I have managed to create a hybrid of LJ design capabilities and my own site that I am, if not perfectly happy with, at least reasonably content with. There's still some color fiddling to do, but that's pretty nit-picky. At this point, the LJ and the main page will look alike, except the LJ is missing the photographer silhouette and the quote. It Will Do.
This means tomorrow morning I'm going to switch my journal over to LJ. For those of you who read it at mizkit.com, this should be essentially transparent. For those of you who read the mizkit_feed, you will presumably want to switch over to reading mizkit instead.
The reason for doing this is so I can have threaded comments conversations and so that I will *get* all the comments, because things left on the mizkit_feed can be missed, as they're not emailed to me.
I am debating whether I want to open up comments to anonymous commenters, or just screen anonymous commenters. Laura mentioned in the however-long she's had an LJ, she's only gotten 3 spams, or something; can other people weigh in on this and let me know what kind of spam problems they've had there? I know LJ is these days supporting the Open ID thing, but I have no idea what it is, really. If someone wanted to explain that, too... (Because, y'know, I can't go google it, or something.)
This is _nothing_ like a 10K day, but you have *no idea* how much better the prospect of having only one journal to update/keep track of makes me feel.
Off to buy some more user icons and upload all the ones I've got currently for this journal over on the LJ. Yay. :)
I went on a 4 mile round trip walk today to determine that the Cobh farmer's market is not worth a 4 mile round trip walk. :) The middle two miles of walking were quite beautiful, though the first and last rained on me a lot. And I got home to discover stinking Zilli had gotten locked in the living room and took a dump on Ted's fencing bag in retaliation. Goddamned cat.
Inspired somewhat by Angie, I'm going to go spend an hour trying to get my livejournal embedded into my main page in a successful fashion. Then I'm going to write.
(If I only spend an hour doing the web thing, it will be a Miracle Of Gosh.)
miles to Mount Doom: 443
50,611 words. 'course, that means 400 more words and I'm at 51K, and that's just a vicious cycle, but I'm stopping there because I'm in the middle of a conflict and it'll be relatively easy to pick up again tomorrow. Plus I did 3500 words today, which is pretty good. 28K to go. I would *kill* for a 10K day, though it'd probably help if I'd get up before 9:30 in the morning if I want one. :) Hm. Ted has to get up early tomorrow (I think) to go up to Dublin and give our former landlords the keys to the house and things, so maybe that'll get me up earlier. We'll see.
I should figure out what my wordcount's at. Around 110K, I think. For the year, I mean, not for the book.
Man. I should do weekend writeup stuff, but there's all this WORK to do. Speaking of which, I've noticed again that whole "reward for working is doing moe work" problem. I *must* go forth and get a life.
As soon as this book is done.
My God. It is absolutely *dumping* rain out there. I hope Ted made it to the store before the rain started. I think he probably did. I hope he did. Eep! *fuss*!
Wow, that's a lot of rain.
5 seconds later, eta: Ted just called. He did get caught in the rain. Wah! Poor Ted! *fuss*!
20 minutes later, eta: He only got caught in the rain, not the absolute pissing rain. He said, when he got home, that he'd gone outside at the store and had said, "*That's* what she was talking about!" Whew. That's good. :)
Chugging along on the writing front today. Ted and I were just having an interesting discussion about the Cate Dermody titles (one of which I'm working on right now).
Had you asked me, I'd have said the way to make it rich as a writer would be as a romance writer. I'd have said that was the career path to fame and fortune. I still think it's probably true. I'd have said that probably if I was going to make a bundle writing, it would be with the Dermody books.
Ted, it turns out, considers those the make-a-living books. Those are the relatively steady paychecks which don't expect to have the numbers or the shelf life for big fat royalty checks (which there's a fair amount of truth to; I'd have to check the contract to be sure, but I have to sell something like 3x the number of Dermody books to make back my advance as I do Murphy books, at least in the trade paperbacks. OTOH, their print runs are much higher.), but they pay enough to get by on. Part of the reason they pay enough to get by on is because they've got a significantly faster turn-around time from purchase to publication.
For example: I sold URBAN SHAMAN in November 2003. It came out in June 2005. I sold THE CARDINAL RULE in November 2004. It came out in December 2005. When you're getting paid in 3 parts (approximately 1/3rd on signing, 1/3rd on proposal, and 1/3rd on delivery), getting those payments inside of 8 months instead of 12 or 15 months is a pretty damned big difference. It becomes a definite (look, Mom, I spelled it right!) factor in actually making a living as a writer. Publisher payments are irregular at best, so having those faster-turnaround books helps *enormously*. So what I was thinking could, long term, be the cash cow part of the career looks far more like it's at least the short-term everyday living part of my career.
Which, I guess, is pretty much as cash cow as you can ask for. (And, really, I'm way too new at this game to have any feeling for cash cows, nevermind that cash cows and writing careers are not two things that go together most of the time. This is a silly way to make a living. I was explaining the payment process to a friend of mine, who listened in growing horror and who eventually said, "I couldn't live like that. I couldn't be *married* to someone who made their living like that. It's too random.")
Anyway, it was an interesting difference of perception on the books. :) And now I shall go back to writing, because I'm, let's see. 852 words away from 50K. Hey, I might even make that with this chapter, after all. Depends on how detailed this *whispers* sex scene I'm about to write gets. :)
We're back!
Actually, we got back yesterday morning, but we spent a few hours in Dublin, then trained home, and I spent most of the evening answering interview questions for a guest blog where I'll be featured in April, so I didn't get to posting.
Monday we went into NYC and went to the Donald Maass Literary Agency to sign contracts and meet people, which was plenty good fun. Very nice offices, LOTS of books (I love going into business offices of book-related people; it's like walking into a very, very specialized library), very nice people, and they let me call Jenn up to ask a couple questions about the contract, so we chatted for close to half an hour and had a darned good time. :) Contracts signed, we decided we'd just head out for the airport, so we did, and the rest of the day was very quiet.
I don't think airline seats should be allowed to tilt back, though. :P The invasion of personal space is so huge and uncomfortable, and if you're trying to do ANYTHING, it becomes physically impossible. *grumpy* And it's a horrible domino effect, because the only way you can get any goddamned breathing space is to tilt back yourself, which puts you in the next guy's face, and... *grr*. So no writing. :P No sleeping, either, except a fitful hour of closed-eyes while listening to my MP3 player, during which I had a few minutes of lucid dream awareness stuff which was generally unpleasant. Poor Ted was pretty much white from exhaustion by the time we got to Mom and Dad's, so he went to take a nap and I hung out with Mom and the little boys for a few hours. Cute little boys. *laugh* Anyway, by the time we got on the train for Cork, I'd been up something like 26 hours, and when I turned Little on to write, my eyes kept crossing and my head kept falling over, so no writing there, either. Total words since I left last week: 5500. Oh well; I knew it wasn't going to be a good writing week, and we certainly had enough fun to make it worth it. :)
(In retrospect, I should've written at the airport in New York, but I really thought I'd be able to get some work done on the plane and I didn't want to use my batteries up, so...oh well!)
Getting more emails from booksellers wanting to know what's up with URBAN SHAMAN. I did talk to my editor about it but still don't have an exact ETA on the arrival of reprints in the stores. Apparently the initial print run for the book was fairly close to the number of covers they'd printed, too, so they had to go back to print for the covers as well as the book, and that's delayed things some. But the reprints should be available before THUNDERBIRD hits the shelves. *crosses fingers*
Ooh! I've gotten all the rough pages for Chance, now! Out of 22 pages, there are about 4 panels that weren't *quiiiiite* what I wanted, or that needed a few changes, but I swear Ardian's roughs were just so bloody close to perfect it's amazing. *laughs helplessly* Ironically, the page that I think will take the most work is the first one, and that's because I'm trying to wrap my mind around a little bit of rewriting, so a couple frames will probably change. That's *me*, not my artist, which is pretty awesome. He done good.
And dear lord, the two guys in Chance's life are diametric opposites physically, in build, in features, in coloring (which, I swear to God, I hadn't mean to do, but seeing Ardian's sketches of them makes me go AHAHAHAH LOOKIT THAT!), and they're both gorgeous. I have no idea how she's going to choose between them someday. *laugh*
'k, must give Ardian a bit of feedback, then SHOWER and EAT and WRITE.
I have a lapLucy. What a nice kitty. :)
It has been an extremely good weekend. We are extremely tired. *laugh* I met Jim Frenkel from Tor Books, who came in on the conversation we were having when I was talking about URBAN SHAMAN having sold out (he said, "Do you know what that means?" I said, "That I'm brilliant?", which was so completely not what he expected there was a very long and funny pause while he tried to figure out how to respond *laugh*), and after a while of hearing about the sales I'd made to publishers, he wanted, in essence, to know why Tor didn't have a piece of me. *laugh* I said it wasn't for lack of trying on my part, and we talked for a long time, and this morning I gave him a copy of URBAN SHAMAN and said I hoped we'd have the chance to work together in the future, and he said he hoped so too, so that by itself was quite worth coming to the con for.
But *besides* that, we just flat-out had a fantastic time. We met Lisa and her husband Erik (Lisa is responsible for me being here. Lisa is on my list of Top Favorite People Ever! *grin*) who are just wonderful, we found ourselves standing next to Carmen Argenziano in the hospitality suite and tried not to giggle like idiots, we met Spider and Jeanne Robinson, I served cake to Terry Brooks, we listened in on Richard Hatch talk about sort of life, the universe and everything during breakfast, I did several panels which were a lot of fun and which I will write about sometime later this week...it was just a blast. We had a totally fantastic time.
I *really* hope we come back next year. :)
Ted and I made it into NYC safely yesterday. The plane flight was one of the more comfortable ones I remember, and I got 5500 words written (2 chapters! CHEEAAAARGE!) and am at something like 46K on the book now. *Yes*. Hoping to write on the train out to Long Island this afternoon, and then I'm assuming tomorrow and Sunday will be complete losses. :)
We did not check luggage. I will never check luggage again, if I can avoid it. We zoomed through customs and didn't have to wait to pick anything up, and in a fit of laziness, when we were accosted by a limo driver just outside the airport doors, we said, "Oh, what the hell," and took a towncar into NYC. It was very comfortable, and the driver told us funny stories. :)
We got checked in, were put in a stinky smoking room, asked to be moved, and got put into a much less dingy non-smoking room, which made us very happy. It's not a great hotel, but the bed was more comfy than we expected, so hey. It's all good. And we went out to dinner with Matrice, and had a *really* good time. By 10, though, Ted and I were totally faded (poor Ted, who has been very tired in general because of his arm, was white as a ghost, and for a man of his general complexion, that's not easy.) We were so utterly exhausted that we were able to go right to sleep despite the traffic, so that was good, too.
Aaaand, let's see. We're off to Harlequin in just a few minutes here, and then going by DMLA to drop off contracts, *and* there's email from Jenn saying the Del Rey contracts will be there waiting for me to sign, so, you know, *fliffs hair*, we'll just breeze into New York, sign a few contracts, hobnob with editors, generally be elite stinkers, and go have a great weekend at I-Con. Hee hee. :)
'k, almost out of time on this stupid hotel computer, so *vroom*.
Consensus on the comments suggests my doppleganger looks more like me than I do. Crap! Which one am I? I may be having an identity crisis!
Tomorrow we get on a plane and fly to NYC, where we will have dinner with my Luna editor, sleep the sleep of the just, stop by my agent's office to drop off contracts, have lunch with my Del Rey editor, go to Long Island for I-CON, presumably not sleep nearly enough all weekend, come back into NYC on Monday to do a little shopping, then fly home again.
In the midst of this I will try to write 10,000 words (on trains and planes; I imagine there's not a chance of doing any writing during the con itself) and read Jeri Smith-Ready's EYES OF THE CROW, which is out from Luna Books in November and which I am *really* looking forward to reading. It's going to be a very busy five days.
Thinks to do/have done today:
- laundry
- update kitsnaps
- find business cards (augh)
- pack
- clean/pack kitchen
- change sheets
- empty garbages
- change kitty litter :p
- vaccum
- get on train
- write
Tomorrow I'll start posting new pictures at kitsnaps, but it's too late tonight. However, this one picture is too odd to not post about in the blog.
I took it during the parade and at the time noticed something that I immediately forgot. When I started going through pictures tonight, I found the picture again and said to Ted, "Come here and tell me if you see in this picture what I see in it."
Here's the picture:
Ted came over, looked at it, and said, "That's you."
I have been mistaken innumerable times in my life for someone else. It started when I was 9, and looked like a girl in my 5th grade class's best friend from wherever they'd moved from. The best friend was named Bonnie. Darcie told me about her. When I went to Darcie's birthday party, her mom opened the door and stared at me *completely* incredulously and said, "What are you doing here?" I said, "I'm Catie, I'm here for Darcie's party," and she jolted and invited me in. It was only a while later I realized she'd thought I was Bonnie.
In college I used to have people come up to me and pick up conversations they'd had with other people. I was never clever enough to get into the conversation with them; I'd just stare at them blankly until they'd finally say, "Oh. You're not Michelle," and hurry off looking embarrassed. (This happened with more than one name; it wasn't just Michelle.)
I did, one time, while working in the archives, come across a 1950s high school photograph of a woman who looked exactly like me in the first of the four photos of her. That was startling.
A few years ago at the gym I went in at about 5am, my usual time at that juncture, and the girl behind the desk said, "You're in early!" to me. I said, "Not really, maybe a few minutes," and didn't think anything of it. Except about twenty minutes later another woman said to me, "You got your hair cut!" and I said, "Um, not recently," at which point she looked incredibly uncomfortable and hurried away. I realized then that both she and the girl behind the desk had mistaken me for some other person (presumably the same person).
I have never actually *seen* someone I thought could be mistaken for me. I actually noticed it as I was snapping that photo, and wished I'd had *her* in focus instead of the next person over (that's why the background is in B&W; I wanted to emphasize her, and the focus isn't as good on her). Her nose is different from mine, but...
Once Ted verified I wasn't imagining things, I sent it to Mom and Dad and Deirdre and Gavin, who said things like, "Is there a third Murphy girl I don't know about?" and "Where did you GET that photo?" and "You took a picture of yourself! How surreal!" and "Her earlobes even flow right into her head!" (which someone said to me in high school: "Did you know your earlobes *flow* right into your *head*?" "Yes," I said, because they did.) Ted said it was a cool mirror I'd taken a picture in: it reflected Military Kit! Dad said, "Military Kit! The first in a line of Cate Dermody action figures!"
I showed Marith, who said, "I haven't seen Kit in person in years and I recognize her instantly from that photo."
So I put a fuzzy hat on so I'd have approximately the same amount of forehead showing as my doppleganger does, and took a profile picture. The lighting's totally different and the angles aren't the same, but...
And now I'm going to bed. :)
This has been a Day. I don't really know why. Nothing bad has happened. It's just being a Day. I went to bed way way way too late last night because the INTERNET came to our house, and I really did not want to get up this morning. I had a turrible frown in my eyebrows and Ted kept trying to smooth it away and it kept coming back. I eventually did go back to sleep. Whinybutt Kit.
We've been doing laundry, which is a painfully slow process (Deirdre did laundry in Seattle and when the washing machine stopped after half an hour she was like, "What's wrong with this thing?!" What was wrong with it was that it was an American washer and therefore efficient.), and I unpacked the desktop computer and printer and through a lot of unhappiness and swearing got it set up, so Dad, who is housesitting while we're in NYC, will have net access. That's good. And my new printer *is* spiffy and splendid and *very* fast.
We went into Cobh to get cat food and some quick-fix meals for Dad, and were thwarted in the former but successful in the latter. We also had lunch at a local diner-like-place which was equally as good as, if on the other end of the spectrum, the Commodore Hotel. I had lamb stew and it was *really* tasty. (Ted had a burger that he didn't complain about, so presumably it was fine. :)) We got a cab home and it was the cabbie who'd brought us home the day after Ted broke his arm. He inquired after the state of Ted's arm and told us the reason the phone lines went out was the Eirecom boys had cut the lines, and then regaled us with a tale of woe about how he'd been building a house out on Whitepoint and the fellow doing the work was working with a Turkish man, who was champion, but Ian was out there with the digger and cut a gas line and Joseph (presumably the Turkish man) was bellowing, "IAN! IAN! STOP! *STOP*!" and our cabbie called Ian's da, whose name escapes me right now, who is a good builder, does brilliant work, but Ian, that Ian, he... (Here he trailed off, and I offered, "Really likes the digger?" and the cabbie said, "That's it, all right. Boys with toys!") And anyway, Da came out with a roll of duct tape, and our cabbie said no fookin' way, he was going to call the gas board, and Da said there was no reason for that at this hour of the night, and the cabbie said like hell there wasn't, if someone was out walking and flicked a cigarette into that great big hole it'd be his new windows only installed three days ago that'd be explodin', so he'd best be callin' the gas board right now. And the gas man was out in ten minutes and capped the line off, and all was well. :)
Once we were safely home again, I packed up some more of our landlord's kitchen belongings, then came up here to dork around on the computer for a while. And having written all that out, it doesn't seem nearly as Day-like as it felt. Huh.
On a completely different note, today is TRIPDAY! Happy birthday, bestest parasite ever! I sure miss talking to you regularly. Perhaps I could *furitive look* get in the habit of *emailing*...! HAPPY TRIPDAY!
FIREBIRD DECEPTION cover! Finally! SQUEE! I would not have made the eyes *quite* so intensely brown, given the rest of the color scheme, but I am still very pleased with it.
Also! We have NET at home! YAY!
But NEW COVER!
(And before anybody else says it, *I* suggested the Louvre and the pyramid outside it, and I did not know about The Davinci Code when I did that. I haven't read it. I'm not *going* to, either, especially since people already keep saying CARDINAL RULE reminds them of it. Because there's a Secret Society, I guess. Even though I didn't get to call it the Illuminati (because my editor said it was to DaVinci Code). ANYWAY.)
(Click for a bigger version.)
*beam*
Ted and I came into Cork to go see V for Vendetta, got somewhat misplaced in looking for the movie theatre, and eventually found our way to an internet shop so I could check email and, er, post this. We're supposed to have net access within 5 to 7 working days of sometime last week, so I think by Wednesday, but Wednesday we're leaving for New York, so I may not get to my regular email until next Tuesday or so.
We went out and walked about Cobh yesterday, because it was a *beautiful* day. I took a bunch of pictures, but of course can't post them until we have net at home. :) And we've been watching the Commonwealth Games on BBC, and I've got to look up the Commonwealth definitions, because we think it's interesting that Ireland's not participating in the games, but everybody else on the planet that has any association with "the home nations", except the States, is. I've been watching lots of swimming, which makes me want to swim lots. :)
And I've been writing. I'm at about 39K, and if we get home early enough tonight will push through to 40, because that'll put me halfway through the book. That's been a pretty good week's work, since I was at 20K on the 13th. Chugga chugga chugga.
I think I'll go by the DMLA offices in NYC on Friday and drop off these contracts...
miles to mount DOOOOM: 450
ytd wordcount: right around 100K! Woot!
Just a quick note. We're in Cork to check out the St. Patrick's Day festivities (which include, apparently, a very large food fair; oh, the horrors). I'm going to take lots of pictures. :)
Ted's arm is feeling better, though obviously far from well yet. He's been doing a fairly massive amount of unpacking. Massive even for somebody with two arms, but for someone with a broken wing it's particularly impressive.
While he's been doing that, I've mostly been writing (though yesterday was interrupted by reading CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS, which I'd never read, and watching Sliding Doors, which I've seen an uncountable number of times but adore). I've hit 33K on PHOENIX LAW and have some faint hope of reaching 40K by the end of the weekend, though if we come into town all weekend for the festivities that won't happen. Still, 1/3rd done is good.
Oh, and we went out to dinner in Cobh when I got back from Athy, to I think the Commodore Hotel, which was *really* good, and we were only in the bar food side! We had appetizers of a warm chicken and bacon salad and a fried brie on veggies thing, and they were absurdly tasty. Ted had a steak for dinner and I had roast lamb, both of which were very good, and the desserts, a sticky toffee pudding and an apple crumble, were wonderful. We decided we obviously had to bring Jenn there, and that it would be okay for Ted to work there if they're hiring when he's all healed up. :)
Ok, off to fest, now. :)
A brief update before I go racing off to catch the train to Cobh.
I came out to Athy at about 9pm last night and spent an hour and a half getting the downstairs as straightened up for the movers as I could, ie, getting rid of scraps of paper, moving things that weren't going with us somewhere else, doing laundry and dishes, that kind of exciting thing. I got up at 6:10 this morning to do the same thing to the upstairs from about 7 to 8:30, when the movers were scheduled to arrive. They only got slightly lost, so they were there by 10 to 9.
By 11, the entire house was packed up and they were pouring over the map to decide how best to get to Cobh. It was a thing of beauty and joy forever. They are heroes of the revolution. Me, I sat in the one room that nothing was being moved from, and wrote. Got 1500 words written. If I can pull off another 3500 on the train (possible, though iffy because the loll of the vehicle might send me off to snoozeland), I'll hit 30K on the book. Getting 1 more chapter done would put me about 500 words shy of 30K, which would be satisfactory.
*stares around* Um. What else? Nothing else. There must be an internet cafe somewhere in Cobh, or we'll be in Cork for at least part of the St. Patrick's Day Festival this weekend, so if you don't hear from me til then, that's why.
Going to catch the train now.
Hee hee! URBAN SHAMAN is out in France this month! It's titled CHAMANE, and can be ordered through Amazon.fr or you can just check out the cover here. (Same cover, but different title font and stuff!) How STRANGE and COOL! I wonder if I have to order a copy of that or if I get one...
We've scheduled the movers for tomorrow, so I'm up in Dublin doing laundry right now (I left all my clothes here when Ted broke his arm) and when that's done I'm going down to Athy to do as much housecleaning as I can, and to, um. Well. Wait for the movers to come in the morning. They've just called to ask if it's okay if they come at half eight instead of nine, which is, y'know, fine, so maybe if I'm lucky I'll get out of Athy tomorrow afternoon and make it back down to Cobh. If not, I'll come back up to Dublin tomorrow and sleep here, then take the train down Thursday morning.
Madness. It's all madness.
Ted's arm is less hurty today, which he is glad for. He got a good night's sleep last night, which helped a lot, I think. There's been a great deal of general exhaustion around our house the last week, and today's the first time I've felt remotely human for a while. Next up on the bag of tricks is starting a weight-loss plan again, because my weight is going the wrong direction and I'm pretty the reason my size 8s are tight is not because they've shrunk. Bah.
Um. What else. Ted called a while ago to say that on his way home from the store, the cabbie told him that the place under construction at the head of our housing estate was in fact a restaurant that was expected to open this summer. *laugh* Perhaps there's a method to the madness, after all. So we'll be interested to see how that turns out...! Oh, and DSL will be turned on at home somewhere in the next 5-7 working days, so, er, basically you probably won't hear a lot from me until we get back from NYC. That's okay; I have a book to write in the next four weeks.
More cool art from my artist.
Wrote 4K on the train from Cork today. Trains good.
Must get Ted a plane ticket to New York. New York good. :)
miles to Mount Doom: 436
ytd wordcount: 85,300
Well, Ted's been laid off from his job. It's hard to blame them, since you can't really cook or cut things up when your right wrist is broken and you're right-handed, but what a pain. They said to come back when he's healed up and they'll be glad to hire him back again if they've got a position for him, so we'll see. Either that or he'll just get to job hunt again.
Um. That's about the sum total of excitement that I know about right now. It looks like we'll have movers come on Wednesday (YAY), so I'm going to go up to Dublin or Athy on Tuesday and be there for all of that.
In other news, I broke 20K on PL today. A mere 60K to go!
Ted's arm is indeed broken. It's a very clean break in the larger bone of the lower arm, right at the wrist (essentially, the point of that bone broke off). It wasn't in any way misaligned or problematic; the only issue was that just before Ted got to the hospital, an Army truck rolled over and an entire truckful of Army boys came in to have their necks and backs X-rayed, just in case. (They were all fine.) So Ted ended up sitting and waiting for about six hours before they got to X-ray and cast him. He's pretty worn out, poor guy.
Anyway, what happened was he looked over at the other seat, or was getting an sandwich or changing a CD or something, and he came up over a hill and there was a car in front of him stopped in the lane, waiting to turn, and he slammed on the breaks and, being an American, swerved to the right and therefore crashed into the front of their van as they turned. Had he been Irish, he'd have presumably swerved to the left and gone into the hedge, but he's not. Airbags exploded (singeing the hair on his wrist and sending his sandwich All Over The Place) and we don't know if the car was left driveable or not, but everybody in the other vehicle was okay and Ted's wrist is broken but he's otherwise okay. Thank you all for your sympathies and well-wishes and everything. I'll pass them on to Ted (who is currently trying to get a little more rest in the hotel room before we take a very long train trip back to Cork).
I forgot to mention that Friday, while visiting a friend, Seirid got into some ant poison. Blee. He's okay, too; they rushed him off to the hospital where they kept him under watch for 12 hours (and then couldn't get a doctor to discharge them for several hours after that, so they ended up leaving the hospital at 10am or so Saturday morning.
It has *not* been a good week.
This is my 3000th MoveableType (formerly Greymatter) journal entry.
miles to Mount Doom: 429
The con this morning was a lot of fun. I did a panel with Maggie Furey and a couple of other people (Paul and Danielle, but I don't remember their last names right now), and left the panel thinking, "Ted should be here soon! I'll call him and see if he wants to have lunch!"
Then Ted called and said he'd just been in a car wreck and thought he'd broken his arm and wouldn't be coming into Dublin.
It would be okay if this week was over now.
So I'm taking the train out to Naas, where he is, and I expect once he's all looked at and all we'll see if we can get a train to Cork tonight, and if not we'll get a hotel room and go to Cork in the morning.
Fuck a duck.
It would be okay if this week was over now.
The astute among you will notice that it is once more past midnight and I am once more up and posting. *snorts at self* The con doesn't start til 10. Maybe I can sleep in a bit. :)
I got to meet and hang out with Juliet McKenna and
(In other words, that was a lot of fun, and it was just hanging out the evening before the con!)
(Also, I have really cool friends; both
miles to Mount Doom: 426
Okay. Here's how it's all fallen out.
Ted and I aren't going to Seattle after all. Ted did get the days off--Tuesday through Friday next week--but had to work Saturday the 18th, which meant flying on Tuesday, being there Wednesday, and flying on Thursday so we'd be back Friday morning so he could get to work on Saturday. And all for the low low cost of a minimum of $1208 a ticket.
So instead of horribly discombobulating ourselves for the sake of a single day in Seattle, we're just going to stay home. I'll get the movers sorted out, and go down to Cobh hopefully by Tuesday or Wednesday. In the meantime, I'm going to the convention this weekend, and Ted will be up tomorrow so I will get to SEE him, yay! And Mom and Dad and Deirdre and the little boys leave for Seattle on Sunday.
I am _very_ tired. But I'm going over to the hotel the con's being held at in a while here, to meet whoever's already in town and to hang out for a couple hours. I went to see Syriana this afternoon, and it was good, but I was sufficiently tired that a couple times I almost fell asleep. Crossy eyes and sort of head falling over stuff. I would say I'm going to be sensible and go to bed early tonigut, but what's really going to happen is I'll go to the hotel, perk up because I'm talking, hang out until the bar closes, stagger home, and tomorrow regret not going to bed earlier.
I went shopping today, trying to find some t-shirts to modify for a Rogue t-shirt, but apparently my behind-the-fashion-curve curse has struck again: I could not find, after actually *looking* through four stores (instead of my usual thing of blazing through glancing at racks), any black t-shirts with a bit of lycra to make them fit snugly like that. The In Thing (here, at least) are loose-fitting layered Victoriana sorts of things that look like absolute crap on me. Even if I weighed a hundred and forty pounds I'm just not shaped right for those outfits (and many many people I see wearing them are also not shaped right), and I've spent enough money buying things like that and discovering they really do look like crap on me that I don't need to do it anymore.
But boy it makes me crabby. I *hate* shopping.
I woke up at about 6:20 this morning. Blee. (Hi, Michael!) I wanted to be up by 7 so I could call Ted and Jenn, and my brain was apparently worried about oversleeping. I'd set the alarm. Foolish brain. So I lay around for a while, then got up and did call Ted at 7, and he didn't loathe me for not calling last night. I'd just gotten in too late. He sounded pretty cheerful, so that's good.
And I called Jenn, who was Very Awake; I didn't even hear her hotel room phone ring before she picked up. :)
We had a good day yesterday. :) We went out for a proper Irish breakfast, and then I dragged her over to meet my family, including the little boys. Breic was fairly charming, and Seirid kept squeaking, but overall they were pretty cute. :) And we hung out for a while and talked, then trundled over to Dublinia, which is a history of Dublin museum next to Christchurch Cathedral, which we also went into. Dublinia was reasonably interesting, and the cathedral is properly imposing, as a cathedral ought to be. It was very pretty, though this morning it's clear as a bell outside, and I bet the stained glass windows really glow when it's nice out. :) However, the weather was predicted to be absolutely pissing miserable until Jenn left (really; that's what the weather prediction said!), and then it was going to get quite nice. That appears to be true.
*laughs out loud* Jenn thought it was very funny I'd posted about Wednesday and that her friend Michael had read the posting and knew we'd been utterly unsuccessful in finding music for him. I mentioned it on our way out the hotel room door in the morning, which made her have to stop and go back and read my blog. *laugh* How geeky we are. Michael will be happy to hear that in the middle of the Dublinia tour, she suddenly turned to me and said, "I have a message to pass on to you," and then, entirely out of the blue, said, "BLEE!" (I knew I'd been saying, "Blee," a lot lately, because this has been a very blee-ful sort of month, but evidently I said it once quite a while ago and Michael picked up on it, but thought it might've been a one-time deal for me, as scouring the journal didn't turn it up again. But then I started using it again recently and he was pleased about this. *laugh* I like people. *laugh*)
We wandered through Temple Bar trying to decide where to eat, stopping at The Clarence Hotel (Bono's place) to look at the Tea Room menu, and decided that we kinda didn't want to go somewhere quite that snooty, so we stopped at the tourist information place and asked them where we should eat dinner. They suggested a number of places, and we ended up at Elephant & Castle, of which we'd both heard, and which proved to be the best place I've eaten at in Temple Bar so far (I've only eaten at about four restaurants in there, but mostly they've been overpriced and only adequate as far as food goes, but this place was only *slightly* overpriced and the food was very good!) I ordered (among other things) their homemade ginger ale, which was really ginger soda, and once I got over the surprise of that, I liked it. Ted wouldn't have. :) And we just had burgers for dinner, but Jenn ordered a Stilton cheeseburger, and it turned out to be a huge thick burger placed on a square of Stilton cheese that was over an inch thick and probably close to 3x3 inches square. It was absolutely *absurd*.
And we talked and talked and *talked*. About writing, about writers, about philosophies of life (which tied right into the writing and writers), interjecting it all with life stories and generally enjoying ourselves very much. One of the lovely things about European restaurants is they don't rush you out of the place, so we spent over two hours at dinner, which was extremely pleasant.
Eventually we headed out, went back to Jenn's hotel, asked where we might find a trad seisun, and were pointed down the street at the same pub we'd breakfasted at. It was not, in fact, a seisun, but a performer, which wasn't exactly what we'd been hoping for. However, it proved to be a ridiculous amount of fun, in large part because there's a massive rugby match this weekend and Dublin was littered with men in kilts last night. (I commented to Jenn while we were in Temple Bar that, "That looked cold!" and one of them turned and said, "It's BLOODY cold!") Anyway, 3 of the men in kilts came into Foley's and the leader of the pack, who was extremely charismatic and having one hell of a good time, immediately joined in singing, and they were rolling their Rs and dancing around a bit, and the musician played a number of songs I knew (turns out Jenn and I know totally different trad music), so I was singing along and actually got complimented both by the singer and the three Scotsmen, which was charming and amusing. :) And the bar filled up and more people sang, and the Scotsmen continued to be funny, and we turned out to have a very fine time of it. :) Oh, and some poor bastard asked if the musician knew some song or other, and ended up up there singing it (not well at *all*, and he could only remember the first verse, and that not particularly well) himself while the musician got a beer. :) So yeah, lots of fun.
I walked Jenn back to her hotel, and she played me several songs from her must-hear list, and it was very late indeed when we parted ways! It was a great couple of days. :) :) :)
miles to Mou...wait, I did this last night. nevermind.
I am a completely wretched wife and forgot to call my husband this evening. I missed a call from him, too, 'cause the noise in the pub was too much for my cell phone. By the time I remembered, it was after 11 and too late to call somebody who's been getting up at 6 to go to work. And the horrible dog has been acting out because she's in a new house and she's being left alone all day, which she's totally unaccustomed to, so poor Ted, whether he's had a good day or a bad day at work, is having *very* bad days when he comes home from work. :( I feel like a very bad wife just now. :(
Jenn and I had a really nice day, but I'm going to write about it in the morning, because I have to get up at 7 to 1. call Jenn to make sure she's up and getting ready to get on the plane and 2. call Ted and apologize for being a horrible wife. G'night.
miles to Mount Doom: 421
It's almost midnight. I didn't mean to stay up until almost midnight. I stayed up til like 12:30 last night. This is not a good trend. *sleepy eyes*
OTOH, it's been a pretty cool day. I got a few hundred words written, then went out to the airport to meet The Best Agent Ever, who's come to visit me for a day and a half. As the only picture I'd ever seen of her is the 100x100 pixel icon on her livejournal, there was pretty much no chance of me recognizing her. I knew she had dark hair and good cheekbones. I thought she was shorter than I was, then I thought, no, I only think that because almost everyone is shorter than I am, I'm making that up. So that left me with the dark hair and cheekbones, and I spent quite a lot of time watching all the women coming off the plane, trying to decide if that might be Jenn:
Too old, too young, too glittery, too old, too short (hair), too long (hair), too With Somebody, too shy, too this, too that, too many things. There was one woman I thought looked like a distinct possibility. She came out with a real spring in her step and made eye contact with people and pulled her luggage along industriously, a red coat hanging over the top of the suitcase, and I thought, "Huh, the hair's not right, but the attitude is," and she strode past me it was revealed that the red coat covered two thirds of a little boy who was lying on his face on the angled suitcase, with his little feet dragging along the floor.
Too en-childed. :) It made me laugh out loud, though. :)
We did in time meet up, Jenn having fortunately read the email which said I'd be wearing turquoise pants and a black leather jacket, and it turned out I was right: she was shorter than me, after all. :) We got ourselves onto the bus and to her hotel and went to lunch, or whatever you call a full meal at 3pm, and didn't leave until after 5 'cause we were just hanging out and talking and talking and talking. Lots of fun. :) Then we did LOTS of walking around trying to find some music stores that might carry some Irish music she was looking for for a friend, and *totally* failed, but that was okay; we figure it's his fault for asking for hard-to-find CDs. :)
To bed, so tomorrow we can go off and do some touristy things. :)
miles to mount doom: 415
ytd wordcount: 77,300
'nother page from Ardian, my artist. This one's where one of the two romantic interests is introduced (the other one already was, and he looked perfect), and I've fallen in love with the character just from the rough sketches. Gawd. :) Even if this turns out to be a complete bust in publishing terms, it's worth it already. :) I'm sure I'm insane, but this is just so cool. :)
*So* sleepy this morning. I went to bed way too late and was so tired I didn't move at all last night. (The wonderful thing is waking up not stiff and sore even if I didn't move. *Boy* does the bed at our house in Athy suck. Ted says the one in Cobh is better.) Now I'm trying to get my brain together enough to do a little writing, and instead I just keep yawning.
Looks like the memorial service will be Wednesday. Now to see if Ted will be able to get the days off (he expects so; the Irish, he figures, understand about death rituals), and to figure out how many days we'll be gone, and stuff. My thought is fly out Monday, fly back Friday, but I don't know if Ted can/will want to get that many days off work.
God, what a month.
Oveall, going to see "The Weather Man" was probably not the best thing I could've done the day I learned my grandmother died. I mean, it's an all right movie, but not nearly as funny as I hoped, and much more morbid than I expected. It wasn't all *that* morbid, but more than I expected. Shoulda gone out with Mom and Dad to sit on the babies. Oh well.
Thank you to everyone who's expressed condolences. I appreciate it greatly. Grandma was old (almost 90) and ready to go, and apparently it was very peaceful, so that's all to the good. We're still waiting to find out when exactly the memorial service will be, though the Ireland contingent of the family put in for Tuesday next, as it would be marginally easier/cheaper to get to Seattle by then instead of by this weekend. Grandma expressed wishes for her service to be held at the church she used to go to, and we don't know that it could be arranged by the weekend anyway, but there doesn't seem to be a feeling of This Must Happen Right Now about it, so that's good. My aunt Kathy called the church when Grandma started failing, and they said to call as soon as she died and they'd help to arrange a time, but of course they couldn't arrange one beforehand.
This conversation led to my mother and father and I sitting around saying things like, "Well, Saturday would be convenient," in a deadpan voice; "If she hasn't gone by then we'll have to do something about it." And then I said, "I'm not dead yet!" and, "I feel better!", which made us all laugh very hard and agree that we were very sick people. :)
There has been, incidentally, no indication that Grandma had a preference as to who was to inhale her ashes.
My grandmother died last night. I'm waiting to find out when the memorial service is, and when, therefore, we'll be going to Seattle, and for how long. I kind of expect it'll be this weekend.
In the meantime, I'm waiting for the mover guy to email me with an estimate on how much it'll cost to move us down to Cork. The price he quoted for packing us up was, I thought, extremely reasonable, and best of all it requires no effort on my part. Except probably standing around supervising to some degree, though it'd be nicer if I could just stay out of the way. However, with Grandma's death, that means it will probably be next week when I can have them come in, because I suspect this week is kind of going to be all booked up. Well, it was anyway, but this is different.
*stares around* Yeah. Okay. I think I'm gonna go pack up some stuff and go into Dublin. I can get the mover quotes and everything from there, as long as I bring Monster, and...yeah. Maybe I'll wait til the 3pm train, though, just so I'm sure I've got time to get everything. Oi.
I broke my rule. I watched the new X3 trailer online.
I was actually heart-palpitatingly nervous, waiting for it to load. You know that uncomfortable twang of pain that resides right behind the breastbone? Yeah, that. Which is ridiculous. It's a movie. I feel a bit like the Vonnegut quote I've got on my page: Any reviewer who expresses rage and loathing for a novel is preposterous. He or she is like a person who has put on full armor and attacked a hot fudge sundae. It's a movie. My world is not going to come crashing to an end if it sucks.
But *man* I'm going to be disappointed.
And the worst part is that the trailers look like it might not suck. The trailers, in fact, look pretty good. And it's *killing* me, because I do not want to have hope. It's worse than X1. X1, there was no reason for hope. X1 you could just assume, blithely, that you were about to go into one of the worst travesties ever known to comicbookdom. X1 had the unusual position of "My God, it didn't suck!" meaning, "Wow, that was actually *good*!"
X2 could not, then, of course, possibly live up to that. Not after X1 unbelievably not sucking. But there was hope, because it was the same director, and Bryan Singer obviously *got* the X-Men. And then they opened with Nightcrawler, and it became clear that X2 had not only lived up to X1, it might've even surpassed it. At that point it became clear that if Bryan Singer did X3, it was going to rule from orbit.
Unfortunately, he's not directing. Poor Brett Ratner is aware the entire X fandom regards him as the Antichrist. He's going to have to pull something so astoundingly stupendous off in order to not be the most loathed man in the history of comic book movies (ok, Joel Schumacher roundly deserves that title) that it's almost impossible for him to succeed.
But the trailers don't suck.
And it's *killing* me.
I got everything but going to the bank done today. Um, I didn't gym, either. But I did walk a couple miles, at least. Maybe I'll gym and go to the bank tomorrow.
My big victory for the day was not going and getting sweets after I'd been walking around. I was hungry, but I went home and made dinner instead. And it wasn't even a fried egg sandwich. Go me. :)
Hey. I'm *writing* again. I could start watching Highlander! ...except I'm waiting for some people from a moving company to come over and give me an estimate on how much it would cost to pack up our stuff and move us, so I don't want to do anything that can be interrupted. And anyway, starting watching it now would be silly, because it's all about to get packed up and moved away anyway.
*floop*
ytd wordcount: 76,800
miles to mount doom: 408
My cousin Heidi has a little boy, Dane, who is eleven days younger than Breic. Dane, like Breic, is a Knight in Shining Armor (although Breic calls the costume "my knight in shining armor", if you want to get picky about it all).
They are so cute I could scream. :)
Dane (please look carefully at his reflection, off to the left):
Breic:
There are two more pictures, Breic on his Noble Steed and Dane coming to the attack!, which really ought not be missed. :)
One of these days I'm going to get those photo albums better organized. This, however, is not that day.
I've begun laundry this morning. I've gotten another page from my artist (it is *so cool* to see what I wrote turning into pictures. I do not visualize, so I have to think really hard about writing a comic script, and seeing somebody take my words and turn them into the pictures I thought they should look like is pretty damned amazing.). I've more or less resigned myself to having to rewrite the beatsheets. Ted got the stairs and office vacuumed yesterday, and cleaned the kitchen and made a stab at the downstairs bathroom, and I cleaned our bathroom, so there's a lot less housework to do. Overall, things are pretty good. I've had breakfast, and I'm going to go bury myself on the couch and write.
In absolutely unrelated good news, Sarah is getting published. I'm very, very proud and happy for her. :)
Ted's called, and he and the animals have made it to Cobh safely. He remembered to bring his laptop, but forgot the power cord for it. Oops. But he made it down there, and starts work tomorrow, and is excited about it, so that's all good. I'll be glad to get down there and be with him. Missing his first day of work was not the plan.
There are probably ten thousand packing things I should do tomorrow. What I'm going to do is go to the bank, the post office, Western Union, the gym, do laundry, and write. Christ, that sounds like a lot. I'd better go to bed.
Dammit. I *know* I wrote beatsheets for issues 2-6 of Chance, back whenever that was. 2003? 2002? 2004? 2003, I think. Because it was before I sold Urban Shaman, but after Manifest Destiny had placed in the RMFW contest. Yeah. Cover letters indicate 2003. And cover letters also indicate that it is not my imagination: I *did* write those beatsheets.
I cannot find copies *anywhere*. They're not on Little, they're not on this computer, they're not on Nook, they're not on the new laptop. I'm pretty sure I *wrote* them on Little. I don't know why there aren't copies there. I've changed desktop computers since then, but I thought I had everything backed up. I don't know why I can't find these.
I can't even think who I might have *emailed* them to, who might by some incredibly slim chance still have copies. Sarah, almost certainly. Trent, maybe. Silkie, maybe. Maybe Spidey. Maybe some of the artists I talked to back then, but there's pretty much no reason anybody'd keep them. Argh. I'll email people, but what a total shot in the dark.
Argh. I really don't want to have to do those over again. Argh.
The next few days are going to be very busy. Today, we need to clean Shaun's room (an easy task), clean his bathroom (also an easy task) and close the doors to them so the animals can't get in and shed. Although Ted's taking the animals to Cobh tonight anyway, so they don't have much shedding time left, at least not in this house.
We need to clean the kitchen and do laundry. Ted needs to bring bedding to Cobh. We need to, although this will probably not happen today, get the dog a bed to sleep on.
I need to go to Western Union and send my artist some money. And I should probably have just made this a list, instead of paragraphs, but oh well. I need to send FF's book. I need to email May. I need to get Ted to take Nook apart before he leaves, so the movers don't have to. We need to wrap presents and ship them, for pity's sake.
I need to write as much as possible, which may well be not very much at all, but it's got to be some.
Possibly I need to ask my Mommy and Daddy to come out and give me a hand packing tomorrow. I don't know. The plan is to get movers in and to get them to do the packing, and the only things I have boxes for I can probably manage to pack my own self anyway.
I'm going to go sort laundry now. It is a pathetic start, but it's a start.
I am sufficiently tired to feel floaty.
Yesterday we drove down to Cork (it was a *beautiful* day, and a wonderful drive) to give the letting agency money and to get the keys. Upon getting to Cork, Ted wasn't 100% sure of where he was, so he stopped so we could look at the map. At a glance, we couldn't find a map. I said, "Are you sure you brought it?" He was sure. We scoured the car. No map. I said, "Not to belabor the issue, but are you sure you brought it?"
Well, he said, he'd gone upstairs to get it and had come downstairs with it. It did not, however, appear to make it further than downstairs. We found a parking garage and went half looking for the street we needed, and more looking for food. The latter we knew we could find in the city centre (an lar in Irish), so we went there, crossing Parliment Bridge on the way. We got a map and food and over food Ted studied the map and couldn't find the street we were on *on* the map, but was pretty sure we needed to be quite a ways over that way (to the southeast, essentially). So we went out to head that way.
Halfway back over Parliment Bridge, Ted stopped dead. There, directly in front of us, at the corner we had crossed the bridge from, two blocks south from where we'd eaten, and not east at all, was the place we were looking for. *laugh* We went in and did the paperwork and stuff, and all was well. Except Ted had eaten fish pie for lunch, and it turned out to have shellfish in it, and he's developed an intolerance to shellfish, so his tummy was all hurty. :( Poor Ted.
But despite his hurty tummy he said we should go see the house in Cobh so I could see where we'd be living, so we drove out there, and Cobh is very, very pretty. It's got hills like San Francisco and the most absurdly beautiful church. Our house seems to be in a nice subdivision (housing estate), and it's probably a 2 mile walk to the train station and another mile into town. I'm hoping to find a shortcut. I can hardly imagine there's not a shortcut, and yet at the same time I would be completely unsurprised if there isn't one. And we live near the top of a massive hill, so my, walking into town will be good for my butt. :)
I'm looking forward to exploring the place and seeing it all. Ted says he saw an ad for a yoga class, and there's an equestrian center somewhere on the island, so maybe I could take riding lessons. There's a pool in town somewhere, and the people at the Curves in Athy gave me the address for the Curves in Cobh, and given that you can sort of walk into any random store in Athy and find an ad for somebody giving guitar lessons, I figure I can probably find something similar in Cobh. And Cork's a 20 minute train ride (after a 40 minute walk, if I can't find a shortcut!) away, and I am *sure* I could find dance classes and Irish lessons there if I can't find 'em in Cobh. And maybe there's a photography club or a reading club or something I could join.
I'd be awfully surprised if I'm organized enough to do all those different things, but if I manage two or three of them, that'd be really good. Anyway, then we drove back and it snowed on us! Big fat snowflakes, though it wasn't really sticking. When we got home we all walked down to the Italian place in Athy for a going-away dinner for Shaun...
...because he has decided that Europe is a place for him to visit, not to live. *sniffle* We've been living with Shaun the better part of a decade: we lived together in college from very late 1994 through mid-1996, and then he came to live with us in August 2000 when we were in California. So we're very sad to lose him, but we hope he will be happy. :} We all got up this morning and went into Dublin so he could catch his plane, and now we have no Shaun anymore. :(
(He does, however, expect me to send him books when I get my advance author copies. *laugh*)
Ted and I went to "Last Holiday" (which was cute) since we were in town, then went to visit Mom & Dad and didn't manage to see D&G and the little boys, which we hoped we'd arrange before this exodus to Cork happens. Deirdre says they'll just have to come visit us in Cobh. :)
The house down there really is nice. The second bedroom is GINORMOUS, and we're going to split it, half computer room and half guest room. I'm going to use the littlest bedroom, which is only large enough for a single bed, as my *office*. I cain't hardly imagine having an *office*! That'll be cool.
...in decidedly less cool news, it looks like my grandma, who has been fading for some time, is really going about the business of dying now. She is comfortable, she is content, she is ready, and I am very sad. We all may be going to a memorial service very soon.
I think I'll go cuddle with my husband and watch a not-emotionally-taxing movie and go to bed early, for it is very, very tired around here.
BTW, thanks to everybody who responded to my last post about comics. I'm going to talk about that stuff some more, but not right now.
ytd wordcount: 74,200
miles to mount doom: 410
1. A comic-book reader should be able to follow:
a. the entire story, frame by frame, without words
b. the gist of the story, frame by frame, without words
c. very little of the story, frame by frame, without words
2. The first pages of a first-issue comic book should:
a. start with a bang of action and get to the backstory later
b. start with the backstory and work up to the bang
c. work the bang into the backstory as much as possible
3. "The first pages" means:
a. 1 page
b. 3 pages
c. 5 pages
Discuss, please. This is a topic of some interest to me at the moment. :)
I didn't write yesterday 'cause Little's batteries were dead, so I charged her up and worked not only earlier in the day, but also on the train on the way in to Dublin. I'm now working on PHOENIX LAW, and despite having *just* finished a book, I'm really quite cheerful about the prospect of working on this one. I know what I'm doing with the next chapter, which is going to be fun, 'cause I'm bringing in somebody which 1. no one will expect and 2. will throw another wrench in the monkeyworks, or something like that, so yeah. That'll be fun. :)
I am still a little stressy. Deborah wanted to know why. I said, "Because I have to move, go to two cons, hang out with my agent, and write a book in the next six weeks."
Deborah said, "And how is this different from anything you've had to do in the last eight months?"
...
Okay, but THIS IS ENOUGH NOW! I would like to stop moving and only have to write a book once every TWELVE weeks instead of every SIX weeks and ... okay, the cons and the agent visiting part are fun. Shush.
Anyway, we rented a car so we could go down to Cork and bring the animals and stuff. Because Ted starts his new job on MONDAY. Monday is SOON. And I've been working on TOO MANY comic book pages, because now I am using caps for EMPHASIS. :)
dinner ready!
ytd wordcount: 73,200
Ted and I *talked* all the way into Dublin yesterday. We haven't had a chance to *talk* about anything for a week! He's been off house-hunting and I've been neck-deep in writing. Talking was a very pleasant experience. :)
Casanova was amusing. It's not well-paced, and the print we saw was bad, but it was cute and as far as I'm concerned the entire movie paid off with one beautiful shot right near the end, so I went away from it quite happy. :) And we paused at a bookstore, but didn't buy anything, and had lunch in town...well, that was about it, really. Not very exciting, but extraordinary in its ordinariness after the last week.
We trundled home on the train, where the guy with the snack cart was giving people a hard time. The woman directly behind me had been on the train this morning, and had apparently been given a hard time with exactly the same line, so she was giving the guy a hard time back. He said he was just trying to make sure people were noticing him, and a couple minutes later, after he'd moved down the way, she sent her kid up to get a coffee-stirrer, and the snack cart guy gave him two, "So she'd have one for tomorrow and would stop harrassing him." :)
For most of the trip, Ted read his book and I stared out the window and listened to people chatting. The guy across the aisle (who had *very* long dreadlocks and whose otherwise excellent features were somewhat detracted from by the fact that he had twisted his thin goatee into a braidy-dreadlocky thing, too; I kept wondering why he'd done that) was also listening to people, and we kept laughing at the same things, which would then make us catch each other's eye and laugh even more. :)
Also, it is possible I am weird. I was wrestling in and out of my coat, and making faces as I did so, and not only the guy across the aisle, but the old couple across the table thought that was pretty funny. Once I got my coat on I pulled my hat out of my backpack and tugged it on very decisively, which didn't strike me as at all peculiar until the old guy just lit up with amusement. Apparently he then gave Ted a look like, "Better get moving, she's rarin' to go!" I just thought I was getting ready like anybody else would. :)
And when we came home Ted watched Beauty and the Beast with me, 'cause I didn't wanna be on the computer very much. Whenever I see that now I wish I could have seen Hugh Jackman playing Gaston, because I think that would have been a riot. I wonder if there's an Australian version of the soundtrack, and/or a DVD of the production. I'd love to get ahold of either, if they exist. I'll have to look.
All in all, it was a vurra nice day.
I have spellchecked, fixed NOTES, and sent COYOTE DREAMS off into the internet ether to land on my agent and editor's desks. There are bits I still think need work, but overall I think I'm fairly happy with it. And I'll get feedback and all will be well. *fwoomp*
Ted and I are going to be wild and crazy and go into Dublin to *watch a movie* today. Woot woot! I wonder what kind of condition Little's batteries are in. I don't feel like lugging the big laptop in, but I might work on Chance on the train if Little's batteries are charged.
Or maybe I'll just take the afternoon off. There's a wild and crazy idea!