Hello everyone, Dani here waving from her office and reporting in to tell you about my wonderful day. First I was gently awaken by my husband who brought me a cup of coffee while I lounged in bed. Then, as I sipped my morning caffeine, he drew me a bubble bath, lit candles, turned on soft music and left me alone to enjoy the solitude before I had to face my day.
Oh, wait! Back up….rewind, rewind.
Husband yelled “It’s 5:30. Ya getting up.” Then he promptly rolled over and went back to sleep for a half hour. Me? I jumped up and hustled downstairs to turn on the coffee pot, run out and get the paper, tossed it on the table and then ran back upstairs to throw on some clothes so I could get my dog, Rocky, to the groomer’s by 7 A.M.
Why so early? Because Rocky’s a barker. He has to go in first so they can get him in and out before anyone else arrives. He barks non stop from the time he walks through the door till he leaves. This morning, I was assured by the new girl at the salon Rocky would be no problem. I tried to warn her, but she seemed to know more than me about dogs. Okay…so…I left.
Two hours later, she called for me to pick him up, only this time her voice was a bit rattled. “Rocky is ready. And…could you please hurry.”
Yikes, that kinda scared me. He is an old dog. Maybe he had a heart attack or something. “Is he okay? Should I bring my husband with me?”
“He’s fine. He’s just driving us all nuts.”
“Oh! I’ll be right there.”
When I arrived, he looked beautiful and, yes, I tipped her well.
After Rocky was safely deposited at home, I hustled off to meet with my writing partner. We finished up our topic on a talk we’re doing tomorrow night at Glendale Community College. Alexis Walker, a friend and member of our local RWA writing chapter, Valley of the Sun, asked us if we would speak to her class about team writing. And, BTW, we get asked about that a lot. It seems to fascinate prople that we can write together and make it work so well. I added the ’so well’ part. My personal opinion. LOL.
We put the workshop together and titled it - “Survival Tips by Tia Dani. If You Want To Walk The Walk…Then Walk This Way.”
Carol Webb will be there too, talking on networking and promo and Vijaya Schartz will be speaking on websites. Lots of great info from our Valley of the Sun and Desert Rose writers. I’ll let you know how it goes.
We’re pretty new at this speaking thing. It will be fun, I’m sure. One of the reasons, I think we write so well together is because we’ve created a voice for Tia Dani. We’ve worked hard to combine our personalities to form a completely new person. This took some experimenting and practice. It didn’t happen overnight.
We read aloud to each other what’s been written. Actually, I read till my voice gives out then Tia reads till her voice is gone. Over and over we do this, constantly listening to the rhythm of the story. If something doesn’t sound right to us, or work the way we like, we talk about it until we agree on the wording and pacing. The end result? We both have to be happy. It has to sound like Tia Dani.
In fact, recently we’ve become so used to being Tia Dani that we often talk in sort of a mixture of words. What Tia begins with I often finish the sentence. Or it’s vice versa.
Some days, it gets so bad that some of our friends hold their heads between their hands and say, “Enough, I’m beginning to feel like the bouncing ball following the words.”
Tia and I immediately look at each other and grin. It’s so much fun discovering who Tia Dani really is.
Yep, Tomorrow is another day and there will certainly be another adventure for Tia Dani to experience.
I’m having the time of my life.
Dani
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- Whew, one thing I’ve done.
