Monthly totals

I doubt I will have more to add. But I'm pretty impressed with my January numbers regardless.

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The BookWorm

Zy's Novel

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WEEKLY GOAL

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MONTHLY GOAL

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There is a new renaissance festival in Louisiana! Check out the Acadiana Medieval Faire at: http://www.acadianafaire.org/

So now I'm here

Got everything I needed to get done today done. I can't seem to kickstart the transition into my next scene for Zy's Novel. And the play I'm supposed to read for homework sounds even less appealing. So now I'm here.

I suspect the sloggish feeling I have is because it's ten minutes to lunchtime and my energy level has drooped. But I need to kick around a few things and this is the blank space to do it in. I apologize for the disjointed paragraphs ahead of time.

Trampoline. As in a totally irrationally want to be bouncing on one right now. My very own, in my own yard, reenacting battle scenes that I'm writing. And that part is arguing with the responsible part that wants to spend the money on a house note that a trampoline will help me lose weight. Now that stance isn't fair.

Ashe Cultural Center down in New Orleans is my topic for the 15-page paper. I have no idea what I want to say about it. We have to have a stance and argue it. They provide a positive African-American voice in the arts in New Orleans. Fine arts on the decline in schools and the community stepping up to the plate. I just feel like I'm spinning my wheels.

Okay, let me wrap up Zy's Novel for class tonight. Maybe noww I can concentrate on it.

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The BookWorm

There is a new renaissance festival in Louisiana! Check out the Acadiana Medieval Faire at: http://www.acadianafaire.org/

A little self-reflection is a good thing

For ENGL 646

Creating a list to answer the question “why do I write” didn’t work. Lists are for work; things to do and cross off. “Why do I write” requires sentences and paragraphs.

Why do I write? The quote “my job is to comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable” makes me giddy when I use it to explain why. I want to connect to people, to evoke empathy and to make them squirm. Fiction holds up a mirror to the world with all the black and white and shades of grey present in real life. Escapism is valid, but it is better when you can escape into an ideal of how the world should be. Most of the fiction I write is escapism—science fiction, fantasy, mystery—and I’m not ashamed of that. The world needs idealism.

I have been made ashamed before. I started writing stories down when I was eleven-years-old, mostly reworking books I had read. Richard Peck’s ghost stories enamored me, and I created my own psychic protagonist trying to deal with the evil things that go bump in the night (had Ghost Whisperer beat by a few decades). That series no longer exists because I went to a church-sponsored youth retreat that convinced me that writing about psychics was Satan’s work. So the good little Christian that I was burned those stories and cried. No surprise that I later opted out of organized religion.

Teaching of writing should avoid making any child feel ashamed of what they write. Plenty of people out in the world will fill the position. Janet Emig’s essay stressed the positive points for writing as a function of learning, but overall, I wasn’t impressed by it. I know I learn by writing, so I don’t need to have it proved to me with scientific studies. Yes, I know, academics need studies.

The strongest resonance with Natalie Goldberg is her stance of writing through pain. I can’t point to the section in the finished novel, but I remember riding a bus to my car after spending the day at work and watching the World Trade Center buildings fall and feeling so numb as the bus TV was set to even more news. I pulled out my manuscript and wrote, suddenly blitzing through a scene that had given me so much trouble. I could control the words, even if I didn’t understand anything else taking place.

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The BookWorm

WEEKLY GOAL

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MONTHLY GOAL

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There is a new renaissance festival in Louisiana! Check out the Acadiana Medieval Faire at: http://www.acadianafaire.org/

Catching Up Before I Get Behind

Projects for ENGL-646

• Reading response journal - due weekly


• Ongoing writing project = Zy's novel Chp 9 - 11 - due weekly


• Mini-research project - due ?


• Book project & presentation - due ?


• Mini-lesson plan & presentation - due ?


• Lesson plan & presentation - due ?


• Final paper/final version of ongoing writing project - due ?


• Final exam - due

Projects for ENGL-650

• 15 page research paper - due March 15/March 22


• Class presentation of research paper - due March 15/March 22


• Two 3-page play analysis papers - first due March 1


• Journal with 10 reaction entries on classmates presentations - due weekly


• Attend at least 2 Black History Month presentations for Feb 8th class - due ?

I need to have everything written before March 31st - April 3rd. I don't plan on missing class April 4th or 5th, but I'm not giving myself any presentations those two days.

ENGL-646 projects I think I'm going to hold back so other classmates with thesis and comps and more strenuous papers can go first. Though since I got this weekend free (bad weather again), I'm proably going to be working on homework. Get as much written as possible before it's actually due.

Also need to write the cooking show scripts.

Research topic: why is picking one in this subject so hard? I guess I'll start with Ashe Cultural Arts Center in New Orleans and have Zora Neale Hurston as my backup. Third choice is "Myth of the Negro Past."

Writing Down the Bones by Natalie Goldberg is one of the required readings for ENGL-646. I think it's been recommended by just about everyone who has written a how-to-write book. It's simply about how empowering the act of writing is, how the only rule is practice everyday, how to care about the process and not worry so much about the product, how to get into the Zen state of writing. Powerful little book.

For the writing project inside of ENGL-646, I'm going to use Zy's Novel--at least the next few chapters. I already finished my outline: concrete details for Chapter 9 - 21 and no blank chapters now. If I need a break a break in the prose, I can fleshout the aliens and other background material tasks.

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The BookWorm

There is a new renaissance festival in Louisiana! Check out the Acadiana Medieval Faire at: http://www.acadianafaire.org/

In honor of Barbara Seranella

I don't think I read her works and I'm already an organ donor, but if you are not, you should sign up. She died waiting for a liver transplant. MJ Rose put out the call on her blog. Sign-up for the organ donation here.

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The BookWorm

There is a new renaissance festival in Louisiana! Check out the Acadiana Medieval Faire at: http://www.acadianafaire.org/

Writing as meditation

For ENGL-646

Writing Down the Bone was always on my list of will-read-someday books. Recommended by Heather Sellers (Page After Page) and other writers, but I never remembered to seek it out. I don’t know why I waited with as much as I highlighted in the first half. Like The Zen of Creativity: Cultivating Your Artistic Life by John Daido Loori, it reminds me of the Buddhust practices I want to turn into habits for my life: more meditation, less ego-centric head trips. But I’m finding lots of writing tips as well.

I started timed writing practice this morning and my hand cramped up with five minutes. It was hard sitting down words without a planned “this is what I want to write about.” I know I need this practice time to help me not get wound up when I’m actually working on a composition. The “Fighting Tofu” chapter touched on what has felt like my writing problem for the last few years. If I get froze up over writing, I try to use discipline to beat my lazy half into working and then just feeling more guilty when that doesn’t work. I love the idea of writing out lists of your obsessions; maybe, part of the reason why fanfics have been so easy is the degree of obsession involved.

Okay, my bias is improving my current work habits. I can see using the practice technique in a classroom setting to get used to the idea of writing before scaring students with structure like plot, scenes, and characters. Goldberg’s ideas fit in with Donald Murray’s implications that you need to teach writing as a process and not a product. Looking back at my own grade school experience, I remember lessons on brainstorming and essay form (prose fiction I learned outside of class), but no lessons on rewriting. Almost like the implication was we are supposed to write a perfect first draft and just look over it for spelling mistakes. I know later when I was helping people write fanfics with a series of tutorials, editing was the part most understood the least.

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The BookWorm

WEEKLY GOAL

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MONTHLY GOAL

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There is a new renaissance festival in Louisiana! Check out the Acadiana Medieval Faire at: http://www.acadianafaire.org/

Pan's Labyrinth

Pan's Labyrinth deserves all the awards it has gotten so far, especially since that caused its US partners to release it near me, yeah!



I got to see it in Baton Rouge right after work. The trailer only gives you a glimpse. I'm guessing the Fascists in Spain are about the same stripe as the Nazis in Germany and the Fascists in Italy, but my Spanish WWII history is practically non-existant.

But this movie... I want to write a del Toro fantasy and have him film it.

He also directed Hellboy.



Yes, I am having fun with YouTube; why do you ask?

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The BookWorm

There is a new renaissance festival in Louisiana! Check out the Acadiana Medieval Faire at: http://www.acadianafaire.org/

Read now!

Now if only Lucas had been actually writing this story....

A New Sith or Revenge of the Hope

It's not enough to make me actually like Episodes 1 - 3, but it helps. It made me giggle.

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The BookWorm

There is a new renaissance festival in Louisiana! Check out the Acadiana Medieval Faire at: http://www.acadianafaire.org/

Nobody yell at me

No outlining plot didn't get done this weekend. Instead I finished entering last year's bank data into Quicken, reconciled all the statements, and hit the budget button. I need to fine-tune the budget, right now it's just telling me what I spent last year and I overspent by 412 dollars each month. I need to tweak it into what I want to spend within my income levels before it becomes a Secret Plan for financial success.

I also need to read the For Dummies book on Quicken 2007 to make sure I know how to do that.

But it's not happening now. Eyeballs are crossing from too many numbers. But I think I found some big tax deductions besides my house. Yeap, that's the next number crunching to do. After budget.

Oh and the Saints aren't going to the Superbowl, so the Universe is off the hook for imploding now.

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The BookWorm

There is a new renaissance festival in Louisiana! Check out the Acadiana Medieval Faire at: http://www.acadianafaire.org/

Writing Weekend

Though I may have to add clean the office to it so I have desk surface to work on writing with.

Yesterday and Friday were nil in terms of actual writing, but I did get the outline typed up in the manuscript. And then I went digging into my files. What I had a suspicion about was Family, Friends, and Foes, a fanfic but the last work of fiction of size and scope (over 126,000 words), and resembling what I'm attempting with Zy's Novel.

What I did learn from the freelance gig was outline made everything work out better. Zy's Novel outline on Chapter Nine - the end make up 2 pages and a paragraph on the third typed. Family, Friends, and Foes's outline had 13 pages including a timeline of the novel, characters list, plot and subplots lists.

Even with a couple of timelines figured up in Excel, my outline is hardly there. Which I guess means I shouldn't be surprised when I dig into my brain and find the story barely there as well. So really this weekend is going to be getting my vague notions on paper, where I can and probably will deviate from, but at least I can say "yes, that resembles a book."

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The BookWorm

There is a new renaissance festival in Louisiana! Check out the Acadiana Medieval Faire at: http://www.acadianafaire.org/

Important Questions for today that I'm in no mood for

#1. If I hadn't come to work, would the leftover UNIX have ever been done?

#2. How much more annoyed can I get in one day?

I'll explain later.

It's later. But where to start? UNIX is the manual way of processing checks on my job. Yesterday, I had a check that wouldn't scan and didn't get a chance to put it in UNIX myself. Okay, it has to be done in the morning today.

I didn't get into work until 12:30p.m. And the check is still in the bucket to be done. *Sigh* Yeah, the supervisor says she's going to talk to the rest. Probably on Tuesday at the office meeting. Maybe one of these days, I'll actually listen to myself when I tell myself that I don't give a damn about this job other than doing what I have to do to get my paycheck.

So the rest of the day: the bank aggravation grows. I'm P.O. at Capital One for no contact but I may have to keep the account open while I attend SLU. They closed my account due to lack of funds Friday, Jan. 12th, and I didn't contact me. Had they contacted me, I would have told them I'm expecting a direct deposit of my financial aid refund Jan. 15th, the date according to SLU (and they have an exclusive contract with Capital One).

So I only discovered this fracas over the holiday, and basically got word from the national customer service that I'd be able to get my money Thursday morning. So here it is Thursday morning, wet, nasty, and about ten degrees warmer that it has been. Lobby doesn't open until 9am, guess who thought it was 8am and had to wait in the parking lot for an hour? Only to be told there is no deposit anywhere in the system. Go see Southeastern.

Now I'm getting panicky because I told everybody I owed money to I could pay on Thursday. Southeaster says they haven't sent out any refunds and lender's checks are probably arriving next week (Controller's Office), don't cancel direct deposit because Capital One will reopen you account (Payroll and Capital One workers at SLU), and lenders checks will be cut on Friday, bitch (Financial Aid). Actually, "bitch" wasn't said, but implied.

So I didn't cancel the direct deposit and have no idea when my money will arrive. I'll keep the account open with $100 but I don't trust it with anything like my bills again. And since I will be sticking to my budget this year and not loaning out any money, I shouldn't run dry in August and December again.

Luckily, this week is a payweek so I was able to pull out cash and pay the most pressing bills and buy books for school. My mystery class tonight is African-American lit, which I'm having a hard time building up any enthusasism about. I still haven't been paid for my freelance gig. I don't know if I got rooked but I wish I had used the escrow account now so I could complain.

More later: The class is actually African-American drama/performace art. I don't get any credit for it due to sharing a number with another class I took, but since both classes qualify as electives, I don't feel like finding another. Teaching Creative Writing is the Wednesday night class, and looks to be interesting. I'm debating whether to use the Mary Sue stuff for BMFM as one of the "lectures." The class ended up being fairly split between not-employed-by-the-Dept. of Education and employed-by-the-Dept. of Education, so the prof. is giving us some leway in what we present.

Jan. 20th: It's much later, and I'm still waiting on school money that SLU says they released Jan. 18th. That's right, the same day I went looking for it and nobody can find it. I think Capital One has it now, and are holding it until it clears. Now why this takes them a week when at my job it takes at the most 2 days to get our electronic deposits cleared (and it looks like they're bringing that down to one day at the bank's end), I will never understand. Still waiting for my freelance money. And hopefully Wednesday will have my student meal plan and Laignnaipe account reopened. Yeap, Thursday had them unusable after I made my fuss and everybody in charge should have known I was getting money.

Read Free!
The BookWorm

There is a new renaissance festival in Louisiana! Check out the Acadiana Medieval Faire at: http://www.acadianafaire.org/

Today's progress

I have class tonight if it isn't canceled, so I doubt I get to work on the total anymore today.

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The BookWorm


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There is a new renaissance festival in Louisiana! Check out the Acadiana Medieval Faire at: http://www.acadianafaire.org/

Plan of attack

348 words yesterday, and I got started while juggling job assignments. Not to bad. I still feel bad about my fill-in-the-blank aliens though. So here's the plan for today:

• Finish typing what I have written


• Type out the outline as it stand now for the rest of the book in the manuscript


• Check with Writerly--or whatever Google is calling it now--and see what I need to upload to bring it up to date


• Work on alien creation and finish filling out my describing sheet on at least one of them.


• Eventually need to start working on cultures and languages

Not too overly ambitious, I hope.

I also remembered this morning, after fighting with my computer, why I wait so long between backups. There's no bloody way to do it cleanly. So I guess I'll just have to be content with saving the My Documents and Program Files sections, and hope that those recovery points actually do something when I need to reboot the computer from scratch.

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The BookWorm


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There is a new renaissance festival in Louisiana! Check out the Acadiana Medieval Faire at: http://www.acadianafaire.org/

U2 and GreenDay The Saints Are Coming - LIVE - New Orleans

I'm not a sports fan. But even I'm getting excited with one game away from the Superbowl. If they actually manage to go, Hell is freezing over. If they win, the universe will implode.

Yeah, it's a big deal down here. And Greenday and U2 gave us the anthem for the year at the first game to open the Superdome. (Yes, I know it's a remake but that doesn't matter.) Actually, you get a pretty good selection from their concert in this clip.

The video is up at YouTube too, but more political than I feel right now.

How much crap have I been hauling around?

I'm pretty sure my problems are at least PMS crankiness, but I'll be damned if I'm going to apologize for yesterday's phone call. Only if I get an apology for suffering through constant telephone conversations with a partner who suddenly only has a five-word vocabulary. ("Yes", "no", "stop", "ditto", and "what")

Yesterday was just bad. So in retrospect, I'm glad I didn't try to do anything beyond reading, even though I had a list. The bank upset me--and now my refund should be there on Thursday so I can get the cash in my grubby paw and move it to my credit union (that has issues but at least communicates with me). I didn't eat right all day. Chad been logical and obtuse didn't help the emotional breakdown. So I sulked, had a good cry, got my back popped, had Mexican, and went to bed early.

Today, I'm marginally better. Maybe the cold front helped. I'm still sulky towards Chad about the damn phone thing (Why am I being punished for your decision to hate phone calls? Have to remember to ask him that.) but less sulky towards life in general. I should write today. Not that knowing that I should makes it any more likely that I will write.

Then Wil Wheaton finds the formula for procrastination.

I got nothin'.

I'm going to go write. And if the sulky mood still makes me cause the planet to die in a supernova, I fully expect somebody to tell me it doesn't work and I need to try again.

I'm at least typing today on the stuff that I had written previously. And the title of the post refers to what I said when I dumped my black bag out at work. Two of the folders in it I thought were lost in my office.

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The BookWorm

There is a new renaissance festival in Louisiana! Check out the Acadiana Medieval Faire at: http://www.acadianafaire.org/

Now that was romantic

Websnark: Submitted Without Comment: The Most Important Post I Will Ever Make. Especially when set to music. Hint, watch the MP4.

The overall feast was fun, mixed with a couple of bad pangs of feeling like a damn third wheel. I'm beginning to think I need to see a shrink over my inferiority complex that keeps popping up. Wasn't made too much better this morning by my man declining to have breakfast with me so he could finish sleeping off his legally prescribed medication. Which part of me wants to be reasonable and understand since an allergic reaction almost sent him to the hospital last week, and part of me wants to whine "He's so selfish. It's always what he wants and my sleep schedule and when my body is used to eating should conform to his sleep schedule." I don't think the second half got enough sleep last night.

*Sigh* I don't know what's wrong with me besides loving a man who once demonstrated an awkward romantic side that matched mine, but has since moving back to Lafayette has turned it off completely. And I want more romance; or if he wants us to act like the old married farts everyone assumes we are, I WANT THE MARRIAGE AND THE CO-HABITAION AND SOMEONE TO GO HOME TO BESIDES MY CAT! Considering if I had all that, I probably wouldn't be so icky girly touchy-touchy in public with him (which is what he seems to have issues with). And maybe I was less publically demonstrative when he lived in Hammond and I was seeing him everyday, so he should understand why that's not the case anymore.

Or on last note, this could all be PMS fueled and it's just the hormones talking.

So I arrived home not really in a mood to do anything but play on the computer and read. So I'm playing on the computer and reading. Yeah, I'll end up doing something work-ish related, but not anytime soon.

Read Free!
The BookWorm

There is a new renaissance festival in Louisiana! Check out the Acadiana Medieval Faire at: http://www.acadianafaire.org/

My first freelance gig

It was the EBook on organizing. Final word count as of last night: 11,116 words. I'm pleased with the results, but it's not done until my employer say so. I won't know until Sunday, Saturday is booked this weekend.

What I have learned about my first freelance job? Actually having a final word count helps work out how long it will take to do the job. I roughly write around 400 words an hour, but it goes much faster with an outline. Scary fast, and I think I may end up in my fiction doing what I did in this project: inserting a bullet list of points to hit that get deleted as they're hit. I usually put fiction outlines elsewhere, but getting Zy's novel worked on....

Hunting show news: 5 men illeagelly killed 10 deer and an alligator because they had nothing better to do. Yes, I want to smack them too. This is about the only time I listen to talk radio, and this station has interesting shows pre-seven a.m.

So today is Saturday: I have to go to Lafayette for a cast meeting and then a garbbed Twelfth Night feast. I'll probably come home on Sunday to work on office paperwork. Yeah, it's a three-day weekend this weekend, but we got the camping site clean-up next weekend in Lafayette, and I need to write fiction and the cooking show. Plus getting ready for school and cook some meat I found in the back of my freezer.

My weight is hideous. Not my all-time worse, but damn it keeps creeping up. This past week had me coming straight home for two to three hours of writing time to get my freelance job done. But I need to go to the gym to workout because working out at home I just don't do it. I'll figure something out on it, when I can think about it. I guess on Sunday or Monday. Hopefully practicing the dance for work will burn some off. I have to start that on Sunday too.

That's all I got for now. Time to get chores done and pack the car.

Read Free!
The BookWorm

There is a new renaissance festival in Louisiana! Check out the Acadiana Medieval Faire at: http://www.acadianafaire.org/

Yes, I know I've been hiding

And I'll tell all about it later. For now just gaze at these lovely, lovely, lovely totals.

WEEKLY GOAL

Progress Bar from Writertopia

MONTHLY GOAL

Progress Bar from Writertopia

Yes, I am immensely pleased with myself. Now I have to edit.

Read Free!
The BookWorm

There is a new renaissance festival in Louisiana! Check out the Acadiana Medieval Faire at: http://www.acadianafaire.org/

Busy holiday

I haven't been on my schedule since Thanksgiving. Chores have been done in splurges, usually on the weekends. Paperwork and the back bedroom stacks threatened navigation through the house. Cleared space to work in the kitchen shrunk, but was still wider than the clear space in the office. The house and I limped through Christmas. Chad coming over for New Year's inspired me to find the vacuum cleaner lest his allergies send us to the emergency room.

Since being broke really does limit what you can do to entertain yourself, I ended up cleaning. The back bedroom wasn't that bad. The stacks I had made were just right in the door and I had to pull them out and rearrange. Some stuff did end up in the closet that will disappear with the bathroom remodel, but since I don't know when the bathroom will be remodeled, I might as well use the closet. Paperwork got sorted and tossed and some filed, though filing is going to be a work in progress for a while yet.

On Tuesday, Chad went home and I checked off everything on the chores checklist. I sat writing on my freelance job with one ear cocked for the Twilight Zone theme to start playing. Wednesday went equally well, though I have to finish up some new Wednesday chores tonight. It's computer stuff: weekly backup of My Documents and Quicken entry.

Mustard has claimed the back bedroom bed as his. If he's not in my face, he's curled up on it asleep. I haven't had the heart to shut the door and cut off his access.

I got a freelance job, yeah, and it's cruising right along. I want 2007 to be the year I meet my writing goals steadily. So far so good.

Upcoming agenda:

• Finish personal financial outlook with Quicken and new workbook


• CHORES! Catch-up


• Website updates


• Help Mom just short of going nuts


• Writing list
  • Uncle Keith's obit - Mom needs to edit
  
  
  • Alien species outlines for Zy's Novel
  
  
  • Alien languages for Zy's Novel
  
  
  • Pages in Zy's Novel
  
  
  • Editing Blue Man
  
  
  • Editing Covenant
  
  
  • Outlining webcomic project
  
  
  • Printing and double checking June mailout
  
  
  • Research markets
  
  
  • Goto State Library for research
  
  
  • Finish freelance job


• Find dice for Eric's Twelfth Night Feast


• Drink more water and go to the gym


• Buy 2 more Ikea shelves


• Sort File papers


• Get give-away box put together


• Take all give-away boxes to Mom's store


• Apply for gas card


• 15 minutes on back bedroom, office, and kitchen


• Time myself on writing up a subject so I can figure out what prices to charge.

Read Free!
The BookWorm

WEEKLY GOAL

Progress Bar from Writertopia

There is a new renaissance festival in Louisiana! Check out the Acadiana Medieval Faire at: http://www.acadianafaire.org/