Wagner Writer

Hi you!

Happy belated Thanksgiving!!!

First off, I’ve had people bugging me to post more stories, but not many of you read the latest one. I’m wondering if it’s because the link was at the very bottom of the page. Just in case I’m adding a link here:

The Gray Man

OK with that out of the way, here’s my 5-pronged update:

Writing


Current Book

Well I have bad news and then some progress news.

The bad news is, it looks like my potential copy editor turned out to be a flake.

When I first reached out to her, she said it would take a few days to get back to me with feedback.

That was in mid-October……….

After several e-mails, I finally reached out to her and said, “If you’re too busy, that’s fine, just tell me.” She still hasn’t replied :/

Ugh. It’s frustrating because this is SOOOO important to me and she essentially wasted two months. I was sitting on my hands because I kept hearing, “I’ll get back to you in a few days.” If she had just been up front and told me she was busy, I could have found someone else and been well on my way.

Oh well, you win some, you lose some.

(UPDATE: I actually heard back from her today. She promises me the feedback by this weekend.  Fingers crossed!)

As far as my progress news goes…… are you ready for this……..

I’ve submitted my book to a few agents!!!!

AAAAAHHHHHHHH! Please wish me luck and mojo and everything else you have.

I can’t tell you how nervous I am every time I click the “SEND” button. I swear I read over the e-mail a thousand times, sure I’ll catch that fatal spelling error or something. I swear I’m more nervous sending them than I’ll be receiving rejections. That’s how I roll.

New Book

I’m currently editing the last two chapters of the book, yay!!! That means I’ll be done this week and my selected readers can expect something to enjoy (or hate) for the holidays.

Video

The video thing is stagnating horribly, ugh!! I’m once again trying to schedule dates and hopefully we’ll do it early next week. Yuck Yuck Yuck.

Singing


I’ve been out of town for Thanksgiving so I haven’t been singing much. I’ll have more updates on this soon.

Enjoying the Area


Every year, Windy and I look forward to one day more than almost any other. Can you guess the day? It should be pretty easy:

Black Friday!

Oh, that’s not what you were expecting?

Here’s the deal – Windy and I are the freaks who love the hustle and bustle of Black Friday. We enjoy hitting the malls when they’re super crowded and everyone is frantically trying to shop. Even if we don’t buy anything, we just love being a part of it.

I’m trying to figure out why we love the craziness so much, and I think it all started my Junior year of college. See, I was going to Texas Tech and absolutely hated it. I’d left all my new friends in Amarillo behind and, honestly, I think I didn’t want to like it. So I have to blame myself more than the university because I created a self-fulfilling prophecy. Either way, I was pretty miserable.

Anyway, I went home for Thanksgiving and, by the first day, was already dreading going back to Lubbock. I don’t think I enjoyed the turkey or anything very much.

The next day, VERY unexpectedly, my parents took us to the Amarillo mall. To this day, I still have no idea why; we always spent Thanksgiving at home in Pampa (mom considered it a family holiday, not to be spent out with crowds). Truth be told, I didn’t even know Black Friday existed.

When we walked into the mall as a family and saw the craziness, it was awesome. Or should I say, it was an awesome distraction. For the next several hours, while navigating the maze of people, I was completely in the moment and forgot about how miserable I was. Windy, on the other hand, enjoyed the fact that her (amazing) college brother actually hung out with her. Look how I threw that in here 🙂

Because of the nostalgia and our love of energy, Windy and I love Black Friday to this day and try to find the busiest places in town.

This year, we went to Phoenix for the first time, and it was really fun! We hit one mall all day Friday then another all day Saturday. We didn’t even buy that much stuff, we just liked seeing the people and the decorations and the holiday spirit start to come alive.

OK with that cheesiness out of the way, here were the most memorable moments:

1. This sign at Sears –

2. Bedbugs – OK this actually sucked, but it made for an interesting evening.

Friday night, Windy and I shopped til 9 then went out to eat at a great little restaurant. We didn’t end up getting to our hotel until almost 11, and walked into the room, completely exhausted. When we were finally settled, Windy hopped in the shower and I lay down on the bed to check Facebook.

I was on the bed for about ten minutes when I noticed something crawling in my peripheral vision. I looked over and saw like four bugs inching across my pillow right next to my face!! Because I’m so macho, I screamed like a girl and threw my pillow on the floor. Then I flew up and, through the bathroom door, told Windy there were bugs all over the bed.

Before I continue, I should probably say that Windy deals with bedbugs at her job and she constantly tells me how incredibly horrible they are – once you have them, they are impossible to get rid of.

So as soon as I said there were bugs, Windy threw on some towels, flew out of the bathroom, and grabbed the pillow. The second she saw them, she was like, “Oh S***! Those are bedbugs.”

That freaked me out because, up to that point, I thought bedbugs were microscopic. These definitely were not. They were huge, like potato bugs!

Fortunately for us, Windy made us put all our luggage in the bathroom because of her bedbug paranoia. I usually make fun of her, but this time it paid off, because nothing susceptible was on the bed.

Within seconds, we were at the hotel front desk demanding a refund. Then we spent the next hour trying to find another hotel. When it was all said and done, we didn’t get checked in until almost 1:30. Then we spent a half hour diligently searching for the sheets and pillows. WHEEEEEEEE!

Random Insights or Stories


OK now that the holidays are upon us, I’ll probably use this spot in the blog to share some of my favorite Christmas memories.

First off, I’ll start simple by listing my top 5 favorite childhood Christmas presents:

5. Remote Control Car – I think I obsessed over this gift more than all the others. In sixth grade, remote control cars became a huge fad and I remember spending hours going through the Sears catalog and reading Every. Single. Detail about every car in existence. I think I circled the ones I wanted about a hundred times.

When I opened the perfect car on Christmas morning, I’m pretty sure I cried.

So this probably begs an obvious question: why was this present number 5 on my list? Well, my parents did a great job of getting the car I wanted. However, they forgot to buy batteries for it… Every place in our hometown was closed, so I spent the day just pretending to drive it. Boooooo.

4. Laser Tag – I think this qualifies as a great sucky present, actually. Me and my twin sister got each other a laser tag set in seventh grade. We were super excited because they looked so fancy and advanced. I remember how awesome it felt to put on the breast plate with the sensor in the middle and point our guns at each other. The problem was, the sensitivity was complete crap. Sometimes, we could hold the gun run up against the chest sensor and it would fail. Therefore, instead of really playing with them, I ended up setting the chest plate on my TV and shooting at it while I watched Donna Reed. I mean Doogie Howser. Yeah, that’s a manlier TV show.

3. Drum Set – This was probably the gift my parents hated most. Instead of wrapping it up (which would have been the smart thing) they set it out as a gift from Santa. That meant, at 5:00AM when I woke up (and they had just gone to bed), an amazing drum set was sitting there waiting for me to annoy the world. Not wanting to let down said world, I grabbed the sticks, did my best Twisted Sister yell, and began wailing on the drums.

2. Optimus Prime – If any of you read my Optimus Prime short story, you’ll know I was a huge fan of Optimus. And by huge fan, I mean I was obsessed him and pictured him watching over me like Jesus.

In second grade, my parents got me the real Optimus Prime as a surprise. I remember opening the package and feeling like my heart was going to stop. Eyes shimmering, I looked up, and said, “Thank you.” My parents probably thought I was talking to God. But in reality I was thanking Optimus…

1. An Easy Bake Oven – Yes, my favorite present ever was an Easy Bake Oven. No judging! OK you can judge a little bit. But I was really young when I got it. It was during my sophomore year of high school and…. OK just kidding. I was in kindergarten when I received it. I remember it so well because our neighbor left their Atari over on accident and I was SOOO excited to play it all day. That was, until, I opened the big square package containing my pride and joy. I immediately forgot all about stupid video games and cooked tiny circular brownies under a light bulb all day.

Short Stories


I’m gonna hold off on posting another story so I can ‘market’ the last one. And by market, I mean post a little link to it at the top of this post, LOL.

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