I saw this article a couple of weeks ago, but I just now remembered it and thought I’d share. Seems there’s a new Mr. Potato Head in town who is dressed like Darth Vader. His name — Darth Tater! I love it. My husband thinks I need one of these little guys in my office to serve as inspiration for villains in my books. He also says Darth Tater should be the villain in the next Toy Story movie. Click to read more about the little spud with a light saber.

I only have two days left of the day job — Yay! Then I can focus much more of my creative energy on my fiction writing.

Yesterday was not my best day. I’ve been fighting the winter blues something fierce. I can’t tell you how much I’m looking forward to 70 degrees, sunshine and my daffodils popping up out of the ground. When I got to work today, I heard a co-worker mention that there’d been a study done that hypothesized Jan. 24 is the most depressing day of the year. No wonder I’d felt so bad all day. Here’s more if you’d like to read about the researcher’s theory of why Jan. 24 is the most depressing day of the year.

I got a couple more chapters of my full manuscript read yesterday and made notes about what I want to change. I plan to get a couple more chapters read tonight, maybe more if I get on a roll. I must get back to walking on my treadmill tonight too. That always seems to make me feel better, not to mention keeps me warm.

One of my good friends has her first book coming out in April. It’s a Silhouette Bombshell, the same line I’m currently revising the manuscript for, and it’s so funny. Be sure to check out her newly launched website to see her cool cover, read an excerpt, and discover just how darn funny Stef is. Stef was one of my fellow Golden Heart finalists in 2003. The GH is the top award for unpublished romance novels and is given out by Romance Writers of America at its annual conference each summer. The finalists that year really bonded, and we have a group website at www.wetnoodleposse.com where you can find all kinds of great articles on various topics, both writing and non-writing related. It’s more of an ezine of interest to mainly women. I’ll share info on some of my other buddies in the days ahead. For now, I’m off to do some work.

After a morning of reading my latest issue of The Romance Writers Report (a professional journal for romance writers published by Romance Writers of America, for those of you who might not be familiar with it) while soaking up some much-needed sun through my dining room window and then making some minor changes to this blog site, I’m getting ready to start in on my “real” work of the day — revisions to one of my current manuscripts. The goal is to get the partial of this revised manuscript back to my agent by the end of the month, which incidentally is when I’ll be leaving my day job as a magazine journalist/editor and taking a leap of faith by writing full time. I’ve been working on these revisions to the first three chapters for quite a while now, but I’m determined to make them work. It’s involved several read-throughs by my critique group, other writing buddies and my husband. It’s also involved significant cuts to make the pace move faster since it’s a suspense novel targeted toward Silhouette Bombshell, a line of female action-adventure novels in the vein of Alias and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I feel like the first two chapters are much better after all the work, and I’m still working on Ch. 3 and a list of ways I’d change the rest of the book if the editor is interested in seeing the full.

And speaking of good stories, I wanted to recommend the movie Open Range for those of you who like westerns. I love westerns, and I think they don’t make enough of them anymore. This one stars western veterans Kevin Costner and Robert Duvall along with Annette Benning and some of that beautiful western scenery that makes me want to hop in my car and just set off across states like Wyoming and Montana. So, head over to the video store, rent the DVD and immerse yourself in a time that was both simpler and more dangerous in ways. And there’s a bit of romance in there too, which always helps in my humble opinion.

My husband actually wrote this from my point of view. I think his writing voice is a lot like his Aunt Kathy’s. You can find her funny columns on my website at www.trishmilburn.com.

The Banshee in the System

I hadn’t been sleeping well, but this was different. I’m not sure if I awoke to the smell or the sound — or whether it was a joint assault on the system — but there I was in the dark at 4:30 in the morning.

“Eeeek, Shiilllll, Eeeek” echoed lightly in short bursts from the heating vents – a little banshee in the system. After convincing myself it wasn’t an alien mistakenly transported – strange thoughts are provoked when awakened from slumber – the smell clarified matters for me. Our skunk from last year was back again… “Eeeek, Shiiilll, Eeek.” He appeared to be under the house.

“Pew! It stinks in here!” My husband and I stated the obvious while looking out windows and wandering around with scrunched noses while listening to the vents. We finally make a radical decision – our only course of action is to pull the covers over our heads and try to go back to sleep. I mean, what can you really do at 4:30 in the morning but bury yourself under the covers, quiver, gasp the aroma, and listen to echoes of the little guest as the heat kicks on and pumps more sweet scent into the house?

The mission for the day: figure out how to get rid of a skunk. Last year the skunk just went away, but now I just needed to put an end to this (and open some windows if the temperature would warm up).

After an Internet search, I find that foxes are a natural predator for skunks, and fox urine in the area will usually cause a skunk to leave.

Now if I could only get a fox to come pee on my house.

Now – believe it or not – it turns out that deer hunters use fox urine to mask their scent. (I haven’t confirmed this yet, but that’s what the Internet says.) And – believe it or not – there are people who run urine “bottling facilities.” Just ponder a fox pee dairy for a moment… Pause….Don’t keep reading…Just ponder.…Hmmm. Now that’s innovation if ever there was.

Now – since there are no “Pee Stores” listings in the Yellow Pages, I timidly called the local Bass Pro Shop. “Umm. Do you sell fox urine?” I half expected them to think me a prank caller. “Why yes we do,” comes the voice on the other end of the line. “We have an entire aisle of urine.” Yippee!!! I found it. Sure enough – $7.99 for a bottle (strangely enough, coupons for fox urine don’t come in the Sunday paper). The bottle said “Meat Fed and Strong” and had the warning on the back “Not for human consumption” making me wonder if an inebriated hunter had ever taken a swig!

Upon arriving at home, I effectively went out and peed in the yard. And on the house. And on the fence. What a liberating experience. Hopefully it’ll liberate me from the little banshee too.