberate and eat. Definitely eat. I can't seem to focus and I sure as heck don't want to write even though I haven't written in a week. I'm calling this a break. Yes, that's it. I plan on starting up again tonight. Perhaps I can lock myself up in my office and just inhale my coffee. That always seems to work. Unfortunately, distraction is easy when it's cold outside and instead of punishing myself for not writing I make hot chocolate. Jeez, sacrifices.

Yes, I'm still bloated from Thanksgiving. All that ham, turkey, stuffing, casserole, dessert and wine has not left my system. In fact, I think it's taken permanent residence on my thighs. Well, maybe instead of staring at the treadmill tonight I may just hop on it.

In the meantime, I'm going to go get a donut.

Boy, do I love movies! I went to see Harry Potter today and it was excellent!!!! Lived up to the others, although, I thought this one was better than the previous ones. My only beef is that the ending seemed a bit abrupt. Otherwise, the special effects, the acting, the production was great as always. Don't you hate J.K. Rowlings! She's too brilliant for her own good. I've only read her first book in the series, but to see it come alive at the theatre is such an amazing thing.

There are so many great movies out lately and I'm glad for it. Next on my list is Walk the Line, Chronicles of Narnia, Aeon Flux, King Kong, Da Vinci Code...

Hubby went off on holiday early and I'll meet up with him on Wednesday so I've been keeping busy. In other words, procrastinating when I should be writing. Anyhow, I'm wired on coffee and need to get dinner.

This is my free day so I'm going to have fun!

If you've never tried Book In A Week (BIAW), you should. It's not only stressful, it keeps you going because you want to perform. Frankly, I think it's the competitiveness in me. I like to write as much as I can because while others are struggling with 2-3 pages, I'm wanting to clock in at 20. Almost like running the marathon and knowing you're so far ahead you want to challenge people to catch up. I'm a bitch that way, but how I see it, I'm trying to motivate. All the ladies at my chapter are good sports. They really do try and sometimes I feel guilty for posting my daily results. Often I don't do the BIAW because I have to be in the frame of mind to work. Now, with the holidays I feel like being lazy--but, oh no, I am constantly kicked in the butt by friends and spouse to write. Still my canvas lies untouched and I wonder when I'll get back into it again. Oh well, maybe this weekend I'll paint, but hubby is out of town for 5 days then I'll be joining him for the holiday. That leaves me with plenty of time to procrastinate... NOT!

News Bulletin:

Monday the 14th in the Romance Divas chatroom, agent Steven Axelrod will be chatting from 9pm to 10pm. If you're interested in participating, simply register in the Forum section then email me (jax@romancedivas.com) for a password.

Also pick up a Sun magazine with Kristen's short story, Sweet Beginnings-- on sale now in your local grocery store or newsstand! This is her first published short so let's support a fellow writer!

Now on to other news:

My chapter is having a BIAW so I've committed to 50 pages. I figured I'd force myself back into writing mode. Believe me, I'm just as anxious to pick up the writing pace. So much to do, so little time. It's a new work week and I'm all revved up and hoping I'll survive. Next week is a short week for me since I'll be going to Little Rock on Wednesday the 23rd. Yep, I'll be out of pocket until Sunday when I return. Gotta see the in-laws. I so miss them--love them to death. Can't wait to see my dog Trixie. Yes, I packed her up earlier this year and shipped her off to the folks. We just couldn't bear leaving her at home while we worked long days, so she's in such a nicer place at my IL with their yard and other dogs to play with. And she gets spoiled rotten too!

What are my New Year's resolution for 2006. I need to start early or I'll never do it. Well, that's a toughie. What about you guys? I definitely will put on the top of my list MUST SALE A MANUSCRIPT AND LAND SUPER AGENT. :) Hey, might as well aim for the stars.

Being an artist sucks. You're oversensitive, temperamental, and fall into a pit of depression every chance you get. I think it's about being tortured--when in fact you do it to yourself. Here I am, just job searching and it hit me that I'm not 22 with stars in my eyes and dreams of a brilliant future as a top Ad Exec for a Fortune 500 company. Instead, I'm an EA at a boring corporate real estate company that I'm so overqualified for it ain't even funny. When did it happen? How did I end up comfortable with being an assistant when I'm a bossy, workaholic, overachiever? Well, it did happen and now I push papers and coordinate event and zone out when I'm making copies of a zillion legal documents. Yawn. Where's the excitement in that? I usually drag a box of copier paper and use it as a lounge chair.

So, today, as I clicked away at job post after job post I stumbled across an excellent job listing and it totally depressed me. It's so true. Truth is, the one word that totally freaked me out was in referenced to being 'polished'. Well, hell, I was 'polished'-- once when I was living in Paris and jetsetting to book signings as a promoter. Jeez, it was the best 3 years of my life. Now I realize I'm just as confused at 34 as I was at 21 and it's very scary. Of course, I'm busting butt nowadays and trying to realize this dream of Bohemian artist and novelist. I'm still feeling a bit unfulfilled and I'm still trying to figure out who I really am. Does it get any easier? No, this isn't a mid-life crisis by any means. In a blink of an eye life has passed me by and I wonder where I should be in the next 10 years and it's a bit daunting.

I feel like saying F$#@-it! I'm bogged down with webwork, web maintenancing, forum converting, you name it--I'm doing it. At least I can say I had a fun weekend. I spent Friday night going to watch Elizabethtown with Lisa and then we ate at PF Chang's and sat up talking until I passed out. :)

Saturday I went to Jeremiah's art show, his stuff is fantastic! It's spray paint on salvaged materials and it has such a strong message in his work. I was really impressed and it's nice to see someone with good talent have an art show. We drank Red Stripe and Mojitos (which apparently will be available in a pre-mix bottle for mojito lovers) and then I dragged Jesse and his friend John from San Diego, Amanda, and Julia to the Brass Monkey. A killer bar in K-town that offers karoake. Nope, I didn't sing but Jesse and Amanda did. :) Jesse needs a few voice lessons (don't tell him I said that) but Amanda blew us away with her rendition of Fiona Apple's Criminal. We drank cosmopolitans, beers and stuffed our faces with pizza and chicken wings. It was crazy fun and by the time I got home I was so pooped.

I had been living on like 7 hours sleep for 4 days! Sunday I was brain fried but manage to work out a client deal on her website and spent most of the night doing more maintenancing on Romance Divas.

Today I'm just not in a great mood. It's never good to walk into work and find an email that tells you you're going to have to work OT on Tuesday with a list of demands on what the department wants you to do. Can they say pretty please? How annoying is that? Anyways, I've guzzled my latte and don't want to start my work out regimen but know if I don't I'll look like a fat slob, so I'm going to buckle down and do it tonight :( I was going to kick the coffee habit, but I'll wait until I'm less pissed off tomorrow. Sigh. I can see it already. A long week!

The only good thing is that I'll be going to see Pride & Prejudice on Friday for their sneak peek and hopefully pray for Thanksgiving to come early so I'll have a the extra days off. I am pathetic.

Hello Divas!

Romance Divas is 1 year old this month!

Thank you for your support as a member of our award winning website and forum. Without your membership and participation Romance Divas would not be where it is today.

With this new year we plan on implementing more changes that may benefit our members. One of the major steps is to improve our forum software. We are happy to announce that we're upgrading to a new forum which will be implemented this weekend. This new board should alleviate the issues that we face with our current board. As a way to have a stable forum for our increased membership we decided to do what is best for the site and we apologize for any inconveniences. I know some of you divas may go through withdrawal, but be strong. We'll be up and running in no time at all. :)

Please be aware our forum will be down this weekend, November 5th, and may not be up and running until the end of the next week since we will need to ge acquainted and troubleshoot the implementation. We want to make sure the forum starts off on an excellent footing.

Again, we value your membership and thank you for your continued support as we enter into our second year. Please utilize our website by reading the book reviews, articles, etc. There is more to Romance Divas than just the forums. We also have our blog at www.romancedivas.com/divablog.

We will be posting updates on our main website, www.romancedivas.com, and will announce our new official forum launch from there.

Please feel free to contact us if you should have any questions. admin@romancedivas.com

Thank you!

Jax, Kristen & Lisa
The Romance Divas

Woohoo! I can't believe a year ago Kristen and I started Romance Divas. We were both starting out as writers and we had stumbled across a romance writer's forum around the same time. Needless to say, we caused a ruckus and discovered that there needed to be place that would embrace us for our individuality. So, we came up with the idea to create our own website and forum to bring writers with wonderful, fun personalities together. Our vision was to be a network for struggling writers and give them the advantage we didn't have. We needed to make a place that was also professional and secure. Now, one year later it's a dream to see the vision come alive and knowing that we have reached many people internationally, and wherever we went in life -- if we'd bump into one another -- we would open our doors to each other. I guess people don't realize the sense of family we have at Romance Divas. We truly care and we have made lasting friendships because of it.

So, if you're looking for something meaningful.. go to Romance Divas and you'll see what I mean.