Jam made! New coat purchased! Bath about to be taken! Life, she is good!
Oork. Ootch. Owtch. 2 hours of driveway shoveling. I think I shall treat myself to a bath tonight. I have begged off on the rest and left Ted to do the detail work.
Goodness, but he's a lot stronger than I am. I'd been hacking up packed snow for a long time, and I went and got him to move the big snow chunks 'cause they were too heavy for me to keep moving forward, and he did and then he got the ice pick and went BRRRROOOOOOOOWWWWW! through more of the packed snow, and I was like 'oh! if I'd used the ice pick, I'd have moved more snow too!' So then he started shoveling the big snow chunks away again and I went and got the ice pick and went *PTHHHHT* instead of BRRRRRROOOOOOOOOWWWWW! At that point I determined that it was not the choice of instrument of destruction but rather the considerable difference in strength behind said instrument. :) I went back to knocking packed snow loose with the shovel, which was much more satisfying for me. It was still pthhhht compared to Ted's great strides, but at least it was 14 inches wide instead of 4. :)
My loaf of bread turned out beautifully. I had some plans to make blackberry jam, but now that my back's sore from shoveling, I may put that off until tomorrow. We'll see. I might be less achy in a couple of hours. And I can't put off making jam indefinitely, because I want to send it out to people for Christmas. I have something of a Plan to make a bunch of different jams in the evenings this week, then to make candies on Saturday and on Sunday pack 'em all up and send 'em out.
wow! hungry now!
Busy day so far. I got up at the crack of dawn, which happens to be around a quarter to 9 these days, and did some work on TB, which is to say, I got to ch. 8, which is the one I have to throw out entirely, and wrote some doodly notes about what I thought might happen instead. I couldn't put my chair back in my book nook, because I needed to vacuum it and people were still sleeping, and so I couldn't write, so instead I made a loaf of bread and did some more thinking doodles. After a while everybody else got up and I vacuumed and Ted put my chair back (I have such a good husband) and we went shopping, during which we discovered nobody in this town is carrying snow shovels. Buh. Eventually we found some (at the locally owned hardware store, go fig) and came home again, where I worked more on the bread and am now eating lunch and writing this. In a while I anticipate there being shoveling. :)
Wow. Very tired. We had a really nice afternoon out at Eric and Janelle's, and I have eaten way, way too much. Now I have to get right back into the habit of not eating too much, which I was doing nicely at for a couple of weeks there, between the book deal and the being ill. And as of tomorrow I have to get back on the road to Rivendell, although I'm not going to make it by the 17th.
There was a letter from the IRS today saying, "Um, take no further action, we're reviewing your response and paperwork." That's nice, at least.
I am *really* tired. -.-
Boy, it turned out to be a very nice day. Ted and I went and watched Brother Bear, which was pretty good, and we bobbled by the comic shop, and the art gallery called us to tell us some of the artwork we'd brought over to be framed was done, and the X-Women print turned out *gorgeously*. Very happy! *beam*
Then in the mail today I got a congratulations card from my Aunt Ardie for selling US and its two sequels. *beam* It's got a Thoreau quote on the front: "Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you have imagined." I liked that. :) Ardie says, "You and Thoreau apparently live by the same philosophy." *beam*
There was also a very nice letter from Jennifer Jackson, welcoming me to the fold. :) I hadn't expected that, although when I saw the envelope, I went 'ah!' and wasn't surprised. :) Still, it's really nice! *laugh*
And THEN! (It was a good mail day!) Then there was mail from the Alaska student loan people saying that Ted's application to consolidate his loans had been successfully approved, and that the payments are now slightly less than half what they used to be. Now I have to call 'em and make sure the deferment is still in place since he's back in school (I think it will be), but that's a *much* smaller payment and a great relief. Yay!
This evening we watched Branagh's Much Ado About Nothing and it's still perfectly wonderful. :)
And that's about everything! It's been a good day!
Eeeeexcellent. The Ginormous Manuscript Package got delivered to Jennifer's address this morning, so presumably she'll have a chance to pick it up sometime after the holiday weekend, and that's good. I'm working on typing in the edits to HoS, and I've got about, um, a quarter, of the TB manuscript edited. Well, a quarter of the half that's written, so it's like an eighth, but don't be picky. I haven't gotten to the slash and burn part of the editing yet. Stupid rewrites. (Stupid orcs.)
It snowed about 6 inches last night and it's drifting new snow now. Drifty drifty drift. Poor Ted is not looking forward to shoveling the driveway. I feel guilty for not being able to help, but I'd feel a lot worse if I buggered up my back again. :P
Anything else? Nothing else right now. Maybe we'll go to a movie later today. That'd be nice!
Mmm, yum. Dinner was excellent, as was the company. The pecan pie turned out, which makes me happy (I'd never made one!), the turkey was *really* delicious, and somehow I managed not to overeat. Yay! :)
Well. Here it is, two of the afternoon, and it has been a very busy day at the Murphy-Lee-Sandness househould. Ted's been cooking since about 8:30 this morning; rolls and stuffing and casseroles and turkey and probably some other things I can't think of right now. Shaun and I have been cleaning house, assisted by Ted when he wasn't cooking. The living room has been rearranged. The laundry has been done. Soon, we go to the store to pick up some red juice and more milk and some flowers, and shortly after that we will be hosting more family than expected for dinner. *beam*
Most splendidly, I fit into newly-dried jeans much better than I did a week ago, and the scale is wavering around 192.5 pounds when I stand on it. I probably won't be seeing 190 by the end of November (especially with today being Turkey Day, and with Saturday being Turkey Day Mark II when we go out to my cousin's new house to celebrate a belated Thanksgiving there), but if I can manage not to *gain*, I'll be very happy.
In fact, I'm very happy right now. Happy Thanksgiving, everybody!
Merlin asked me for my pie crust recipe, and since I was typing it out anyway, I thought I'd post it here. :)
This is a recipe for a 9" double-crust pie.
2 c flour
1 tsp salt
1/2 to 2/3 c shortening
6 tbsp ice water
Sift the flour, then measure. Add salt & stir in mixing bowl. Add
shortening (use the smaller amount if using lard, use the larger amount if
using vegetable shortening like Crisco). Cut with fork or fingers (fingers
work better) into flour mixture until shortening has all reached the size of
grains of rice to peas. Add water, tossing with fork. The dough should
barely stick together without crumbling.
Make a ball of the dough and cut it into two slightly uneven pieces. Set
aside the larger for the top pie crust, and make a disc of the smaller.
Roll out to 1/4 inch thickness on a well-floured board. Do not overhandle
once the water has been added -- that's what makes pie crusts tough. Lift
crust into the pie pan (I use the rolling pin to roll it up) and allow to
settle for a few minutes, then add filling. Trim and crimp the edges if
you're making a single-crust pie; if you're making a double, roll out the
second crust and settle it over the top, allowing a few minutes for it to
settle, too. Then trim and crimp the edges.
A few general notes: if it's very warm out, you can chill the dough for a
while to make it hold together better. If your hands are warm, run them
under cold water; it lets you handle the crust a little longer without it
toughening. And, when you're done and you have scraps of pie crust left,
roll them out, sprinkle with cinnamon and sugar, put 'em on a cookie sheet,
slice 'em up and bake them for 4-5 minutes. Voila! Pie crust cookies! :)
Being sick is just no fun. Ted and I went out to get stuff for Turkey Day tomorrow, and when I came home I had to take a two hour nap because I was so exhausted. That wasn't exactly what I'd planned to do. Of course, now I've been up again for a couple of hours and I still haven't done the things that I planned to do, so maybe I should go do some of those. Like, make a pecan pie! And then a pumpkin pie!
If anybody wants to know, for some reason, I apparently have a tidy little RSS feed for this site running at http://www.livejournal.com/users/mizkit_feed, and gosh, it even has 7 readers. I wonder who's reading it. :) I found this out because Merlin wanted Ted's blog to be RSS-fed into LJ so that he could get the recipes Ted posted. I still don't know how to set Ted's up, but now I know *I* have an LJ feed! :)
Now all I have to do is get Garrett to show me how to make my writing posts automagically post to CEMurphy, and all will be poifect. *pokes Garrett*
THUNDERBIRD FALLS is a complete disaster. I'm 40K into it and I haven't managed to successfully set up the main conflict. I have to go back and do a huge chunk of rewrites before I can go forward, because it's just that bad.
Man. And last night I was just telling Dad how I'd seemed to have gotten past the "write a completely disasterous rough draft" stage as a writer. Hah.
I was a good Kit, and went to the RWA meeting, which was actually pretty fun. I only stayed an hour, which was longer than I intended to, but there were a lot of people there with a lot of works-in-progress to talk about, so it took longer than I expected. Ted was very patient and waited for me. I have an awfully nice husband. He also made me a mushroom swissburger for dinner. You can't beat that, I tell you.
It's been a productive day, as far as writing goes. I've gotten about 60 pages of the HoS edits typed in, and... yeah. Good day. Cat exploded! :)
I slept, as predicted. Well, at least I lay in bed and was warm and still and only semi-conscious. I wasn't exactly asleep, but that's okay. Then I got up and wrote another 2000 words, which means I made my quota for the day! WOO!
ytd wordcount: 223,500
NNWM wordcount: 10,226 (not doing so good there!)
It's off! The Ginormous Manuscript Package is in the mail to Jennifer, and... boy am I vacant. Head colds are no fun. Okay. *stares around brainlessly* Okay, I think my plan is to go nap for 90 minutes or so, get up and eat something, and write another 2K. Then... well. Then typing in edits on HoS, if my brain can handle it.
Dropped some fudge by the comic shop, where only Christopher was working. Nobody else showed up today. He looked a little frazzled, but delighted about the fudge. :)
Right. Napping now. Back, um. When I get back.
Off to a fine start this morning. I got up, almost despite myself, at about a quarter to six or so, took a really long shower, put the dog out and admired the two new inches of snow, then sat down and wrote 2000 words. Wow, go me! So here it is 8:30 in the morning and I'm halfway to my daily writing goal! Pretty good for somebody with a cold in her head!
Whew. We got more Christmas shopping done today, and I edited HEART OF STONE. It's actually in better shape than I expected it to be. I don't think I can face typing edits in tonight, 'cause it's too brain-numbing, but maybe tomorrow afternoon.
I also read THUNDERBIRD FALLS yesterday, and to my relief there's a story there, so I just have to sit down and work on it. So I'll crawl out of bed tomorrow morning and do that, 'cause I DON'T HAVE TO WORK! Yaaaaay!
I think I might've caught Ted's cold. :/ At least there's cold medicine around. I'll take some tonight and try not to suffer too obnoxiously. Ted, on the other hand, has mostly recovered from his cold, and did Big Huge Work and shoveled the driveway this afternoon. I have a very nice husband. :)
Let's see, what else. I made fudge which seems to have turned out very nicely, and, um. That's about it. It's snowing! Yay! :)
I've printed out 953 pages today. I feel like I should find another 47 to print just to make it a nice even 1000.
It's been a busy day. We got some Christmas shopping done (yay us!) and went to Office Depot to buy ALL THE PAPER IN THE WORLD, which I have used to print out the nearly-1000 pages of text today. We also bought a more studly 3-hole punch than the ones we currently own, because hey, tax writeoff! And also useful for putting scripts together. It's really a pain in the ass to punch holes 3 pages at a time in a 60 page script.
V. thirsty. bbiam.
I have noticed that if I'm paying more attention to what my body actually wants, that nearly all of the time I feel like eating, I'm actually thirsty. Result: drinking lots more water and definitely down 2 pounds since last Friday.
Still v. thirsty. bbiaam.
Sloshy now.
Did I mention we got a new cat tree? We've been saying for erm the better part of a year, that we needed one, and finally we went and got one. The cats seem to approve. Lucy sat on it and licked it, anyway.
We got about 6 inches of snow yesterday/last night. Chanti was in puppy heaven. :) Leaping about and chasing snowballs that I threw and having the time of her puppy life. :) Last night I put her out and she sat there for well over an hour, staring intently at the cottonwood tree with all the birds in it. Silly, silly dog. :)
Man, I'm tired of spam mail.
And I guess that's about all I've got to say. I think I'll balance the checkbook now, 'cause I really know how to have fun. :)
Ye gods. I have just put together a 785 page package to send to Jennifer. For those of you who ever might need to know: the 8 5/8thx11.25x4 inch mailing boxes that you can buy at Office Depot will hold 800 pages of manuscript. Well, they'll hold 785; I'm taking the other 15 pages on faith.
This thing weighs a *ton*. And it's only two books! I need to do some rewrites on the third one before I send it! Ye gods! Ye gods and little *fishes*.
If I ever write a single book that's too big to fit into one of these boxes, shoot me.
I have next week *off*! My plan is to write. I'm going to pretend I'm a full-time writer, which means when I get up in the morning I have to go turn on the laptop, not the desktop, and make my quota (which I'm setting at 4K a day) before I do much of anything else. I also want to spend some time (in the afternoons after doing the bulk of the daily writing) doing rewrites, probably on HEART OF STONE, because it's in the worst shape and I want to be able to send it to Jennifer before the end of the year.
Um. Chanti's outside staring intently at the birds. Or maybe just at a tree. She's been out there for over an hour. *laugh* Silly, silly dog.
We're gonna go get dinner and go to a movie. Bai!
No. More. Pizza. *Ever*.
Ted and I went to Bear Tooth and had pizza last night. I only had ONE PIECE, for pity's sake. And yet from the hours of 3am to 6am, there was the Revenge Of The Pizza.
I shall spare you the details. Suffice it to say we got up late today. -.-
In more cheery news, there's two inches of new snow on the ground!
In less cheery news, Ted's directions to the place his class was supposed to meet today were bad, and so instead of going to class he ended up coming back home by 9:20. It's not his fault, 'cause, well, bad directions, but it's v. frustrating!
HAH! Real Live Preacher is publishing a book! I'm *thrilled*: the guy is a beautiful writer and I've been waiting since I started reading his blog to hear that he'd gotten a book deal. Hah! Go Preacher!
Wow. I went to the chiro this morning, 'cause my back was being pretty awful earlier in the week, and I got all crunched and I feel a *whole* lot better, which is surprising to me, because I'd stopped hurting sometime Tuesday afternoon. But I really feel a *lot* better now. I feel like I could fly! Whoosh! WHOOOSH! Wheeee!
I've lost a pound and a half since last Friday. *beam*
My spam filter caught my editor's email (her last name is Hussey). *helpless laughter*
Geni called! She's doing REALLY WELL.
*happy dance, happy dance*!
I just had a wonderful conversation with Jessica Wulf, the contest coordinator for the Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers, whom I called to tell that I'd sold my first book(s!) and who just glowed with happiness even over the phone. She's a really *wonderful* woman, and it keeps stunning me to think, "Next year I won't be able to submit to that contest!" When I went to the RMFW conference last year, the last thing she said to me, on the way out, was, "I hope you won't be able to enter the contest next year!" And, well, *this* year I was able to, and I'm glad, because I won and because my manuscript is at Tor now (and now my AGENT is going to CHECK UP ON IT), but that I won't be able to next year just blows me away and makes me amazingly happy--and it made Jessie happy, too!
I would like very much indeed to sell ANGLES to Tor. That'd be a great success story for the RMFW, and I'd love to be able to deliver that news to Jessie. :) :) :)
And my agent has a livejournal!
The internet is being quite hateful today. *claws through it*
I left Jennifer Jackson email last night saying I'd be up and functional around 10:30am her time if she wanted to give me a call. She did, and we talked for an hour, so now I know lots and *lots* of things.
They don't charge mailing fees, they do take the payments directly from the publisher and then cut the author a check, which contractually is done within 10 business days although she said Christmas always goofs things up. The only time, though, she said, that checks don't get cut that fast is if there are foreign payments involved and sometimes it takes a long time for those to get cleared.
They don't work with a written author/agent contract, but each of the contracts they negotiate states that this contract is made with the Donald Maass agency and delineates the rights therein, and that works for me, I think. She said Don's policy is that if a relationship is having problems, then to talk it out and if a satisfactory answer can't be reached then to part amicably, and, yeah, I can work with that.
They do editing. (She said her edits for Jim's fantasy novel were: "Throw out the first hundred pages.") Um. Oh! I did ask about earning out advances. She said they're called basket verses separate royalties, and basket royalties are the oens where you have to earn out the whole advance before you get royalties and separate are where, well, you don't. :) So she'll be talking to Mary-Theresa about separate, which she said she does normally anyway but she made a note to specifically do it because I'd asked about it. And she's going to try to get me more money, which, well, hey, rock on. :)
I told her about the various projects I had in the hopper, and I'm sending her the complete manuscripts for Angles and US and I told her I'd send her the synopsis for HoS but I was going to hold off a few weeks on sending her the ms until I'd done the rewrites on it that I wanted.
*laugh* And while we were talking she asked if I had a website, and I said yeah, cemurphy.net, and she went and looked and said, "Ack! I had competition!? Did I *win*?!" Which was, y'know, very human and funny and cool. :) I told her that the other agents were aware I'd been talking to other people, and that I'd be contacting them as soon as I got off the phone to tell them I'd opted for representation elsewhere (I have to do that; what I really did when I got off the phone was send her the synopsis for HoS and tell everybody I knew that I'd gotten an agent, and then tell Ted, who'd just gotten up, all about the phone call).
It was a really, really good conversation. I liked her a great deal--and not just because she said she liked my writing! *laugh*--and I feel really solid about having her as my agent. She said--this was cool! She said that my name had actually come up in conversation yesterday with Anna Genoese! That Anna'd mentioned me and Jennifer went 'oh wow, she just contacted me'. Isn't that cool? Hee hee hee!
(I am so not a calm, cool, collected author-type, am I? *snort* :))
So there you have it. I might post some more later, but for right now, I've got an agent, I've got a book deal, I've got an editor, and I'll be hearing about the contract later today or tomorrow, I expect. More details when I have 'em!
You will either get this, or you will not. :)
I got my Salvador Larroca X-Women lithograph today (it came in an *entirely* unnecessarily large tube!) and this evening we went over to the art gallery to get it framed. It took quite a while to decide on the framing, because lots of colors, very vibrant, and we had a mat we liked a lot that we couldn't find a frame to go with, so after a while we switched mats...
...and because we are Great Big Geeks, we ended up using blue and gold matting.
:)
So this is what Today Hath Wrought:
Two of the three agents I've contacted offered me representation. The third, who is my first choice, hasn't yet gotten back in contact with me, and given that it's now after 7pm on the East Coast, I'm assuming it'll be tomorrow before she does. Given, though, the 4 hour time difference, I'll give it all until noon my time tomorrow before a decision gets made. I hope I hear from her before then. If not, I was very pleased with both the other agents I spoke with, so overall, I'm not feeling at a loss.
Last week one of the mailing lists I'm on had a posting for an open call for epic fantasy novels with strong female protagonists, a la KUSHIEL'S DART. The editor, who is looking for novels to pitch to Tor, and who is herself working on spec--she's not a Tor editor yet, but if she finds things they want to buy, she might grow up to be--asked for synopses of such novels, with the intention of requesting the first 3 chapters from authors on the strength of the synopses. (And then, on the strength of the opening chapters, she'll ask for full manuscripts.) Sarah pointed the posting out to me, and I took one of my novel ideas and shook it up a bit to fit the requested parameters, wrote up a synopsis, and sent it off. I got email back today requesting the first 3 chapters, so I'm going to work on those until they're done, and send 'em off. The idea I've ended up with is *much* more twisted (and, in my ever so humble opinion, *interesting*) than the original one I started out with, so I'm really glad Sarah pointed this out to me.
And Sarah also got a first-3 request on the synopsis *she* wrote up and sent in. We're just that cool!
That's about it for now, I think. :)
Poor Ted is ill. Poor honey. He's got an awful cold and is snorfling around miserably. Well, right now he's in bed, but when he's not, he's snorfling around miserably.
I, meantime, am still largely useless. :)
Whew! Okay! I have talked to Mary-Theresa, and this is what I now know:
It's looking like mid-2005 for URBAN SHAMAN's publication. It could be a little earlier, could be a little later, but probably somewhere in the July-September range. Then the manuscripts for the second and third books will be due somewhere around March and December of 2005. I ought to get a revision letter for US around Christmas time, so it's not looming over my head or anything; she'll want the revisions for US around June, so yeah, that's the basic schedule I'm looking at.
US is *not*, snif, the first contemporary that they've bought. Laura Anne Gilman will be having a contemporary come out in July-ish, and Laura Resnick will have something coming out... later. :) In 2004, but I forget when. However, that puts me in some pretty damned good company, if you ask me! Wow!
I mentioned my friend Jim Butcher, which caused her to say, "Oh, I *love* his books!" and I said, "Oh good! He offered cover quotes!" and she said, "Great!" So that was cool. Hee hee hee! And, hm, I plugged Ursula's artwork and said I didn't know how they did cover art, but if they were interested in author suggestions, she was a terrific artist, and she told me to email me Ursula's website/portfolio URL, so I've done that.
And last, Jennifer Jackson did in fact contact her and so contract details will be worked out there, if Ms. Jackson takes me on as a client. I expect I'll know these things within the next 72 hours or so.
*frantic running around* I haven't heard from Luna yet today. However, I *have* heard from all three agents I contacted this morning.
One is the afore-mentioned Jennifer Jackson, to whom I am sending the S&3 and we'll talk more tomorrow after she reads it. She's calling Matrice to tell her that she's looking at the book proposal. This is okay with me, because she's my first choice as an agent.
Two is Michelle Grajkowski, who is the agent who currently has RIGHT ANGLES TO FAERYLAND. I'm going to talk to her tomorrow morning.
Three is Jessica Faust, whom I emailed because 1. she's coming to Writer's Weekend next summer and 2. Sarah met her recently and liked her very much. She was *very* personable on the phone and I liked her a lot, although she's not, both from what the website suggests and what she herself said, the best fit for me as an agent.
As Angie said: I guess selling a book is indeed the best way to get an agent. :)
So that's where all that is. I've sent the S&3s to Jennifer and Jessica and asked Michelle if she wanted one. I also emailed Jennifer a short letter on my career goals and what I was looking for in an agent (which I'd sent to the other two as well, but I contacted them through email and had called Jennifer this morning, what with not having her email address), and, well, so now we see what happens next. :)
Oh, to hell with it. I've been trying to keep a lid on this on my blog because I don't have *that* many details, but Christ, I've told practically everybody I know already, and I have no idea exactly when I'm going to talk to the editor again (sometime today, hopefully this morning) and so I'm just going to post because I can't STAND it anymore. :)
Luna Books, Harlequin's new fantasy imprint which is launching in January, called me Friday afternoon and offered me a 3-book deal for URBAN SHAMAN and the next two books in the series.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I swear to God, my brain flatlined. I thought she was calling to talk to me about multiple submissions, because I'd called on the 5th or 6th or so to say that another house had requested the manuscript and I wanted to know if it was okay with Luna to multiply submit. So she says to me, "What's new and exciting?" and I said, "Oh, not much, I just made chocolate chip cookies, that's about as exciting as it gets around here right now, how're you?" And she was fine, calling from her cell phone because the office phones were down and the repairman had been there and said he couldn't do anything until Monday at least, and I allowed as how repairmen were always saying things like that, and she apologized for not getting back to me sooner, but she'd been at a convention and then on vacation and then out sick, and since *I* wasn't worried about the multiple submission thing anymore (Tor doesn't take them from unpublished/unagented authors), I said it was okay and I hoped she was feeling better.
Then she said, "Well, I hope you won't be multiply submitting this book, because I have some good news --I hope it's good news! -- for you: we'd like to make you an offer for URBAN SHAMAN and the next two books in the series...."
And my brain went BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE.
I said, "I guess I won't be submitting it anywhere else!" and "Thank you!" and rather a lot of other idiocies, I'm afraid, and she was *very* nice and told me that everyone was like this when they got a first book offer, and that I should take the weekend to think about it and we'd talk more on Monday.
That's *all* I know right now. I don't have a contract in hand yet, so obviously something horrible could blow up and it could all go wrong, but I'm not *anticipating* that. The first thing I did...
Well, okay, the first thing I did was shriek, laugh, kick my feet and gibber insanely for about six hours. :) I was shaking too hard to dial a phone, and Ted very helpfully called my parents and let me shriek at them, and eventually we all went out to dinner and there was more gibbering. *Lots* of gibbering.
After that, though, I emailed Jim and said WHAT DO I DO NOW, and he gave me lots of very helpful advice, and this morning I called Jennifer Jackson (who happens to be Jim's agent) to leave a message and I've emailed the Luna editor to tell her I'm pretty much talk_ok all day, and I've emailed work to ask if it's okay to take the day off, or at least the morning, because I'm useless. :)
And that is all I know right now. I will post more when I have it.
Oh, this is really cool (literally!): they're building an ice hotel at Chena Hot Springs in Fairbanks. We might have to drive out there to check it out when we go up around Christmas. That's so cool!
Yesterday proved to be sort of busy, all unexpectedly.
First there was the not getting up on time thing, as mentioned previously. Then there was the impulsive putting-together of Legion stuff in order to submit it again to Scriptapalooza and American Accolades, two tv-writing contests which Legion got nice comments from a couple-three years ago; we thought suddenly that perhaps it was time to run it up the ol' flagpole again. What, as they say, the hell.
And in re-reading Legion, I've discovered: *Damn*, it's *good*! I'm taking time off at the end of the month and in December. Maybe I'll try to spend some time doing the looking-for-an-agent thing with that that we've talked about doing for years now. 'cause, well. It's *good*. We should be *doing* this!
Let's see. Um. Ted collected Emily, who has broken her knee, from the hospital, and we went to dinner and the comic shop and watched a movie before putting her on the plane to Orycon; the break is an incomplete fracture of her right patella, and all they can do is immobilize it, so she's in a immobilizing brace and she figured there was no particular point in *not* going to Orycon, since, well, she's got the plane ticket and she can't do anything about the break, so she might as well go. (The story of what happened to Emily's knee is here.)
Went to bed at about 11:20. At about 11:27, the opening sentence to a novel popped into my head and at about 11:28 I got up, resigned, and came in to the computer room to write. At about 1:20am, I went back to bed, 1400 and some words to the good.
I did not get up at 5:30 this morning. o.o
Evidently I need to tell myself every evening that 'tomorrow I will listen to my body', because my alarm went off at 5:30, I woke right up, decided to stay in bed another 10 minutes, was confused and tired at 6 when Ted got up, and proceeded to have another 60 minutes of weird but horrible dreams.
My first dream was that I was on a very huge rock that doesn't exist out at the edge of the inlet. It was slanted at about a 40 degree angle and I was lying upside-down on it and afraid I was going to fall off. Then it turned into a dream where Ted was trying to seduce me but paused in the beginning of it to tell me my hair looked childish, which I reasonably took offense to. Furthermore, I kept falling asleep during this sequence (made obvious because I would periodically snore, and I was semi-lucid and could hear the snoring so it really threw me off). Shortly after that, I was at what was apparently my parents' wedding (my parents were their current age and, so far as I could tell, had been married all along, but dreams don't bother with that sort of detail), which was being arranged by Laura-whose-wedding-I-went-to-in-September's *friends*, none of whom knew my parents and many, many of whom didn't know me. The wedding was to be held on a beach. No one knew where the guy who was supposed to be performing the ceremony was. My mother was getting increasingly crabby.
At that point I got up, in self-defense.
Walking 5 miles around an ice rink is 1. extremely boring, 2. extremely stinky (there were hockey players changing clothes) and 3. extremely obnoxious (hockey players slamming pucks against the plexiglass *and* 12 year old boys who were up next for the ice). I also did 1 fast circuit on the weights at 1xMoreWeightThanNormal, but I'm too brainless to write down what exactly I did. Upper body, anyway.
I slew a bug at work today that's been haunting me for weeks. *waves a little flag*
miles to Rivendell: 340
nnwm wordcount: 6203
ytd wordcount: 219,500
I actually got up at 5:30 this morning. Well, 5:40. And it was much less difficult than getting up at 7:30 is. Go me. And, having gotten up that early and needing something to do, I wrote 1030 words. Go me, twice. :)
There's about two inches of snow on the ground, and it's still snowing, albeit lightly. Chanti really loves the snow, and dances around like an absolute idiot when put outside. :) My enthusiasm for /walking/ in the snow is less than I hoped, though. I'm going to have to do something about that. I wish it weren't dark at 4:30. Wretched winter.
Speaking of Chanti, I actually went and looked up a bunch of obedience class things and found one for older puppies that starts in January and meets on Mondays, so I think I'll need to get signed up for that.
Bunch of updates on the Writer's Weekend site.
Um. Hm. Guess that's about all for right now.
Having gotten up later than necessary, eaten more cake than I really wanted, and walked less than I wanted (although I blame that on the early-setting sun and the icy paths), I think I will try an experiment tomorrow. Tomorrow, I shall attempt to listen to my body instead of letting my brain overrule it. Stupid brain.
Whew. I got my benefits stuff taken care of without having to trust it to my HR. Now I'm trying to make sure I know exactly how to put in all of the hours of vacation/personal time/leave/whatever that I've taken over the year while I couldn't get in to the stupid system to mark 'em down.
John Scalzi of Whatever! is doing a Christmas charity drive for literacy. His plan is to write 3 short stories (or rather, two and a poem), which he'll be putting behind a password. He's asking for a $3 donation to access those. There's more information about it in his posting here. A worthy little cause, I think.
Teresa Nielsen Hayden has a magnificent, hearbreaking posting of writings, photographs, and now, commentary from her readers, about today, Armistice Day, and the memorials of the Great War. I've already seen a number of blog postings about today being Veteran's Day, and that's a little startling to me, as I've never really noticed the holiday before. Which goes to show you, I think, just how much of an American I am. Or how little a soldier.
I thought I was going to have more links to post this morning, but that seems to be about it. Off to work and slave, now.
Know what I did today? I did a lot. I baked two loaves of white bread and a loaf of cinnamon raisin bread, made a german-chocolate cake and a tuna noodle casserole, wrote 1300 words of Pure Drivel, walked 5 miles and did 150 crunches. I'm all tuckered out!
miles to Rivendell: 334
nnwm wordcount: 5173
ytd wordcount: 218,500
Eventually I'm going to learn to override my brain with actual forethought and knowledge, and instead of talking myself into going back to bed when I wake up at 5:30, I'll just get up. Stupid human.
We missed the eclipse, but I saw the Man in the Moon for the first time in my whole life, so that was pretty keen!
It finally stopped raining/greying/being awful today, and so I took Chanti on a walk, which I hadn't done for three whole days (bad human) and we walked *five* miles. She was exhausted. Hee hee hee. :)
miles to Rivendell: 324.5
What I Have Been Doing The Last Two Days:
Diddly.
Followed up by squat.
A whole lotta nothing.
Not a darned thing.
Nuthin'. Nope. Not me. Why? Have you?
Actually, that's not exactly true. But it is *gloriously* true in the sense of not working. Two days off has been bloody well *liberating*. I feel a whole lot more relaxed than I have in ages. This is the first time, um. Since, um. Drawing a big ol' blank here, in fact. The first time since I apparently literally can't remember when that I've taken time off when I wasn't either 1. travelling, 2. sick, or 3. writing like mad.
So what I *have* done is seen several movies (Matrix Revolutions (not a second time, just the once); Love Actually (which I enjoyed quite a bit); The Recruit (which we rented on DVD and which was better than I expected), and The Replacement Killers (which we own and which is one of those comparatively rare movies that I apparently have a very high repeat factor on; it ends so *well*)). I have run about with Ted on a zillion little errands. I have, in general, enjoyed the *hell* out of getting out of the house for hours at a time with no reason to get back to work.
I have read three books and I had an epiphany this morning while reading a couple of the romance novels Sarah sent me: I have had several cold readers (ie, people I don't know who have no reason to spare my feelings or to interpret my writing based on what they know of me) say that I need to work on my characterization. I think what they're looking for is essentially emotional motiviation, which you get HUGE AMOUNTS OF in romance novels (Sarah calls this "emotional blort"), and very little of in science fiction/fantasy novels (and perhaps also not so much in mystery novels; guess which two of the three listed genres I read). In SF/F, when you have emotional motivation, it tends to be sort of high concept: The Bad Guy Has Kidnapped My Sister, And I Must Accomplish These Tasks To Rescue Her. SF/F and mysteries present a problem to be solved far, far more often than they present an emotional entanglement (or lack thereof) to overcome.
I believe what people are telling me I'm missing is the emotional blort. I read and write sf/f and mysteries; it doesn't at all surprise me that I would tend towards writing that way. Particularly since the emotional blort makes me feel uncomfortable, both as a reader and a writer. As a reader, I go, "Come ON, people don't REALLY express all those mucky feelings to themselves in so many words, *do* they? Ewwww," and as a writer I suspect that I fear being too obtuse and so err on the side of Extreme Crypticness.
So I think I've learned something! It's been a very worthy day!
We have also eaten out, decadently, *several times* in the last couple of days, including an extremely fine meal at Aladdin's this evening, and lunch at the Crazy Croissant, a bakery/restaurant nearby where we not only had lunch but Ted also hit them up for a possible summer job, as he's thinking of getting a summer job in a professional bakery and then doing his internship in spring 2005 at a high-end restaurant so that he has experience in the two different sides of being a professional cook, and he can decide if he likes one or the other better.
We harrassed the guys at the comic shop, and we dropped by Blaine's (the art supply store, which, sadly, does not rent silk-screening equipment); we hung out with my parents for a few hours last night and talked about educational politics and ate pizza; we ran errands hither and yon, and we have generally had a couple of very, very excellent days.
And now I am taking my happy and excellent self to bed, because it's sleepy out.
Pretty much enjoyed Matrix: Revolutions although there were some pacing problems with it. Nothing can match the sheer unexpected grandeur of the first one, but there were some magnificent special effects and I was pretty satisfied with the ending. Perhaps I'll talk more about it later when more people've seen it.
My HR are raving idiots. I have 13, not 8, days of vacation left. I am taking 2 of those days tomorrow and Friday, and I'll be around a bit, but I'm primarily intending to read, write, gym and walk. I am at the moment some 5100 words behind on my NNWM novel, and I plan to catch up. Which means, er, some 12,000 words of writing over the next four days, so hrm that's a lot. Anyway.
Bed now. *tud*
Tor doesn't accept multiple submissions unless you're 1. published or 2. an agent. So Anna invited me to send the manuscript to her if Luna passes on it, but I hope I won't have the opportunity. :)
miles to Rivendell: 319.5
I'm reading (not at this red-hot moment in time) this book, THE SHADOW OF ARARAT, by Thomas Harlan. I'm about fifty pages in, and I'm bored out of my mind. I just asked on Too if anybody'd read it, because I don't think I want to continue if it doesn't get better. Nobody has read it, but I'm pretty sure it doesn't get better, because the problem is in the writing, which goes something like this:
"She braced herself against the spear as she kicked with her right foot. It connected, and she spun, still braced on the spear. She swept a wicker basket up as the kick ended, again using her right foot. The basket flew across the square to hit the second bad guy on the left in the small of the back. He fell, first to his knees, then to his face, mud splashing through the strands of his dark brown hair."
(This is not a direct quote. It's just what it reads like.)
Nobody's read it, so I checked Amazon's reviews. The publisher reviews are glowing. The customer reviews read like this:
"Ambitious, sweeping and boring.... though I tried very hard, I felt no identification with the protagonists. The author does a wonderful job of describing what they wear, what they look like and the landscapes through which they pass. But as for what makes the people tick--nothing. ...Two stars for technical excellence."
and
"Mr. Harlan's gift for verbosity is not matched by a gift for clarity, so often you will not really be sure what happened at all--but, what the heck, just shrug and go on to the next hundred pages, I mean, what difference does it make? ...And, if you are like me, you will find yourself caring less and less, and skimming, and skipping, and then, at the end of volume II, going to the nearest large trash container, tossing both volumes into it, and thanking heaven you didn't buy all four."
There are, of course, also positive reviews from readers, but these sorts weigh more heavily. I think I'll spare myself the joy.
Hell with it. Intend upon reading/napping after work. Writing and walking will have to come tomorrow. Just too damned tired to care.
I have taken niherlas' wife's advice (and Sarah's, too, for that matter), based on the fact that she (niherlas' wife, whose name I don't know, hence the appellation) used to work at Del Rey and presumably knows whereof she speaks, and I have called the editor who has US to ask if she's okay with multiple submissions.
However, she's out of the office until 'next' Thursday. From her voice mail, I think that 'next' is the 6th, rather than the 13th, so I left her voice mail and hopefully I'll hear from her Thursday or Friday. If not, I'll give her another call Monday.
Now I'm dithering about whether I ought to respond to Anna's email now and explain what's up, or if I should wait to hear from the other house. Hm. I think I'll probably email.
Way. Too. Early.
I had to get up for a 7am meeting with our Irish clients. The particularly *horrible* thing is that it was the *second time* this morning that I had to get up early. Ted and I got up at 4:30, too, to bring Aberdeen to the airport. *glrrk*
Hungry and tired now. Probably not really going to get to nap, either.
Didn't write last night. :P
miles to Rivendell: 316
Good grief. Never rains but it pours. I just got email from Anna at Tor requesting the complete manuscript for URBAN SHAMAN. Which is at another house right now, which means I have to figure out what proper ettiquette is, now.
Glargh. Two rejection letters. Both from Marvel. Thank God. I think I would've just died if I'd gotten two rejection letters from, say, Luna and Tor today. o.o
This is the note I sent to the woman in charge of the writer's group regarding the last entry:
So on Saturday I was at Title Wave, and I saw the writer's group, and I thought, "Wow, I really need to start coming to this; the participation level is way up from what I'd seen before, that's great!"
Then my friend and I sat down in the general stage area to carry on our conversation while we had breakfast before shopping. When my friend's voice rose to a near-normal speaking level, we were summarily shushed; two minutes later someone came over and Spoke To Us about our noise level and said perhaps we didn't know, but this was a writer's group, and they'd *reserved* this area. The woman called us both "dear", which is not an endearment when delivered with an admonishment; it's condescending.
The writer's group isn't paying for the space they're using in Title Wave; I checked. Nor, by definition, have they reserved the entire stage area; I checked about that, too. Title Wave is providing a space in a public area for this group--and many others--to meet in for free. This doesn't preclude other members of the public from using that area while specific groups are meeting. Had we been full-voiced and rowdy, I might see some cause for annoyance on the writing group's part, but given that we were speaking in bookstore/library-acceptable tones, I'm astounded by the rudeness and inexplicably proprietary behavior of the woman we spoke to.
Please remove me from this list. I have no wish to be associated with your group.
Thank you.
So Emily and I had an Unpleasant Experience at Title Wave on Saturday.
We went over to--well, I was going to do my NNWM kick-off, but then it turned out my laptop battery doesn't work at *all* anymore--so it turned out we went to Title Wave because it was a nice way to spend some time. Anyway. We stopped at the grocery store and got doughnuts and orange juice and walked over to Title Wave and went to the general lounging area by the stage to eat and talk. Emily was telling me about a tv show.
There was a writer's group meeting several feet away from us. I happen to be on this writer's group email list, and when I came in and saw there were 10 or 12 of them, I thought, "Wow, I relly ought to start coming to this! There's a lot of people there!" So, aware of the writer's group over there, Emily and I were talking quietly to one another. As Emily reached the climax of the story, her voice rose to a not-yet-full-speaking-voice level.
Somebody at the writer's table said, "SHH!"
Emily and I startled, and looked around, and we were the only other people in the /area/, so the "shh" had to be for us, although it honestly seemed very unlikely, because we weren't being very loud. After a moment or two we were kind of like, "Okay, whatever," and went back to our conversation.
About two minutes later a red-headed woman from the writer's group came over and said to Emily, "You have a wonderful voice, my dear, but it really carries. I don't know if you know this, but we're a writing group and we've *reserved* this area."
Emily and I stared at her incredulously. She put her hand on my shoulder and said, "Don't worry, we couldn't hear *you*, dear," to me. I said, rather frostily, "That would be because I wasn't doing most of the talking."
The unpleasant woman went away after another few moments of admonishing us for having the nerve to talk in a public area.
Tha' *fuck*?!
Hello! Public area. Goody for them, they'd *reserved* the space, but they weren't *paying* for it, and it wasn't as if we'd been having a high old time of partying it up and laughing and yelling. What absolute *bastards*. So yesterday I went over to Title Wave and talked to one of the managers and registered a complaint against these people, because, as the manager said, "They haven't reserved the whole *store*." It's a public goddamned area! What complete *snots*.
Obviously, I'm a little pissed off about the whole thing. And now I'm going to go write email to the woman who runs the list (I'm quite sure it was she who Spoke To Us) and tell her to remove me from it because I have no interest in being associated with shitheads. I may not use those exact words. Then again, I may.
It's NaNoWriMo! And, true to the NNWM spirit, I am writing pure crap! However, I've written 3867 words of pure crap in the last 2 days, which is a whole lot more than I've written in quite some time, and it can be fixed later.
nanowrimo wordcount: 3,867
ytd wordcount: 217,200
miles to Rivendell: 312.5
Oh dear God.
I have an embarrassingly stupid homophonic error in the Angles manuscript. Worse than just having the error, it's a QUOTED error. Quoting LEWIS CARROLL.
Ceiling wax. Sealing wax.
I have never, in my entire life, had any idea what ceiling wax was.
Mortified.