Must Not Sleep...Must Write...Oh, Who Am I Kidding?

Ugh, I want to work on Fiona tonight and a wrote a few pages, but now I'm going to have to give up the ghost and call it a night. My darling, sweet, adorable son woke me up at 2:30 this morning and refused to go to sleep again until 5:30. It was the horror. Poor little guy was so stuffy though. I can't blame him for not being able to sleep. I know how hard it is to sleep with a stuffiness. (Wow I really was tired!!! Make that a stuffy nose...)*Shakes her fist at all the nearby allergens*

I'm off to bed! Bon nuit!

Thursday Thirteen #2




Thirteen Weird Things I've Blogged About 1 . How Much Blood a Vampire Has to Drink Before He Kills You Sunday I wrote the longest blog I've ever written about this. It's actually a rant, but it required research. :-D 2 . Medieval Torture I needed this for the book I'm working on. I read things that I just don't ever want to think about again! Things that are sooo not going to happen in my book, but I did get a nice grasp on what kind of torture is going to happen. 3 . The Evil Yule Cat Did you know there was an Evil Yule Cat? It eats you if you didn't get your work done in time for Yule!!! 4 . A Pink Ring Actually I did this one for my husband. It's so he'll know exactly what I want, when he actually gets his booty out there and buys it! 5 . A Ladybug Tattoo I want one!!! I found the cutest one ever and that's the one I'm gonna get! 6 . Mutant Weeds I had a weed in my yard that was white when it was supposed to be purple. I'm intrigued by weird things. hehe 7 . Lucky Horseshoes This was actually inspired by an episode of Piggly Winks. I know. I know. I need a life! 8 . A Near Death Experience Okay, I didn't almost die really, but it was scary!!! I was driving on the ice and did a full 180. 9 . My Passionate Love of Picasa It's a photo viewing program from Google. It's so fun! 10 . My Theme Song I've claimed a theme song for my very own. Suddenly I See by K. T. Tunstal! I love that song! I wanna be like the girl in it!!! 11 . The Games Vikings Play I needed it for Arianna Penndragon. 12 . Writer's Insomnia Those times when the characters are screaming so loudly in your head that you have no choice but to get up out of the bed and write down what they're saying. 13 . Rebelling Characters I've actually blogged about this several times. Sometimes my characters just don't obey me! Links to other Thursday Thirteens!




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The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! If you participate, leave the link to your Thirteen in others comments. It’s easy, and fun! Be sure to update your Thirteen with links that are left for you, as well! I will link to everyone who participates and leaves a link to their 13 things. Trackbacks, pings, comment links accepted!

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Blast from the Past

Back in the day, I used Simple 3D to create a few fun graphics! I was going through an old backup CD and found them. Don't laugh too hard!

I made this kitty for my website.


Orcish warrior. heheI made this kaos star for my hubby.


I love my baby dragon!

Yes, it's a ten sided die. Yes, I am a geek!


I think this might have been my very favorite!



This one was an In-Construction graphic for a webpage that I don't think even exists on the web anymore.

*Sighes*

When I'm obscenely rich and can afford a maid to clean it, I'm going to build this house!!! It is perfect!

Dream House

10 Seconds to Fatal Blood Loss?

I was watching my new favorite show Blood Ties and saw for about the 5000th time something that annoys me immensely. On every TV show or movie with vampires the vampires suck on someone's neck for like 5 seconds and bam they're dead!

Okay, now this has always seemed pretty dumb to me. I mean I have given blood, and they tap a vein and it takes them twenty minutes to fill up a bag with a pint of my blood. Granted I have crappy, little veins that don't like giving blood but still. So we have to figure that vampires would be biting into the jugular vein which is closest to the surface in the neck. The artery is right below that, but chances are if they were biting into the artery they'd be killing them every time. So if we accept a world in which vampires don't have to kill to live then we have to assume they are biting the jugular vein. Venous bleeding is relatively slow. It's a flowing wound not a spurting one like an artery. So here is what I found out when I went looking for how much blood it takes to kill a person.

" The adult body contains approximately 5 to 6 quarts of blood (10 to 12 pints). The body can normally lose 1 pint of blood (usual amount given by donors) without harmful effects. A loss of 2 pints may cause shock, a loss of 5 to 6 pints usually results in death."

Okay, so you have to lose like half the blood in your body before you die. I would think that would take quite some time! We have to take into account how much anyone can swallow at a given time even if the wound is pumping that fast. I'm thinking it would take me at least a minute to drink a pint of anything even gulping as quickly as I could.

So after my research I have decided it would take about five minutes for a vampire to drink enough to kill someone. Now if there are any vampires out there who know that's not the case then feel free to let me know. ;) Second thought, never mind I don't wanna go there! Although I suppose you could put someone into shock fairly quickly and then they could die of that...

Anyway, I know this is all silly, and they don't have vampires drinking for long periods of time in movies and tv because quite frankly it'd get a little boring. Kinda like that stupid dance scene in the 2nd Matrix movie. I mean that thing just went on and on! A girl can only watch so much gyrating dancing before she gets bored! Even when it is mixed in with snippets of sex.

And you're all thinking...Wow Lesley contemplates this stuff for much too long...I kinda worry about her. Hey! I write books with vampires! If I don't contemplate these things then who's going to ;)

Playing with 3D

I have been playing today and thought I would post it.

I made some changes to Marie and Alexander. I like Marie all the more for them, but I'm still not completely pleased with him. I may have to make a new texture for the figure. I don't like the one's I've got.

The 1st 100 are Behind Us

Last night I got the adorable Fiona O'Sithein up to 101 pages and 32k words. Then it was one in the morning and my darling baby boy decided it was time to get up...

At least at 2:45 my darling husband agreed to take him in the living room and let me get a little sleep. I had a dreadful headache! Too much angst in the scene I was writing? Perhaps...

Thursday Thirteen #1




Thirteen Reasons to Join Thursday Thirteen 1…. Because if all my friends were jumping off a bridge so would I. Seriously it seems like every blog I go to nowadays has the Thursday Thirteen and what can I say, I just have to conform. ;) 2 . Because I need some regularity in my life. Well in my blog in the very least. There is absolutely no predicting when or what I will blog about so this at least gives me something to contemplate every thursday. 3 . Because the pink template is just adorable. Well it is! 4 . Because I will totally prostitute my blog for hits. :D Seriously I need hits! I check Google Analytics every single day and try to contemplate who it might have been who came to my site. No really! It's a sickness! 5 . Because it's much better than watching Noggin. When my little guy watches that channel he completely ignores me! What's a Mommy to do? 6 . To meet new and interesting people and read their blogs. I'm somewhat antisocial. At least in the real world. Online is a completely different story. :-D 7 . Because it's better than doing laundry. ;) I like to procrastinate. Well maybe like is too strong a term, but I do procrastinate A LOT. So if I have one more thing I need to do then I'll have one more way to avoid matching socks. 8 . Because what else am I gonna do? When I've got a combination of writer's block and insomnia I need something to fill my hours. :-D 9 . Because it's a struggle for my creativity to come up with 13 points about anything. 10. Because after a night of Lost and Jerhico I need something slightly less stressful and angsty to deal with! OMG I love those shows, but I'm so exhausted after every single show! 11. Because when I eventually figure it out I can blog it directly from Word 07. I'm sure you could put the code in somehow! 12. Because I need something to distract me from chocolate. ~is slimming~ 13. Because all the cool kids are doing it! Links to other Thursday Thirteens! 1. Aline de Chevigny 2. Michelle Hasker 3. Kim Rees 4. Daisy Dexter Dobbs 5. Xilly 6. Tink




Get the Thursday Thirteen code here!


The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! If you participate, leave the link to your Thirteen in others comments. It’s easy, and fun! Be sure to update your Thirteen with links that are left for you, as well! I will link to everyone who participates and leaves a link to their 13 things. Trackbacks, pings, comment links accepted!

View More Thursday Thirteen Participants

This is My First Blog from Word 2007

Let's see if it works. ;-)

One of My Favorite Places on the Web

A Modern Herbal has so much information! There are pictures, descriptions, uses, and instructions for preparation of herbs. I have used this for research tons of times!

Scooter Girl Comic

Now I'm not a big comic book fan. I only recently found our local comic book store, when seeking out the new Anita Blake comic, but I just found this one that I'm going to have to buy!

Scooter Girl by Chynna Clugston-Major

A black romantic comedy with scooters??? I'm there!!!

My heart goes out...

My heart goes out to everyone who was affected by tragedy on the Virginia Tech campus. I can't express how sad I am for the friends and families of the victims.

When I'm Rich...

I'm going to buy one of these fabulous signet rings! They are so cool!

I have no idea which one I want. Bryon of course wants the Templar ring. It is darn cool. It's actually how I found the site. I am quite fond of the dragon! Ah the things I would buy if I were rich.

Help My Characters are Rebelling!

Not only did I just have to rewrite a big portion of my outline for Fiona, because Beltran decided to do something I'd told him not to, but two characters just popped up who are demanding I write a book about them! They appeared approximately ten minutes ago in the storyline and they are so charming that I might have to go back and write their whole story. It wouldn't be as part of the Women of Sithein books, but another stand alone. There names are Tarran and Bronwyn, Wyn for short. He was a soldier who fought with Arianna in the Penndragon guard, and she is still telling me her story.

Well I'm off to see what other trouble my characters are going to get themselves into tonight.

Torture: Medieval Information Technology

Now if someone wants to ruin your life they can steal your identity and make you electronically cease to exist. That seems bad enough, but back in medieval times if you wanted to ruin someone's life the best thing to do was to accuse them of a crime like blasphemy. Then came the pain and the torture and eventually even if you didn't do anything you'd admit to it just so they'd kill you.

I'm doing some research for Fiona O'Sithein and found this lovely site.

Medieval Torture

Don't worry our sweet, little Fiona isn't doing the torturing. ;)

Wooooot!!! Thanks Lisha!!!

Okay, through the help of my darling friend Lisha, I managed to make the stupid extra characters stop showing up in my dragon short story. It was a character encoding problem. Once she pointed it out to me I was able to go into GoLive and fix it! So yay! My page isn't embarrassing me with weird characters anymore. :-D

Do You Have a Guardian Scooter Fairy Yet?

*Jumping Up and Down Waving at Bryon*

Okay, wonderful, darling husband of mine, this is the ring I want! Only I want it with a real gemstone. It can be either a pink sapphire, pink tourmaline, pink topaz, or if you win the lottery a pink diamond. :-D I think a pink tourmaline is probably the best choice considering they seem to be the most sparkly. Just beware! All those stones come in various shades of pink, but the one in the picture above is the shade I want. I'm none to fond of the bright fuchsia pinks. Also it should be in either white gold or platinum or even tungsten if that is an option, but I doubt it will be.

Good luck!!! :D

Love you!

Firefox has Turned on Me

Okay, you give a program all your web browser love, and it totally screws you over! What's that all about???

The page that was driving me crazy only does it in Firefox. In Internet Explorer it's perfectly fine, but I don't like Internet Explorer! My MS Certified hubby is trying to convince me that it's not all bad, but I'm hard pressed to convert.

Anyway, maybe I'll put a disclaimer on the top of the page until I can figure out why Firefox has turned on me. It's only that page! And there is nothing in the source code that should make these crazy characters appear!

*Grumbles in frustration*

*Growls at her Webpage*

Okay, I have been fighting this stupid thing all day! I don't understand it! I added a short story to the free reads section of my page and it looks perfectly normal in Adobe GoLive. It looks perfectly normal when I open up the html in notepad. However, for some unknown and irritating reason, when I open it in a web browser there are strange characters added on to the sentences!

I will conquer!!!

Strange Horizons

I just submitted a new zombie story to Strange Horizons. They declined The Shadow in the Glass Zombie Slaying 101 has got a little sick, twisted humor going for it. I hope they find it amusing as well!

I think I'll put the story they declined and my fairy tale up on my websites free page. It needs more stuff!

*hears crickets*

...and the incessant beeping of that hideous cursor!!!!!!

Zen and the Art of Power Steering Repair

I just fixed my squeaky power steering! Woot!!! Okay seriously it was as easy as unscrewing the cap and dumping more power steering fluid in until it was between the MIN and MAX marks but still! I did it and no one else! So there!

I'm feeling very macho! I may try changing my spark plugs next! Okay...probably not...

*Jaw Hits the Floor*

You know....they said it would snow...but I really didn't believe them!!!

However it is, in fact, actually snowing!!!

LesleySpeller.com 2.0

Yay! I have my new website up! Complete with chapters of the first two books in my Women of Sithein series. It's just beautiful if I do say so myself! Although I do owe most of the credit to my darling husband Bryon! Well I'm off to add one last little tweak to the main page before I consider LesleySpeller.com 2.0 officially open for business!

*Kicks her Blog*

I managed to mess up my blog, and this is the only way I know to fix it. :-D

Silly Babies!

I'm watching my little guy and his best girlfriend today, and we had a small disaster. He tumped his ride on plane over and crashed head first into the floor. So as you can imagine there was much crying and MAMAMA'ing, but after he settled down the two of them went after the plane. They flipped it over and went to work on it. They've checked the wheels so far and the propeller, even the tail!

Naturally there has to be something wrong with it. Nicky wouldn't crash for no reason. ;)

Norman London and Shameless Promotion!

I just ordered two new books. I can't wait for them to get here.

One is Norman London by William Fitz Stephen. He was a 12th century historian who wrote an account of London sometime before 1183. It sounds so interesting, and it is the absolute perfect time period for Fiona! It sounds like it's something very similar to a medieval tourists guide to London! Wahoo!!!





The other book I bought is Confessions of Shameless Self-Promoters by Debbie Allen. It's about getting over the teachings of childhood and learning to talk yourself and your product up. I'm hopping it'll help me leave behind some of my inhibitions and go out and get my books sold!



I'll let you know what I think when I get them in and read!