I took the train out to Athy today, sort of experimentally. I bought a book to read on the train (SOUL MUSIC, which I enjoyed; I will have to read some more of the Susan books, I think), and went to the house, which, after a second inspection, I think is going to be Just Fine. It will require much girding, but the big pieces are all in place: beds, dining room set, living room furniture. We'll need to get a tv and (all-region) dvd player. O Irish Readers? Where does one make such purchases in this country? :)
On my way out of the housing estate I made a Very Important Discovery: I found an internet cafe. Only it's not a cafe, but that's not the point. I stopped in and said I was just moving in and did they have broadband there, and they did, which fills me with hope. Our house is not at all far from there, either as the crow flies or on street paths, so perhaps we'll get broadband! It won't happen next week, regardless, because the Irish are not an urgent lot, but it seems the possibility is there, which is, as they say, grand altogether. I'll go back and find out who their provider is, and also find out if I can bring my laptop in and plug it into one of their connections, which would be very splendid.
Having gone by the internet shop, I then walked the length of Athy, which didn't take all that long, really, and stopped at a restaurant where I had a tuna melt which was advertised as coming with chips, and which to my vast surprise and amusement arrived with both french fries *and* potato chips. I have visions of the waitress saying to the cook, "It's an American. Better give her some crisps 'cause the menu says chips." Either that or it's just the Irish habit of serving potatoes with their potatoes. :)
I thought the train back was at 2:30, but found out it was at 5 to 3, so I trundled over to the pool (which is across the street, literally, from the train station) and poked my head in to take a look, and ended up in a conversation with the woman whom I presume was the lifeguard, since she was sitting around being available to answer questions and watch people swim.
Not only did she tell me the adult swim hours (8pm 4 nights a week, plus Mondays except there are apparently kids there sometimes on Mondays because there's swim lessons immediately beforehand), she also wanted to know what other sports I liked, told me there wasn't step dancing but there was set dancing, did I know what that was, in Athy, and *really*, was I interested in horse riding, because her husband is horse-mad and has a thoroughbred who got injured and so he got him cheap (was the implication), a fat pony and just recently a new mare that he'd trained all himself and maybe once we're settled I could come 'round of a Saturdays and learn to ride and help exercise their horses. Oh, and another family member runs the karate dojo there and maybe my husband would be interested in that, if he practices martial arts. And a friend of hers' son used to go to Alaska in the summers to work, and when he finished university he went to live for a year and brought his mum and dad to visit and she said it was *gorgeous*. (Only they pronounce it "gaaaarrjes".) There's also apparently great tennis in Athy, if you're into tennis, and the new fitness center is breaking ground in February.
So that was quite something. :) I went home feeling quite happy about Athy. :)
Ted and Shaun should be in Chicago by now. Actually, they should have been there quite some time ago, and I presume they were. I hope it's all going well for them. It'll be good when everybody's here. *nodnod*
miles to Mount Doom: 261
I know there are at least a number of writers and aspiring authors who read this site, and probably there are at least some people who have partners who are writers who read this site.
If any of you are in need of an excellent Christmas present for writers, or for yourself, or are looking for critiques, feedback, or mentoring, have I got a deal for you.
Award-winning fantasy author Judith Tarr is offering mentoring services for twenty-five dollars an hour. I thought a four-hour package could be a really *awesome* present for somebody, so I thought I'd mention it here.
If you don't know Judy's work, you ... jeez. You should, is all I can say. *laugh* I really only discovered her work recently, although I've known of her for probably fifteen years, and once I started reading her stuff I started demanding why people hadn't told me to read her *years* ago. She's simply an astounding writer.
Judy is dancinghorse on LJ, or can be emailed at cait-brennan@sff.net (which I post publically only because it's posted on her website), or if you'd rather I gave you some kind of introduction, drop me an email at catie at cemurphy dot net and I'd be pleased to do so.
Honestly, this is a golden opportunity for writers looking for professional feedback on their manuscripts. Make your writer happy today! :)
I'm in the process of transfering my domain registrations to 100megsdomains, which is the counterpart to the 100megswebhosting company I use. As all of my domains are already served off 100megs DNS and nameservers, this should be a completely transparent move, but since there's always the distinct possibility, even likelihood, that something will go wrong, I thought I'd mention it in case my site goes down or I suddenly go email silent for a few days.
The latter of which is going to happen as of Thursday/Friday pretty much unquestionably anyway, as I'll have moved out of Mom & Dad's and will be waiting for Eirecom to come install a phone line and possibly DSL. There is no such thing as a sense of urgency among the Irish, so if we get a phone and broadband (or a phone, anyway, since broadband is a very slippery issue here) by the end of December we'll be doing very well. I do not yet know if there's a wireless spot in Athy. I'm not counting on it. :)
I'll come in to Dublin once or twice a week to check email, no doubt, because who can stand going without email for so long? But if you think you might need to get ahold of me on short notice in the next month, drop an email to me at catie at cemurphy dot net to get my mobile number in the next few days.
miles to Mount Doom: 255
Round one of revisions on HEART OF STONE done.
Actually, it's like round three, because I did a huge revision this time last year, then did another one in May, and now I've done a third. I've added 40 pages to the manuscript, and have restructured the relationships and mostly strangled the timeline back into its proper place, although I'm going to need to read it ninety-two times and take notes to be sure.
I have a subplot to add in, emotional content to beef up, sensuality to introduce and improve, scenes I loved to put back in, and a general mess to clean up, as right now the whole thing feels as prickly as a hedgehog. Out of the last 3 chapters, I barely touched the antepenultimate and penultimate (look, Henry! I remembered!), which desperately, desperately need work, but it's emotional work and I couldn't take delving into that right now, as this pass has largely been structural changes.
This is one of the brief shining moments where I'm thinking I might have a book here. Yesterday I was miserable, exhausted, hating it, and wanting to burn the whole thing, which, as I am annoyingly aware, usually means everything's right on track. *laugh*
I'll see if I feel like doing anything on it, or anything else, the next couple of days. I'm mostly writing this week off, as Ted gets here Thursday night (ok, it's MONDAY, I could no doubt get at least some work done the next couple of days) and we're going to need to stock up the house once we see what we've got and what we'll need. So I'm kind of figuring work will resume next Monday, though if I get up to write in the mornings between now and then that would be a major bonus.
*looks vaguely guilty* See, I'm back into the writing thing, so the journal's all about writing. I always feel like that's a drag for other people to read. But the only other thing I've got to say at this particular moment is that after several weeks of evasive maneuvers, I seem to have caught somebody's cold after all.
miles to Mount Doom: 252
ytd wordcount: 229,900
My brain is slowly turning to a gelatinous goo. I have 4 more chapters to do, and as I get closer to the end I'm finding myself rewriting more. If I am very diligent and very lucky and my brain does not finish turning to goo, I'll get through all four of those tomorrow, but it might take until Monday.
Then I think I'll probably spend a couple weeks working on COYOTE DREAMS, because I won't be able to see the words for the trees in HEART OF STONE, or something like that. I've apparently added 35 or so pages so far, which seems more or less impossible. I know both what I need to do with the next pass of revisions, and even places I need to do it in, but man alive. Can't see the book for the words. Will be glad to be done with this pass.
I think we're going to watch a movie on my computer now. *tired yawn* Okay, then. Bye bye.
miles to Mount Doom: 250
ytd wordcount: 227,400
I just got big fat juicy fan mail for THE CARDINAL RULE from someone who had ordered it from the eHarlequin site, where it's available a month early. It was *splendid* fan mail which told me that she'd reacted exactly how I hoped readers would by the end of the book, and so I'm extremely smug and pleased and full of giggles. AHAHAH *laugh* She also had some critiques, which were interesting to read and which I'll keep in the back of my mind as I write more Strongbox Chronicles (as I think the issues she brought up are pretty unique to that series, and maybe just to Alisha herself; I'll have to see, when I start writing the next character!). So that's put me in a very fine mood for writing.
I only got 1.5 chapters rewritten yesterday, which was not enough. It was so little, in fact, that I couldn't get to sleep until very late because I was lying there being anxious about not getting things done. Rationally, this is not necessary, but in the small hours of the night rationality disappears and it becomes impossible to think in terms of bird by bird.
Instead, yesterday, I hung out with my family (Deirdre and the little boys came over), read a book, baked some bread, baked some cookies (Mom's kitchen is approximately the size of a silver dollar. She has about one square foot of counter space. All that baking is v. difficult in a space that size.), and got 95% of a web project that I've been wanting to do done. The last 5% requires CSS wrangling, because CSS does not like to do page centering, and iI haven't yet gotten it to center and also wrap properly. If I can't, I will just leave it uncentered, which is annoying but not critical.
It was, in other words, a very good day. The only problem is the ack ack ack on the writing front, and there's really nothing to be done about that except to continue on, which will get everything finished in plenty of time.
And speaking of which, back to work!
ytd wordcount: 224,800
For any Irish readers...
It's not my fault! It's not! It's NOT!
But if I had a working power cord for my camera, I'd post a picture of the snow outside my window this morning. :)
I've blown through 10 chapters in the last 2 days. I have 9 more to go. I've added about 20 pages so far, and I'll be doing at *least* one more pass (honestly, 2 or 3 or 4 is probably much more likely) after I'm done with this one. But it's going well and I'm getting a lot done, which pleases me intensely. My brain is getting tired, but I ended up taking a break for most of the afternoon, since the little boys were about, and that was probably good for me.
*snickers a lot* Deborah, on my last writing post, said, "I'm eyeing the smugness warily. That said, this post rather neatly sums up what writing looks like from the outside."
All I can take from that is that from the outside, writing books looks like enormously varied highs and lows coming from a complete nutcase. :)
miles to Mount Doom: 248
ytd wordcount: 223,400
We've had a most excellent day here. We weren't planning on having a Thanksgiving dinner sort of thing today, at least, because Gavin and Deirdre both had to work, and Mom and Dad thought they were going out to Blackrock to babysit the little boys. Instead, Deirdre called to say she wanted to come into town to do errands and she wanted to know if it would be ok to just bring the boys in, so we unexpectedly all ended up here. Mom thought a bit and sent Dad and me out to buy some supplies, then threw together a completely brilliant vegetarian "chicken" and broccoli casserole that she made cornbread stuffing for from scratch (wow it was good), and she made an apple pie and it was just all around *really* yummy. It had all the tastes of a Thanksgiving dinner, right there in one pan!
And we had a riotous good time, with yelling about politics over Breic's demands that we pay attention to him, and cheering for Seirid who is getting really good at this walking thing, and it was all a lot of fun. Gavin ate, we think, half the casserole. He had five servings. *giggle* Generally it was just like Thanksgiving ought to be. :)
We also had some tear-jerkingly funny comparisons of American to English, including Deirdre apparently forgetting her loose-fitting pants she uses to teach in. She asked one of her coworkers if she could borrow her pants, which *astounded* the coworker, who stuttered, "D'ya mean borrow my *trousers*?" Because pants here are *underwear*. *helpless laughter*
And Mom, who hurt her knee in July or so, has had to stop explaining she's got a bum knee, because people didn't *say* anything, but they all sort of did a o.O look at her. *laugh* Deirdre told a story about another coworker, another American, who was waiting for her boyfriend to pick her up from work and someone asked if she was all right. She said, "Yes,I'm just waiting for my boyfriend to give me a ride," which caused the Irish woman she was talking to to nearly pop a vein and say, in a strangled voice, "*Never* say that. Give you a *lift*, it's give you a *lift*!" *howls*
Oh! *Jeez*, that Breic. He was telling us there were giants coming down the stairs, and he had a soccer ball with which he was, and this was his word, "vanquishing" the giants back to their cages.
*Vanquishing*. My jaw fell open and I said, "Did you just say *vanquish*?" and he said, "yes! I'm vanquishing the giants!"
Buh! He'll be three in three weeks! Buh!
Yes sir. It's been a very nice day. And I haven't even done the writing part of the blog yet. :)
Happy Thanksgiving to everyone!
(written 11/23/05) Argh. Writing is hard. Let's go shopping.
Here I am, blithely rewriting, cutting scenes and rewriting them, sometimes fairly significantly. And I whacked the end of this one scene all up, because the relationship has changed, and then I went charging along, rewrite revise cut change whack whack whack OH CRAP DROPPED AN IMPORTANT PIECE OF INFORMATION WITH THAT SCENE CUT NEED TO ADD ALL THIS STUFF BACK IN SOMEWHERE *NEW* ACK ACK MORE REWRITING ADDING REVISING ARGH!
And the chapter is seventeen pages long and I haven't even written in the stuff I just realized I needed to. There's more cutting to be done in the next few pages, but argh!
(written 11/24/05) HAH!
I just figured out what Chelsea is.
HAH!
*kicks feet wildly*! AHAHAHAHA!
No. I'm not telling you.
Neener neener.
*smug* **violently* smug!*
I just blew out the power cord for my digital camera's camera dock.
My laptop had been doing just fine with the power adapter/converter (I can't actually remember which it is right now) I have. I rashly, and incorrectly, figured that hey, no problem, the camera dock's power cord will probably just work right away too!
Instead it went *paff* and let out the magic white smoke.
There will be no pictures of the new haircolor. Or anything else, for that matter.
But here's the bad thing: my first thought was not to go get a new power cord for the camera dock. It was, instead, "Oooh, I could go get a REAL digital camera!"
Christmas is a'comin'. I wonder how fat that goose is...
In other news, on my walk today I found the other comic shop, and the very nice guy there pointed me at Forbidden Planet, which is about twelve feet to the left of the bridge Dad and I have been crossing to come back to this side of the Wiver Wiffey from Henry Street. Sadly, it is mostly a comic shop these days, instead of being mostly a bookstore.
I also got a hat, which you do not get to see, because I blew my power cord out.
Two chapters revised so far today. 500 new words or so, and I think the next chapter is going to take more heavy revising. I've got to call Aer Lingus and then I'll get back to it all.
miles to Mount Doom: 246
current music: Bon Jovi/Bob Geldof, I Don't Like Mondays
Wow. Tired brain. 4000 *new* words today, plus fiddling and twiddling on many of the others. Got four chapters done. I was aiming for five, but the fifth is going to be another that requires quite a lot of rewriting, I think, and I just don't have the brain to try to handle it right now. I'm pretty sure they're going to continue to need more and more rewriting as I get further into the book and its shape becomes different, so I'm reveling in these high-chapter-rewrite days while I can. And this really is just the first pass; I'm aware of things I need to be adding in and fleshing out, but right now the bones need changing.
Rrreeeaaallly enjoying rewriting some of these relationship dynamics. I think they'll make for a much stronger story with a lot more conflict this way, and that's a lot of fun.
Walked down to Temple Bar, Grafton Street and Henry Street *without getting lost* today, which was an enormous improvement over yesterday. Next I have to learn how to get to the Heuston train station. But that probably won't happen tomorrow, since I think Mom & Dad are going out to Blackrock to sit on the babies.
Oh! Right. So the reason I risked Henry Street again today (that's where I got lost yesterday) was so I could stop by the Jervis shopping centre where there's a Ticketmaster booth, and buy tickets for the Bon Jovi concert next spring. I don't expect they're particularly great tickets, but they were the best available, and I intend to have an *extremely* good time at the concert. Ted said he had to go with me because there was no telling what I might do if left to go to a Bon Jovi concert on my own. I think he was afraid I might not come back.
Which is absurd. I'd come back. I just might also leave again to follow them around England for a week! :)
(I'm a bit tempted to lurk over the ticketmaster site and keep an eye out for when tickets go on sale for one of the English concerts, and snatch up excellent tickets for those, and fly over for a show, if Ted wants to do that.
...or possibly even if he doesn't. But he should tell me one way or another. :))
Writing makes me happy. :)
Oh! I keep forgetting to mention my big excitement with Seirid the other day. We *communicated*! He's just learning to walk (he's not quite 11 months), and we were encouraging him to walk from one place to another. He was about five feet away from me, and I said, "C'mere, Seirid," and held out my hands.
And he shook his head *no* quite vigorously.
I was very excited! We *communicated*! :) :) :)
miles to Mount Doom: 243
ytd wordcount: 220,900
current music: Bon Jovi, This Ain't A Love Song
I shoulda left the damned streak in my hair and called it good.
I suppose this color will do. It's darker. I prefer it to the last color. But the whole thing makes me really just want to cut my hair into a Louise Brooks bob and have done with it.
*mutter* Stupid hair.
"We're lost, aren't we?""We're not lost. I just don't know exactly where we are at the moment."
"Belgarath, that's exactly what the word lost means!"
My clever plan to go forth to Temple Bar, find the comic shop and movie theatre, then to go back to Grafton Street for some shopping was partially successful.
For example, I found the movie theatre. I went there very much like I knew what I was doing, in fact. Mind, Dad had brought me over there a few days ago, and I'd been confused because it really didn't look at all like the theatre I'd been to fifteen years ago.
Today I found out that was because it *wasn't* the theatre I'd been to fifteen years ago. *That* theatre was the Savoy, and I found it accidentally during the hour I spent wandering back and fucking forth trying to get myself reoriented so I could get home. It was *incredibly* frustrating, because I was pretty goddamned sure that I was within a couple of blocks of where I needed to be, but I just could not for the life of me *get* there. After an hour of trying--which was after the hour of walking around with less purpose in mind--I finally gave in and called for help, because I just could not get myself pointed the right direction. As it happened, Dad was two blocks away and came and got me and yes, yes, I was within two freaking blocks of where I wanted to be, and the moment I got on the right street and could see the fucking bridge, I knew where I was and how to get home. :P
Having spent the last half hour glowering at maps of Dublin, it appears I was facing completely the opposite direction that I thought I was, and that I should have. Fuck. *grumpy face* I still have essentially no idea how I got that turned around. Dammit. Anyway, Dad rode up on a white horse and rescued me, which was very nice of him. :) AND he showed me where one of the comic shops is, so tomorrow I think I'll go visit it.
I did manage to get hair dye and saline solution and lotion, which was one of my intentions for the afternoon. I didn't get anything else, but I guess that's just how it goes. It was, overall, an exercise in frustration.
Or, perhaps more accurately, an exercise *and* frustration.
miles to Mount Doom: 239
I think living in Ireland is going to prove very good for my productivity, because I'm a minimum of 5 hours and a maximum of 9 hours ahead of everybody I'm accustomed to interacting with. When I get up in the morning, everybody else is going to bed. This means there's no one to talk to online, which reduces the urge to dink around all day enormously.
To wit, I have gotten through 3 chapters of HEART OF STONE this morning. Not much in the way of genuine forward motion--maybe 500 words added or so, but relationships are being rearranged and scenes rewritten and so on and so forth. My thought right now is to go through the whole manuscript and get the bones of the changes down; I'll go through it at least two more times fleshing things out, but right now I'm doing the restructuring of relationships that needs to be done, sort of shifting everything *forward*, or that's what it feels like, anyway. I'm enjoying it, at this point.
It's interesting; my contract specifies a manuscript of approximately 125,000 words. This is interesting for two reasons: one, the Walker Papers contracts are for 110K, despite the Old Races being mass market paperbacks and the Walker Papers being trade paperbacks. Two, the manuscript I turned in for HEART OF STONE initially was just *under* 100K (this was after adding eighty pages in revisions (which is somewhat misleading, as I also cut at least twenty pages during that round of revisions, so with my final manuscript pagecount being 80 pages more than the original, I added at least a hundred pages) then cutting another 30 in another round of revisions). I have license to add a *hundred pages*, and in fact had *better* add something nigh unto that to meet the contract. Did I mention I'm having fun? And that GOD am I glad to have settled on a place to live? And that it's a 6 month lease, so if it proves awful (which it won't) or if disaster strikes or Ted finds the perfect job 70 miles away, we'll be able to move in relatively short order?
On a totally different note, I'm feeling the urge to cut my hair. I think I need to redye it, this time to the color I was trying for in the first place. Perhaps that will take care of it. Because I am *not* cutting my hair before X3 comma dammit.
Even if X3 is going to *suck*.
:P
Off to wander Dublin now! :)
Ok, the problem with revising is that, take today, for example. I have written approximately 2800 words, but only added about 500 to my wordcount. Of course, those 500 words have moved the original end of chapter two into the early part of chapter 3, so I'm not really even done with my two chapters, which means my wordcount isn't at all accurate. And that's the problem with revising. :)
OTOH, I'm really enjoying myself right now!
ytd wordcount: 216,400
I got some revisions done on HoS this morning, and heck fire, I might even do some more this evening. The first chapter didn't need much, but halfway through the second chapter I have to start completely rewriting a relationship which will be more fun and deeper and more complex for the rewrites, but it does mean lotsa revising. Rewrites are hard! Let's go shopping!
Deirdre made Mom and Dad an offer they couldn't refuse: if, she said, they would babysit for her while she and Gavin went to see Harry Potter, Deirdre would in turn babysit for Mom and Dad while they went to see Harry Potter. For some reason they agreed to this arrangement. :) So Deirdre and Gavin and I went to see Harry Potter, which I think is the best of the movies so far, and which made a better movie than it did book, in large part because they cut all the things from the movie that they ought to have cut from the book. It is no longer "Harry Potter and the Summer Vacation at the Quiddich Match and Now That We've Had Some Fun and Got That Out of the Way, the Goblet of Fire"; it's just Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. Much better. It also seemed more intense than the book, possibly because of the aforementioned summer vacation problem. It was still too long, which was hugely compounded by a *half hour* of commercials and previews before the show (and there were only three previews). The showtime was 1:05 and we left the theatre at 10 to 4. Jesus. :P
We walked back to Deirdre & Gavin's place from Dun Laoghaire, which is only a mile and a half or two miles or so, along the coast, and it was beeeooooteeful. The water in Dublin Bay is clear, which is very strange and surprising to me, and the sun was setting and it was altogether lovely.
Tomorrow afternoon I believe I shall take myself out for a walk and see what places I can find around the city centre. Like the comic shops, and Forbidden Planet, and whatever else strikes my fancy. :)
miles to Mount Doom: 233
Okay. I've found a place to let. It's in Athy, County Kildare, and that's pronounced "Athigh", not "Athee", despite how Americans read it. Athy's about 45 miles southwest of Dublin, is about 55 minutes on the train, is large enough to have community theatre of its own, and has a swimming pool across the street from where we'll be living. The train station is also across the street. The town's at the convergence of the Wiver Wiffey and the Grand Canal, and is quite pretty.
I don't have pictures yet, but the house is a 3 bedroom, 2.5 bath house with a decent kitchen and a nice back yard, which they call a back garden, and it'll be ready to move in on the 1st. It's further out than I'd initially planned, but as I looked both at houses and at potential Tedjobs, it became increasingly evident that unless we wanted to live in Dublin proper, we were very probably going to need a car no matter what. So getting a place in a cheaper town, even if it was further out, seemed practical, and it's a nice town.
And I'm very relieved to have a place. There're about five ... wow. I have no idea at all what I was going to say. Oh. Five trains in and out of Dublin a day, during hours that are reasonable for normal commutes, so that's all good. The only real problem is whether or not we'll be able to get broadband access, which is just an incredible crapshoot in Ireland, despite the country being promoted as the IT center of Europe. There's no phone line in the house, so when I call to have one put in, I will *specify* that it needs to be DSL-capable (because apparently if you don't, a new phone line will not necessarily be, and frankly I'm not sure specifying it will do the trick, but it's all I can try), and hopefully there won't be a broadband issue. It would be quite a shock indeed to go cold turkey on net access after all these years.
*closes eyes* That's taken care of. I can concentrate on writing, now. Thank *God*.
Poor Ted! I just got this email from him:
So at 6:30 or so this morning the cell phone rings. This is very disturbing as nothing around here is open and well someone calling that early from anywhere else hopefully knows better. Anyway I leap out of bed to frantically search for the cell phone, blind and confused, of course it is in the pocket of my jacket which muffles it just enough that my sleep fogged brain can not locate it until it after it takes a message.Now normally this would be no problem, I can listen to the message and call back whoever called. Of course this time is different, the nice lady who leaves a message is British and leaves a name and company that I can‘t decipher and a number that I can’t get to work.
So Ted rushed around on the net trying to figure out who called and why. Ted spends 15 minutes or so trying to get a good number to anywhere in London and can not find one. So he instead calls British Airways Cargo in Chicago and asks for help. Where of course a man with an Indian/British accent answers the phone. (Anyone sensing a theme). He checks out all my information and says that there are no problems and that what has most likely happened is because I am the receiver of the pets when they arrive in London they are calling to confirm that I will be picking up the pets. He then says he has put in the proper code saying I will and that I should be fine in London.
So moral of the story is “Ted is Rubbish at British accents at 6:30 in the morning if he is woken out of a deep sleep.”
That is all I now return you to your regularly scheduled evening.
Poor Ted!
...and while I was writing, Deirdre dropped her boys off on the doorstep (literally) and went tearing off for the yoga class she was late to. Seirid did not want me to hold him (he eventually warmed up and got very flirty that evening), and Breic was very good about me working until the last few minutes, when he thought I should be paying attention to him. Apparently I made up for it that evening, though, 'cause he sat on my lap for about an hour and helped me look for places to live. He was actually very good at that: I would move the cursor to the links, and he'd click the mouse button, which evidently filled his little heart with glee, and the rest of the time he more or less kept his hands out of the keyboard. So we were both satisfied. :)
Breic and I also went for a walk to buy some bread and eggs and milk. It was mostly a carry, really, but the bit where we went through a sidewalk construction 'tunnel' was fun. :) We met Dad, who was striking out on a walk, when we were sort of on our way back, and so Dad walked around with us, which meant Breic got to be swung between two adults, and kept crowing, "Twy that again, guys! Twy that again!" *giggle* Pretty cute.
So yesterday morning while I was writing I developed the clever plan of working on COYOTE DREAMS in the morning, getting some forward motion there, and then spending some afternoon/evening time getting started on the rewrites for HEART OF STONE. I thought (and still think) that would take a bit of the pressure off, instead of trying to finish one project and then the other. Instead, we had little boys at the house all day, so while I got my CD words written, I didn't get started on HoS. Oops. But it was a fun day anyway. :)
Dad and I went for a long walk yesterday afternoon, too. I can now get to Temple Bar, which turns out to be very easy to reach, and from there I can get more or less not lost going around a reasonable chunk of the city centre. I know where the movie theatre is now (I actually knew where it was before, just not how to get there from here), and we went down ... Henry Street, maybe, which has been a vendor's street for at least two centuries and possibly four. Fresh fruits and vegetables. I bought 8 apples for €2, which was just so absurd I couldn't resist. Can you imagine buying 8 apples for two dollars in Alaska? *snort* :)
Ok, between one thing and another it's taken me almost an hour to write this entry, and I have work to do, so whatever the other thing I was going to mention was--oh! I'm looking at a house Saturday afternoon, that's what it was! Wish me luck!
Oop, just made another appointment for tonight, too. Now if I can just figure out where I'm going...
miles to Mount Doom: 231
ytd wordcount: 213, 600
I'm going to need a Breic icon, I can tell. :) And very probably a Seirid icon, too. And a BOTH of them icon, and...ok, I'll stop getting carried away. :)
This morning I harched off to the cafe, and it was closed! So I harched back home and on the way a lady asked me if she was on the right road to the Guinness factory, and I told her she was but I didn't know if it was the main entrance, as I'd just moved here from Alaska. Then another lady caught up with me and said, "Did you say you'd come from *Alaska*?" and we had a nice three block chat until we had to go our separate ways. :)
I did my writing at home today, and got 1750 words done, which made me very happy, and I decided I was going to start ... ok, dinner is ready, so I'm going to write more later. :)
I didn't get a lick of writing done yesterday. Today's been better, and I hope I'll write more later, but right now I'm home from the coffee shop and it's time to update.
There was babysitting yesterday, which brought some hysterical highlights into our day. :) At one point, Breic heard, or thought he heard, an airplane, and came running over to tell me "It was an airpwane!" I said, "What's an airplane?" and he said, "It's a thing that flies through the sky and wooks wike an airpwane!"
I thought that was funny, but it reduced my mother to tears of laughter, and after several seconds I realized why: the only thing Breic *hadn't* said was, "But that's not important right now, and stop calling me Shirley!" Then *I* was reduced to tears of laughter, and Breic sat on my lap sort of giggling, because he had no idea at all why I was laughing so hard, and Mom and I were trying to explain to Dad, so Breic realized that what he'd said was funny, even if he didn't know why, so *he* went over and told the whole story to Dad, and ended with, "And Aunt Catie was--was vewy waughing!"
The other bit I liked was him asking me where I got my necklace, and I told him my husband, Uncle Ted, had given it to me, and that Uncle Ted would be here in two weeks. He said, "Two weeks is a WOT!" and then went and told Dad "Unkw Ted wiww be here in two weeks. Two weeks is a WOT!" We all agreed that two weeks was a WOT. I will be glad when a WOT of time is passed, and Unkw Ted is hewe.
Letting agencies around here get slithery when you mention pets. None of the ads say no pets, but they start sounding tense and asking if you have perhaps one small dog, or say outright they don't accept pets. *fret* But one lady, at least, asked about the pets, and has now said she's trying to arrange a viewing this weekend, so hopefully things will work out there. This all makes me very jumpy. I'll be awfully glad to have it settled.
Things that are different in Ireland: raisin bran, which they call sultana bran. You know how in the states you can get Kellogg's raisin bran, which has much superior flakes but very few raisins, or Post raisin bran, which has lots and lots of raisins but utterly inferior flakes? Well, here the Kellogg's has equally good flakes (maybe even better; I think they're bigger and darker-roasted) and lots of raisins, *and* the raisins are sweeter, so the whole shebang is nicer without adding sugar.
They do not, however, understand about electrical outlets. Particularly in the bathrooms. They have none in the bathrooms. At all. o.O
I walked all the way down to Gra...okay, so I went with Deirdre, which makes it much less impressive, but I walked all the way BACK from Grafton Street yesterday, gosh darn it! By MYSELF! Without getting lost! I did not, however, find a hat while I was down there. Not that I looked all that hard, really, but still.
miles to Mount Doom: 227
ytd wordcount: 211,800
I don't seem to have started writing yet this morning. Instead I'm reading LJ, answering comments, all that sort of thing that doesn't really look much like working. But here, I'll pretend I am now working by posting something book-related! The cover for THUNDERBIRD FALLS, due out in May 2006:
Click through for the full cover, although I'm not positive that's the current back cover copy, because I haven't actually scanned this in (can't! My scanner's in transit!) And the final cover has a shimmering feather falling, the same kind of gloss as the hands on the cover of URBAN SHAMAN.
I am *insanely* pleased with this cover. I keep gaping at it and being amazed at how it's completely different from the first, yet exactly the same! Everything about it is just fantastic--the colors are exactly right, because the climactic scene takes place at sunset; the impression that she's falling is perfect, the bridge is appropriately symbolic--it's just *gorgeous*. I am *so* happy with it. *beam*!
Ok, I'd better get to work here. :)
This morning I went to read my flist, and came across Ursula's latest sketch.
What Ursula could not possibly know is that about a year ago, I logged onto a MUSH and Deborah said, without the slightest warning, "Kit, you are a dwarven baker who is about to be accosted by an elf on the Atkins diet. Go," and we played out this scene with an increasingly grumpy dwarven baker and a terribly hungry elf who couldn't go next door to the restaurant because it was owned by the guy she was supposed to marry but didn't want to.
Eventually it was explained that Deborah had been telling Lisa that I could and would roleplay any character with only the very slightest information to begin with, and by the time I was done I would no doubt have an entire character history and know perfectly well why this dwarf was running a bakery when respectable dwarves were down in the mines. (It was his grandmother's bakery. His grandmother, although we do not talk about it in polite company, was human. And frankly, baking's a lot nicer than smashing about in the mines getting black lung, even if there's the occasional annoying elf on Atkins who won't eat a cream puff that's good for her.)
It's going to be a Very Ursula Christmas around my house.
I've had Adventures in Cooking tonight. I wanted a bowl of soup for dinner, but was thwarted by being unable to figure out how to turn the stove on. I was further thwarted from my secondary plan of going down to one of the corner cafes and having soup there by sheer laziness. So after a while I was whining online and my friend Geni, who is English, told me how to turn the stove on. (There's a completely unmarked button that has to be pushed after you turn the gas on all the way, and you actually have to push the burner knob in, too, because otherwise the gas doesn't gas, or something, and then there's a WHOOMP! and sudden alarming flame and you turn down the gas too far and repeat the whole process about four times before you actually have fire to boil your water with. Because there is no microwave.)
So I went off to boil water, and Geni eyed me strangely, and said, "Don't you have an electric kettle? This is Europe. We have electric kettles." And I investigated the kitchen and there is something there that could in fact be an electric kettle, although it looks like a coffee pot to me and the water in the "this is how full I am" indicator looks like it might be very weak coffee, or maybe it's just a bit discolored, and I described it to Geni who said that was very likely an electric kettle, and to look for a knob/twagger/slider to push down on, so I went to do that, and a red light came on and it started making alarming noises! Yes, Geni said, that was an electric kettle.
But by that time my pot of water was hot enough to make soup with, so I did. :) And had a bowl of soup and a slab of homemade white bread with a generous spread of Irish butter on it, and am very satisfied indeed with my dinner. :) I am a domestic goddess! I have made the *stove* work, learned about electric kettles, *and* successfully done laundry!
Geni has just asked if I have any other confusing domestic appliances she could help me with. *giggle*
Completely unrelated, communal writer's spots. I think this is a great idea. :) And perhaps now I'll try to get so me more of my own writing done. :)
I trundled down to the coffee shop this morning and got about 1650 words written, which is a nice start. I'm hoping to do some more tonight, which seems likely, since I'm the only one home; Mom and Dad have gone out to Blackrock to babysit. I also completely failed to understand the nice young woman behind the counter, who asked me something unintelligible three times, and eventually said, "Just water?" which I hastily agreed to. On the way up the stairs to sit down and have my water and write, I finally translated "Ssmpf kinells" to "Somfink else?", which made perfect sense once I knew what it was. (Which, now that I think about it, is not unlike talking to Breic. He called up and excitedly told me how "Momma cawwed the pizza pwace!" three or four times before I gave up and handed the phone to Mom, who understood him, and then *I* could tell that of *course* he'd said "Pizza place." :))
This arternoon Dad and I walked down to Grafton Street, where I got a telephone that takes pictures. This would be a great triumph, if I could figure out how to make the telephone send the pictures on to an email address. :) But I now know how to get to Grafton Street, which I will try doing on my own tomorrow. After I've programmed in Mom & Dad's phone numbers so if I get lost I can call for somebody to find me. :)
Why do phone manuals not tell you how to do the simplistic stuff, like make your letters not be all in caps when you're trying to type somebody's name in? (I assume it's because durr, any idiot already knows that, but *this* idiot doesn't.)
*giggle* Last night Mom said, "Faith and begorra!" and rolled her R's quite wonderfully, so I said, "You sure are good at rolling your arrs, Mom," but she heard, "You sure are good at rolling your arse, Mom," so she's been standing in front of the fire and swinging her hips and wriggling her butt as she warms up, much to my father's and my amusement. :)
*giggles more* Also yesterday on the train Mom sat down on one side and Dad sat down on the other and I said, "Oh no! I'm going to have to decide who to sit next to!" and Mom said, "I'm sure we can both handle it if you sit next to the other," and I sat down next to Dad and put my coat next to Mom, and she snapped, "Oh, *sure*, *I* get the *coats!" *giggles and giggles*
Ah! I have outsmarted the washing machine! I just hadn't closed the door hard enough. Turns out that's okay, since the jeans I put into the dryer were nowhere near dry. This is a condenser dryer, though, which means it sucks all the water out into a tray, so unlike the other Irish dryers we've encountered, it /does/ dry clothes.
I am getting responses from lettings agents, which heartens me. Oh! And now I can walk down to ... oh. I said that already. Ok, it's clearly time to stop writing, because I've taken so long to write this entry I can't even remember what I've said. :)
miles to Mount Doom: 221
Another busy day! I don't seem to be in any particular hurry to get up these days, so I got up around 8:20, but we weren't in any hurry to get out of Dublin, either, so it was all okay. We toddled off to Newbridge in the early afternoon, and I liked it a lot. The commute's not at all bad, 20 minutes on the quickest train and 35 on the slowest, with the light rail bringing you from Heuston station to Connelly, which is downtown, in another 15 or 20 minutes. Since it seems likely (though not inevitable) that Ted's job would be downtown, that doesn't seem too onerous, and I've been looking at subdivisions, which they call housing estates, that are just a few minutes' walk from the Newbridge train station. Plus Newbridge appears to have a gym, and does have an (outdoor; buh) swimming pool, and plenty of shops and some restaurants and a generally nice main street area, and a new shopping mall is opening next year sometime in case a person needed somewhere else to spend money. And the town is on "the Wiver Wiffey," as Breic importantly calls it, and it's a very, *very* pretty area. So I'm thinkin' Newbridge. I'm much more taken with it than Bray.
That's about the sum total of the excitement I have to share, really. I need to pick up a mobile (see! see! I can speak unamerican English!) and, uh. Write. :) I may have to get up earlier tomorrow so I can trundle off to the coffee shop earlier and get my writing done (I only have a 3 hour battery on my computer, so that pretty much limits my writing window right now) and then still have plenty of day left to do things. Some of those "things", mind you, may be "go to a movie", as I haven't been to a movie in weeks and would like to go see something.
Of course, that means I have to find my way to the theatre. Oddly enough, I know where it is; what I don't know is how to get there from here. Or back again. Dublin is *not* an easy city to navigate!
(It would also depend on there being anything playing that I want to see, and there isn't, exactly. I'd see "Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang" and "The Constant Gardener", but I'm not sure they're worth finding the movie theatre for.)
Hee hee. Ted emailed yesterday with a story about Chantico. There were search lights going around in the sky and she thought they were very very cool and was waaaatching and waaaatching and would leap up trying to get them! Leap! Leap! And then when she's had enough of that she lies down in the snow and waaaatches some more. So Ted hung around outside with her for a while so she could watch. I have the very best husband. *goopy look*
He says she also likes watching the numbers in the elevator. :) Silly puppy. Nice husband, to indulge her. :)
Ok, must go read COYOTE DREAMS now, so I can figure out what I'm doing on it tomorrow. Yay writing!
miles to Mount Doom: 218
We spent the better part of the day going out to Bray to have a look around. It's very pretty indeed, but I think the commute might be a little long to do on a daily basis. I'm not quite sure why I think this, because my commute from San Francisco to Mountain View was as long on the express train, and longer on the regular train, but then, it was only about 3 minutes walk from the train station to my work, and I was driven to and from the station in Mountain View, whereas getting to and from where my parents live to the station and all is quite a lot more time consuming. So yah. I'll look in some other closer places, too, and see what we come up with. Or farther out places which are much MUCH cheaper (because if you're going to have a longish commute, then it seems like paying less money to live is a good deal). Maybe we'll go out to Newbridge tomorrow. Or Portarlington. Portarlington's considerably further out, but half the cost. Hm, hm hm hm.
Oh yes, another odd thing is you bring your own grocery bags to the grocery, and if you don't they make you pay for the bags. How odd. :) Yesterday Mom and I were on our way downtown and went through a veritable gauntlet of construction workers, who had swept down on the guy coming the opposite way carrying happy birthday bags. They actually rifled through his bags and pulled out a lion costume and some other stuff, to the huge amusement of everyone, and then let him go on his way. And the first thing I thought was: man, you would *never* see something like that happen in New York, and as Mom said, "You don't feel *threatened* here."
Although Deirdre and I were out ... whatever day I got here. Wednesday. And a very very drunk man staggered into Deirdre and bounced off her, and my heartrate went SPIKE and my first thought was "pickpocket!" So when he bounced off me, I had this combination reaction of grabbing his arm and shoving him away, but Deirdre didn't seem to think she'd been robbed (she hadn't) and she said, "Wow, he was drunk," and we all went on our ways, but we were both a bit *pantpantpant* about the whole thing. So while the constructions workers really weren't threatening, that bit was.
I think I may go luxuriate in a bath for a while now. :)
miles to Mount Doom: 214
Well, since I'm in Dublin and, as Rob pointed out, there's no point in having an adventure if you're not going to do adventuresome things, I called up to see if there were any tickets left for the Neil Gaiman interview next Tuesday. There weren't, of course, but I got myself put on a waitlist just in case, and if space comes open I'll go listen to Neil's interview, not so much because I'm a particular fan of his writing so much as I like him as a person quite tremendously, at least from his blog and from all my friends who actually know him and who say he's swell. Also, Marith says he's insanely attractive in person and I'd like to verify that. (His opinion is that he's not, really, but then, he's not his type, he says.) :)
I had something else I'd been going to say, but it's slipped my tiny little mind. Oh, I know. I think today's Rodney's birthday. Heather or Jai, either of you have an email address for him anymore?
I am an exceedingly cheerful Kit today. I suspect this has a fair bit to do with having WRITTEN! I went to a local coffee shop yesterday and asked if I could park myself in there to write in the mornings, and they said sure, and so today I did. I didn't get a lot of forward motion, as I was doing revisions to the PHOENIX LAW proposal that Jenn asked for. In fact, I cut a few pages and smoothed some things out and added a bit here and there, so it was really backward motion, except it *wasn't*. It was WRITING, and writing is GOOD!
Mom and I went shopping this afternoon. We walked downtown and got rained on some, and took a cab back, which is good because it was very blustery and also because it's now started pouring rain. It's very strange. One rents a shopping cart here. You have to put a euro into the shopping cart thingy (and you can't get change from the cashier unless she's ringing up another sale; buh) and when you put the cart back you get a euro back. And you have to bag your own groceries. There are young people standing at the ends of the checkout lines, but apparently they're there collecting money for charities, not to work. Buh, twice. And there was something else weird that I don't remember right now.
The coffee shop opens rather later tomorrow, so I'm not sure if I'll end up going to write or not. I may end up doing errandy things, like getting a cell phone. Monday I must fling myself wholesale into finding a place to live, although I've been emailing around have gotten some responses (mostly of the "already let, sorry" variety). I may be forced to start using the phone. *gasp* :)
Cheerful me!
miles to Mount Doom: 210
I'm considerably more functional today, though still tired. I went to bed at nine something last night and was awake long enough to wonder if the little clock ticking would bother me, to think, "Nah," and then I was totally out. Tuesday/Wednesday was a veeeeery long day. And I didn't get up until after ten, which I haven't done in a very long time indeed. *laugh* I woke up in time to hear Dad say what sounded like, "The Pirate's Genological Society is meeting tomorrow," and after a few moments I translated that into "The Irish Genological Society," which is what he'd really said, but I was quite taken with the Pirate's Genological Society idea. :) Right after that they decided it was time for me to be awake (you'd think that people who lived with me in my teen years would be warier about trying to wake me up) and gently called my name ("Caaaatie! Oooh, Caaaatie! Are you awaaake?") up the stairs. Fortunately for them I was awake. :)
So yesterday I hung out with the fambly. Deirdre and I went out to her place in Blackrock and ran some errands (or walked them, more accurately), and when we got home Deirdre estimated we'd walked probably 5ish miles. I'd thought it might've been that far, but I'd also decided maybe I just thought it was that far because I was very tired, so I'd had to ask. :) While we were out--I'd been here about six hours--she said to me, "So! How do you like living in Ireland so far?" *laugh* :)
My nephews are pretty charming. Breic, apparently, upon being told what the inset round lights in their new house were, looked sly and said, "Are those the wights of the Wound Table?"
He's NOT YET THREE, for God's sake! Who ever heard of a 3 year old making puns, anyway?! His daddy had been reading stories about King Arthur to him, and so he knew about the Knights of the Round Table, but for heaven's sake! He's not even three yet!
Seirid, who is approaching a year old, has no words yet, but he's very good at grunting and growling. :)
Okee. Mom and I are going to go forth and get lost find a coffee shop with early morning hours so I know how to get somewhere to go write in the mornings, and then in the afternoons I'll look for places to live. That's my plan. :)
miles to Mount Doom: 205
Marith filked this little song for me:
Tell my Kit when I go home
The boys won't get the moving done
They packed the cats and they lost the phone
But that's all right till we get home
She is famous, she is witty
She is the Kit of Dublin city
She is writing, one-two-three
Please won't you sign this book for me?
*tired giggles*
Dinner with Trent last night was a lot of fun, though traffic monstrosities conspired to keep him away for two hours after we'd planned to meet. Still, there was lots of time for dinner (and you didn't talk too much, Trent), and it was awesome to meet him in person after all these years. He walked me back to the terminal, and I staggered off to the plane.
Where, thank goodness, I was sufficiently tired to sleep nearly all the flight. I read THE EYRE AFFAIR or whatever it's called by Jasper Fforde. It was very entertaining. And then I went to sleep, which I wasn't sure I would, but surprisingly I hunkered down under my sleeping mask and with my no-noise headphones and when I looked up again the Fantastic Four was over and they were a third or so of the way into The Notebook, which was the other in-flight movie. I went back to sleep and more or less didn't wake up until we were circling over Ireland to land.
For a few seconds there, I got excited. :)
...and frankly, I'm too tired to post much more. Mom & Dad and Breic & Seirid picked me up from the airport and I've had a lovely day with the family, and now I'm going to bed. I'll post more later.
*tud*
(posted at 3:28 chicago time. assuming the Hilton's notwork lets me post.)
9:30am, or 6:30, if you're an Alaskan in transit who's been up all night...
Haven't been able to find a wireless network yet. You'd think an airport this size, with nine zillion Starbucks, would have hotspots all over. But none of the Starbucks are sit-down places, at least not that I've seen, and the only network I can pick up requires a security key. Sigh. Oh well.
I sat next to a chatty Irishman on the plane on the way down. :) Nice guy, last name of Mallon, and his people are from Tyrone. He told me he had, in fact, once walked from Pomeroy, my grandfather's birth village, to his own hometown, 'cause he'd gotten stuck in Pomeroy for some reason. :) I gave him a copy of THE CARDINAL RULE, making him assume my people were from Mayo, because the name on that one is Dermody. I can't actually remember where my grandmother's people were from (I think Galway?), but I'm pretty sure it was the west, anyway. So that was cool. :)
And I even slept some. Maybe even most of the flight, at least drowsing and I actually slept for at least a couple hours.
*laugh* There's a four year old going through picking up the pay phones and handing them to her toddling sister, who crows, "Hiiii!" into the phone each time. *laugh* Pretty darned cute. There's also a businessman in jeans who looked at the little one like she was some sort of unpleasant vermin who'd gotten too close to him. Hrmph. She's a cutie. :)
So anyway, no upgrading; the flight was totally full. Feh. I thought--especially after I got into Chicago and was told tonight's flight is totally full, too--that I'd just go over to the Hilton and hang the expense and stay there for a few hours and sleep and shower an stuff. So I went over and they said they had rooms available, but everything was being cleaned and I should come back around 9am. Well, for God's sake, 8 hours in a room was barely worth the cost of admission. 5 hours certainly wasn't. So I came back to the airport and changed clothes in a bathroom stall and washed up some and now I'm just kinda putting one foot in front of the other until I go back to the Hilton and meet Trent for dinner. O'Hare is one of those unfriendly airports that has arm rests between every seat, so you can't stretch out and sleep. Bastards.
I am tempted to go buy one a little MP3 player and noise-cancelling headphones, and download a bunch of music from my laptop to the player so I can zone out on the plane to Ireland. The noise-cancelling headphones sound so nice, which is to say, the idea seems pleasant. I've never actually used them. Wonder if I've got much good restful music on this thing...well, hm. I've got a couple things of gregorian chants, and some new agey stuff that's ... well, you know. New-agey. Lorena McKennitt. The Beauty and the Beast soundtrack (tv, not film). Titanic and Princess Bride...yah. I've got a fair bit of instrumental stuff. Huh. Maybe I'll do that. *sleepy eyes* After all, I don't get any upgrades or any hotel. *sigh*
*laugh* Somebody else discovered the outlet I'm using. Muahahaha, we have all the power. Muahahaha. :) *stares at the guy's coffee* Maybe I should get some hot chocolate. Even though Starbucks' hot chocolate isn't as good as Kaladi.
*yawn* Let's see. I saw the Angles commission painting that Ellen's working on (it's in the pencils stage now), and I think it's going to be very neat. :) Oh, and I was flipping through the Alaska Airlines magazine and saw an ad featuring Carmen Schwartz, the Kenai girl who grew up to be a famous model who I inadvertantly described Jo after (they're identical, except Jo outweighs Carmen by thirty pounds, I'd guess. But same height, same eye color, same essential build, same everything, right down to the freckles). So I contacted the PR department for the company the ad was for and was given another number to call, which I did, and left a voice mail. Hopefully I'll be able to find out her modeling agency and get in contact with her. That'd be kinda neat. :)
Yeah, ok. Maybe some hot chocolate and another while spent staring lustfully at the teensy MP3 players. Anything to get me up on my feet and moving again, 'cause the sleepies are overtaking me.
It has been a very busy day.
Man. Even trying to formulate my thoughts is hard. Emily, who was back from Orycon, called around 9 or so and we zoofed over to pick her up so we could all go to the chiropractors. Before going to the chiros, we stopped by the old house so I could leave a note saying 'we think you have some of our mail, please call, I leave tonight!' Then, while Emily was being crunched we put gas in the Jeep, picked up the Mac disc (I'm reminded to download MacOpener), and talked to my parents before getting Emily again, going to Fred Meyer briefly, dropping E off at the mall so she could get her new Mark Ferarri prints framed, and going to get crunched ourselves.
Our clever plan to have lunch at Cafe Amsterdam was thwarted by them having new winter hours which include being closed on Mondays. We ended up at Hogg Brothers, which was okay. We zoomed by the post office, then brought Emily to the airport, where I also checked in for tonight's flight and put myself on standby for a first-class upgrade. Wish me luck. With Emily on the way to Kotlik again, we headed home, except someone from Dynamic Realty called to say our buyer had dropped a bunch of stuff off there for us. So we scurried over there and got a FedEx package, an envelope of CARDINAL RULE cover flats, an envelope of THUNDERBIRD FALLS cover flats, and a box of THE CARDINAL RULE! It's real! It's a real book! I have copies! It's very exciting! :)
Then we went home, walked the dog, went to the bathroom, and went back out to get some prints of our own framed, stop by GCI to drop off THE CARDINAL RULE and a couple other books for Jai, went to the post office again so I could send a copy of CR to somebody, sold our DVD/VCR, went to the Atlas Movers office to drop off paperwork, went to have dinner, and stopped by Radio Shack to get a power converter and adapter for my computer.
Now I'm doing laundry as fast as I can while packing up to leave the house in about 45 minutes and get on a plane to Ireland.
*spazz*
I expect I'll be updating fairly regularly, to answer an oft-asked question. I'll hopefully be on at least briefly tomorrow, but I donno if that'll really pan out. One can hardly imagine there's not wireless access at O'Hare airport, though.
Ok. Enough updating, time to pack up the computer and go to the airport.
Last night I flew back from Fairbanks. Tonight I fly to Ireland.
O.O
Fairbanks was very pleasant. Had a nice weekend with Ted's family, and saw my friend Ellen, and was interviewed by Ted's brother's girlfriend's son (I love writing things like that) for his English class. We talked for about two hours and had a smashingly good time. :)
I'd scheduled us on a relatively early flight for returning to Anchorage, because every damned time we're scheduled on the evening flight it gets delayed or cancelled or they mysteriously have mechanical problems so they can stuff everybody onto the late flight, like unto sardines.
The late afternoon flight got delayed or cancelled or had mysterious mechanical problems so they could stuff everybody onto the early evening flight, like unto sardines. Fuckers. (Or, as I will soon have to say, fookers.) We still got home around 7:30, which was a whole lot better than 10 to 12.
Very, *very* sadly, Hot Licks was closed, and so I did not get to have my last hot fudge sundae from Hot Licks before leaving. *sniffle*
I should get back to packing now.
It turned out to be an utterly terrific evening. The booksigning went well--I think I sold 20ish copies of URBAN SHAMAN and 10 or 12 WINTER MOONS (I'm going to call Monday and talk to the events person and see if I can find out more exactly), and saw many people, including Lance, my old boss from Internet Alaska, and his wife Tammis and their son Isaac, and three of the RWA ladies, which was 2 more than I expected, since I forgot to mention about the book signing on list until about 4pm, and Jai and Ri-Sean and Calex all came, and Melissa and Pat and Jack and Coby, and at least six people I didn't know at all bought copies of the book, and yeah. It was good. :)
My hair ended up red. All over:
It's rather brighter than I expected it to be. I'm still adjusting to it. When Coby came into B&N, he said he wondered who that woman sitting where Kit was supposed to be was, and then realized it was in fact me, but my hair was different from the last time he'd seen me! And that'd only been last night! So I signed his book as being from that strange woman who was where Kit was supposed to be. :)
There are a couple of pictures of Famous Author C.E. Murphy and friends up at cemurphy.net. :)
After the book signing Calex and Kim and Catie and Ted and Shaun and Coby and Pat and Melissa and Jack all went out to dinner at Panda Restaurant, which was a great deal of fun, although there was a lot of freezing to death as we went in and out of the restaurant, 'cause it's cold and windy out. *shiver* But winter is almost over! Three more days!
Ok, off to bed because we have to get up and go to Fairbanks in the morning...
Busy day ahead of me. Must do laundry, eat breakfast, call airlines. Then must do something about my hair, maybe get a massage, and go do a book signing at Barnes & Noble. After that, hopefully go out with people and hang out and have fun for a while before coming back home and flopping into bed early enough that getting up to fly to Fairbanks in the morning won't be too tasking.
Had cheering email from one of the Harlequin editors this morning (the one who called me a dangerous writer), saying that a teenage boy in her tae kwon do class had picked up Urban Shaman and told her he was really loving it. I was pleased. :)
*laugh* Emily had to leave last night, so she's not here for the booksigning today. Instead, yesterday evening, she went to B&N and made them give her copies of US (which wasn't on the shelf!) and apparently caused the woman checking her out some concern, because she was telling the woman she wouldn't be here today for the book signing, so she had to get them signed tonight. The woman was worried Emily might be some kind of stalker, and was wondering if she should call me to warn me. :) Fortunately they got it all straightened out. *laugh*
miles to Mount Doom: 200
We have net. The nice cable man came by and couldn't figure out what was wrong, and the guy he called up couldn't figure out what was wrong, but something got toggled or something and now it all works. Yay. :)
We also have an Emily! At least until tonight. We're going out to dinner with her and Coby, and that'll be nice. Um. What else? Got plane tickets for the boys. Cleaned the kitty litter. Need to call Alaska Airlines and ask about their pet transport rules and stuff. And maybe try to box up some more stuff...
Ten to eight...
I've been talking with a woman who gave me a nice review (I can't even tell you where; the URL is in my old email box on the other computer), and her husband is having brain surgery today. Think good thoughts for them, if you've got a few to spare.
Ted could not, for the life of him, get his wireless working last night. There was supposed to be a switch somewhere to activate it, and we couldn't find the switch and we couldn't find any information on the damned net about where the switch was; all the net would tell us was turn the switch on. Eventually, in despair, we went to CompUSA and asked them where the damned switch was.
It took the guy about thirty seconds to find it, right there on the front of the computer, with a little wireless graphic next to it and everything. Ted was sort of stuck between laughing and crying about it all. :)
It reminded me of when I worked at Providence Hospital, where, inside of a matter of days, it became pretty clear I was the computer guru in the office I was working in. Well, yes, ok, that was true, but I was used to working with Macs, and these were PCs, and my guruhood sort of went right to hell when I could not for the life of me figure out how to eject a disk. There was no open-apple-E, dragging the disk icon to the trash didn't work, and I struggled and struggled to figure it out...until eventually I noticed the little button next to the disk drive that I could push to eject the disk. *blush* :)
There's been something I've been meaning to say on my journal for days, and every time I sit down to write in it I forget what it is. *squinty face* Oh well. Not much to be done about that, I guess.
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(Oh. I've remembered. It snowed on Sunday. We left the apartment and were out for about twenty minutes, and I said, "Well, I'm ready for winter to be over!" Ted and I thought that was very VERY funny. *laugh*)
It's about 8:30 Tuesday morning, and while my computer can pick up several wireless networks in the area, I'm not succeeding in connecting to any of them. I'm writing a little blog entry anyway, 'cause I figure I'll get to upload it sometime today.
We're at the corporate apartment, which is pretty decent. The cable modem's not working, but evidently somebody's coming by this morning to fix it, so with any luck I'll be on by noon or 1pm. I'd rather not be working here, because there's so much mess all over the place that it's kind of depressing and I feel like I should be cleaning it up, but I've sat down at the kitchen table with my back to the larger part of the disaster and I'm just going to ignore it. Dammit.
We're out of the house. Completely, officially, totally out of the house. We've been looking a little wild-eyed at one another since yesterday afternoon. :) I have to get the boys and the animals their plane tickets today, though unless we get a connection or I get out of here I'm not sure when that'll happen.
Anyway. The morning's plan is to get my copy edits typed in, do some revisions on my PHOENIX LAW proposal, and walk the dog. I'll let you know how it all goes.
Good God. It's November. o.O
Worst part about the apartment is it's very, very dry. I feel like all the water's been schlucked out of my body. Shluck! *laugh* I took a bath this morning, which distressed the holy living bejeezus out of the cats. *laugh* They came in and took turns standing up to peer worriedly into the tub, and then they'd look at each other and both of them would look into the tub, and then they'd get down and switch places, clearly trying to communicate their distress about this whole thing, and they peeked from all the different angles they could find, and then sat there on the bath mat looking disturbed until I finally got out. Funny kitties. :)
I went to bed at 9 last night and got up at 7 this morning. A couple more days like that, and I might feel human again.
Ok. To work now.
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And, this evening, now that I'm on a network...got the copy edits done. Got them sent off. Didn't get as far as working on PHOENIX LAW, but I'll do that tomorrow.
Very, very tired.