Slightly more than a year ago, the phone rang at 8:30 in the morning and for no particular reason I thought, "Well, this is it." And it was: it was the HR department calling to lay me off from my day job as a web designer.
If you had asked me then what my plan was, up until that day it had been to work the day job for another year, to get into a good financial position, and then to quit and pursue a full-time writing career. If you'd asked me what my plans as a writer were, I'd have said, humorfully but with a grain of truth, "Oh, you know, to take over the publishing world."
What I would have meant by this is I would like to be writing four or five books a year, under as many different names as necessary, for four or five publishing houses, so I could make a living writing. There are other things involved in it, too, tangental goals: I want to write comic books, I want to write a screenplay here and there, pitch TV series, that sort of thing. But the guts of it was writing books.
By then I'd sold the first two Cate Dermody titles, and was writing fantasy under the C.E. Murphy byline. I had not expected that writing three or four books a year might happen under one publishing umbrella. Having the opportunity to work with Harlequin and their many lines was an extraordinary step toward achieving my goals that I just hadn't anticipated.
If you'd asked me at the beginning of 2005 how many books I might sell that year, I would've said, realistically, five. In my dream world, as many as nine--those would've been 3 more Walker Papers, RIGHT ANGLES TO FAERYLAND, the Old Races trilogy, and maybe two Bombshells. It would've, in my dream world, taken four publishing houses to achieve this.
Well, Angles got turned down, shooting that whole lineup out of the water. To my complete surprise, Luna made an offer on the Old Races trilogy. By offering on the Old Races, and with Angles being turned down, what I expected to go to two new houses ended up staying in the fold, or not going out at all. Still, three books to my current publisher, with an implication of more Walker Papers to come. An excellent place to begin. Three fifths of the way to the realistic five book sales.
As far as the Bombshells were concerned, well, I thought they'd buy THE PHOENIX LAW. After all, it'd been titled, which had to bode well, and it completes Alisha's trilogy, which I hoped they'd want to do. I thought they might buy the first book in the next trilogy, which would both more or less commit them to the whole of the next trilogy, and put me at my reasonably expected five books in 2005. That woulda been cool.
Instead, Del Rey made an offer on THE QUEEN'S BASTARD. By the time the offer came through, I wasn't completely unprepared for it, since Betsy'd shown a lot of enthusiasm for the project. Still, it was so far outside what I'd have expected at the beginning of 2005 that it borders on ludicrous. I thought it'd probably be another year or two before I was able to start selling any of my big fat (sci)fantasy.
And voila! Five books! Two publishing houses! Five books! Three series under two names! I'd made my goal!
But what I've been sitting on since *before* the QUEEN'S BASTARD offer is this:
In early December, I got email from the Best Agent Ever. I'd written to her saying I'd had an anthology invitation and wanted her to look over the terms, and she wrote back with, "The terms look good, but don't make any commitments on your time until you've read the rest of this email! *insert suspense here*"
Then she put in about forty lines of white space. *laughs out loud* I have a very excellent agent. *laugh*
At the end of forty lines of white space, there was an offer on THE PHOENIX LAW and the _entire_ next trilogy!
Buh!
Seven books with one house in one year. Nine books total. That was my pipe dream goal, and the lineup ended up *completely* different from what I'd thought were the likely sales. Luna, for example, has yet to make an offer on more Walker Papers, and I'm guessing they won't until after COYOTE DREAMS is turned in (in fact, HEART OF STONE, COYOTE DREAMS and PHOENIX LAW may all very well be turned in before there's a Walker Papers offer, because SEVEN BOOKS. I wouldn't blame them for wanting some stuff off my plate before putting something else on it!)
For those keeping track at home, this puts me at 14 books (and one novella and one short story) sold since November 2003.
Earlier last fall, Jenn and I were looking at the possibility of all these sales (we were pretty much betting on a TQB sale at that point, though I'd been figuring in 3 Walker Papers and only 2 Bombshells) and working out a schedule. I wrote everything out, then told Jenn that if all of these sales went through, not to expect any more proposals for me for a while. Possibly years.
She said, "I should think not." *laugh*
This schedule demands 11 books (because COYOTE DREAMS isn't due until March) between February 2006 and February 2008 (and that includes the not-yet-contracted-for CAULDRON BORNE, the 4th book in the Walker Papers). On one hand, it really does sound appalling. On the other, HEART OF STONE and the proposal for HOUSE OF CARDS are already turned in. COYOTE DREAMS is two-thirds done, THE PHOENIX LAW is started, and THE QUEEN'S BASTARD is a third done. That means out of the books due this year, every single one of them has at least a start on it. I'm going to be very very busy, but not insurmountably so. Mind you, I do not intend to push myself any further than this. I can handle what I've got on my plate, but it'd be sheer insanity to ask for more. (Of course, Jenn says she's nominating me for most insane author on her list, so maybe it's too late. *laugh*)
*laugh* And Jenn, who really is the best agent, has been very good about making sure I can actually handle this workload (it behooves her as much as me to not burn me out!). I commented that because I know she reads my blog, I periodically wonder if going AUGH HATE WRITING TERRIBLE BOOK EVERYTHING'S AWFUL AUGH makes her worry. She said nah, as long as I continued to sound upbeat about my angst it was all good. *laugh*
I've allowed myself enough procrastination. Back on my head.
miles to Mount DOOOM: 362
ytd wordcount: 17,700
I'm a genius!
I actually went to the gym this morning, which was quite satisfying. John, the guy who runs the Curves here, had said something about women from there changing to a different gym "because they weren't sweating". I grant you, I sweat at the drop of a hat, but if you're in averagely good shape (which I am, as opposed to being in good shape or very good shape) and you put some effort into it, I don't know why you wouldn't sweat doing one of those workouts. I still vastly prefer free weights, but it's not a bad workout at all.
Anyway, that has nothing to do with my genius. The genius part of me is the part where I'm usually STARVELATING after a workout, and it struck me on my way out the gym door that there was a green grocer just down the road from the gym, and I could stop and get an apple or an orange and have something that was both good for me and would stave off the STARVELATING. I feel very smug. :)
(Ok, so it doesn't take much. Hush!)
Good news: the edits on Firebird Deception are in fact light, and I'm going through them pretty quickly. This is not my favorite part of writing. OTOH, once it's done, hey, the book is pretty much put to bed, and that's grand.
Other good news: Mom and Dad had a fantastic time in Venice. *beam*
Arright. I'm gonna go meet Ted and we're going to shop, and then I'm going home for lunch, work, and eventually to come back out to the internet shop again. Rumor has it that we'll have net on Feb. 3. This time we've at least got an order number, which is an improvement over all the other times when they've promised us net.
This means, mind you, that COYOTE DREAMS had better be done by Feb. 3. :)
miles to Mount Doom 352
Yesterday was Ted's birthday. We had a really nice day. :) Ted got ALL KINDS of loot, although the funniest bit was probably when he saved one of the presents for last 'cause he thought he knew what it was, and then it turned out to be something else entirely. He was still pleased with it, but it was pretty funny. :) *laugh* He got to open his presents mid-day, because all unexpectedly the camera I ordered in early December arrived, so if *I* got to open a present on his birthday, *he* certainly got to open his. *laugh*
I spent most of the day baking. Did you know that german chocolate is not actually German? It was invented by an American man named Samuel German, who thought it'd be easier for cooks if there was already sugar added to their baking chocolate. It was, at first, called German's chocolate, but the apostrophe-ess got dropped very quickly, so now it's German chocolate and has nothing to do with Germany. Anyway, I couldn't find it at any of the stores around here, but I did find a substitution for it (semi-sweet or bittesweet chocolate; I used semi-sweet, and 1/2 tablespoon sugar for every ounce of chocolate) and the cake turned out perfectly. Between baking, I dashed out and got cooling racks, which I really needed, and had a discussion with the woman at Shaw's about how nobody cooked anymore (it was pretty weird, looking for ingredients at Marks & Spencer, one of the stores here. They do not have ingredients. You can buy bread, but not flour. You can buy almost any kind of meal, but you really *can't* buy the things to *make* that meal from scratch. M&S is not a proper grocery store, and you can buy ingredients at proper grocery stores, but it was still v. odd.), and then rushed home to take the TOTALLY FALLEN cakes out of the oven. I have never in my life made such fallen cakes, but it was my own fault, because the ovens are tiny and I was trying to not burn the cake at the back of the oven so I had Ted switch them around mid-way through baking, and *fwump*. They fell. I was v. sad. Regardless, it turned out deliciously, and I cut them away to be even, so it didn't look too ugly.
I also went forth and got new cat food. Am I a party animal, or what? But it was really beautiful out, and I had a really nice day.
Ted and Shaun spent much of the day unpacking, having spent Thursday night building the bookshelves and dressers and whatnot we'd bought. Our living room suddenly looks like real people live there. It's nice! They did lotsa big work. And then we went out for dinner at the nice Italian place in Athy, where I caused the waiter to go, "Eeeeeee!" with dismay when I poured water into my wine glass because I hadn't noticed he had a water glass handy for me. However, that seemed to set a tone for the evening, as when he came back later to see if we were done, I'd done what I thought was a quite respectable job on my pasta (even before Shaun took a third of what was left), and he looked dismayed and said, "You're not *done*, are you? I'll come back in five minutes." *laugh* Anyway, we had a lot of fun. A very nice day indeed. :)
miles to Mount Doom: 348
While not perfect, I am reasonably happy with this design. I'd fiddle with it more, except NO NET ACCESS. o.o (If it's screwed up, hit shift-reload or some variation thereof to get rid of caching.) Irritatingly, only IE supports personalized scroll bars, so all other browsers have this big ugly internal scrollbar in the text area, but it looks nice on IE. :) I also had the text switched to Courier, which *I* like a lot, but I suspect other people think Verdana and Helvetica are easier on the eyes. Weirdos. :)
The manuscript got here this morning, so I'm ... well. Redesigning mizkit.com right now, obviously, but I'm wrapping birthday presents and getting ready to go back out to Athy soon, and trying to decide if I'm weenie enough to call a cab from here to the train station. It's only about a mile, but Ted's got a lot of heavy loot I need to haul down there.
Right. I also need to update cemurphy.net and mariavsnyder.com. I had best get with the program.
miles to Mount Doom: 340
Ted and Shaun tell me they've discussed it, and that I've lost all moral high ground because I stayed up too late reading RP logs the other night. Now, I ask you, is that fair? One night staying up too late reading fan fiction, and I've lost *all* moral high ground over the boys, who stay up too late reading fan fiction or playing video games? Ted further says that having *written* it counts *against* me rather than in my favor. Hrmph.
(I'll grant you that the number of nights I stayed up too late *writing* these things easily rivals the number of nights Ted's stayed up too late reading HPFF, but I don't think I've had an RP session that ran to 3:30 in the morning this millennium. My sins are in the past! And I've lost all moral high ground? Hmph!)
(I obviously need a fanfic icon. Maybe I'll make a little Kit icon before I post this.)
On a completely unrelated note, I made a bloody excellent loaf of bread yesterday. We accidentally got coarse-ground whole wheat flour, and so I somewhat tentatively used a cup of it in the bread. I *thought* it would probably lend the bread a nice nutty flavor and some texture, and I was right. It's really good. It's dried out a little more than I'd wanted it to by today, so I perhaps need to use more water next time, but mmm, it's nummy. I made an equally yummy batch of raisin bar cookies, too. The end of the holiday season is approaching, here, with Ted's birthday on Friday and Mom's next week, so time is short for having goodies in the house. A german chocolate cake for Ted, and probably a pecan sour cream cake for Mom, 'cause Gavin can't eat chocolate, and then NOOOO MOOOOORE GOODIES. My mouth is disappointed, but my waistline will be glad.
On another unrelated note, apparently the manuscript for FIREBIRD DECEPTION--the edits on which are due back on the 25th--did not get sent last week like it was supposed to have. Which means unless by some unlikely chance it arrives in Dublin today, I'm going to have to spend a day (hopefully only a day) lurking at Mom & Dad's waiting for it to arrive. *sigh* These things happen, but nrgh. Twice in a row. Nrgh. I told the guy who was supposed to have sent them that if they're late it's his fault. Really, unless something extraordinary happens, they won't be late, but nrgh.
All right, then. Time to get a drink and go to work.
Not much improvement in the quality of my brain since yesterday, though I did at least sit down and write today. After staying up until 3:30 in the morning re-reading old RP logs from several years worth of X-stuff with Sarah. (Ted, who has a Harry Potter fan fiction problem, said, cheerfully, to Shaun, "She stayed up all night reading fan fiction." I admit it. But there was some really good stuff in there!) Staying up that late when I'm not really well yet was probably not the best idea ever, but I think I'd been sleeping so late I've been screwing up my schedule anyway, so that's just how it is. I'll try to get up at a more normal hour tomorrow. (Which means *not* starting to read more logs tonight, because otherwise the doom will return. I know myself that well, anyway.)
Ted, on the other hand, got up at 8am and went shopping twice today. Clearly he is a superior being. :)
Hm. It's pushing 6pm, and I need to get some lotion, so perhaps I'd better trundle on down to the pharmacy before it closes.
yeah. that's my interesting life, all right. :)
ytd wordcount: 15,600
I would like to post a meaningful, cheerful, interesting journal post.
No chance. My brain is quite dead. We're in Dublin just now, having come in so we could do birthday shopping for Ted, and while I'd love to tell you all the exciting, interesting things I've been up to, we've really been staggering around our house trying to avoid smashing into the things that have been delivered which we haven't got anywhere to put. We bought bookshelves and dressers and things and they're being delivered on Thursday. Obviously it'd've been wiser to buy these things before the stuff arrived, but, uh, we didn't.
*stares mindlessly* gah. No brain! No brain! La la la la la!
(FOOLS! *I* will be brain!)
miles to Mount Doom: 335
The edits are off. To my delight, they were really pretty easy to do, coming in at 3.5 pages, which is, I think, the shortest author alteration set I've sent back to New York. So that all went pretty well, and it's done with. Onward!
We were supposed to get our stuff this afternoon, but the movers called and the man asked if it'd be okay to deliver it in the morning, as he'd be loading it up at 2pm and it'd take him 3 hours to get out of Dublin and to Athy at that time of day. I said that was fine. *laugh* So we get our stuff tomorrow. I have to figure out where I'm going to set Nook up!
*beam* Thanks, everybody who's responded to my shout-out. I want to sit down and take some time to respond to everybody and say hello and stuff, but right now I'm paying by the minute for internet access and more to the point, I've got to go home and edit the entire THUNDERBIRD FALLS manuscript by noon my time tomorrow, so that's a little more pressing. :) But it's really cool to hear from people who've been lurking and I don't even know about them! (I didn't know you were reading my blog, for example, Renaldo.)
We've gone down to Carlow Town again today and gotten Ted in-country officially. That went very smoothly and the man there is very nice and made us laugh quite a lot. Ted's passport picture looks like a terrorist, it really does, his hair's long and he's got a beard and it's all just very eeek!, and the man double-took at it and said, "Not that I'd be profiling..." :) There's more to talk about (he recognized me as the writer who'd come in with Shaun a few weeks ago, and that garnered several questions and a considering pause before, "That's okay, then," and we moved on), but I might've mentioned this edit that needs doing by 12 my time tomorrow... :)
The *good* news is the FIREBIRD DECEPTION edits I thought I was also going to have to do, like, this weekend, aren't due til like the 25th. Those shouldn't be too extensive anyway, but yeesh, I'm glad I don't have to do them by Monday!
what else, what else what else. oh! I got a fan letter along with the TBF manuscript. that was pretty neat. :) and...yes, well, okay, anything else can wait until this edit is done. It's kind of eating my brain. O.O
oh, I know the other thing I'd been going to say. I read THE CARDINAL RULE on the train yesterday, and it was really rather odd. I knew the story, obviously, and there were places I recognized myself as the writer quite clearly, but overall it was almost like reading a book someone else had written. There were still bits where I thought, "Mm, should've fixed that," and things like that, but mostly it was almost like I hadn't written it. *Very* odd. Ted said, "Welcome to writing with a different voice. Alisha is *not* Jo," which I *knew*, but still, reading it in an actual book form was--yeah. Very odd!
Okay. to home and to work now. :)
miles to Mount Doom: 325
Okay, I've been meaning to do this since the beginning of the year, and have done it on my livejournal site, but I want to do it here and for the mizkit_feed.
Give me a shout out! Tell me who you are, why you're reading my blog, how you found me, all that sort of thing, 'cause I know there are people I don't know out there reading me, and I'm curious. So let me know! :)
Gawd in nose-stuffy heaven. I keep trying to explain to this cold that I'm nearly out of cold medicine, so I ought to be nearly out of cold, but it's not taking. I've been forced several times to buy more cold medicine, and I suspect it's going to happen again.
The most annoying thing (in some sense, anyway) is that unlike normal colds where I don't feel like eating anything for five days, I've been starving all the way through this one and so instead of losing weight I think I've gained a couple pounds. That's *totally* unfair. I've been sick for three weeks. I should be skinny by now!
We are, or will be when I post this, in Dublin, where we are awaiting the arrival of the THUNDERBIRD FALLS manuscript, which was overnighted from New York last Thursday. The astute among you may note that this is something more than 'overnight', so far as delivery times go.
According to UPS, our address doesn't exist. *exasperated look* Once we found that out, we sent them to Mom & Dad's, which, with any luck, they will be able to find. Production gave us an extension. The copy edits are now due Friday. Thursday is going to be very busy, and by the end of it I expect I will hate the book a lot, since I'll probably have to read it three times in twelve hours.
I've dyed my hair back to more or less its natural color, since I never actually intended to become a redhead in the first place. Right now I'm vaguely irritated with it in general, and the only thing keeping me from chopping it is the fact that I will have wasted five years of more or less constant hair-growing (I have done a couple of several-inch cuts in that time, so my hair is not nearly as long as it would be in five years if I hadn't done that) leading up to X3 (which is going to suck) if I cut it now. I do not, however, have the slightest faith that re-Roguing it is going to go over well, with three different colors of hair dye in it. Perhaps I need to get Angie to come over in mid-May and we can do hair things together before the movie. :)
Right before Christmas I was feeling really energetic and excited about starting to lose weight again and starting to go to the gym. Just all full of vim and vigor and enthusiasm for the whole project. Three weeks of being sick has completely wasted that anticipation. I have some small hope that when I actually *feel* better it'll resurface, but I'm thinking it's probably going to take something more significant than just feeling well. Electroshock therapy, maybe.
All right. A five hundred word journal entry ought to be enough for my fingers to have gotten used to the idea of typing. No need to turn this into another Marvel-rant-length mini-epic. The only other thing I've got to say is yesterday a raven (or a crow; we're still debating which species exactly the bigger black birds hopping around here are) stuck his head down our chimney and cawed and clucked and hollered for a while, evidently because he liked the echoes so well.
That's all, then.
miles to Mount Doom: 322
ytd wordcount: 13,300
AHAHAHAHAH!
I'd been going to spare the flist the sheer spam of another posting today, after that last long comics rant, but I just got email from The Best Agent Ever confirming that I could talk about something that's been killing me to keep quiet about for the last few weeks.
You may remember that back in September I met Betsy Mitchell of Del Rey at the Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers' annual conference, Colorado Gold. I pitched HEART OF STONE to her at the time, and the day after I got back from the conference, my current publisher, Luna, bought the trilogy.
While we were in discussions with Luna, Jenn asked me what I should tell Betsy, who was quite actively pursuing the trilogy. I said, "Ask her if she'd like to see something else!", as I had something specific in mind I wanted to show her. Betsy was interested in seeing the something else, which I've more or less kept under my hat, because _Betsy Mitchell_. I didn't want to jinx anything!
We've just nailed down the details. Del Rey has bought my Elizabethan-era science fiction epic THE QUEEN'S BASTARD, and one sequel, THE PRETENDER'S CROWN, for release in trade paperback in fall 2007 and fall 2008.
AHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAH!!!!!!! *BEAM*!
I am *so* excited. This branches me out of the Harlequin house, so I don't have all my eggs in one basket, which is very exciting for me (not, mind you, that I have had the *slightest* problem with Harlequin in any way at all. They've been utterly *fantastic* to me. But spreading my wings is good!), and also will let me evolve a whole different kind of writing. Stylistically, THE QUEEN'S BASTARD isn't like anything you've read from me so far, and I'm *really* looking forward to finishing this book (it's about a third done) and seeing what I can do with this new voice and these characters. And Betsy Mitchell! Working with her is quite literally a dream come true; she's one of the editors I've thought wouldn't it be wonderful about for many years.
It also means I'm going to be very very busy indeed. I have four (well, five, but one's just been turned in) books due this year. But it's the best kind of busy! I love this job!
*beam*!
I'm sitting here (wasted and wounded at this old piano / trying hard to capture the moment, this morning I don't know, 'cause a bottle of vodka's still lodged in my head / some blond gave me nightmares, I think that she's still in my bed) staring at the computer, with just enough brain to feel stuffy and nasty and not enough to get myself started typing. So once more with the blog entry just so I'm typing something. With any luck it'll get me focused on words instead of solitaire.
I have this scene I can't quite remember from one of the X-Men comics stuck in my head. It's after Cyclops has gotten melded with Apocalypse and he's struggling with this dark side that's questionably Cyke, and he's gone out to get tanked and Wolvie's gone after him. They have this conversation--well, Wolvie does--about how Cyclops has these amazing women that the rest of them would pretty much kill for more or less constantly throwing themselves at him (this is during the beginning of the Emma Frost affair) and Cyclops just never really sees them. The other scene that's stuck in my head is after Jean's latest death, when Wolvie's furious with Scott for moving on so fast, and Scott says, "What am I *supposed* to do? This is the third time I've buried her. How long do you want me to hang on?" That latter bit is one of the rare moments I've genuinely liked Cyclops. (The other that comes to mind is immediately after Age of Apocalypse where they're stuck in the middle of the Australian Outback with the Acolytes and they run into Ayers Rock or whatever it's called and the Acolytes say, "Jesus, we're going to have to go around this thing," and Cyke, who is not having a good day, says, "Hasn't anybody ever told you the shortest distance between two points is a straight line?" and blows through two miles of solid stone with one blast, leaving the Acolytes going, "Holy $h!t!")
I have no idea what this has to do with anything. It's just what's going on in my tired little head right now. I suppose a bit of it is from Russ imploring--or ordering--people recently to give up the crap comics they've been reading and buying out of habit since long after there were any decent stories or heart left to them. The X-Men generally fall under that heading, sadly. Even Ted quit buying them after they brought Colossus back, undoing the only meaningful death I'd ever read in Marvel comics.
I guess the sad thing is I think there's still something to do with those characters and stories. I think there's resolution to be had--which is probably part of my problem; I do like stories with resolution, and ongoing comics aren't exactly set up for ending the conflict and angst between characters, much like soap operas--and character depths to be plumbed. DC, which has a somewhat stronger hold on the idea of canon and not retconning things than Marvel does, consequently has a much more cohesive universe in which it's easier to tell stories. Pity it's not DC characters who hold my heart (the holy trinity aside, and even they're not as beloved as the X-Men). It's not the DC universe I want to grab by the throat, rattle around and straighten up because I love its characters. It's the Marvel universe.
I mean, no secret that one of my ambitions is to write X-Men comics. I just can't figure out how the hell I'd get things straightened out. They're in the midst of another retcon right now, where they've undone the mutant population explosion that Grant Morrison did (generally speaking I don't believe Grant Morrison ought to be allowed near comic books. I realize them are fightin' words, but I just don't like his stories.), which I'm in favor of, because I didn't think the population explosion was in keeping with the inherent *idea* of the X-Men, which is that these are people who represent whatever particular frustrated minority you want them to. They are, in essence, every kid who ever felt like he didn't fit in, and that's why despite all the screwups and mistakes I still love the characters, even if they've buggered the delivery beyond words.
The problem, the real problem, is that no matter how many retcons, reboots, and game overs they do, Marvel doesn't stick by its own word. DC did the Infinite Earths or whatever it was in the 80s and got their spinoffs under control. Marvel is more like every single, if not issue, at least storyline, spins into one of those possible alternate universes where a different choice makes a whole different world. Nobody knows what the real story is anymore. Ted and I were discussing that a couple days ago. During Morrison's run, Chris Claremont was writing Xtreme X-Men, which Ted commented didn't seem like it fit into the canon. To me, it seemed like the only thing that *was* canon; everything else belonged to some bizarre alternate universe that didn't fit into the X-Universe.
So how, as a writer, would you deal with that? In a way they've dealt with it by starting the Ultimate universe. Complete reboot, start all over again, no 40 years of history to have to try to fit in with, same characters reinterpreted surprisingly well in many cases. It's a good universe, although I haven't read the last year or so's worth of comics, 'cause they lost me with the Polaris/Magneto storyline. Still, in general, a good universe. But it's not the original X-universe.
The best way to deal with it would be to kill off a lot of characters and strip the original universe back down to just a few titles, making it tight-knit again. That, of course, spawns death matches over who lives and who dies, but even that could be dealt with if Marvel could be trusted to leave the dead alone. I will make one exception to this: Jean Grey. You do not name a character Phoenix and expect her to stay dead. (And, see, I think there's a nice Wolverine/Phoenix story in that, because no, frankly, I can't blame Scott for moving on, but Wolvie can afford to wait. He's got time. I think you could do something nice with that. I think Marvel *won't*, but I think you *could*.)
Who would I spare? Eh. No surprise I'd spare Rogue, because she's my favorite (and yes, I do see the inherent problem with saving the faves). Gambit, for similar reasons, though I do think they're both good characters. Wolvie, Jean, Scott, Storm (though I don't particularly like those last two), Kitty, _I'd_ like to bring Pete Wisdom back (though I have a vague idea somebody did already), but I'd rather leave the dead to rest. Jubilee, who has a lot of potential that got shot to shit with GenX. I don't know who else, right now. Emma Frost, perhaps, because she's worthy of the conflict she brings to the X-Men. Kurt, although that's another character whose history they've buggered enough it makes me just want to throw everything since the end of AoA out and start all over again (though I guess that's sort of what the House of M storyline's done, with retcons going even further back than that: Bobby, for example, doesn't have his powers anymore. But I mean, who believes they're going to leave _Iceman_ without his powers? Show of hands? Yeah. That's what I thought. And that's the problem. (Besides, it would've been far more interesting to remove Hank's powers, because he's never believed his intellect was part of his mutant gift, and it'd be a considerably better story for him to wake up one day and look: normal physique, just what he's always wanted--and normal *brain*, which would come as a really unpleasant shock.)). Anyway, the point is unless Marvel was actually willing to agree to a canonic history, you could never *fix* the mess they've made. Somehow I don't think I'm going to be the one to convince them of their folly, though I'd sure run it up the flagpole.
Meantime, I keep reading their stories, even when they make me crazy, because if I ever do get to write the X-Men, I'm going to need to know what's been going on. Otherwise I think you end up with Grant Morrison, taking the world off in a direction violently different enough that the only way to deal with it is, you got it, with yet another retcon.
Right. I just hit 4 pages on Word with this, so I'm kinda thinkin' it's time to stop ranting or futuretripping or wisting or whatever I'm doing over the X-Men and do some actual work instead.
miles to Mount Doom: 320.5
(written 1.5.06, 7:45pm) So the other night when I stayed in Dublin to babysit the little boys, Ted and Shaun had a DVD accident. (This is because 1. you can't rent DVDs without having a utility bill, in this country, and 2. because it is only very slightly more expensive to buy DVDs than to rent them. (Really. The big chain video store's got DVDs for sale all the time for like E7.99 or 3 for 25 or 2 for 20 or this or that, and it costs E5.25 to rent a DVD for one night. So hell, you watch a movie twice and it's cheaper to have bought it. But none of that is the point.))
When I came home to see the DVDs they'd bought, it struck me as really funny, because they'd gotten such *guy* movies. They got The Rock, Unbreakable, Equilibrium, Time Bandits, Mr. & Mrs. Smith, and I, Robot. Now, none of these are movies I object to watching repeatedly, but they just struck me as being *totally* guy movies. I commented on it.
The next time they came home with DVDs, they had Sahara, Van Helsing, and had thoughtfully gotten me a girl movie, Roxanne. *laugh*
Yesterday we went into Dublin to watch some movies, since we have no net access and we were all bored. :) We went to King Kong, which Shaun walked out of (not surprisingly), Ted decided was too long to like, and I felt rather guilty liking, because it really was *much* too long and self-absorbed. The opening--everything up to them getting onto the ship, for example--could have been done in about 7 minutes, instead of the 30 or more it took, f'rinstance. But I rather liked it anyway. :)
We also saw The Family Stone, which had much more serious underpinnings than I expected, but which was quite good. Plus Diane Keaton's hair is good. :)
The other thing we did was meet up with Deirdre & Gavin & Company (Gavin's siblings are all visiting) over at the Temple Bark farmer's market for a few minutes. We did this in large part because Gavin's sister, Liz, was going through Christmas pictures, and saw one of Shaun, and started yelling, "Who's that! Who's that!" and when she was told it was Shaun, said, "I knew that!"
It turns out Shaun and Lizzie know each other completely independently, and while he'd told her he was moving to Ireland, and she'd said her brother'd moved to Ireland and she'd be visiting him in January, they never managed to quite connect that Lizzie's brother was my sister's husband. Even more peculiar is that we had Gavin's whole family over for dinner once, but apparently Lizzie left before Shaun got home, and while I know they were both at the wedding, evidently they didn't see one another. Two ships passing in the night, indeed. So they got a chance to catch up, and we all got to be amused at the whole situation.
Deirdre & Gavin & Co had all just come back from the Aran Islands, the largest of which, Deirdre reported, is 10 x 3 miles and has 7000 miles of stone fences. (Really.) They enjoyed themselves a lot. :)
A clear problem with having a job is that it makes it harder to dash off and go explore Ireland. Not that I'm objecting to having a job. I like my job. But it does require me actually working, which is bothersome when I'd like to explore. Another problem is not having a car, though we're working toward rectifying that problem. Now all we need is a sudden very large influx of money so we can buy Ted a B&B. Then, er, we'll ALL be too busy to explore! Yeah! o.O :)
miles to Mount Doom: 319.5
Well, we went down to open a bank account today, which is a much lengthier process than it is in the states. So that's underway. Then we went and got *library cards*. It's like we're real people, or something!
I had a call from the editorial assistant at Harlequin on Wednesday that threw me into a panic: the author alterations for THUNDERBIRD FALLS were due and they weren't in, and something about he was going to email them to me, and I'm going ACK ACK ACK because I hadn't *seen* the AAs, much less done them, and agh what was going on and agh!
--well, no, it turned out he was going to email me something else that I already had, so he didn't have to, and in fact he knew I hadn't seen the AAs because he'd accidentally sent them to Alaska and hadn't realized it until the day they were due and he hadn't heard from me. Agh! But at least it wasn't my fault. He's expressed a copy of the AAs to me now and hopefully they'll arrive today (@.@) so I can do them over the weekend, and hopefully production will be okay with that, and well, at least it's not my fault. :)
And there are copyedits for FIREBIRD DECEPTION on the way. Did I mention they'd accepted FD with no revisions? Buh! So getting COYOTE DREAMS done by the end of the month will be--well, it's possible, but I'll be very busy with it. That's ok. It's not actually *due* til March; I just want it done before then.
Ok, Ted's ready to go, so I'm gonna head out.
miles to Mount DOOOOOM: 315
No net. No ETA on net, either, at this point. My mother says the Irish would rather lie to you than disappoint you, and we seem to be victims of that. Apparently there's a waiting list for broadband access, and we have no idea how long it'll be; they said it could be anywhere from a few days to a few weeks, which more likely translates to "a few weeks to a few months". Nrf.
So I'm setting up a permanent gmail address. I may end up using it instead of any of my other email addresses in the long term, I don't know. But for now, and for the foreseeable future, if you want to email me, do so at cemurphyauthor@gmail.com. I think for right now I'm just going to forward my other addresses on to that email. If I can figure out how. Bah humbug.
(ETA: I can't. Anybody know how to set up a general forward on Outlook Express 6?)
URBAN SHAMAN got nominated for a Romantic Times Reviewer's Choice for best modern fantasy award! Lookit that! I'm up against Jim. I'm sure he'll understand if I hope I win. But if I don't win, I hope he does. :)
I went out to lunch with my Irish ladies, which was lots of fun! We went out to a Temple Bar restaurant which certainly thought a lot of itself, but it was in fact good, and we had a very nice hour or so before I had to scoot off to see Bugsy Malone with my family. That was also wonderful, sufficiently so that we could hardly find anything to complain about. Except the idiotic choice on the part of the theatre to sell fibre optic light wands to children *before the fucking show*, which was really obnoxious. But it was not a problem with the show itself. :)
It's been a good day. :)
(written 1.3.06, 11am) I did not quite manage to get over my last cold before I caught another one. Apparently all the nasty Irish germs are having a field day with my delicate Alaskan constitution, or something. Unlike the last cold, which only required aspirin, this one actually requires cold medicine, which means I'm a zombie. I can do one thing at a time. I'm actually quite efficient doing one thing at a time, because once I'm doing it I'm completely focused.
The problem here is that I have begun a loaf of bread, and my brain seems to think that that's the thing I'm doing. In a way, my brain is right, because I have to remember in 30 minutes to go turn the oven on, and in another 35 minutes after that, to go take the bread out. If I get involved in something else there's a very real possibility I'll forget to do at least one of those things, which will result in either over-risen bread or burned bread. (OK, truthfully, it takes quite a while to burn bread. Mostly you just get crustier bread. Still.)
Anyway, so I'm doing a little journal entry to get my fingers used to the idea of typing. The good news is I know I can write in this state, because I've written parts of various books while stoned on cold medicine, and nobody's ever said to me, "Excuse me, but were you stoned on cold medicine or something when you wrote this?"
*sage nod*
Ted got a slow cooker for Christmas and has made an enormous pot of turkey soup from the Christmas turkey carcass. Every once in a while my sinuses clear enough for me to get a whiff of it, and mmm it smells good. His poor sick wife requested it, and he was good enough to oblige. I have a good husband. A very good husband, actually; he ran around vacuuming up amazing amounts of dog hair this morning, and brought the first load of laundry down and put it in, and yeah. He's a good Ted. I'm a lucky Kit.
I've read...well. Books 1 and 3 of Karin Traviss's first trilogy (apparently the 2nd book didn't get packed), and now I know why Stella says she'll read anything Karin Traviss writes. Very, very good stuff. I need to find a copy of the second book so I can read it, although the back of the third gave major spoilers for the second (grr) which is why I went ahead and read the 3rd. Bah. Anyway, well worth reading. I hope there's a sequel trilogy to this one, because wow the unanswered questions. :)
I really want to be able to check my email to see if I'm allowed to talk about the wonderful things I want to talk about yet. We have all gotten Quite Impatient for internet, around here. They're supposed to come today. I'm not sure any of us entirely believes they will, but we sure hope they do.
Zilli is sleeping in the slow cooker box. He's been doing that a lot since Ted opened it. He *really* squealed last night when Shaun went and looked at him in the slow cooker box. He *really* did not want Shaun to pick him up. Silly kitty. :) And Chanti is sleeping on the couch. We've entirely given up; she's won. I wouldn't want to sleep on the hardwood floors, either. I need to get her a bed. Or several. One for the living room, one for the kitchen, and one for the office.
Nrgh. Know that pressure change feeling where it's like someone took a syringe and stuck it up your nose and out your ear and the drainage is the right half of your brain cavity?
Yeah.
Okay, Catie. 2000 words. Anybody can write 2000 words.
(some time later: i suppose writing "i only need 411 more words" 69 times wouldn't count...? yeah. thought not.
still no net.)
ytd wordcount: 8,050
miles to Mount Doooooom: 311
(written January 1) I don't do resolutions. My resolve always fails. Instead I set myself some goals for the coming year, because goals are achievable and resolutions aren't. Or something. :)
2006 goals:
1. write 400,000 words
2. walk 600 miles
3. read 104 books
4. lose 12 pounds
5. sell 3 books
I think I usually have more, but that looks like the right number for this year. I'm taking biking off for a couple of reasons: one, I haven't made goal *yet* for that (neither for writing, but that's different), and two, unless and until I can find somewhere that's not suicidal to bike around here, I don't see much darned biking happening anyway. I do plan to swim, but putting a distance down as one of my yearly goals hasn't helped so far, so I think I'll just take the pressure off and call it good.
(written december 31 around 6pm) If I had a net connection tonight, I'd post and let you all know that 2006 has arrived safely and that the future is, if not in good hands, at least here.
Unfortuately, I don't have a net connection, which I'm finding actively annoying for the first time. I've been a bit impatient previously, and I had one real moment of jonesing for CoH, but overall it's been a mior inconvienence and not something to mutter over. But today I've done my writing, done laundry, made bread, and finished reading Jennifer Fallon's Demon Child trilogy (which was really good), and I have nothing left to do. I mean, I could write more, but dammit, I did my writing for the day and I don't *want* to write more. I could read something else, but nothing else we've got here particularly appeals to me. I'm still coughing up a lung every time I change elevation, so the idea of going out and partying isn't all that exciting, either. Also, it's only 6pm, which is too early to go out and party anyway. :)
Anyway, the point is that this is an ideal time to log on and horse around for a while, and I can't do it. :P We're supposed to get net access on Tuesday, which is presumably when I'll post this.
Typically I'd post my revolutions and a look at last year's revolutions, too, but again with the no net access, so I can only half remember what my revolutions were in the first place.
There was weight loss: check. I lost 22 pounds in 2005, for a total loss so far of 34 pounds. (update: I was aiming for 30 pounds lost. 22 will do. :)
There was biking, I think 1500 miles: failure. I think I managed about 400. (update: even worse. I was aiming for 1625 and made 352.5!)
There was writing: check. Goal was 400K and I made about 300K, but I wasn't planning on completely totally rewriting HoS, which cut into the forward motion somewhat.
There was walking: check. I wanted to make it to Rauros Falls and halfway to Mount Doom. I've really lost track in the last month, but I think I've made it about 305 of the 489 or something miles to Mount Doom, so I think I've done 6 or 700 miles this year. Go me. (update: 728.5 miles! wow!)
There were probably book sales. I have no idea what I put down for the number I wanted to sell, so I'll just look at that later. (update: my goal was four. I signed 1 contract for 3 books in 2005. Not bad.)
There were books read: I don't know if I made it to 104. Probably not, although if you count re-reads of my own books while I'm working on them, I made it. Oi. Anyway, again with this one, the net access is a problem, since I keep my book list online. Bah. (update: wow, I really suck. Only 65 books. Agh. I think that's the worst I've ever done. Agh. Must read more.)
Anything else I just can't remember right now.
If I had Highlander, I could watch that. But I don't. It's packed. Blast.
No net, but I'm in at Mom & Dad's, so I'm doing lots of catch-up posting.
(written December 31) My poor nephew Seirid really loves oranges, and has six teeth. He recognizes what an orange is, so he's taken to grabbing an orange and sinking his six teeth into it--into the skin, mind you--and then he's horribly, horribly disappointed when it tastes awful.
The worst, most frustrating part for the poor little guy is that in order for it to taste good, someone else has to feed it to him.
Isn't that awful? Talk about being bound by limitations! It's hard to be one year old!
Which he is, as of--well, by the time I post this, probably a few days ago, but as of my writing it, tomorrow! Happy Birthday to Seirid! He's a New Year's baby!
I still haven't gotten over this wretched cold. I'm feeling a *lot* better today, except the part where I'm still trying to hack up a lung. Grr. Stupid stupid cold creature!
I've been v. productive this morning. I made bread, emptied the garbage, fed the animals, and now I'm...okay, writing a journal entry instead of writing my 2000 words, but I'll get to the words soon enough. I'm getting my fingers warmed up, that's all. :)
Okay, in fact, I've got other things I want to write about, but they're the sorts of things better left til I either have internet access or have at least done my words, so I'm off to work. (I'll be glad when the HOUSE OF CARDS proposal is done, because then I can try to get myself on a M-F schedule for writing. But I want to send the whole kaboodle (HoS & the HoC proposal) as soon as I have net access, so I don't want to dilly-dally around and not finish the proposal just because it's a weekend.)
*beam* We have tickets to go see Bugsy Malone on Wednesday. I've never seen Bugsy Malone on stage, and I'm really looking forward to it. I'm also meeting up with what I persist in calling "my Irish ladies" from the Luna boards, although I suspect they're very much their own Irish ladies, that day. :) It'll be fun!
Gaaaaaaahd I wish my ears would clear!
Okay. To work.
The good news: we're not dead! The bad news: no net yet. Wah. There will be many, many catch-up posts when we have net at home. Which is supposed to be today. But it's almost 5. We're not confident.
Regardless, Happy New Year to EVERYBODY!