Hey! Stick around for the derby pictures, but today’s my report card. Let me get business out of the way first. You know why I do this, right? If I don’t hold myself accountable in a public way for my progress, I might just decide to take a vacation. 🙄

I realize I’ve been absent a lot lately. I’m not deliberately dodging connections, but I’ve had a very hectic couple of months. This last week was another crazy, crazy week. Not a lot of new pages, but progress nonetheless.

I mentioned to you earlier this week that I spent several days at my daughter’s, babysitting and walking dogs. I managed to work in the mornings after getting the 5-year-old on the school bus and after getting her and the 8-month-old into bed at night. All the hours in between were a bust. As well, I stayed up until the red-headed hellion came home from work after 12:30 AM every night and we talked until 3-ish before heading to bed. I’ll be going back there tonight for the week. I’m hoping I’ll be better prepared this time and will actually sleep when I get the chance so I can be creative. She’s on dial-up and it’s a chore to get online and twitter or post, so I won’t be doing much of that.

Work-wise this past week, I completed a short story entitled The Weekend and submitted it for consideration. I worked on blurbs and cover requests for the two cowboy stories for Samhain. And I completed galley edits for the upcoming print anthology Captive Souls.

Yesterday was especially jam-packed. I attended the monthly Diamond State Romance Authors meeting, and honchoed it because our president was a no-show. Afterwards, I went to lunch and watched the Razorback game with friends while brainstorming story ideas. And then last night, I went to a roller derby match in Little Rock with Cyndi D’Alba and Shayla Kersten. I had a blast. See for yourself!

My flash didn’t work, and without light, the camera couldn’t catch the action very well, but I like this one anyway.

Here’s Cyndi and I beside the rink. See the line of light on the ground? They don’t have many banked roller derby tracks these days, so they just mark off the circle with track lights on a regular rink floor. They designate the area surrounding the track with red tape. We sat behind the tape in the “suicide seats”.

The match was held in a dingy roller rink in a rather rough part of Little Rock. The parking lot was packed. Here’s Cyndi standing in line for tickets, twittering about the fact she was standing in line for tickets.

Yup. My camera could only catch the players when they hit the floor and paused. The rest of the team is blurred.

I have to admit, I had costume envy. Team members shared the same jersey and socks, but everything else they wore was dictated completely by individual style. I wish my darn flash had been stronger. One woman wore a short, dark pink tutu with thigh-hi socks that were held up by a garter belt. There were women in short, Catholic-school-girl plaid skirts with fishnets underneath. “Daisy Dukes” over fishnets. You name it. And their game-names were wild: Kitty Kismet, Cocoa Booty, Mary Lou Wreckin’, New Jersey Turn Dyke, Legally Bombed, etc.

Writer that I am, I have to know things. During a time-out, I approached one of the refs to ask questions. April was so sweet, she kept coming back to us at breaks to see if we had more questions and to invite us to the after party. It had already been a long day, but I plan to go back. So, next time, April!

The Little Rock team won. Here’s their victory lap. And if you’re interested in getting more information about the roller derby in Central Arkansas, here’s their website: Little Rock Roller Derby