Whoa! Where the Heck Have I Been?

I can't believe the month of May is nearly over, and I have only blogged once!  I have an excuse...I've been writing my fingers to the bone.  I think I mentioned a while back that I finalled in the
NEORWA Cleveland Rocks Romance contest...well, guess what? 

I WON! 

I placed first in the Contemporary Series category.  Woo Hoo! 

So in between trying to decide what I'll wear for my first appearance on Good Morning America and what to spend my first million on, I've been busily working on that manuscript so I can submit it.  And can I just tell you something? 

It takes a lot of time and mental energy to write a book.  Who knew?  Since I've just been putzing along, writing in my "spare" time here and there, I wasn't really surprised that I hadn't gotten much done.  I just figured out that one day I'd wake up and my  manuscript would be done, and I'd casually spend a weekend editing it, then send it off to my crit partners, then lalalala, maybe submit it to...someone.

The committee in my head spends a lot of time telling me not to bother, I can write tomorrow, or just not to write at all because I suck.  But then I won this nutty contest, and the committee was speechless for a few minutes, and the Self Confidence member (who had been on sabattical) spoke up and suggested that it might be time to get to work and give this a shot. 

So, yeah.  I've been writing.  It is hard work, but it's fun work. 

I'm also slowly coming out of the closet about the writing thing.  Thinking about ditching the Teri Anne Stanley thing and just being Tracy.  But I'll think about that after I figure out what to wear for my first Oprah's Book Club appearance (because, yannoh, she'll have a special episode just for me).

Fly Like a Pig!

Yesterday was the 14th annual Flying Pig Marathon, in Cincinnati, Ohio.  It's my favorite athletic event in the universe. 

I do not compete.  I do not enter.  I have it on my bucket list, but it's going to go down with the ship. Hopefully not along with the "FINISH a novel" item on the list.  Maybe one day I'll walk the half, but no way in hell will I ever run it, and the full is just not going to happen.  But I love this race.

For one thing, who wouldn't love a marathon named for the fattiest of the fat? Here's a link to the history of the Flying Pig Marathon . It's kind of a funny story.  In brief,   Cincinnati has been referred to as Porkopolis, because of it's heritage involving slaughterhouses and sausage and bacon and stuff.  When other cities were having artists decorate fiberglass horses and cows and things, we did pigs. 

So then, someone had the great idea to have a marathon here, and someone said it should probably be named after pigs, and the Flying Pig Marathon was born. 

I am not one of these people, tho somewhere there exists a picture of me in a pig suit. 

And it's a riot.  It's just a fun, fun time.  I've been volunteering as a Grunt for the past six years. 
In the past, I've run a fluid station (water stop) for runners of the 10k portion of the race. This year I helped at a Party Pit Stop for spectators of the actual marathon.  So not only was I an official Grunt, I was  Squealer Support Personnel.  These are Squealers:

All kinds of famous people participate in the Pig:

 I saw Forest Gump yesterday, but the pictures from this year aren't up yet.  Oh well. 

 Okay, I really don't know who this is, but she kind of reminds me of Chelsea Clinton.

And now we've reached the Finish Swine of this post.  Have a great week, everyone!