My editor and I were chatting on-line this morning over the back cover copy for my two up-coming releases, and she casually mentioned that she tweeted that my new young adult book, ALMOST TO DIE FOR, could be described as Twilight meets The Princess Diaries.
*gulp*
No pressure or anything.
Ironically, I had been planning on working on my alter ego's small press project today (it is Friday after all) and now I'm looking at my young adult, thinking: "Is it funny enough?" Aaaaargh!
The plumber arrived yesterday only an hour later than promised and did the work in about two; everything was fixed by three o'clock. The bill was not astronomical, either. Love my handyman service. I kiss them.
In other news, you might notice on the sidebar that I am now Twittering. I tweet. I hear all you kids are into it. Please feel free to follow me or friend me or whatever.
Today is promising to be very busy. After I pick Mason up in a couple of hours, I'll be headed off to Barnes & Noble to pick up a book of weird hauntings that I put on reserve on Tuesday. Mason also wants to check out the Star Wars section, since we didn't get to it during our last visit. (He got stuck in the humor section, reading GARFIELD.) Then, it's off to pick up our CSA (community supported agriculture) box from Driftless Organics, and then a little cat herding as we try to get Ms. Deliah (the cat Barney is largely based on) into her carrier and off to the vet for shots and "animal wellness" check-up.
I think Mason gets another fast-food dinner, which is only ironic given all the farm-fresh, organic produce we'll have in the car.
I recently read an article in the Star Tribune that Monday is no longer the number one day of the week to commit suicide. Now, it's hump day: Wednesday
Today has been one of THOSE days, and if I wasn't a naturally cheerful and zen-like in my approach to certain areas of my life, today's events might, at the very least, cause a serious ulcer.
My partner is off to Seattle today for a conference for work. Consequentially the household was awake by 5:30 am, which is a time of day I consider quite despicable for a variety of reasons. Not the least of which is that most of the time the sun isn't even awake yet. So why should I be, I ask you! That was, it turns out, only a minor inconvenience.
After doing her usual getting-ready morning bits, Shawn came upstairs and sat down on our bed. Her face looked ashen. She said in a solemn tone: "Bad news. Really, really bad news. We have a leak."
I don't talk much about them on this blog, but I own several fish in large tanks, and my first thought was, "Oh no! Not the fish tanks." So I was actually strangely relieved when she explained it was the kitchen ceiling. Oh, I thought, just the kitchen ceiling.
Wait. The kitchen ceiling? That's not good.
We live in a house that is approaching its hundredth birthday. There are any number of things we look at and think, "We're going to have to replace that one of these days." Most of those things obligingly chug along and we never have to worry. We've always KNOWN that these pipes are a problem. They're probably some of the last remaining lead pipes in our house *and* we had our handy-person gerry-rig a connection to the upstairs faucet because they were rotted. We were just doing that homeowner finger-crossing dance this whole time, waiting for... I dunno, a lottery win or something.
Alas, I'm now awaiting a plumber, and probably a huge bill. But, as we like to say in Minnesota, it could be worse. We have a working downstairs toilet (thanks to the same people who are coming today, and, really, someone could come TODAY. That's huge.)
I haven't gotten a lot of writing done yet today, as I spent this morning moving breakables and furniture out of the kitchen, since, watching the spreading water stain, I suspect much of the ceiling will have to come down for the repair.
Wish me luck... or maybe don't. Maybe break a leg or pipe or something.
I finally handed out the first fifty pages of my newest work-in-progress (the young adult vampire/witch series) to Wyrdsmiths last week. I'm now trying to untangle their comments, my thoughts on them, and do some revision. Interestingly, some of the issues people had were with "world-building" (something I pretended to be an expert on yesterday), and, thus, I spent a good deal of last night talking to my partner about the world of these novels and my vision for them.
And now there's a psychic cat... or maybe it's a ferret.
That part is still undetermined.
Also, sometime last week I got my latest (and last) issue of TALEBONES (issue #38, Summer 2009). I started reading it right away, and, because I'm kind of pedestrian, I started at the beginning with Mary Robinette Kowal's "Ginger Stuyvesant and the Case of the Haunted Nursery." (Nothing about her story was pedestrian, I only say that I'm kind of pedestrian because I think it might actually be wiser to skip and jump through any collection of short stories.) The story takes place in that time of the "Spiritualists" in 1920s in a British manor. Our heroine is an American medium who can see and communicate with ghosts, and has a strange sort of desire/affinity with the otherside (in that without the anchor of the seance circle, her spirit wants to just leave and follow the spirits.) The ending wasn't incredibly "ah-ha!," but it was an engaging, well-told story none-the-less. I was particularly enchanted with how the medium interacted with the ghosts (and the ghosts with their obsessions), as well as the sub-plot that involved a non-believer husband. A good, well-told story. I'd recommend it, particularly if you like ghost stories.
Today, I'm guest blogging at Victoria Janssen's blog and talking about World-building. Come by and check it out if you get a chance.
