A moment

On Sunday night all three of us went to a wonderful show, with a pianist and a baritone, Leon Williams.

Wow.

Leon is a powerful singer, with a great stage presence and expression. He managed to connect with the audience and bring us along with him for a wide range of songs, from negro spirituals to Moon River to a kid's song Child has the book for, "Fiddle-I-Fee". His last song was the heady "Impossible Dream" from Man of La Mancha.

Tears sprang to my eyes. I looked over at this 5-year-old, beautiful, well-spoken, reading Child sitting next to me, watching with eyes wide, feet bouncing on the chair, and I flashed back in an instant to the first concert we ever took her to. She was 3 weeks old, still a red-faced wrinkled tiny person I still didn't have a handle on. Hubby's brother-in-law was singing the lead role in a community production of Man of La Mancha, and they convinced us to bring her. She'll be fine, they said. You need to see this. So we bundled her up and took her along, and as soon as the first notes started, she cried.

You thought I was going to say she loved it all, didn't you? But she bawled. SIL and I high-tailed it out into the hallway, where we could still faintly hear the songs through the walls. We took turns walking and rocking her for the rest of the show. And when "Impossible Dream" started at the end, I looked down at this perfect little new being in my arms, and I thought "There's my impossible dream, right there."

And here we are now, at a place I couldn't even imagine then. She's still perfect (to me), but she's BIG. She's her own individual, marvelous person. And she can sit with us, holding my hand and enjoying the song in her own way.

Life rocks, doesn't it?

Meme

Jen tagged me. I don't know if this is good or bad...but here you go.

A) Four jobs I have had in my lifetime:
1. Scientific editor
2. Bookstore manager
3. Pet caretaker, when people go on vacation
4. Telemarketer (for 4 days before I quit…awful job)

B) Four movies I would watch over & over:
1. White Christmas
2. Lion, Witch, & Wardrobe (newest version)
3. Emma
4. Sound of Music

C) 4 places I have lived:
1. Butte, Montana
2. San Diego
3. Brighton, Sussex, England
4. Penryn, California

D) Four TV Shows that I watch:
1. ER
2. Saturday Night Live (sometimes)
3. Baseball
4. Um. That's all, really.

E) Four places I have been:
1. Florence, Italy
2. Dublin
3. The Bahamas
4. Winnipeg

F) Four people who e-mail me (regularly):
1. Julie
2. Vic
3. Husband
4. Dad

G) Four of my favorite foods:
1. Mexican
2. Thai
3. Salt (popcorn, chips, nuts, lime dipped in, you name it)
4. Chocolate

H) Four places I would rather be right now:
Maybe home writing/reading, but otherwise I’m good.

I) Things I am looking forward to this and next year:
1. Signing a publishing contract!! (positive visualization)
2. Attending Child's Kindergarten graduation
3. Christmas
4. Finishing Ghost Girl, starting the next one

weather report

November has finally hit. There's a scattering of snow and ice on the ground. There's a strong west wind, bending the trees and brightening our cheeks. And it's COLD. It was 9 degrees this morning.

I've completely forgotten how to deal with this. I gave in and brought my red winter coat out of the closet. Child's snowpants, hat, and gloves are dutifully crammed into her backpack, though she won't deign to wear them yet. But I must remember the Rules of Winter:

--when it's super-cold (or when you're getting used to it) don't go outside unless you have to.
--wear a COAT! Even if you're running to the next building and it looks oh-so-sunny from the windows.
--shuffle across the ice. yes, you look like an old woman, but it's better than falling and having to shuffle because you have a broken leg.
--bring a scarf to wrap around your ears. ears get cold in wind.
--boots work better for shuffling across ice than super-cute Skecher shoes.

And that is all. I think...

Mosaic Hen

I got up over 10,000 words on Ghost Girl, with a burst of "what if this happened". I love those. I almost always follow them, and they rarely let me down. Onward! At least 16,000 by the end of November, maybe more. I'm starting to really enjoy this book. I remember this giddiness when writing Jenna...and it's like drugs. Once you've experienced it, you have to go back for another taste.
(Or so I hear on the drugs. No, Dad, I don't know from personal experience.)

Longer-term goal: I want the rough draft of GG done by March. Revisions slated for April.

Writing hard is the best distraction I can think of for the query process, which is just a weird thing. In spite of myself I jump when an e-mail comes in. I run for the phone to check messages. My superstitious side is surfacing in surprising ways. But I'm also optimistic, and excited.

Good news today, baby!

Lately I've been filled with an overall thankfulness and appreciation for ALL the good stuff in my life. Husband, Child, family, friends, writing, job. I love them all; I revel in them. Opportunities for creativity. The time and space to play around with words and the people who talk in my head. {g} Food. Wine. Chocolate. (Yes, it is food, but it deserves a separate category, I think.) Other people's stories, that involve me and touch me deeply. Gargoyles. Photos. The colorful mosaic hen Child made for me this weekend.

Okay, I think I'm going to share the hen. {s} And wish you all good news for today!

more...

Yay! Another 900 words today, almost all tonight.

{tired but happy}

Keep it going

Huzzah! I got more good news yesterday, some for me, and some for Vicki...

HOLIDAYS ARE HELL just hit #21 on the NYT Bestseller List! Wa-hoodle!

And for good reason, too. I already raved about Vic's story, and now I'm reading Kim Harrison's, which also rocks.

I'm taking my co-workers out to lunch today, to thank them for all their tremendous hard work lately keeping up with our map orders. Whew. I deserve it too. {s} Hopefully I will be hungry again by then, as I've just downed a whole bag of microwave popcorn and two handfuls of M&Ms. What? I love food.

And tomorrow is parent-teacher conference day! Fortunately I already got the progress report to review before then, and it's all good. Thank God.

And last but NOT least, I got 900 new words on Ghost Girl yesterday, and am very pleased with how it's going. Should be at 16,000 words by the end of November, which is well into the plot.

Good news, people. May you have good news today too!

More on colors

This may sound obvious based on the way I keep changing my blog colors, but I've just had an "Aha!" moment that each of my books does have its own color scheme, and I'd been subconsciously changing the blog to match.

The Murderess's Tale was green and gold, like the embroidered skirt of a noblewoman's gown.

The Weirdest Thing about Jenna was blue (Jenna's color) and black and white, which echoed the theme of balance, as well as a few other related themes. {s}

Ghost Girl is all fall colors: warm oranges and reds and browns. I think that's all coming from Natalie.

Somehow this realization makes me very happy.

New colors

A new fall look for the blog. As I've said before, colors are very important to me...and my new WIP is fall-based. I'm going to be living in October for a few months at least. {s}

I had a wonderful weekend, and am still riding high on some good news and hoping for more (because I'm greedy that way). Good news today! Good news for everybody!

And speaking of good, GO GET HOLIDAYS ARE HELL. Sorry to yell, but I read Vicki's story The Harvest on Friday, and am still completely rocked. It is soooooo yummily good.

This week I'm pondering what it is to be an artist in various forms. More on this later...

stuff

'Lo.

Hope you all had a fun Halloween. Today is the second day of the Mexican holiday Dia de los Muertos, or The Day of the Dead. I was in Tecate for Dia de los Muertos once (we tried to go to the beer factory and it was closed, sigh), and it is a prominent holiday in San Diego and Los Angeles. I miss seeing all the skeletons.

I haven't been blogging just because I didn't feel like it. {s} Lots going on, though...I have a bunch of targeted queries out, and am waiting for responses (good news today, good news today is my mantra). Working on Book 3, now with the working title Ghost Girl. Note the floating ghostie in my avatar. Very busy personally, with all sorts of events going on...this is when the social and concert season picks up in Montana. I'm afraid we went a little crazy (again) on a silent auction last night...now to find out what we "won"...

I have not yet made it to the bookstore to buy Vic's new anthology, HOLIDAYS ARE HELL, or Jeaniene Frost's book HALFWAY TO THE GRAVE, but I'm gonna. Today or tomorrow, hooray!

And we finally got tired of the horrible OnDemand movies, and gave in and signed up for NetFlix. Should start receiving movies today.

And you see why I haven't been blogging, because I am just a rambler. {g}

Boo!

Happy Halloween!!
(this is my very own gargoyle/flying monkey, photo taken last night. It's sitting next to me on my desk right now...)

Surrey recap

I have returned!

Exhausted, but exhilarated. Still spinning from all the face time with my girls, not to mention agent meetings, workshops, discussions, and celebrations. Long, deep discussions and short, silly conversations. Hugs, tears, lots of "you-can-do-its" and raised glasses. I love Surrey.

karen, Kathy, Julie, Rose, Pam, Vicki, Deb, Jennifer, Diana, Stephanie, geez, everyone else...you rock.

I'm not going to go into any details about agents or requests or such, because I don't believe in sharing specifics about the query process as it happens. But I'll say that I had a lot to be happy about over the weekend, and it's all good.

Now I suppose--though I don't wanna--that I really have to go practice my speech for tomorrow. I'd so much rather be working either on tweaking my first chapter or writing the next scene of Book 3. Sadly, the speech requires more imminent attention.

(reluctantly sliding away...)

And away!

Off to Surrey!

I'll see all y'all that are going, TOMORROW. Otherwise I'll see ya when I get back!!

aaaaaaaaahhhhhhh

Oh. My. God.

Okay, things are a bit crazy here in Susan-ville. Yesterday a contingent of us went up to Helena to unveil the new Montana geologic map to the governor, which was very cool--though I somehow didn't quite expect the level of press. Three TV cameras, 2 newspaper reporters/photographers. Today we officially released the map for sale...and everything went crazy! The story got picked up by the AP, and orders are flowing in.

And my staff are rapidly going insane. {s}

In the middle of all this I'm trying to get ready for Surrey in two days, my presentation/critique tomorrow, and a 10-minute speech I have to do two days after I get back. Oh, and the little open house that's planned for tomorrow afternoon...

La la la la, I will be so happy when I am on that plane...

Friday!

Confidence back! {g}

I printed out the whole thing of Jenna yesterday. I love to see a whole book that I wrote in one, thick pile. Now I get to read it again, hopefully this time just to lose myself in the story.

I didn't get a chance to do much writing on Book3 yesterday, but I plan to make up for that today. Goal is at least 5% (3000 words) by the time I leave for Surrey. I'm sitting at 2200 something now, so this is eminently doable. AND the Dead Robert scene is next, yay!

There's an-almost-equivalent-to-Jenna stack of work waiting for me, so that's it for now!

Except the picture:
Yes, that's me, for a class assignment. Kreekie thinks it's freaky, but I rather like it. {g}

A little shaky

So I'm not always confident.

Last night just before I went home I printed out (and re-read) my synopsis for Jenna. I don't know what it is about synopses, but even though it tells the story, it has the voice, etc....it still makes the story sound kinda weird, all crunched down like that. I think that's what spurred the two dreams I had last night:

1. I dreamed that I got a rejection letter back from my #1 agent, and it was strange (of course, it was a dream, duh) because instead of writing her own letter, she had written snarky comments all over my query, in orange pen. The sweet part about this dream is that after feeling very disappointed for about a minute, I looked up at my husband and said "well, let's tackle the list--let's send out ten new ones today" and immediately started writing queries to other agents. Good attitude turn around there.

2. Shortly after this one I dreamed that I had to read my manuscript out loud to a class. (The provenance of this dream isn't hard, as I was observing peer critiques in a creative writing undergrad class yesterday.) Except it wasn't really Jenna, it was some mutated blog form of Jenna with illustrations I had to show everyone, and a kid's poem to start. And I had that moment of panic where I realized this was just too weird to show anyone, much less sell...

And that's when I woke up and had to get ready for the day. It left me with a little residual sense of negativity, I must say--I wish I'd ended with the first one. Must move on and write on Book 3 today, and I plan to print up Jenna in the next couple days and read the whole thing just before I leave, to pump up my enthusiasm. Hopefully. {s}

Small things I've learned about Natalie in the past 2 days of writing/thinking (that may or may not ever actually make it into Book 3). These aren't major points, just details for me to know:

• she's always late
• she likes to wear baseball caps
• she lived in Seattle when she was little
• because of this she's a Mariners fan (you're welcome, Kreekie)
• she has a soft spot for underdogs and will stand up to bullies
• she's a bit of a daydreamer
• she's not very into schoolwork, except art class

I really enjoy this part of getting to know a character. It feels like they become real, and settle into my head. And whether or not any or all of this makes it into the writing overtly, I think that if I know it about her, it makes her rounded, whole. And it makes sense if I suddenly want to write a scene and I find it starts with her watching a Mariners game. {s}

And a picture for you!

You got your peanut butter in my chocolate

I really shouldn't have bought the mini-Reese's peanut butter cups AND the dark chocolate M&Ms for the candy bowl on my desk. Bad, bad habits are being created.

Got my Book3 work done for today, on target, though it took me a little longer than I wanted it to. The good news is another interesting, totally unexpected character popped up, and I can already almost visualize a subplot with her. Writing only happens when you write. {s}

Also:
wrote and sent a press release
arranged for a playdate for Child this weekend
worked on arranging this open house we're doing next week
mailed Toad, a recalled brake van, back to Thomas & Friends (rolling eyes)
made changes to a publication and printed a few copies to get bound
made an appointment to get highlights put in my hair on Thursday

check check check. :) There are many more items on the list, but I do feel I'm getting there.

Must go do some schoolwork now to balance out, in the half hour before it's time to go home!

Monday madness

A loverly weekend. Lots of hanging out, watching baseball (though now my Angels are out of it too...boo), and even swimming. I tried a new recipe last night that didn't turn out as well as I'd hoped, but it was okay. Easy stuff tonight, soup and bread.

I was freaking out a bit this morning at the sheer volume of STUFF I have to get done before Surrey. Everything from preparing a speech to taking pictures of myself (ack) to presenting the new state map to the governor of Montana to dealing with the press to making sure I buy nylons. Sheesh. I made a list (aptly titled FREAKING LIST OF THINGS TO DO BEFORE SURREY), which makes me feel slightly better. Lists always make me feel slightly better. Are you a list person too?

Today I'm mostly doing lots of small detail-y things for work and catching up on homework. I have a class this term that is all online except for our 4 presentations--which oddly is hard for me. I leave all the assignments until the last minute. I'm not really sure why I have discipline when it comes to writing but not so much with homework? (desire? {s})

I'm still getting to know Natalie. Managed a bit more, and should make my (easy) goal of 2000 more words this week, 5000 total this month. That seems good for a first month, with Surrey. After that I'll dive into the more usual 10,000 a month goals.

That's all for today, because I have a quiz in less than an hour...except for your picture of the day.
For a textures/patterns assignment. This is a close-up of Child's laundry basket. {s}

More

Weather: Snowing. The other day was a half-hearted attempt for an hour or so, bitsy flurries just to get an "I can't believe it's snowing already" reaction from us. Today I woke up to wet, slushy snow on the ground and weighing down the trees, and it hasn't stopped, all day. {SIGH}

I have not even had time to sit and write a blog post until this very minute. Running here, running there, doing a full-scale photo shoot, two scheduled meetings, more impromptu meetings, phone calls back and forth and back (and forth) with the governor's office...

WHEW. I am sitting down with a cup of tea and a handful of mini Reese's peanut butter cups, for a few minutes. Right now. There.

I did manage to get up over 1% on Book 3 at least, and tantalizingly close to my 1000-word goal for the week, if I hadn't had to wrap up my lunch and trudge out (in the snow) to a meeting. Finished the first scene to at least "it can live for now" status, so I can move on. I'm really looking forward to the Dead Robert bits, but those are not next. Next is Tony and still vague female friend.

See, I won't share snippets or actual details, but still can pretend to tantalize you with random character names dropped here and there. Sly of me, right? Dead Robert is sooooo my favorite, though. I think I will love Dead Robert.

Did I say I was looking forward to Surrey?

The weird thing is, regarding Surrey, that I'm actually looking forward to pitching. Most writers will probably think I'm insane for even thinking that. But I _think_ Jenna will be a really great match for the agent I'm meeting with--I think it's right up her alley and she'll like it. So I'm looking forward to introducing her to Jenna, so to speak, in the same way that you look forward to introducing two friends you really like.

Of course like introducing the two friends, I might be wrong and they might not like each other at all. They might despise each other from first look. But that's okay too. I have a list of potential agents as long as my arm I can introduce Jenna to, should this meeting not go as well as I hope. I'm not all wrapped up in this one chance; I just see it as a really good opportunity. That I can't wait to get to.

Is that weird of me? Or insanely arrogant? I wonder, but don't know. At any rate I figure it can't be a bad attitude to go into the pitch with, so I'll stick with it for now. Until I stand there quivering before her, my little red folder squashed tightly to my chest...

No, seriously. Just a chance for a chat. {s}

(I'm still liking this bleagh-spill-out-my-mind style of blogging better than the stale updates. You? It does make titling them more difficult.)

I decided that I'm bored with the "Whadjya eat" thingum, because how many times can I reasonably write "we had Mexican food again" without throat-slitting becoming necessary? So since I am taking a digital photography class, and since I've been taking all these photos of minerals for our calendar, I'm hereby instituting a "photo of the day" feature instead. Voila, it is done.

Photo of the Day (which I took this morning):

wow, that's a ramble you've got there

I have added 2 new blog links to my list: Melissa Marr and Libba Bray. I know, I know, I should stop reading other writer's blogs and just get to my own writing, but since I've been on this YA kick lately (writing YA, reading YA, thinking YA), I like to hear from other YA authors. It makes me feel, no matter how self-delusionally, that I'm tapped in.

Anyway. I haven't even read Libba Bray's books yet, but somebody mentioned her blog on the forum and I looked, and I read two entries and said "I must add this!" And I loved Melissa Marr's Wicked Lovely so much that I actually wrote her a fan-girl letter last week. (I have not written a fan-girl letter in like, ever, so this is big. Melissa responded almost immediately with a very nice note. She is not only an excellent writer, she is good people.)

I apparently am writing my blog free-form today. Don't question. Ride along.

I meant to not start the word counter for the new book (er...Book 3, Natalie, or something) until I had at least 1000 words, and I should have listened to myself. I looked at that 0% this morning and felt sad. Must write more to get over 1000. I realized that I'm actually having a bit of difficulty transitioning to writing all-new, first draft material again. I'm so darned used to the revision mode that I feel like I want to polish and fix, even when I only have 150 words to work with. Must. Stop. This. SFD!

Hmmm, this free-form blogging thing might help. I think I must do a writing journal entry today.

In other news (I wonder how often I say that?) I am finally relatively well, hurrah, after a full week of first cold and then stomach virus. It feels almost odd to be well, but good. GOOD. And I get to leave early this afternoon to go take Child to her ballet/tap class, which should be fun.

My coffee cup is broken, as hubby dropped it spectacularly yesterday (picture fountains of coffee spewing all over the garage floor) and dented it. Who knew this would make the coffee not come out the top? Yay, good excuse to buy a new one.

I WILL BE AT SURREY TWO WEEKS FROM TODAY!!!

Yes, I will leave it there, for now.

Natalie

Okay, I got some 400 words today, and Natalie (Nat) feels right. So I'm going with that for now.

And though I won't share snips, I will share photos. This is what Natalie's hair looks like. {s}

Yeah, I know, you're fascinated.