In a minute here I'm going to start getting my THUNDERBIRD FALLS copy edits typed in. Really.
I'm done. Except cleaning the fridge. The counter's cleared, the cleaners are here, the garage is sorted into Salvation Army, Dump, Apartment and Post Office. Shaun's doing the first Sallie Army run now. Actually, he's back and about to do the second one now. He brought me hot chocolate. He is a god among men.
I felt guilty about not cleaning the house myself right up until the minute the nice ladies arrived to start cleaning it. Now I'm just really glad somebody else is doing it. Carpet cleaners get here at noonthirty, so hopefully they won't all get in each other's way.
Jai and I went out to dinner at Orso's last night, and had very very very good food and a very very very pleasant time. We even split the leftovers and each took some of each home so our families could try the very very very good food. :)
Mmm. Ted just came by. He's going to go get me a doughnut. He, too, is a god among men. It's hard to live with gods, but somehow I'll persevere.
Ok, so I lied about the copy edits.
Random stuff is piled on the kitchen counter. I have no boxes to put the random stuff in. But beyond that, we're out of this house. The cleaners are coming sometime in the next few hours; I suppose I'll cease having connectivity somewhen around then.
We have to go to the post office.
I should wash the fridge out.
*stares around blearily* Are we there yet?
The living room is emptied out except for the things in the center of it which are going to Salvation Army, and the pile of boxes and envelopes I'm shipping all over the world.
The bedroom is emptied out except one pair of shoes, a laundry basket full of hangers, and a bag of garbage.
The closets, excepting the coat closet downstairs, are empty.
Shaun's bedroom has only enough for him to sleep on tonight, and will be empty in the morning.
The bathrooms are empty.
The kitchen is still bordering on disaster.
I am about to clean off my computer desk, and the boys will remove it shortly after that. Shaun's desk will go away tomorrow, leaving the office empty except for Ted's desk, which the man buying the house wants.
The garage is empty.
None of us seem to really be able to see further than one small task at a time, but we're wash rinse repeating those small tasks at what seems, at this juncture, to be top speed.
Bird by bird, buddy. Just take it bird by bird.
Bother. My posting got eaten, apparently because of slowness on the wireless network at Hot Licks. And here I was all excited about getting to do a wireless post, 'cause I've never done one before! hmph. :) Ted figured out how to make the wireless on my computer work, 'cause he's very clever, and now I have all the power. Muahahahah. :)
So I've been working all day on the copy edits for THUNDERBIRD FALLS, which are, as advertised, very light. Like, I've been working on them about 4 hours and have only about 80 pages left.
Oop, there's Ted, so I must shut down and go off to shop. :)
The movers have come and gone. A nice man arrived on the doorstep about half an hour after they came and went and bought every piece of furniture in the house except the computer desks, which he probably would've bought if he'd had more room in his truck and trailer. He didn't pay all that much for everything, but he TOOK THEM AWAY, which is all I care about at this point.
However, it did mean we had to go check into corporate housing a few days early, because we no longer have a bed.
We also went and signed the closing paperwork on the house. It is now official. There is no turning back (not that we were planning to). The house belongs to somebody else, and it's now just a matter of cleaning it, getting our clothes, and getting out.
I'm too gorram tired to have much feeling about this one way or another.
The movers arrived. But before the movers arrived, my copy edits for THUNDERBIRD FALLS arrived.
They want them back on the 3rd. Of course.
They claim they're very light, and hopefully they really are. I think I may go take myself to a coffee shop tomorrow and sit there all day and go over them. Just to be out of the house. There's one scene I'm going to rewrite so I can use the results in a later book, but other than that I think I'm pretty satisfied with the state of the book, so with any luck it won't be a too-arduous process.
The movers just said to me, "So you're an author?", as they'd just packed a box full of 234536987 copies of the same two books. :)
Starting to feel slightly less panicked.
The movers will be here...sometime in the next few hours. Things are ... more or less ready for them. More, really, but even once they're gone there's going to just be a lot of mess and a lot of furniture still in the house. The word 'stressbunny' comes to mind. I just want it all gone. Is this the part where we get to start screaming?
Ok. I'm going to go shower and get dressed, because they might be here at 8am, and I need to be ready.
The fruits (and sweets) of my labor:
That's considerably less than half the jam I've made, but a lot of it has been packed up to be sent away at this point. And there was a whole other counter full of it that I just didn't feel like moving to where I was taking the picture. The brownies have been decimated and 3/4ths of the fudge has been sent off to Ted's work, so those aren't particularly representative of how much there was, either. Still. That's a lot.
I was saved from having to make bread by dint of being completely out of white flour once the snickerdoodles were done, and discovering I only had half a cup of wheat flour left. Whew. Two batches of jam and three of cookies is enough for one morning. (ETA: Hm. I see I said that in the last post, too. Nice girl. Not too bright.)
Breaking for a little while, and then back to sorting. This is not ANY FUN AT ALL.
Approximately 9 dozen (or possibly slightly more) cookies so far this morning: chocolate chip, oatmeal raisin, and snickerdoodles. One batch of blackberry jam. I was saved from having to make bread because I was down to a half cup of wheat flour, which wasn't enough. Whew.
One batch of strawberry-rhubarb left to make (must get to it, would like to be done by 10), and then there are essentially no raw materials left to bake with.
Anybody want a cookie?
In the meantime, Lithera has linked to a random facts about Vin Diesel generator. I could be here all day. O.O My current favorite: Thor once challenged Vin Diesel to a duel at sunrise, but backed off when he saw Vin eating rusty nails for breakfast that morning.
Off to make jam. And then maybe have some breakfast.
miles to Mount Doom: 199
Would someone please explain to me why it is that when I have junk food in the house, I eat it even if it makes me feel bad, and even if I am consciously aware every time I get another piece of it that it is going to make me feel worse? I will, at the moment, attribute part of it to being stressed out, but it's more like pathological stupidity. And yet I keep making the deliberate choice: yes, I'm going to eat this piece of fudge/this brownie/whatever. *sigh* I'd ask for a do-over, but it's pretty clear idiocy would continue to reign supreme. :P
Argh. My entry just got eaten.
Marith had an extraordinary dream. I think you should all go read it. Not only is the dream itself wonderfully creepy and fascinating, but she did a wonderful job writing it.
I have made fudge, brownies, and two batches of jam. I think I shall make oatmeal cookies next, and maybe chocolate chip cookies after that. I believe I'll be running low on raw materials by that time. Oooh. I could make snickerdoodles, too! And I'm going to ask if B&N objects to me bringing in goodies at the booksigning, because nothing gets people's attention like free food. :)
miles to Mount Doom: 197
today I am making jam. Actually, I'm done making jam because I'm out of jars. Have to get more this afternoon. I'm also going to make fudge and brownies so that I use up as much baking stuff as I can, and tonight we have to finish splitting out storage unit things from everything else, because Christ, it's Wednesday, and the movers come Friday, and augh and gah and agh.
The worst part is the mess. That's why I feel so out of control. Everything's a mess. I want it to be unmessy. (I suppose that by Friday afternoon it will be.) There's not really that much left, it's just ... a mess. :P
*radiates amusement and laughter* Okay. I've been mentioning this hither and thither without doing a real official announcement, and at this point people are starting to notice the hithering and the thithering and asking questions, so let me put it out here now:
Ted, Shaun, and I are moving to Ireland.
To answer the questions that are most often asked:
1. Yes, Ireland.
2. Because we can.
2a. Dual citizenship, far more interesting culinary opportunities than Anchorage provides, Catie's immediate family have all moved over, tax benefits for writers, national healthcare, Europe's right there for the visiting, good tourist industry for a B&B someday, grand adventure!
3. Yes, the animals are coming; no, they don't have to be quarantined.
4. Yes, for good, or at least a good long while
5. Somewhere outside Dublin, at least initially. I'd like Bray, myself.
6. Ted will get a job. I will continue to write. Shaun will take things as they come.
We close on the house on Friday. We're renting corporate apartments for November, because the animals can't travel til then. I leave on the 7th to go find us a place to live; I'll be staying with my parents in the interim. Ted, Shaun and the pets leave at the end of November. We had hopes of doing a US tour and visiting people on the way out, but practicality raised its ugly head and we're now looking at visiting in February or March.
Any questions? :)
(ETA:
7. Shaun is our housemate.
7a. None of your business. :))
Know what today is?
Yes, yes, it's the 25th of October, but know what that *means*?
It means WINTER MOON is officially out! Quick! Go forth and buy it!
It *also* means my friend Tamara Siler Jones' second book, THREADS OF MALICE, is out! Quick! Go buy it, too! :)
Well, 3 out of 5. It'll do.
thinks to do tomorrow:
1. call about audi
2. make some jam
3. wrap artwork
4. pack boxes
5. write letter
6. call about utilities
...yeah. that'll do for the moment, anyway.
thinks i'm doing today:
1. ripping music
2. laundry
3. packing boxes to mail
4. placing ads
5. writing shaun's letter
honestly, if i manage all those, i'll consider it a win.
I'd like to know why it is that two weeks before I leave, I manage to get a social life. It was a busy weekend! Friday night we had our final gaming session. *laugh* Poor Ted. He had all this flavor text ready for us, but we'd just come off killing five vampires and we were barely on our feet, and when we arrived at the docks and a tall pale dark-haired man said, "Greetings," in a Slavic accent, we all said, "AAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!" and began shooting. Even Shaun's character, who doesn't carry a gun, grabbed somebody's gun and started shooting. Ted was like, "Are you *really* going to do that?", and we said, "YES!" So it turned out our gaming session was pretty short, because we'd skipped all the roleplay part of it. *laugh* But we had a really good time!
Saturday evening we went over to Calex and Kim's for dinner, which was delicious. I talked too much, mostly about books. :) But it was fun anyway, and it was a really nice way to spend an evening.
Then SUNDAY I had coffee with Jai, as usual, and that's always nice, and then afterward I went to lunch with a high school friend I haven't seen *since* high school, fifteen years ago. To our huge amusement, we were dressed almost identically. *laugh* So that was *lots* of fun. We spent about two hours talking over lunch, catching up and giggling over old times and new, and just generally having a grand old time. ALL the social activity!
Ted and I went to "Elizabethtown" yesterday evening, and while it wasn't quite as bad as the reviews said, it *was* rambling and verging on pointless, with some bad setup. But there were funny bits, and I left the theatre smiling and content, so it accomplished something it should have, anyway. :)
I think I may go back to bed now.
Good heavens. Today is my friend Janne's birthday. Janne turned 28 the year I met her; I remember quite specifically four years ago thinking I was the age then that she was when we met. We both of us thought that was pretty funny. Time, she had flown!
Time, she has flown even more. I've known Janne--who is one of my oldest Internet friends--for twelve years now. I figured out she was in Europe in early 1994, not because of any idiomatic uses of language, but because of the hours she was online to play at TwoMoons, the Elfquest MUSH we both frequented. Janne taught me HTML, for Heaven's sake. From Norway. In November 1994. My *career path* for most of the last eight years has been because of her. (That's a good thing!) It's unquestionable that without the net I never would have met her.
And yet I was one of the very first people she told when she was pregnant with her daughter Catriona, who is named in part after me. Pretty soon I'm going to be living in Europe, too, and with any sort of luck we'll be able to get together and hang out a couple times a year, which would rock beyond words. Such is the strange and wonderful world we live in.
Happy birthday, Janne. I hope you've had a fantastic day. :)
(Also, on a completely unrelated note, it appears to be a good day for my friends turning in dissertation drafts. Congrats, Laura and Lance, and good luck.)
I'm borrowing what I'm sure Deborah didn't mean to be a meme and running with it, because yesterday was a very stressful day and focusing on some Good Things seems like a great idea. So, Ten Good Things About Today:
1. The panic-inducing idiocy of the British government telling me that our pets would have to go into 6 months of quarantine upon arriving in the UK because Alaska was not on the list of PETS-approved *countries* has been resolved by pointing out that Alaska is in fact part of the United States. This garnered not only a very nice apology, but also the unasked for but *extremely* welcome information that we can get the pets out of Alaska however we feel like, but then need to put them on a PETS-approved route/carrier. It's leaving the continental US that's the important bit. Thank *God*.
2. I have new clothes. Ted and I had a shopping accident last night. Ted came away with 6 new shirts and a pair of leather gloves; I came away with new bras, panties, socks, 2 pairs of pants (teal cords!) and a skirt (!).
3. A fair bit of triage was completed yesterday. More will be completed today.
4. I am 44K into my novel. This is still a fair distance from being on the downward slope, but it's a good start, and I'm moving forward despite, er, moving.
5. My husband doesn't think I'm a horrible wife for not getting up and making him lunch this morning. (I'm only guessing about this, as he hasn't verified it, but I'm probably right.)
6. My sassy glasses match my new teal cords. This makes me irrationally happy. :)
7. I have a new laptop which will run Photoshop and connect to the internet, thus allowing me to do the contract work which has not yet actually materialized. (It would help, probably, if I filled out the paperwork.)
8. I weighed in at 155 this morning. I haven't been losing weight, but I've maintained this weight within a pound or two for three months now. That's good.
9. I've gotten all the addresses I need and can now make up packages and go to the post office. This is more of an accomplishment than it sounds like.
10. I had very funny email from my sister this morning:
i have a bone to pick with you. It's very hard to put a baby to sleep when you're trying to turn the pages of Heart of Stone with your toes while it's on the bed but you can't stop reading to put the child to sleep. (the child generally wakes again when the page is turned, you see.)do you see why that's a problem? but now i have an even bigger problem. i'm done with it. ;/
11. (A bonus one) My new pants and skirt are Mixit brand, and I like those because the squiggle they use for the X makes the whole thing render as 'Miz Kit' in my brain. It's like having my very own clothing line. :)
I have just gone through my wardrobe. Again. And gotten rid of a significant chunk of stuff. Again. I now own maybe half a dozen outfits, mostly dresses and suits, that I have had in my possession for more than six months. Everything else is new. At least one of those outfits is bordering on too big, but I won't get rid of it until it really is too big, because it's my Magnificent Red Blazer, which is too awesome to not wear until I really can't anymore. Another is my wedding dress, which is bigger on me now than when I got married. I believe there are 3 other dresses, a shirt, and two fuzzy pullovers left. Other than that, and some sentimental t-shirts that I don't wear, I've gotten rid of a decade or more's worth of clothes. The mind boggles somewhat, it does.
*sigh* Okay. Moving on to try to triage the next thing.
I went to bed at 2am last night, or something equally stupid. I have concluded I'm probably stressed about moving, as doing things for that was what was eating my brain last night. Well, that and Mike & the Mechanics' "Living Years", which, I swear to God, if I ever get a time machine I'm telling that stupid bastard to go talk to his goddamned father before the old man dies, because that fucking song has been stuck in my head for days, and it is just *depressing* as *shit*.
Where was I. Oh yes. Anyway, so I'm performing triage on the downstairs today. I still want to nuke it from orbit, but it's a little better than it was, and I'm not done yet. *sigh* I'm also listening to Meat Loaf (well, Jim Steinman songs, as I've got Pandora's Box in there too) at full blast, which is cathartic, anyway, and I've turned every light in the house on, which helps somewhat.
Still grumpy, though. :P
Can't sleep. Clowns will eat me.
I have no idea why I can't sleep. I got up at 6am yesterday. I should be dead to the world, but instead if I go to bed I lie there feeling grumpy about not sleeping.
I wonder if writing would put me to sleep.
Today has been a fine cat-explodey kind of day on the writing front. I got about 5600 words written, nearly two chapters worth, and I'm just under 45K on the book. Charging merrily along, we are.
It never fails to astound me how much writing is about synchronicity. I'd just ripped out some of COYOTE DREAMS, and was trying to put thoughts together on how to go forward when I got an email from my agent with some comments about the proposal for the book. One of her comments gelled everything I needed with what I'd been thinking about, and voila, I have trundled on forward and am incorporating her comments to my satisfaction. (She was right, the thing she commented on really needed to be addressed, and I knew it before she mentioned it, but her bringing it up just then happened to be when and where I needed to have a nudge.) This happens regularly for me with writing, and I said to Ted, "What would I do if these things didn't happen?" He, placidly, said, "You'd come up with something else that worked," which made me laugh. :)
ytd wordcount: 208,800
Alanna arrived late for dinner last night. There is something of a saga herein.
It begins with my grandfather.
When the Old Man died, for some reason his oldest son, Hughie, Alanna's father, decided that the thing to do was bring his ashes to Croagh Padraig, the Irish holy mountain, to spread his ashes. Grandpa was not a religious man. Why this was the appropriate thing to do, the family as a whole is not certain. Regardless, that's what Hughie decided was the thing to do, and so he did it. Alanna went with him.
Croagh Padraig is not, so far as Alaskans are concerned, much of a mountain. It's some 3,000 feet high, and it's not like it snows on it or anything. A hundred thirty thousand tourists and pilgrims trek up it yearly, mostly in August. There is something that looks like a trail when you're going up, but when you're going down you realize it's not a trail; it's an old stream bed, and maybe a goat trail, and the wearing-down of a hundred thousand feet over decades. It is not, however, a real trail. Climbing it is a goodly hike. Hughie, rather like my sister, believed that mountains are for running up and down, so I expect Hughie and Alanna's trip up the mountain was fairly speedy. Once there, they prepared to spread the Old Man's ashes.
It was windy atop Croagh Padraig that day, as it usually is on mountaintops. Hughie flung the Old Man out into the wind, and the wind swept him up, gusted him around, and brought him right back into Alanna's lungs.* To this day, when this topic arises, Alanna peels her lips back from her teeth and makes clicking smacking noises as she tries to get the memory of that flavor out of her mouth and mind.
So that's our first experience with the spreading of ashes.
Now, Alanna's mother, Aunt Chris, died about ten years ago. Her children were, understandably, not prepared to do anything withthe ashes immediately after the funeral. They gave them to my mother, who is reliable, and for the last decade or so, Aunt Chris has moved from one house to another, living (for some value of the word) in various closets and garages, waiting for her children to all be in the state at the same time so they could spread her ashes together.
In June, my mother moved to Ireland and bequeathed Aunt Chris to me. She's been in our coat closet since then. Alanna brought this up Monday night when she dropped by to visit, and it led into a brief, animated discussion about the unusual literalness of skeletons in the closet. Before Alanna left that evening, I gave her her mother's ashes.
So yesterday, Alanna went out to near Earthquake Park to spread her mother's ashes, feeling that it was long past time this be done and that it was better to do it and risk her siblings' wrath than to continue to put it off. (I'm assuming neither of said siblings read my journal, else this is going to come as something of a shock to them.)
It was, as I mentioned, very windy yesterday.
(At this point, I said, "Oh no," although admittedly with a laugh.)
But Alanna did not inhale Chris. She merely got Chris in her shoes, her shirt, her hair and her eyes, and dumped rather a lot of her on the ground, because, as it turns out, urns are not particularly good things for shaking ashes from, and wind is unreliable stuff. Properly scattering the ashes required a fair bit of scooping handsful of ash up and tossing them into the wind, and prompted quite a lot of consideration as to what a superior method of ash-spreading might be. Alanna theorizes it involves a long-handled scoop and a brick wall between yourself and the other end of the scoop.
But Chris is safely scattered, and that is the story of why Alanna was late to dinner. :)
*I personally believe this is a family tradition that should be carried on. I think being brought up to Croagh Padraig and inhaled sounds like a pretty funny way to finish off my life. :)
Gah. Chanti and I just went for our walk, and it turned out to be *insanely* windy out. I had to carry my hat half the walk instead of wear it, because it kept blowing off my head. That was not really all that pleasant. Probably my critical error was walking around the small planes airport instead of sticking with the neighborhoods, but, well, I didn't know it was going to be that windy until I was already out on that route. Gah.
My cousin Alanna is in town and is coming over for dinner tonight. I'm considering having a sudden burst of cake-making, but if I'm going to I'd best decide immediately. The lemon cake is tempting me to make it again. Evil, evil lemon cake!
2K so far today. I'd like to get another thousand in. Donno if I will. Might depend on the cake...
miles to Mount Doom: 195
Early morning posting, because my fingers don't feel like typing words into my book, so I'm getting them used to the idea of having to type. (What? Don't other people do things like this?)
Next chapter of Ill Met by Moonlight is up. I really did have a good time writing that story. I wouldn't half mind getting a chance to write more about that character. :) Also, Jai spotted WINTER MOON at Barnes & Noble yesterday, so woot! De book, she is out! At least up here. :)
After what I thought was going to be a pretty false start to yesterday, Ted and I actually got a fair bit done. We spent a great deal of time shopping, although we didn't buy *that* much. I found a pair of gloves, so my little handles will no longer freezle when I walk the doggle, and Ted was in search of a hat to go with his new jacket, because he thinks it needs one (and also it rains a lot in Ireland, so a hat is a good thing). He put on a newsboy cap and it made me turn all pink, but for some reason he didn't buy it immediately. Generally speaking, I think if a husband puts on an article of clothing that makes his wife turn all pink, he should probably buy it immediately. (Though, really, that one was black and he ought to have bought the brown leather one he tried on later, as his coat is brown.) *pink* :)
Er. Right. Distracted, anyone? After shopping we came home and ended up going through a bunch of stuff and loading it into the Jeep and taking it to the storage unit, so we got a reasonable amount done, really. Oh, and we had coffee with Jai and Tori. While Jai was getting her coffee, Tori told me and Ted about how her class was going on a field trip to the Royal Fork ("80 kids went last year, and nobody got in trouble!"), and then they were going to see a show. I asked if it was a movie or a stage show and she said she didn't know, but it wouldn't be a puppet show. I asked why not, and she gave me this look of, "Oh my *God*, how stupid can you *be*?" and said, complete with eye-rolling and head-waggling, "Be-ca-a-a-a-ause *puppet shows* aren't for *third and fourth* graders!"
Ted and I nearly popped buttons trying not to laugh. *giggles and giggles* *Jeez*, dumb *adults*! *laughs and laughs*
Ok, it's 7, time to get to work.
miles to Mount Doom: 192
ETA: I have an anthropomorphic belief that my computer sends me messages. I just started playing solitaire on Nook. I won the first game I played. I truly believe this is the computer's way of telling me to quick fucking around and write. (What? Don't other people do things like this?)
Right. Work now.
Ted and I had a little Smallville accident yesterday. We watched the entire second half of season four, and now we are sad because we won't get to watch season five for a WHOLE YEAR. There are things I wouldn't have done (and there's one bit that I think was a critical mistake, but Ted says I'm a sadist), and while I know a lot of people think season four jumped the shark, I really pretty much enjoyed it across the board. It was nice to see Kristin Krunk get to do something that wasn't quite so wide-eyed perfect girl next door, and while there weren't as many chest-stabbing AUGH moments in the season as a whole, spending the whole day together watching it was really fun and decadent and we enjoyed ourselves a lot. :)
I even wrote a little yesterday. :)
There's a part of me that's tempted to write a Smallville novel. In my copious free time. Between writing things I'm being paid for, and moving across the planet. Of course, last time I wrote a tv tie-in, they cancelled the tie-in line. So maybe not this week. :)
ytd wordcount: 201,200
miles to Mount Doom: 189.5
My J. Peterman order has arrived. To my delight, everything, including the size 8 skirt-trousers fits, except one blouse that I wasn't sure of to begin with and which not only doesn't fit, but wouldn't look good on me if it did. It would've been fine if it'd been the kind of material I thought it was, but it wasn't, so. Anyway, that's maybe the only problem with J. Peterman's artistic renderings of their clothes instead of photographs. All I need now is a professional photographer... :)
It's gotten too bleeding cold outside to walk without gloves, and I can't find any. I must get some this weekend. My poor fingers are getting frozenated, and Chantico is getting extremely impatient about being house-bound. Poor puppy. :(
The Old Races deal has been this very exciting saga, and I'm going to use it to illustrate how, as a professional writer, you ought to choose your hills to die on. Also to tell you about how cool my agent is, and the sorts of things that go on behind closed doors while you're trying to work out a book deal.
So this is how it went (cut for length; LJ readers can click through above):
What Jenn and I had heard from Matrice on HEART OF STONE hadn't sounded particularly promising--they weren't sure it was fantastic enough for the Luna line or romantic enough for another Harlequin line, but Matrice wanted to hold on to it a little while longer and discuss it some more. So I figured, no sale there. That's part of why I pitched the book to Betsy Mitchell at RMFW.
Came home from the conference and Jenn called that Monday to say, "You and I have to talk."
And I'm thinking, oh, CRAP, did I really step on agenty toes by pitching at the conference? Augh! I'M SORRY I'M SORRY DON'T HATE ME I'LL BE GOOD! when Jenn says, "Luna's made an offer on Heart of Stone."
We spent a little while going, "Buh!" after that. :)
What they offered was a 3 book deal, mass market paperback, back to back to back release at the end of 2007 and in early 2008. Financially it was a solid offer. They've treated me *extremely* well at Luna, so that was obviously an highly positive aspect. They wanted all the books by June 2007, so they could all be put out rapidly. (I said, "What year is it now?" Jenn: 2005. Me: I can do that.)
What they wanted: to sex it up a bit. To, in fact, have Actual Sex as part of the storyline (you should've heard Jenn say that, too: it clearly had capital letters. Actual Sex.). Not necessarily in the first book, but in the trilogy, certainly. Actual Sex. More sexual tension, and Actual Sex.
And this is where you decide whether this is the hill to die on or not. Whether this kind of change to a book is going to do something to it that will make it something other than the story you want to tell. HEART OF STONE had already been through two significant revisions--one in which I wrote over a hundred pages of new material, and cut at least forty pages, another in which I cut another twenty-five or so pages. A great deal of work has gone into that manuscript. Whether I want to tackle another major rewrite is an important question, and could very well be a hill to die on. It was, at the very least, a hill to consider. I said, yes, I think I can do this, and Jenn had a couple of titles that Matrice and the other editors had suggested as research material, so I went out and bought and read them. (I actually got to buy and read romance novels as research! Do I have the most awesome job, or *what*?)
And then I went back to Jenn and said, "Hoo boy." Because the romance industry's idea of sexual tension is not my idea of sexual tension. In one of the books, the sexual tension was the hero and heroine's tingly bits tingling every time they looked at one another, although when they did have sex it at least had character development and story motion involved in it. In another, the hero and heroine jumped into bed in about chapter five and had enthusiastic sex for the rest of the book. This was not, in my opinion, sexual tension, and I told Jenn I saw some of what Matrice was after (a deeper emotional connection/awareness of attraction/etc on the characters' parts), and I could write a sexier story and up those quotients, but it was not going to look like a romance novel. I put forth early Anita Blake as an example of what I thought of as good sexual tension, and said if Luna was good with me writing it my way, we'd have a deal.
So Jenn went back to Matrice with that, and this is where my agent is worth her weight in gold. It was really *really* important to me that we not have any crossed wires on this, because I really very much did not want to say, "Sure! I can do that!" and have them expect something that looked like a romance novel and me turn in something that looks like my writing. I'd rather not have the deal than have the expectations be screwed up, and if I couldn't turn in what they wanted, we were all better off with no deal.
The upshot was Luna asked me to revise the synopsis with an eye to the emotional conflict changes that I'd make, and to rewrite a scene to bump up the sexual tension so they could see what I'd do with it. I did that, though by that time I was pretty nervous about the whole thing, and I wasn't *entirely* happy with the scene rewrite, because, as Jenn said, it was out of context at that point. Still, although I thought it was kind of stiff, I also thought it showed I could do what they were asking, and it got sent off to Matrice.
By that juncture I'd committed to the rewrites anyway. I'd brainstormed with people and discussed the story and thought about it a *lot*, and I could see a lot of ways that the rewrites would make it a deeper and more exciting story (no pun intended). So by then I *really* wanted them to buy it, because I was going to do the rewrites anyway. :)
And now they have!
I think it's incredibly important as a writer to be able to say, "Hm, ok, can these changes be made without diminishing the story *I* want to tell?" and be open to those possibilities. Sometimes the answer's going to be no, but in this particular case, not only do the changes not harm the story, I think they'll improve it. I think it's really interesting, with this book: it's been through huge changes already, and is going to go through more, but I really feel like the core of the story hasn't changed. I'm still working on the same book, with the same plot and the same characters. It's just that ... everything else has changed. :)
But then, you know, that's a good argument for why it's titled HEART OF STONE. *wink* :)
I'm deeply, *deeply* appreciative toward Jenn, who did a lot of legwork on this, and who was really there to play the go-between and make sure everything was clearly understood before we went forward. I suspect this was not at all a difficult deal in the scheme of things, and it didn't even actually *seem* difficult to me, but it was certainly the most complex deal I've had, so having somebody on my side to keep an eye out was a really wonderful thing. I yam a lucky writer. :)
HAH!
*beams idiotically*
The astute among you may have noticed that last week I mentioned Ted and I were going out to dinner to celebrate, and that I'd go into the details of celebration later. Now it is later!
I am *button-poppingly pleased* to announce that my publisher, Luna Books, has made an offer on HEART OF STONE and its two sequels (currently titled HOUSE OF CARDS and HANDS OF FLAME). For those of you playing at home, this is the gargoyle trilogy, which is as a whole known as the Old Races Trilogy.
The books will be released in mass market paperback (not trade!) at the end of 2007 and in early 2008, back to back to back. I'm very, *very* excited about this--it's *exactly* how I wanted them to be released--and from what's been said, they'll be concurrent with the Walker Papers (I expect they'll be released between between the 3rd and 4th Walker Papers books, as the Walker Papers seem to be having spring/early summer releases so far), so I'll have two fantasy series coming out!
It's been killing me not to talk about this! I actually got the offer the day after I came back from RMFW, but we had some pretty extensive talks about what they wanted and what I could do, which I will talk about in another post that will be titled, "Choosing the hills to die on". :)
SQUEE!
thinks to do over the next couple days:
1. email about travel routes for the pets
2. call about audi
3. call about corporate housing go over to rent corporate housing
4. photograph & list furniture for selling
5. call carpet cleaners
6. go through boxes & make storage unit run
7. watch more smallville
8. call about student loan consolidations
9. call utility companies
10. add things to this list as i think of them
11. call & see if anybody can recover the mac hard drive for me
12. call moving company to set up pack date
*laughs out loud* My interview with Dragonpage is online and available to listen to now! But the front page at Dragonpage says, "Interview with David Eddings & C.E. Murphy", which is much, *much* cooler than the actual truth, which is that there are interviews with David Eddings and C.E. Murphy, not a single interview in which we are both interviewed. *laughs more* (My bit of the interview starts at the 28 minute mark, FWIW.)
I made some hot chocolate, and that perked me right up, and now I've finished my Morrison scene. Poor Morrison. I like this scene. :)
Listless this morning. I went to bed too early, or too late, depending on how you look at it, but either way I was in the midst of REM sleep when the alarm went off, so I've never quite woken up properly yet today. I'm not tired enough to go back to bed, just tired enough to not be exactly functional. Plodding along with the writing. I'm on a Morrison scene right now, and those can be hard when they're not yelling at each other, so instead of doing much writing I'm sitting there staring blankly at the screen. Or, in this case, I'm coming upstairs to write a journal entry in hopes that my fingers will think this typing thing is cool, and will want to get right back to it at the other computer.
I have been forced to buy a new Ursula original: the dragglerabbit. I think it was the snazzy aviator goggles that did me in.
miles to Mount Doom: 188
4200 words this morning, and a possibility of a few hours of contract work a week doing web stuff this afternoon. That would be nice: just enough to give me a total change of pace for a couple hours a day. We'll see if it pans out.
Between Ted and I, some laundry's gotten done. Made some bread. I haven't cleaned the kitchen, though I should do that.
PFDs get deposited tomorrow. I'm going school shopping. :) Well, ok, not school shopping, but shopping! I already did some shopping, with the new leather coat and the new jeans and long-sleeved shirts, but I'm going to get some other good stuff from J. Peterman, and then, er, see if it fits.
Deborah asked me the other day if I was unaccustomed to thinking of myself as attractive, as I seemed to be more willing to experiment suddenly. I said no, I always thought I was attractive (fat, but pretty), it's just that I've finally gotten down to a weight I'm happy with again, and for the first time I also have the resources to buy the kinds of clothes I've always *wanted*. Less of a, "Look, I'm thin, time for a makeover!" thing than, "Look, I can justify spending the money to dress the way I've always wanted to because I'm not going to hopefully shrink out of those sizes anymore!"
I'll admit, the difference is slim (ahahaha), and the end results are pretty much the same, but the mental space is different! To me, anyway.
You know, much of the reason I've never cared for my full name is that I think it's very elegant, and I've never thought of myself as an elegant person at all. However, between losing weight and getting older, I'm starting to think I might be able to pull it off. This pleases me.
Oh! I read WINTER MOON last night. Those are three very different stories in that book (no surprise). I thought mine held up. I also still think it's pretty damned weird to be reading my own writing in an actual published book. Pretty damned weird, I tell you.
ytd wordcount: 200,400
miles to Mount Doom: 185
The bad news is I've just cut like a chapter and a half from my manuscript.
The good news is I decided what the problem was this morning or yesterday, can't remember which exactly, and instead of dithering for three weeks over whether to leave it or cut it, and therefore getting nothing done for all that time, I recognized the problem and am fixing it immediately. This, my friends, is what is called the learning curve. :) It's a pity, because I like the stuff I'm cutting, but odds are good there'll be a place for it in another book, and it is much better to be ruthless and fix it now than it is to dink around for weeks. I do not have time to dink around for weeks, and in this case 5K cut is *definetely* a step forward.
Sad, though, as I'd just hit 30K on the book. :)
Back to work. I am almost certain to not make up the 5K today, but if I'm diligent perhaps it'll be made up by tomorrow. *zoof*!
ETA: Good Lord! URBAN SHAMAN is out as an ebook! Also, I forgot, it's Monday, so the next chapter of Ill Met by Moonlight is up at the eHarlequin site. :) Oh, and if you really want to read "Banshee Cries", the novella in WINTER MOON, the anthology is available for ordering now, thanks to eHarlequin's early release program.
God I love my job. :)
It was a very nice weekend. We gamed on Friday night for the first time in AGES, and although there was a lot of sleepiness going around, we managed to get through at least part of an adventure (vampires! dynamite! wrecked ships! very exciting!) before we broke early 'cause Jack had to fly away for something or other.
I honestly have no recollection at all of what we did Saturday during the day. I didn't work at all. I walked the dog, and I ... oh yeah. Now I remember. We rented a storage unit and Ted put comics in it while I made a cake and cleaned house a bit so it wouldn't be too embarrassing when our guests arrived. And I bought the dinky hat. I remember. :)
So Ted made lasagna for dinner and my old friend Calex who I've known since 7th grade came over with his girlfriend Kim, who completely rocks, and we ate and hung out and generally just had a really good time for several hours. Lots of fun, and Calex and I managed to not spend the entire evening remember-whening. :) Really nice evening. And then I collapsed into bed, *splat*, because of the enormous sleepies.
Yesterday Ted and I both bought new coats. Mine is a princess-seamed black leather above-the-knee-length trench sort of thing, and Ted's is a brown sueded fabric midweight thing with approximately five thousand pockets. We're both very pleased. :) We also went through boxes and determined what we could and could not live without for a year, and put the could-live-without into storage. The living room is considerably emptier now, and good grief, Shaun organized and cleaned the garage, and it looks like people who aren't us live here. :)
Attempted coffee with Jai yesterday, but was thwarted by Jai completely forgetting (fair dinkum, as I have on at least one occasion completely forgotten about coffee), so I dropped by her house briefly to deliver some lemon cake. She and Tori admired my new coat, which was an added bonus. :)
Ted bought season 4 Smallville and a computer game, and I bought a new pair of tiny hoop earrings so I'd have a tiny hoop (I can't spell 'hoop'; I've typed 'hopp' every time I've tried) for my 3rd ear hole, and we came home and had leftover lasagna and watched four episodes of Smallville. *laugh* This season is clearly not going to last very long. Gosh,it's all about the pretty naked people, though. We started out with Naked Clark and moved on to Half Naked Lex, at which point I said to Ted, "I like this season." Shortly thereafter we got Silhouetted Naked Lana In The Shower, and after that we started laughing when people started taking their clothes off, because there was so much of it. Somebody'd told me that 4th season was All About The Sex, and I guess it is. :)
*snicker* Ted installed his new computer game after we watched Smallville and as I was getting ready for bed, and so I had to ask him how long I should give him before I came and looked pathetic at him so he'd come to bed and not stay up too late. He said 20 minutes, so after 20 minutes I came and looked pathetic at him (he said, "Uh oh," when I opened the bedroom door), and when he came to bed a few minutes later he said it was probably good I'd done that, or he'd have probably stayed up way too late playing the game. I told him that after eight and a half years of marriage I thought it was pretty safe to say I had absolutely no doubt he'd have stayed up way too late playing the game, and he thought that was very funny and was glad I loved him warts and all. :)
Back to work now. :)
ytd wordcount: 196,200
miles to Mount Doom: 183
Somewhere in my youth I picked up the ability to look at a baking recipe and determine whether it was What I Wanted or not. I don't know how I do this, but I've innumerable times gone looking for a recipe for this or that thing and gone through five or ten or more recipes for it before I found one that looked right. Sometimes I haven't found one that looked right, so I've ended up taking the one or two that were closest and making the right thing out of them.
So it is with a bit of irritation that I have been for some years on a quest to find the Perfect Lemon Cake. My wonderful Meta Givens cookbook has one failure, and that's in this regard: its lemon cake recipe is a yellow cake recipe to which you add lemon, and it's just not right. So I've searched the net looking for the Perfect Lemon Cake recipe, and have largely come up dry: I've tried a few, haven't been happy with them, have found far more which are box cake recipes, and I don't make box cakes. (There's nothing wrong with them. I just happen to like baking from scratch, and I honestly don't think it's significantly more difficult to make a cake from scratch than from a box, so I don't make box cakes.)
A year or so ago I was at New Sagaya, a local grocery store. New Sagaya posts various recipes on pads around the store, and I happened on a lemon cake recipe this particular time. I read it, and I thought "...!", for it looked right. I took a copy and brought it home and made it. It was, in fact, extremely good.
I made it again yesterday. Having done this, I am now certain I've found, if not the *Perfect* Lemon Cake recipe, at least an extremely excellent one, and until it is supplanted by a better one, I declare it the Perfect Lemon Cake Recipe.
The Perfect Lemon Cake recipe is as follows:
Cream 2 sticks soft butter with 2 2/3 c sugar, 4 whole eggs and the rind of 6 lemons. Add 1 c sour cream. Sift 3 c flour with 2 tsp baking powder & add to mix. Add 1/2 cup lemon juice and mix well. Pour into 3 well-greased 8" pans & bake 50-60 minutes at 350 degrees, or until done. Glaze with 2c powdered sugar mixed with 1/3c lemon juice.
A couple of notes: you can make this cake in 2 8" pans, but it tends to overflow a bit. I really recommend going with 3. The recipe calls for it being baked in a 10" springform, but there's too much batter. It'll explode all over your oven.
Also, if you don't have fresh lemons on hand, 8tsp of dried lemon peel works perfectly well in place of the zest of 6 lemons.
This posting is largely for my agent, the incomparable Jennifer Jackson, who is a foodie and who has a food blog called The Spice Must Flow. I have absolutely no idea if she's in need of an excellent lemon cake recipe, but regardless, I am thinking of her as I post this. :)
I have a new hat. I am smug. I've had object lust for this hat since August, but I couldn't quite justify buying it (I easily justified buying the fedora, as I'd been looking for a really great fedora for years, but I simply had not been looking for a really great dinky red hat for years). However, I got paid yesterday, and in a paycheck-inspired fit of frivilous spending, went forth and bought the hat.
Now I need a red jacket that particular shade of red to wear it with. :) And a little black dress. And possibly some other things, too. :)
Shopping, I have discovered, is a great deal more fun if you're pretty confident you're going to fit into any random size 8 jeans you pull off the rack. I still don't have much patience for it, but it sucks a lot less than it did, oh, a year ago. :) I got another pair of jeans today (as I anticipate being in size 8s for a while, really), and several long-sleeved shirts, which is pretty much one of the signs of the apocalypse, because I Do Not Like long sleeved shirts. OTOH, I'm tired of being cold all the time! And I tried one of these ones on and they're not too tight through the arm, so they won't make the insides of my elbows itch, which is my primary objection to long sleeved shirts.
(Later, when I have my Awesome Leather Coat, I'm going to get some real femme fatale pictures taken with that fedora and my coat. :) But right now I have to go clean house, because we have guests coming to dinner. :))
Tammy tagged me to do this meme, which I haven't done in at least a few years, so okay. :)
1. Delve into your blog archive.
2. Find your 23rd post (or closest to).
3. Find the fifth sentence (or closest to).
4. Post the text of the sentence in your blog along with these instructions. Ponder it for meaning, subtext or hidden agendas…
5. Tag five people to do the same
*goes to count*
*laughs out loud* Oh yeah. I remember this entry. The fifth sentence is the not particularly interesting I'm not dressed up and I feel very dull (it was Halloween), followed by My cute, well-dressed coworker Rob claimed he'd dressed up as himself today, and I said, "Yeah, I was going to do that, but I don't have the clothes," which got a laugh, anyway.
But the good sentence in that entry is: *Spikebutt*.
Now, that's counting from Back In The Days Before I Had Blog Software, as I've been keeping an online journal since well before it was cool. *goes to look at the blog software version* Oh, that's not very interesting: And, uh, we bought a cat tree for the cats.
Oh, let's see, tagging people: Rill, Ellen, Janis, Aberdeen, Calene. There. :)
Me, September 2004:
Me, today:
A year ago today I quit eating sugar for 40 days. I lost 7 pounds without making any other changes in those 6 weeks. Over the last year, I've lost a total of 33 pounds, gone from something like 37% bodyfat to 29%, gone from size 16 jeans to size 8s, and lost something like 4 inches from my hips, waist and bust. I've been weighing in fairly consistently at my lowest maintained adult weight for three months now, which is 50 pounds lighter than my heaviest. My asthma and allergies have disappeared entirely (though I wouldn't want to put the latter up against long-haired cats, which bothered me before I got fat). My back problems are signficantly less problematic. Bending over to tie my shoes doesn't wind me anymore. I *fit* into every piece of clothing I own, *including* the size 7 denim miniskirt I have left over from high school. (I can't move in it, mind you, but it zips and buttons!)
In the past few months I've been pretty frustrated by not having reached my target goal yet (another 13 pounds down), but know what? Today I'm just pretty damned pleased with myself.
It has been a very excellent day. I had 3100 words written by 11am (O How I Love The Getting Up Early, Even If The Actual Getting Up Part Kind of Blows), and I can tell I'm really getting back into the writing groove because I don't want to play solitaire anymore. Instead, now, when I'm not sure what's happening next, I just zone out, which is really a lot better than playing solitaire. :) I'm also getting down the knack of writing some notes when I finish up the stuff I'm writing, so I have a clear idea of where to go next, and that seems to be working well. Most excellent.
Chanti and I went on a rather short 2 mile walk this morning, and then this evening I went on a regular-length 2.5 mile walk because it was such an absolutely beautiful evening. But between those things, I lunched and wrote another 1200 words, so overall it proved to be a really excellent writing day.
This evening, as a reward for my walking and writing diligence, I watched an episode of Highlander. I was going to watch two, but by the time I'd watched one and its extras, the sleepies were encroaching, so I decided a journal entry and a nap were in order. The sort of nap that lasts until morning. :)
Then I topped the day off with a glass of chocolate milk. *happy sigh* Life, my friends, is good.
ytd wordcount: 192,800
miles to mount doom: 177.5
(And, for your amusement, sheet music from hell.)
(ETA: News on Jim's Dresden Files tv series. Can you say GO JIM!?!?!)
Ted and I went out to dinner at Simon & Seafort's last night, in part because it was Dine for America day and they were giving 100% of proceeds to Katrina relief, and in part for celebratory stuff, which I'll talk about later. What I will not talk about is what my diet has been like for the last week, and the consequent reading on the scale. :P I'm supposed to get to go clothes shopping with my PFD, but I'm not buying anything until the scale reads a definitive 155 again. Stupid food.
Best bit about writing sequels: if there's stuff you cut from the last book, you might be able to use it in the next one. I have almost a whole chapter I can use that came out of THUNDERBIRD FALLS that fits much better into COYOTE DREAMS. Very, very smug. I hit 25K on the book this morning. More with the smug. :)
Also, this morning when the Vast Sleepies hit me, I stood in the kitchen and did some barre exercises, which are hardly enough to count as real exercise, but which did get the auld blood flowing enough to wake me up. Must remember that in the future. :)
Let's see. Anything else? Not really. Got 3100 words in yesterday, which was good. Right now I need 3K, or about a chapter, a day. As I adjust to getting up at 5:30, I hope to push that up to 4K: 3K on one project, 1K on a second. But 3K will do.
See, I'm writing again, so my life and my posts become all about the wordcount. And now I'm off to increase that count...
ytd wordcount: 188,500
miles to Mount Doom: 173
It is not yet 7:30am, and I have gotten nearly 1100 words written. The only bad thing about this is the getting up at 5:30 part. :) 1800 words yesterday; not quite as many as I wanted, but not bad. I did break the 20K mark on this book, which is sassisfying. Expect to hit 100 pages today. I have reached a part of the story where Jo sits down at her computer to research something, so I get to sit down at my computer to research it, too. :)
Let's see. We had Emily all weekend, which was wonderous nice. We garage saled to a fair degree of success, saw Serenity twice, I finished a Very Large book proposal and sent it off, and last night Ted and I watched the last two episodes of Dark Angel. I'm torn over whether I wish there'd been a third season. On the one hand, they pulled 2nd season together so nicely that yeah, I wish there had been. On the other, the show did a fair job of wrapping up in one way, and while *enormous* amounts were left unresolved, I think I almost like the open-endedness better than I'd like seeing what happened. I can't be sure they'd have done it right (they so often don't), and leaving it open is so much better than doing it wrong. I did have very vivid interesting Dark Angel dreams last night, though. They're writing DA books. That'd be fun to do. :)
*LAUGH* My sister just sent me a link for Seven Habits of Highly Successful People.
I've been getting fan mail this week. That's very nifty. :) Two people (this week) have asked about the bit in URBAN SHAMAN where Jo hits on the idea of starting with "one true thing", because it sounds like a quote but they weren't able to find it on the net. They can't find it because Jo doesn't remember it quite right; it's a Hemingway quote, about writers needing to start with one true sentence, the truest sentence they can write.
*yawn* And speaking of writing, better do my research and get back to work, for the great sleepies are encroaching upon me and it is best to get the work done before they win.
miles to Mount Doom: 172
I have plenty of things to talk about, but I can't think of any of them right now. :) We garage saled all weekend. I am eternally grateful for Emily's presence, as it prevented me from going stark raving bonkers with the boredom on Saturday after the initial rush, and kept me from panicking *during* the initial rush (we were supposed to start at 10. We decided to start moving things out to the driveway at 9:15. We got one table out, and people descended upon us. By 10:30, the only real rush we saw was gone, and we'd made the bulk of the money for the whole garage sale. Oi.). It was good.
We were annoyed that it was not-quite-raining but v. cloudy and damp both mornings of the garage sale, and beautiful out this morning. Then I saw the temperature this morning is 34, so maybe we're just as glad it wasn't beautiful out over the weekend mornings. It got much nicer in the afternoons, though.
Let's see. Anything else? Poor Ted had to be at work at 6:30 this morning, and I'm a horrible wife and didn't get up that early myself. Bad, bad Kit.
This has not been a very exciting update, but it's as good as it'll get for the moment. Off to work now!
miles to Mount DOOOOM: 169.5
Dinner: *stunningly* good. Ted made halibut with a feta-spinach stuffing and a lemon ... white sauce (there's a fancy word for it, but I can't spell it), over a mushroom risotto, and green beans. It was incredibly good. I made a turtle cheesecake. It was also very good, and now I know there's a such thing as soy cream cheese & sour cream, so next time I will be able to make a cheesecake that's ok for our very lactose-intolerant friend who came to dinner.
Serenity: AUGH. I really liked it, but AUGH! Huge plus: meeting a girl (Julie?) who saw my Joss is my master now t-shirt, so we talked crazily for a few minutes. She had a Jayne hat. :)
Garage sale: starts in 2 hours. Completely unprepared for it. Must send Emily out to get garage sale signs when she wakes up, because, heh, we didn't remember to do that.
Writing: not a damned chance of it.
Dear God. It's October.