Beth Williamson’s Blog

Oh, I had a great post written this morning about pizza and the server burped and deleted it. Gah!!!
So instead I’ll do a shortie, or is that a quickie?
Let’s take a look at this fine specimen of a man:
http://www.zefrank.com/invite/swfs/index2.html
Some of these dance moves are kinda scary… The Pony or Smackin That Ass in particular. *shudder*
Um, yeah, keep your day job pal, mkay?

This week’s stresses are starting to drop off. The evil ATM has been thwarted when the check finally got deposited . The insurance policy is changed on my house ($340 savings - whoopee!).
Others have not changed. Worried about selling, making a career out of writing, waiting (and waiting and waiting) for some kind of response from the subs I have out to the “biggies” in NY.
However, I look at all I have and know that I am very, very lucky. I have wonderful, intelligent, healthy children (that can turn my brain to mush), a beautiful house, a husband that loves me, a job that pays me well, and I’m healthy. Yeah, I need to lose 30 pounds, but who doesn’t?
The beat of life goes on, for some this year has been horrendous. So my gas prices went up to $3.58 a gallon and I was happy (even let out a yelp) to see it at $2.75 yesterday. Never thought that I would be happy to see it at that price, but it’s all perspective.
I’m waxing poetic today I guess. Off to donate blood this morning and give a little back to those that need it.

Yes, it was evil! Let me tell you what happened…
It was a rainy Saturday morning. After running a few errands, our last stop was the drive-up ATM at the credit union to deposit DH’s paycheck. This is a normal routine, nothing out of the ordinary.
When suddenly, the first ATM spit the check back out and forced us to drive around to the second one. This was part of the plan I tell you!
The second ATM accepted the check and I was happily pushing buttons… when suddenly my finger slipped when I was supposed to be pressing “Checking” to deposit it…
Gah! The evil ATM went insane, spit out a receipt that said “invalid button asshole” and regurgitated my card. THEN KEPT THE CHECK! :shock:
Evil I tell you, evil! I called the number on the back of my ATM card and the buffoon (I could use a harsher word like moron) told me I’d have to wait until Tuesday because the banks were closed on holiday Monday. Then he told me to slip a note under the door of the bank.
WHAT????
Moron may be too mild a word. I told him there was no way I would do that - I can just see the SWAT team showing up as the silent alarm rings and me and my 9 YO getting hauled off to jail.
So, I called again Tuesday morning. This time I spoke to a human being with intelligence. She called the branch (apparently we can’t call them directly anymore) and they told her they’d look for the check when they open it at 4 p.m.
Here we are on Wednesday with no deposit yet! It’s a damn good thing no bills were due before now with that money. I called the bank again this morning and talked to another man (not sure how smart he was) who transferred me to the branch without telling me. I sounded like a moron when the guy at the branch asked me if he could help me when I said “I’m on hold.”
I explain the situation again for the third time and he said he’d check with the ATM coordinator (didn’t know there was such a thing) and then call me back. Wonder of wonders, he actually did call me back and told me they had the check. OMG - what a pain in the ass this has been.
Lessons learned:
1. Do not use your left hand to push the buttons on the ATM.
2. Be careful when pressing buttons on the ATM, the wrong one unleashes the demons within.
3. 24 call centers hire really dumb people to work on holiday weekends.

We were on the cusp of drought conditions. It hadn’t rained in three weeks or more. The farmers were getting desperate. Raleigh put on mandatory water restrictions. And now? It’s been raining for five frigging days!!! Gah! :shock:
I need some sun. You know how you go for days without any sun and you get grumpier and grumpier? It’s a proven fact that humans need the vitamin D from the sun for mental and physical health. I’m desperate for a bit of that golden stuff.
The grass has grown a foot since Saturday and we can’t cut it because when it’s not raining, it’s misting. Or foggy.
And the rain killed my new mums. Off to Lowe’s to buy more.
People tend to drive like stupid sheep when it rains too. Sloooooowly. Or so quick you wonder if they have their funeral scheduled. Driving on the highway sucks because you get the backspray and are caught between the tortoises and the hares.
Whine, whine, whine. I know - if I lived in Seattle, this would be the norm. But I don’t! I live in beautiful central North Carolina.
And I need some sun!

For many, including me, self-confidence can be hard to achieve and harder to keep. As a writer, your work is reviewed subjectively - there is no objective view of erotic romance. Unless you’re looking for grammar and spelling.
So I write and I wait. I wait for someone to read it (other than my family) and say “Wow! That was really good!” or “Man, that sucked!”
Why do we always expect to suck? Don’t deny it, it’s true. We hope for the good comment but expect the suck comment. When the good comments come in, like a review or a crit partner or most especially a reader, our self-confidence is boosted.
Yesterday I was requesting reviews of The Reward - anticipating an October 17 or 24 release. (Since I don’t have the cover yet, I can’t be certain, but I can be hopeful.) Two of the review sites e-mailed me back pretty much right away and the reviewer said they had been waiting for this book.
Waiting! For my book! Holy shit and crackers!
One of them said since she reviewed The Bounty and The Prize, she was “on the edge of her seat” waiting for it. The other one said she had read the other two and as review coordinator “snatched” this up for herself and couldn’t wait to read it.
OMG! Talk about an ego boost. Self-confidence ahoy!
Ahem, okay. Now I am nervous wondering if they will like The Reward. It’s a roller-coaster I tell ya. People liked my first two books, but will they like book 3, book 4, and book 5? Sigh… I’ve only gotten one kick in the ass review, which I hadn’t requested, and RT gave me 4 1/2 stars for both The Bounty and The Prize… yet here I sit. Waiting and writing.