Don't know just what to do with myself...

OK, I'm going CRAZY over here. Our revisions are done and we're just...waiting.

I forgot how much waiting sucks.

I tried to distract myself by creating a fancy new website to promote our work, but I'm WAITING for the freaking customer support people to call me back.

Not cool.

And sure we have other stuff we could be doing. Like refining our synopsis for Book 2, but we'd like to know what Major Agent thinks of our revised version first. No sense wasting our time if she hates our new version, right? Right.

Plus, I'd rather be refreshing our e-mail. You know, just in case we hear something...

I've also spent an inordinate amount of time analyzing e-mails from Major Agent to try to get some sort of psychic feeling about whether or not she's going to like the revised version. I mean, who knows what she meant when she said she said she can't wait to read it. What? You think she just meant that she's looking forward to reading it? No way. It's bigger than that and as soon as I decipher the many layers of meaning in that sentence, I'll totally enlighten you guys.

Anyways, this song expresses my feeling perfectly. Initially I had set it up to play the video via YouTube, but it features Kate Moss doing a strip tease and my Grandma reads this blog daily (Hi Gram!), so that seemed a little inappropriate. Although, I'm pretty sure she wouldn't be that scandalized considering some of the dirty jokes she used to send me via e-mail. By all accounts she's pretty much the coolest, hippest Grandma out there, but I figured it's probably best not to push my luck with Kate Moss on a stripper pole.

Whew, glad I got that off my chest. If you have any suggestions about how we should be passing the time, please feel free to leave them in the comments. I'm game as long as it doesn't involve scrapbooking or doing actual work for my actual job.

I give you...the happy newlyweds...

I've typed and deleted, typed and deleted, trying to come up with an appropriate response to the above picture. But, there are no words.

Breaking curfew...

Well, if you look at the time stamp on this post you'll know that I'm up way past my husband-imposed curfew of midnight (sorry dear!), but I started reading our final version of the manuscript this morning and I just couldn't stop until I finished.

And obviously, I'm completely biased and totally narcissistic for saying this, but it rocked. Well, at least I think it rocked. Oh god, who am I kidding, it could be a complete nightmare, but whatever, I loved it. When I read our new version I couldn't even remember what the old version looked like, so, I'm hoping that's a good thing.

Sorry guys, but that's all I've got energy for tonight. Tomorrow it's going to be Laura's turn to have one last crack at it. Hopefully she likes it as much as I do and we'll have this over to Major Agent very, very soon. Squee!

Oh my god, did I just "squee" on the blog. I'm sorry, it's late and I'm a little overexcited. See, there's a good reason why I shouldn't be allowed to post anything past midnight.

One Enchanted Evening...

I'm currently feeling trés virtuous because I just did a whole bunch of real work for my real job. I know, it's a little easy to forget I actually have a job, but I totally do. Well, I do at least for now...rumors of imminent layoffs make me wonder if I'll be gainfully employed a month from now, but not much I can do about that.

Anyways, I had an ulterior motive for all of my Sunday night industriousness because Laura sent me the quasi-final version of the manuscript this morning and I'm going to do everything in my power to spend Monday and Tuesday with our favorite girl detective, Kate Lowry.

Good times.

The one fabulous perk of me doing work for my actual job is that it's monkey work that rarely requires much concentration from yours truly. So, tonight while I was assembling a PowerPoint presentation with lots of meaningless statistics about the current state of our economic crisis (that will ultimately probably contribute to my job's eventual demise, talk about irony...), I watched the movie Enchanted.

Ok, so the movie itself is pretty entertaining and I sort of can't wait till my kids are old enough to watch it. I mean, seriously, who doesn't want to meet a real-live fairy tale princess? But the writer in me appreciated Enchanted on a whole different level. The writer (or writers?) who wrote and developed this film took one of the oldest stories in the world, a princess meets her prince charming and lives happily ever after, and created something completely new and fresh.

And in a way, we're trying to do the same thing with our book. We've created a modern day Nancy Drew and given her a thoroughly modern mystery. I hope Kate and her cohorts are as fun and charming as Enchanted. We'll see...

Weekend!

Big news on our end, our first round of revisions are done! Laura is doing some final revisions on the last 50 pages this weekend and then next week we'll be re-reading the new version and making our final edits before sending to Major Agent. I'm really excited to take a little break and I can't wait to read the entire manuscript with fresh eyes come Monday.

Over the past few weeks we added almost 20,000 words to the book, whew! It's actually a little shocking. Let's just hope that they're GOOD words.

Have a great weekend everyone!

Oh the places you'll go...

How many questions can one picture inspire?

Why is Audrina so skinny?
Why is Audrina wearing such a big backpack?
Where are they going?
Why is Justin-Bobby wearing overalls?
Why is Justin-Bobby wearing overalls without a shirt underneath?
Where does one even buy overalls?
What does Justin-Bobby’s ID bracelet say?
Justin or Bobby or both?
Why is the motorcycle so big?
What does the whole thing look like?
Why are they riding so low?
Why? Why? Why?

Feel free to add any pressing questions that may arise after viewing.

Happy Birthday Lydia!

Laura's daughter Lydia is celebrating her first birthday today. I had a fun post planned, but as soon as I saw this video I scratched it.

These boys did a much better job than I ever could have!



We love you Lydia!

God, I love our readers...

All 22 of you.

I give you this anonymous comment on our post about the much anticipated NYC Prep:

The bios of the cast online is to die for(http://www.bravotv.com/nyc-prep/season-1) for your convenience...absolutely amazing

i can already guess who I'm going to like the most...
little overview:
taylor-public school dancer
sebastian-french cutie
pc-popular wealthy i-do-what-i-want
kelli-independent singer
jessica-type a 'bitch'
camille-very studious but a trouble-maker (seems like most situations will revolve around her)- like the new LC?

IM SETTING MY DVRS NOWHOPE ITS IN HD!

Anonymous commenter, I don't know who you are, but I sincerely hope that we are friends both on the blogosphere and in real life. I'm thinking that we need to have some sort of virtual chat for the premier of this trainwreck. Who's in?

Two Cent Tuesday: Is it just me?

Or do you sometimes feel like your some kind of jedi-plagarizer? I've been listening to E. Lockheart's Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks, and it's fantastic. Since I've had so little time to read lately with all of the editing and such, I've been checking books on CD out from the library.

Here's where it gets weird. There are four or five very small details in her book that also play a role in our book. Now, I've never read any of her other books and I'd never even read a blurb about Disreputable History of Frankie Landau Banks until I started listening to the book last week. The only reason I even checked the audio version out of the library is because I read that few bloggers had listed it as one of their fave YA books of 2008, so I figured I should give it a read (or in my case, a listen).

Do you think it's possible that she's our long lost sister or something? Or maybe I can just read her mind? Or maybe I've subconciously read all of her books and sent her fan mail in my sleep? I guess the good news is that so far, the similarities don't really add up to much, they're really just little details that no one else would notice except me, but in my mind that almost makes it more weird. I mean, how could she have had the exact same random thoughts as us only a few years earlier? And if there are little similarities between our book and another book, who's to say that there aren't MAJOR similarities between our book and some other book that I've never even heard of? Or maybe hasn't even been published yet? It's terrifying, I tell you.

Anyways, my big question of the day is as follows: Does this ever happen to you as a writer? Do you ever put something as random as pineapple pizza in your book and then find that another author has done the very same thing BEFORE you and BETTER than you?

And look, for the record, pineapple pizza is only in the book because it's my favorite pizza topping of all time and Ken never lets me order it. He read the book and his first critique was, "Pineapple pizza, seriously? That's going to gross people out." Thank you, Ken for that insightful feedback.

I'm really interested to hear what you guys have to say on this one.

I'm an idiot, but my friends ROCK

Ok, so it turns out that Emile Hirsch and Jim Sturgess are two different people, and it was, *ahem* Jim who was in both 21 and Across the Universe. Who knew?


I give you Emile...




And Jim...



I'm an idiot.

Anyways, the good news is that I've managed to surround myself with really kickass, talented people, who are decidedly not idiots such as...

• The fabulously talented Katie (of SkatieFrancis fame) just won the one sentence pitch contest over at Query Tracker. Her fabulosity has landed her a full manuscript request from uber agent Joanna Stampfel-Volpe. Laura and I have a girl crush on Joanna, so this is all very exciting. And big shout out to ElanaJ for compiling over 500 pitches and also to Joanna for reading every. single. one.

• Next up we've got the kickass Sara and Katie (man, this girl is having an amazing Monday!) who just got honorable mentions in Miss Snark's First Victim's Secret Agent Contest! The agent was Kate Schafer Testerman this time around and she was TOUGH. And beta reader extraordinaire ElanaJ...drumroll please....got runner up, see all that work she does on the Query Tracker blog is good karma. Congratulations guys!
  
  
• I'll keep this one anonymous but we have a certain writer friend who just got a full request from a certain agent and we're certainly very, very excited for her. Our fingers are crossed! Although, I'm still sort of pissed that she gets to watch Gossip Girl a full day before I do. Damn Canadians.

• And finally, thank you Alea, queen of things all pop culture, for knowing that Jim and Emile are two distinct human beings. I'd like to blame that whole snafu on sleep deprivation, but I would be lying. I really thought they were the same person and for that I am ashamed.

Ok, I'm off to go renew my subscription to US Weekly in an effort to avoid any further egregious celebrity errors.

Floating heads and frenemies...

I haven't felt very inspired by celebrity pictures lately. And trust me, to come up with these rhymes, one needs some divine inspiration. Perhaps it's because whenever I go to write a poem, I think back to "Bitch, please" and realize that I'm that girl! Anyways, here are a few pics I've been gathering over the weeks.

Jenni, the black turtleneck is often a good choice, or so I’ve read,
but in this case you look like one sad floating head.

Audrina, what’s your secret? You look different, more sleek.
Head transplant? New eyes? I’ve got it! Different cheeks?

Katie, I know the importance of dress down days. Yoga pants? Highly recommend.
But cuffed jean shorts, furry sandals and a flannel shirt? Not a good look, my friend.

Speidi, I suppose there’s no limit to your self-promoting ways,
I just wish we could get there without seeing butt cheeks, mmmkay?

When I read Gwyneth’s GOOP, I thought, “who is this saboteur?”

After learning it was sticky fingers Ryder, I realized I have better frenemies than her.

These rhymes are exhausting and it’s not even noon,
back to my edits, we’ll meet again soon.

Sunday Night Randomness

Not much going on over here. Still slogging through edits. But as always, there's plenty of randomness.

• I officially have a curfew. Yes, you read that right. Ken has instituted a new rule that if I'm not in bed by midnight every night of the week I lose sleep-in privileges on the weekend. You see, my dear husband wakes up with the kids every single Saturday and Sunday, and for that, I love him. But it drives him insane that I'm up until 1 or 2 AM most nights, apparently he's of the opinion that people actually need to sleep. Shocker, right? Anyways, he's decided to start playing hard ball. Ouch.

• The Apocalypse is nigh. Melissa Joan Hart and Joey Lawrence are starring in a movie together called My Fake Fiance. Yes, seriously. In the words of Joey himself: whoa.

• Drew Barrymore should consider hiring a new hair stylist who isn't secretly trying to sabotage her every appearance on the red carpet, and then she should eat a cheeseburger or three. I know she's not that thin compared to some other Hollywood starlets, but I've always liked that Drew had a relatively normal bod.

• Emile Hirsch is my new boyfriend. I inadvertently watched two different movies with him as the lead this weekend. 21 and Across the Universe. 21 was OK. Entertaining, but the book that the movie was based on (Bringing Down the House) was far better. If you haven't read it, check it out. Card counting MIT students are made of awesome. Across the Universe is pretty much a 90 minute music video, which if you love the Beatles (and I do) then it's pretty good stuff. If not, you might find yourself wishing you were on acid. My favorite part of the movie was when a gospel choir sings Let it Be. Clearly this song was written to be performed by a gospel choir. Check it out below.
  
  
  

Debate team anyone?

I'm a total blog whore and read and follow approximately a billion blogs on a daily basis. I've always been a nosy person and I love how blogs give you a little peek into someone else's life. Fascinating.

Anyways, just wanted to bring your attention to a couple of interesting debates that have been brewing on the interwebs over the past couple of days:

• I love the BookEnds Blog and have been following it since Laura and I started writing together. Jessica Faust, the agent who writes the blog, is extremely patient, answering loads of questions from aspiring writers and is a great resource for anyone interested in learning more about the publishing industry. Yesterday a rather snarky reader sent an e-mail, "Every day I read posts by people who ask questions that no real writer, by which I mean a skilled and talented master of the craft (or even master in the making), has any business asking." Umm...seriously? So apparently skilled and talented masters of the craft are born knowing how to write? I was so annoyed. Anyways, there's a very interesting debate in the comment section. Enjoy!

• The next debate is courtesy of one of our fabulous critique group member's Sara. She has a guest blog up at Alice's CWIM Blog about Twilight and its glorification of abusive relationships. It's a perspective I hadn't thought of while reading the books, and it's making for a great discussion. Sara, I recommend locking all the doors tonight lest you wake up with some rabid Edward fan decked out in their Team Edward tee watching YOU sleep. And if you see anything strange and sparkly while you're enjoying the Ohio sun today, RUN!

Have a great weekend everyone! Laura and I are in the home stretch for our first round of edits, and hoping to take another couple passes next week and then send it off to Major Agent. After that happens, I'm going to sleep. Maybe for 5 days straight.

Apparently Bravo is creating television shows specifically for me...

I think I love you Andy Cohen. Andy is the adorable SVP of programming at Bravo, and it's pretty safe to say that I'm not his type (shocker), but I feel like he must worship me from afar or something because he keeps creating televisions shows that are pretty much tailor made for my viewing pleasure.

From Bravo's website:

NYC Prep chronicles the lives of a group of privileged teenagers who are key players in Manhattan's elite high school scene. Students who travel in packs – whether it's on sophisticated vacations or to a townhouse for an exclusive midnight party, their lives intertwine as they network, shop, party, study, date and write college applications. Everyone's beautiful and everyone's connected.

On the surface, it seems that these teens live an enviable life. They have access and privilege to spare, and can't imagine that anything or anyone, will get in their way. Over the course of the series, we'll see them on the benefit circuit, viewers will get to know their families, their entourage (trainers, college application advisors, stylists) and their guys/girls of the moment. But privilege has its price. Despite their carefree lives, the pressure of lofty expectations can sometimes be too much for even the most confident teenagers.

NYC Prep will premiere Tuesday, June 16 at 11 p.m. ET/PT and will move to its regular timeslot on Tuesday, June 23 at 10 p.m. ET/PT.

It's like the real-life version of Gossip Girl. Smell ya later, LC and Speidi. I've got a date with your younger, hotter and hopefully more entertaining counterparts. God bless Bravo and thanks to Lindsay for sending the link!

When the baby has a baby...

So, it's little known fact that Laura and I actually have a younger sister who is far more talented than the two of us combined. Stacey is an artist/interior designer/photographer and has always been my parent's favorite. (As evidenced by the above picture where she is the only sister to have escaped the dreaded matching pink sweater vests/white turtleneck combo. Well played, Stacey. Well played.)

She could do no wrong. When Stacey started swimming my parents were convinced she was an Olympic hopeful. When she played piano they were astounded by her ability to play things by ear (they were probably planning on sending the above picture to Star Search or something). And when she started playing tennis it was clear that she could have been the best player out of their 3 daughters, if only she would have applied herself.

Yeah, we heard the "If Stacey just would have tried harder we know she'd have [gone to Harvard on a swimming scholarship/attended Julliard/played tennis at Wimbledon.]"



Stacey was always the angel and Laura and I have spent much of our lives consumed with jealousy for her. (And yes, I was dressed as Punky Brewster in the above pic. She was just really spunky, ok? And please note that is the SAME pink sweater vest as the earlier pic. Turns out that thing came in handy around all hallow's eve.) The truth is Stacey is adorable and probably the nicest, kindest, most generous person on the planet, and for that we hated her. Could we be more bitter?

Thankfully, we got over our inadequacies a long time ago and we were SO excited when Stacey and her hubby announced that they were expecting this Spring. Although, this announcement inevitably lead to more and more favoritism from my parents. My favorite line, courtesy of my mom (aka The Regulator), "Stacey is just such a happy pregnant person. She never complains. She's just really good at being pregnant...not like you." Ouch.

And today, the most fabulous pregnant woman in the world gave birth to the most perfect baby boy on the planet.



Welcome William Michael!

We're so excited that you're part of the craziness that is the Roecker clan. I'm sure you'll probably walk and talk before Lydia and the chances are pretty good that you'll be riding a bike before Jack. And knowing your grandparents we'll be hearing ALL about it.

Winners of LiLa's Epic 500 Follower Contest

Go Team Laura!!!

Congratulations to everyone who bet on the blonde Roecker. You've prevailed. This time.

And now the lucky winners....

Charity Bradford is the winner of The Reader Package including:

• STUPID CUPID (signed copy!! hoorah!) by Rhonda Stapleton
• HOW TO TEACH FILTHY RICH GIRLS by Zoey Dean
• THE HOLLOW by Jessica Verday
• JERK CALIFORNIA by Jonathen Friesen
• UGLIES and PRETTIES by Scott Westerfeld
• Lots and lots of chocolate
• A fabulously warm blanket to curl up in while you're reading and chowing down on delicious chocolate.

Courtney Barr - The Southern Princess is the winner of The LIAR SOCIETY Package including:

• Two Starbucks Gift Cards (So you can buy Kate's favorite drink: a full-fat Frappacino with extra whipped cream.
• A fabulous pearl necklace (Um, just don't ask us if it's real okay? If it makes you feel any better, Kate's pearls are fake too.)
• A DIY Pineapple Pizza Kit (Kate's favorite dinner! All you'll need to do is add cheese. Trust us, it's better this way.)
• A bike bell (Kate's sole methods of transportation are her trusty 10-speed and the school bus.)
• A 10 page critique of your manuscript or WIP.

And the winner of the Grand Prize Roecker Extravaganza Package is....

Marsha Sigman!!!

The Grand Prize Roecker Extravaganza Package:

• Glee Soundtrack Volume 1 and Volume 2
• A variety pack of every Twizzler known to man, aside from the rainbow kind because those don't count.
• A bottle of Prosecco (sparkling juice if you're an underage/on-the-wagon winner).
• A t-shirt that will officially christen you as The Fourth Roecker Sister (or Sibling if one of our three male followers wins).
• Business Cards or Stationary Designed especially for you by the ultra-talented third Roecker sister, Stacey owner of PoochiePrints.

Congratulations to the winners and thanks so much for playing along with us! Please send us an e-mail at lisa-laura(at)live(dot)com to claim your prizes.

As you can probably tell we find this kind of thing VERY entertaining, so look forward to more random contests in the future. We're already busy thinking of our next big idea. Get excited.

Bitch Please...

Ok, so it's virtually impossible for me to post anything on the blog without thinking about this sketch on SNL. This is totally what Laura and I are like in real life.



P.S.
I really, really wish that our blog was called Bitch, please. Seriously, how funny would that be? I'm officially petitioning Laura for a name change.

Lisa and Laura's (not so) Infinite Playlist

Yeah, we really need to get a life. I think all of these edits have addled our already feeble brains. The Book (note the capital letters) is pretty much the focus of our entire life these days, which is not necessarily a bad thing since we're knee-deep in revisions.

Honestly, they're coming along really, really well. We've already added around 10,000 words (holy crap!) and we're hoping that it's all good stuff that makes the story more engaging for readers. We can't wait to see what Major Agent thinks of our shiny new version, but it will be a while before we're ready to send it to her, so we'll just have to wait and see.

In the meantime we're doing goofy things like creating theme songs for our characters and playlists for the book. Behold!

Feel free to encourage us to get a life in the comments section. I just can't promise that we'll take your advice.

You like us, you really like us!

I'd just like to go on record as saying that Laura and I have never won anything in our entire life. Well, that's not entirely true, Laura was homecoming queen and I...well, maybe I should have said that I've never won anything in my entire life.

Anyways, in the past week we've received two awards for our blog! We're so honored and want to thank Elana and Sara for awarding the blog that is made of random. It means a lot to us both.

Well, probably more to me since I wasn't homecoming queen and all that, but I'm sure Laura is really grateful too. Do you know that she sometimes writes in her tiara?

So...now we get to award 8 of our favorite blogs. Good times!

1. Little Ms J (If you've noticed a big uptick in Cleveland hits it's probably because my entire family now follows your blog. My mom will totally make you home-made spaghetti if you ever come to Cleveland.)

2. Plot This (You never know what you might find over here. Some days it's extracting poop from animals, others it's meeting John Green and Judy Bloom.)

3. Market My Words (So much great information about how to market yourself in the publishing world.)

4. Becca Fitzpatrick (Becca's blog is pretty much writer-porn for us because she's about 10 steps ahead of us in the publication process and gets to do all sorts of glamorous things like meet her editor in NYC and discuss cover art for her book. If she wasn't so nice we'd totally hate her.)

5. The Road to Publication (More writer porn. Kimberly's book is coming out in March 2010 and her blog is hilarious. Plus she claims to have a 22-year-old daughter and looks about 25, so we're pretty much convinced she has some sort of deal with the devil and we want in.)

6. Pop Culture Junkie (I'm sure Alea has a ton of these awards, but her blog is just too fantastic not to recognize. So many book reviews. She's single-handedly doubled my monthly Amazon bill.)

7. Purple Clover (She's hilarious, an aspiring writer and a mom. Oh and she's Little Ms J's sister. Sometimes they fight in the comments section just like Laura and me. It's fantastic. Seriously.)

8. Tara Maya's Tales (Tons of info and writerly discussion on Tara's blog. Definitely a good one to follow if you're trying to crank out a book.)

Ok, so technically we're giving you guys two awards and you're supposed to pass them along to 8 other bloggers. I'm sure it's against the rules to do two at once, but we're rebels like that.

Happy blogging everyone!

The 10 Commandments of Sister-Writers*

Not sure who's been Keeping Up with the Kardashians, but there seems to be a bit of turbulence in the world of K. I think we can all learn a very important lesson in regards to mixing business and family, hence the 10 commandments below.

1. We started writing books together because we thought it would be fun, not because we wanted to be the next J.K. Rowling (or J.K. Howling if you're talking to my father-in-law). And let's face it, if that happens there really won't be anything to fight about, right?

2. We're sisters first. The reason we work so well together is because we're best friends, if we stop getting along the books will almost certainly stop working.

3. We write to make each other laugh. If we hated each other we wouldn't be half as funny.

4. It would suck to go through this alone. I know I would have given up a long time ago after all of the almosts and the flat-out rejections. Imagine reading a bad review ALONE? Brutal.

5. If one of us ever wants to write their own book, all by their lonesome, the other will be the best beta-reader ever and uber supportive every step of the way.

6. Writing is the great escape from husbands and kids--something we'll always have with each other (for better or worse). Now we won't have to spend our free time trying to think of great entrepreneurial ideas because we have the book.

7. We started this because we wanted a job that was flexible. Writing is super-flexible and judgement-free. We can write at all hours wearing whatever we want. I personally enjoy wearing a business suit and heels when I write because it makes me feel like a NY Times best-selling author. Just kidding, I wear the same pajamas I slept in the previous night. But see, no one cares!

8. We wanted to avoid monkey work. I might be mistaken, but I don't think a monkey could be as creative as we are. Well, unless they were a genetically engineered mutant monkey and that would just be weird and more than a little scary.

9. No matter how annoyed you get with my incessant questions and no matter how annoyed I get with your inevitable deadlines (they don't really annoy me that much, I just couldn't think of anything else), we have to either talk to each other about them, or suck it up. I prefer sucking it up because I try to avoid confrontation at all costs, but whatever works.

10. Let's never lose the drive, but try to maintain a balance. Coming out of this whole adventure with a book deal and divorce-free sounds good to me.

Bonus #11. Look at how cute we were! Hey, at least we'll always have that going for us...

*Elana initially coined the term sister-writers for us and it definitely does sound like sister-wives, but I still sort of like it.

It's Monday and I'm feeling mean...

SO slow on every celebrity website. I swear if I see the picture of Gisele in a string bikini holding Tom Brady’s baby one more time, I’m gonna lose it. I’ve decided to take my anger out on unsuspecting, innocent celebrities. This is not very nice. I apologize.

Oh! J Lo, Oh! J Lo, your hammer pants really blow.
You’re a walking, talking unflattering fashion no-no.

Blah, blah, blah, I’m a giant waste of space,
Blah, blah, blah, the fact that girls look up to me is a massive disgrace. (Harsh for a Monday, I know).

Oh how you annoy me J Love with your ghost whispering and guitar signing,
why are you even signing a guitar? Or are you (pretty, pretty please) resigning?

Sorry LC, not a big fan of the black, one-piece bathing suit you decided on today,
no wonder your line was pulled, plus, aren’t you supposed to be writing a book, typing away?

Everything about this pic leaves me ill at ease,
two of them are sisters, and Hef is eating peas!

Sigh, being a celebrity is exhausting, especially with a baby on board,
I wonder if I’ll ever tire of being so adored?

Hey, yeah, like, I know, no he didn’t, OMG,
if I ever have to sit through Hannah Montana anything, just kill me!

The multi-layered art of procrastination...

Hmmm...how can I procrastinate today? I'm about 30 pages into my edits and I really need to figure out how to put a stop to all this productive insanity.

Oh, I know. I'll share the funniest skit from Saturday Night Live with you.



Hilarious, right? Ok, back to editing before Laura disowns me.

Payback is a bitch...

Quite a few interesting things happened over the past couple of days to lead me to this particular post. Here's a little timeline for you.


4/1/09 10:32 AM: I needed to take my laptop over to Laura's house, so I had to dig up my old laptop bag.


4/1/09 1:45 PM: When I was at Laura's I finished critiquing the first 50 pages of an MS, but I couldn't access the interwebs, so I had to transfer it onto Laura's computer. Remarkably, in my old laptop bag there was one of those fancy little jump drives, so I plugged it in to transfer the file.


4/1/09 1:47 PM: Somehow every single one of our old family pictures was on this drive. I didn't think much of it at the time, but made a mental note, I'm just wily like that.

4/2/09 1:23 PM - 8:57 PM: I actually finished all of my work during the day, caught up on all my TiVo'd shows and forgot to tape The Office and 30 Rock (damn!).


4/2/09 8:59 PM: I'm supposed to be revising, but I'm procrastinating. I'm sending my edits on the first 50 to Laura tomorrow so I've got tons of time to meet my deadline...ha!

4/2/09 9:55 PM: To pass the time I decided to set-up a Twitter account for Laura and I because, you know, we don't have enough stupid ways to suck up time on the computer. Oh and also I wanted to post something about the season finale of Damages. SO good and I felt stupid blogging about it because I always blog about TV and pretty soon people are going to start thinking I have no life. That sound you hear is all of the readers of this lame blog laughing their asses off.

4/2/09 10:07 PM: That lead me to searching a picture for our profile and because I'm lazy I thought maybe I'd just cut and paste the blog profile pic, but then I remembered my little lap top bag sitting right next to me with the gold mine of family photos.


4/2/09 10:09 PM: I start paging through the pics to find something fun for our Twitter profile and find a couple of cute pics. Nice.


4/2/09 10:20 PM: I stumble across some older, more awkward pics of us. And then finally strike gold with this picture of Laura.


Now some of you may not remember this, but Laura posted a pretty unfortunate picture of me all decked out Indecent Proposal style, so she really had this coming.


In case one of you mistakes this pic as something out of the Joy Book on Big Love, let me please correct you. If I remember correctly this is actually a little snapshot that Laura was planning on using to break into the modeling business.

Ah yes, at 5'3 we all thought she was destined for a career in modeling. And really, with fashion sense like that, how could they ever turn her down? She looks more like she's interviewing to be a substitute teacher, but nothing a couple weeks on America's Next Top Model couldn't fix.

Now I have to admit, that I totally thought she was going to make it, I mean she was cute and skinny, what more does a model need? The really sad thing is that my parents sort of bought it too and my dad took this picture in preparation of one of those model recruiting things they do at the Holiday Inn. Fancy!


Now the best part of this whole situation is that I'm sitting on a virtual hot bed of humiliating pictures from every stage of our life. Good. Times.

Tonight was pretty much my perfect storm of procrastination. Enjoy!

Let the edits begin!

I'm sitting here with our previously final manuscript up in a word document and pages of editorial notes that Laura and I wrote out for our revisions and I just can't bring myself to get started.

This must be what a surgeon feels like right before they're forced to operate on their child.

Mostly I'm hoping that I don't do any irreparable damage. And it sure would be nice if our edits actually fixed some of the problems Major Agent* pointed out.

Guess it's time for me to start hacking away...wish us luck!

*Please note I've decided to start referring to our agent as Major Agent, and Major should be said with your best Victoria Beckham accent.

I <3 NYC

OK, so I'm a little embarrassed to admit this on a public forum (but really when has that stopped me in the past? Just take a look at the other fascinating tidbits I've posted today), but this was my very first trip to New York City.


I've lived in Chicago, travelled throughout Europe, visited LA (and met Richard Simmons three times, well not in one trip, but still THREE TIMES, that's one time for each decade I've been alive for those of you who aren't that good at math), and yet this is my first actual visit to the Big Apple. This momentous occasion obviously calls for one of our patented Top 5 Lists. So....


THE TOP 5 MOMENTS of Lisa and Laura's Fabulous NYC Adventure!


5. Central Park. Ok, truth is we were really annoying tourists and forced our gracious host to cart us around to places like Central Park. It was so Gossip Girl and Sex in the City, I loved it. Oh and plus it's one of the very few pictures we took on the trip.

4. Meeting Lars. A little background for you. Laura's college roommate Sarah and her fabulous live-in-lover Lars (damn that's some killer alliteration!) graciously let us stay with them for a couple days. Sarah is one of the top 10 funniest people we know. Whether she's telling you about how she single-handedly destroyed a wedding or about how she met and got pictures with Bobby Zarin (and yes, he was wearing his patented shaded glasses), she's always entertaining. So when Laura told me that Lars was the perfect match for Sarah, I just knew I'd love him. Keep in mind that he's got two random girls plopped on the couch when he comes back from the gym and instead of being annoyed or awkward he shakes my hand, looks me right in the eye and said "So tell me about this book." Yeah, he had me at hello...er...book.

No picture of Lars, but we do have this fabulous picture of Sarah showing off her cube and we think Lars is probably ok with that.

3. Meeting Sam (and her sister!). Sam is the founder of our critique group and one of our very first beta readers for our book. When we first found out that she was going to be in NYC the exact same time that we were, we considered getting a restraining order, but it turns out she's not stalking us. We were actually kind of sad because everyone knows you haven't really arrived until you have an actual stalker, right? Oh well, maybe next year. As it turns out she was coincidentally going to be in the city to celebrate her sister's b-day, so we all met up for some Mojitos. So fun!

Please note we had been walking around the city all day in misty conditions, so we're all a bit of a mess.

2. Dinner with Emily. My roomie from college also lives in the city and she ended up meeting us for dinner. It was one of those great nights when we effortlessly killed a couple of bottles of wine and managed to cover everything from old friends with bad haircuts to the emaciated cast of 90210. My kind of dinner.

Again, we got a little tipsy and forgot to take a group pic. BUT I do have this fabulous picture of Emily from Luxembourg involving way too much cheap wine and Nutella. Damn, I wish I had a scanner.

1. Meeting our agent! I'll never forget when Laura and I were in the cab on the way to InkWell and we passed Trump Tower and Laura looked at me with tears in her eyes and said she just couldn't believe this was actually happening. It was completely surreal. If it's even possible, meeting Catherine has made us want to succeed even more. She's just one of those rare people who make you want to do your best work. Edits commence immediately, and we want them to be perfect, so wish us luck.