Blog Archives

All the things…

Posted on October 2, 2012
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Well, hello there you. It’s October. Hello, October. (Read: what the heck are you doing here already, October?) And hello new house!

We’ve moved into our new place and it feels like gobs of space compared to our 2 bedroom flat (which was lovely and I do miss the garden but…room!!!!!). I have been unpacking. Every day. I have been unpacking things that have been packed for YEARS. Things that have been packed since we moved from Clearwater, Florida to Louisville, Kentucky…and that was a few moves ago. Unpacking things that have been in storage…stuff we’d forgotten we had. And when I’m not unpacking I’ve been shopping…because we went from a furnished flat to an unfurnished house. We’ve had to buy beds. Kitchen tables. Chairs. Dressers. You know, stuff.

The big thing that I haven’t found yet is a desk for my office (oh man I do miss the office I had when we lived in Chicago). My laptop has mostly been sitting on top of the dresser in our bedroom.

I am itchy to write.

But I’m also itchy to get ALL THE THINGS done. But finally, finally, I can say that we’re almost there. AND there’s hopefully an end in sight for the health issues I’ve been having (fingers crossed).

So. Hopefully soon I’ll be talking about writing-y stuff here again…

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All the things that aren’t bookish things

Posted on June 19, 2012
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But first…a little bookishness…

I’m having a lot of fun reading all the feedback from people about the third Sucks to Be Me book. Looks like I’ll definitely be incorporating both Paris and London into the book. The final title is still up in the air, but there have been some good suggestions. And, from the answers from the newsletter subscribers (who I’d asked whether they thought the book should be in first person, present tense like the first two books or in first person, past tense, it looks like the books will probably be in first person, present to match the first two. Close vote on that though, so we’ll see if any other subscribers respond).

Soap

Soap! This batch is lemon scented.

But I’m doing other stuff too. Like making soap again. I hadn’t made a batch since before we moved here. I had to buy all the supplies again. The cool thing is that here I can literally walk a few blocks and get ALL the ingredients I need to make soap (sodium hydroxide/lye, oils, butters, etc.) whereas in the US it wasn’t nearly so easy. You had to sign an affadavit over there to buy the lye and swear that you weren’t going to do anything evil with it (muuuhahahahawaaa) while here you can go in pretty much any shop and buy it off the shelf.

Heck, I even made the soap in a leftover Pringles can (hence the roundness). Hubby has been making pickles and we’ve all been making bath bombs (Max LOVES bath bombs). So we’ve been very crafty lately.

Finally got to meet a Twitter author friend of mine last night — Sarwat Chadda (you should totally go check out his books if you like kick butt heroines…and I know you do!). He joined in the D&D game I’ve been playing every other week in the city. Very funny guy.

Lego Ranger

Lego Ranger FTW!

And we managed to not die last night, which was amazing considering the number of orcs we were up against. Best part of the night though was when (and this is where I’m gonna go all geek on you, so if you’re not all D&D geeky, feel free to skip ’cause you’re gonna be going Whuzzah?) a bloodied and almost dead Sarwat proposed picking up a freshly dead orc to use as a shield and the DM let him roll on it and he rolled a 20! Orc shield for the win! </end geek> Fun times.

I’m playing a Ranger character and The Max, who is still the cutest most cleverest most amazingest little dude ever, made me a Lego version. And speaking of The Max…I can’t believe it’s already June. And he’s going to be full time in school in September. He is such a little man.

In other news…we’re still exploring London and trying to make sure we “act like tourists” every now and again (you know, get out and do stuff vs. getting caught up in day to day life and not doing anything). Took the hubster to the Proud Camden Cabaret the other night. That was…interesting. Fun, really. First time seeing Burlesque. It was…burlesque-ish. Lots of glitter. Pretty cool.

And we explored a new-to-us area this past weekend near Elephant & Castle in the SE (Southwark which looks like you’d call it “South Wark” but you pronounce it more like “Suff ulk” which can confuse you to know end when you first move here and here them announce it on the Tube). I was checking out an old herb shop for some essential oils and stuff. We wound up stopping at a little museum there too and it was quite cool. Called the Cuming Museum. It’s like a family’s collection of oddities. Max really liked it. They had a little Dickens exhibit that was neat…and smelly. Like smells from the times. So, yeah. Stinky smells. Kind of an odd thing. But now I know what a rope picker smelled like and what boot black smelled like, so there’s that.

And that’s about it. All the non-bookish stuff.

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Neil Gaiman Made Me Cry

Posted on May 22, 2012
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Yeah. Neil Gaiman ( @neilhimself ) made me cry today. My husband sent me a link to the video of a commencement speech that Gaiman gave recently. Didn’t think twice about clicking it. Love Gaiman. Recently re-read American Gods and it made me want to write gritty (for a little while anyway…I can’t really sustain true gritty…it just isn’t me. My gritty usually comes out vaguely funny. Severed hands in Gucci bags. That kind of thing.) Anyway…

Everything he said really hit me, right in that writerly place inside me, that empty space I fill with stories. And I needed to hear it because lately I’ve just wanted to give up. Oh, I don’t mean give up writing. I’ll always be a writer. Even if I never write down another word, I’ll always be a writer. Those stories go on in my head all the time, whether or not they make it onto paper. I worked corporate jobs for years and I was writer then too. It’s not something you can turn off. At least, I can’t.

No, I’ve been ready to give up all the other stuff. I keep hearing It doesn’t matter how well you write or that you’ve got some fans. If you don’t sell more, what’s the point? And Why do you spend your time on this if you don’t get much for it?  Or the You’re obviously not doing it right or more people would be buying your books. No one knows who you are.

Yeah, all that stuff.

And the thing is, there’s truth in all that. I haven’t sold a flaming boatload of books. I likely never will. Most people don’t. Hardly anyone has heard of me. Maybe a hundred thousand people total after three books? I have no idea. Definitely not millions. I don’t make a living at this writing thing. I have a husband who makes a living. I came into publishing on the downswing, when everything is changing and no one knows what’s going to happen or how to surf the wave.

Technically, I suppose you could call me a full-time mother who writes part-time. I try really hard at this whole self-promotion thing (because it doesn’t matter anymore if you’re traditionally published or not — you’ve got to do your own promotion) but it doesn’t come naturally to me (nearly 5000 Twitter followers notwithstanding). I’m much better at talking about other people than myself. I can’t take a compliment to save my life. I don’t ever feel like I deserve it. If you want to tell me how bad I suck, well then, that burrows it’s nasty way into my head and stays. I’m sure Freud would have loved me and I’m equally sure I would have popped him one on the nose. I am still totally blown away that the School Library Journal, Booklist, Publisher’s Weekly and yes, even the dreaded Kirkus all like Cat Girl‘s Day Off. Amazed that readers want to have Skype chats with me. That I get actual honest-to-goodness fan mail. Totally. Blown. Away.

The thing that hit me the hardest, I think, is when Gaiman talked about the advice that Stephen King had given him. After his first big success, King told him, basically, That’s great. Now go enjoy it.

That’s a simple thing, isn’t it? Goodness knows I enjoy writing. I love stories. I love that feeling you get when you have that brilliant flash of an idea and a plot point resolves itself…when you write yourself OUT of that corner you’d written yourself into…when you breath life into a character and they get up and walk around and do things.

But lately all I’ve been doing is grasping at straws. Reading all the advice that says do this or do that and for heaven’s sake, don’t do that. This blog post, incidentally, would almost definitely be on that list (sorry…you can always stop reading here and read my next post instead where I’ll endeavor to be incredibly cheerful and engaging and whatnot).

I’ve been reading about how Snooki is always going to kick my ass. Reading 5 Surefire Ways to Get on the Radio. 10 Things You Should Never Blog About (which mostly boils down to a) no one cares what you had for lunch and b) no one wants to hear you kvetch and c) don’t be real; be super-cool). Then there’s 6 Things You Are Doing Wrong Right Now. And The Right Way to Sell Your Book. The Right Way to Use Twitter. The Wrong Way to Use Facebook.

Lemme tell you something. I don’t enjoy any of that.

I’ve been doing it though. Because I do want to sell books. While only in my wildest daydreams do I dream of being the next J. K. Rowling or Stephen King or, heck, Neil Gaiman, I have had the mild-mannered dream of making enough from writing to justify the time I spend doing it. Because I did that corporate thing and boy, did I ever hate it. Can’t tell you how much more money I made that way since the only math I do nowadays is  playing D&D twice a month, but it was oodles more.

And I’ll keep doing that stuff (insert subliminal message here: buy my books, buy my books) and trying to find new ways to Get the Word Out because I still have that dream. But I’m going to try and hold on to why I’m doing this to begin with. To get back to the part where I enjoy having a new book launch (yay, Cat Girl!) instead of just worrying and fretting and despairing about it. Because even if this dream of mine doesn’t work out and I find I need to dust off my C.V. after The Max is in school full time and get a “real” job again, I’ll always be a writer. Even if another word never goes down on paper again.

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Apologies. Sort of.

Posted on May 16, 2012
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So, you know, automation is kind of evil. My husband’s always getting on me about how I should be more focused in my tweets and blog posts (which I am SO not) and how I should be more promoter-y with my books (“otherwise,” he says, “what’s the point in writing if no one reads it because no one knows who you are?”) and all that. And now that I’m in Greenwich Mean Time, a lot of what’s going on in Twitter is after I’m asleep (or, er, should be asleep).

So I had a brilliant idea. I found this WordPress plug in that will automatically re-tweet old blog posts. I mean, hey, there are nearly 900 blog posts on my website. I’ve been doing this blogging thing for years. So I turned it on and let it rip, but not at too crazy of an interval or anything (just like one random tweet with a blog post every few hours) because I didn’t want to be annoying. And besides, clever-me was thinking, some of those old blog posts were pretty good. You know, funny and all. Some of them were even, heaven forbid, focused.

The first couple that were randomly tweeted were pretty good ones that my husband would have approved of (he is, if you can tell, the business-y side of this relationship). Then the plugin apparently went to the dark side and re-tweeted some of my more maudlin and depressingly honest blog posts. Like this one. Which is, honestly, not a bad post per se. And I can’t honestly say I’m not feeling a lot of that right now. I got me some issues, people. Don’t we all? But I didn’t mean to worry anyone, so hence this apologetic post.

So, everybody that responded to that random posting, thank you. I did actually need that and I appreciate it. I’m not at my best right now: some health issues (I shall not bore you with the bevy of tests I have coming up where I shall be poked, prodded, and scanned), not to mention being on submission (!) and that inevitable sinking feeling authors get that no matter what they do or what they say, no one will find their newest book (hey, look, Cat Girl!) but I have now tried to restrict the auto-tweeting thing so that it stays on (hopefully) safer topics. Like my inane poetry (heh).

Goodness knows I’m not perfect.

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Chocolate. (Need I say More?)

Posted on May 5, 2012
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Taken with my camera phone, so they actually look much yummier and less greenish in person...

I’ve been experimenting lately with making chocolates, specifically filled ones. One, because if you’re feeling all angsty (is my book doing okay? are people liking it? do people hate it? is anyone reviewing it on Amazon? is anyone actually buying it? what should I work on next? etc., etc., etc.), there’s nothing like chocolate to soothe the soul. And two, I have about a billion silicone molds in different shapes.

The heart shaped one, though, is perfect for making filled chocolates. It’s nice and deep. Seeing as how I’m a huge fan of Reese Peanut Butter Cups, I thought I’d try those. I found a number of recipes online, but here’s what I did (and it worked, so hey)…

First off, you need chocolate (obviously). I used some organic milk chocolate melting chocolate I got at Whole Foods, but Nestle or whatever you want to try will work. For the filling, mix peanut butter with some confectioner’s sugar and some crushed crackers/biscuits (like graham crackers…I didn’t have any on hand so I actually used some malted milk flavored biscuits) until the consistency is kind of grainy.

Melt the chocolate (however you want to…just don’t burn it…I do it in the microwave at half power, taking out to stir every 30 seconds or minute or so). Put a bit into the mold, just enough to make a base. Jiggle the mold to get rid of any air bubbles. Then pop that sucker into the fridge or freezer to set it. Not for long…just a few minutes. It doesn’t have to be completely solid, just solid enough so that whatever you fill the center with doesn’t sink through to the bottom.

Put a rounded spoonful of the peanut butter mixture into the center of the mold. Try not to let it touch the sides. You can also fill with other things (I’ve now also done maraschino cherries and nutella). Then spoon more melted chocolate over it and fill to the top (or at least enough to cover all of the filling. Jiggle the mold again to get it all flat and nice and not air-bubbly. Pop back into the fridge or freezer for a few minutes (or up to ten, provided you can wait that long). Remove chocolates from the mold and Woot! Chocolates!

SO good. Now I want to experiment with other fillings and flavors and types of chocolates…This may be a bad hobby to take up, at least for the waistline.

 

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Me, Doris Day, Royal Mail and other cool things.

Posted on May 4, 2012
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I love Doris Day movies with a deep abiding passion. Really. I’ve seen probably all of them (or very nearly). I can discuss the relative merits of Send Me No Flowers as compared to Lover Come Back. I can sing all the songs from On Moonlight Bay and Teacher’s Pet (probably to the great annoyance of my husband).

The movie!

So I was super excited when I saw in Time Out that there was going to be a special big screen showing of Pillow Talk. Pillow Talk! One of my absolute favorites! Doris Day and Rock Hudson! Together for the first time! Not to mention Tony Randall (love!) and Thelma Ritter (heehee!). I’m pretty sure I squeed.

I tried to find someone at the last minute to go with me to the Charlotte Street Hotel (where the movie was being shown…with a Q&A afterwards with some film critic-y people I’ve never heard of but would probably know who they were if I’d lived in the UK all my life). I couldn’t find any last minute takers, though. So I went by myself. I don’t always do that…while I don’t mind going by myself somewhere (actually, I kinda like it…I’m weird that way), this was very last minute and I had to get the babysitter set up and all that nonsense (the hubby had his own thing he was already going to).

So glad I did though. After all, this was probably my only chance to see a Doris Day movie up on the big screen. And the digitally remastered version they were showing (it’s being released on Blu-Ray for the 100th anniversary of Universal) was BEAUTIFUL. Heck, the talk afterwards was even interesting.

And hey, I got to have a fancy martini at the hotel bar. Where, incidentally, the beautiful people go to work and hang out. I swear everyone that worked there could have been a model and they were all so darned nice. All in all, it was an adventuresome day (I haven’t even mentioned how I started the day at the dentist, went for a Jamaican hot chocolate afterwards at Louis Cafe and wound up as background in an ITV shoot).

Anyway. I was going to blather on some more about Doris Day and the whole things-having-happy-endings-thing but this is already getting long and boring enough. So. Moving on.

All mailed...

If you’re one of the librarians that took me up on my offer or someone who’s requested a signed bookplate…guess what? I mailed out a boatload of stuff today. Literally. Okay, I exaggerate a little…a bagload. Definitely a bagload.

The thing is, the postal service over here in the UK isn’t like in the US. For one thing, the post offices (or Royal Mail…doesn’t that sound fancy?) are generally located in the back of a convenience store. They’re privately run. It always takes forever to do anything, especially if you’re mailing stuff internationally and most of what I was mailing was to the US, with a smattering of stuff to go to other places, like Russia and Australia.

When I came in with my bag of stuff, I thought the lady was going to have a heart attack. And the counter is about 2 inches wide, so I’m having to stick on stamps and air mail stickers while straddling stacks of water bottles and boxes of cereal. It was an experience.

So, yo. If you’re one of the people getting something, I sure do hope you appreciate it. I’m not even gonna tell you how much I spent on postage. It was painful. See how much I love you guys?

In other cool news (now buried so far down in this post that I’m sure you’ve all quit reading and gone on to more exciting things like picking lint out of your belly button)…there were some great new reviews and interviews posted up today! (Yay, Google Alerts!)

Over at We Have a Situation, there’s a fun interview with me from Rachel. You can find out about cat names, what the original idea for the book was and other interesting stuff.

And at Charlotte’s Library, there’s a really lovely review that says “Cat Girl’s Day Off is fast and funny, with the spot-on cat comments that liberally sprinkle the pages being especially entertaining. Though Natalie is a well-developed character with genuine teenager-ish concerns, and people’s lives actually are in danger, it’s not a book that takes itself too seriously, which makes it a very pleasant break from reality.” And a bunch of other stuff too! All nice! I <3 you Charlotte!

There’s also some really nice reviews up over at YA Books Central (which always makes me happy, since I founded that site waaaaaaay back in 1998). Kim B. said “This is one hilarious, fun romp that made me want MORE!” and Francesca said “The (dare I say zany?) madcap adventures in Kimberly Pauley’s truly delightful new book are Hughes-ish in the best possible way, happy ending and all. I can’t imagine finding a better beach book this year, but if I were you, I wouldn’t wait until summer to read it.”

Love.

Oh. And have you checked out the new t-shirts yet???

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Better than a Lego brick to the eye…

Posted on October 25, 2011
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So, just what have I been up to lately? Hmmmm? Lots of things, O somewhat-ignored blog readers. Big things, even.

For one, I came up with an idea for a new website, talked some of my author peeps into going into it with me and Shazam! made a website and launched it. In like a week and a half. Booyah!

I’d like to invite you to take a gander at Read It and Laugh, a brand spankin’ new website dedicated to funny books, funny authors, and funny readers. I hope you’ll take a look! It’s kinda my response to the whole “O woe is me, all YA books are DARK and EVIL now” thing that’s been going around. And those other authors I talked into going along with me? Some seriously funny people. I ain’t kidding. (Plus, you know me. There’s chances to win stuff. Go check out the Funny List, for one).

Let’s see…other than that…

Well, The Max is off school for two weeks for what they call “half-term” here. So my writing time is kinda shot anyway. And now he’s gone and gotten himself some kind of lovely virus and an evil-wicked temperature (103 F or 39.7 C). So there’s that. The poor Max.

I’m not even gonna mention the spit up that accompanies said illness. Not. Gonna. Do. It.

And I joined a gym. Been trying to get back into shape and people, let me tell you, it’s gonna be a LONG haul. But I’m working on it. The gym has a pool too, so I’ve taken The Max swimming a few times (when he was still well and you couldn’t cook hot dogs on his forehead).

And I finally went to an eye doctor and got my eye checked out. This is where the blog post title comes in. See, about 7 or 8 months ago, The Max accidentally got me with a Lego brick right to the eye. He stuck it out the same time I turned to look at him. No chance to blink. Nothing. Lego straight in the eye. Hurt like…well, hurt like a lotta words I don’t want to use. For like an hour. And almost every morning (and sometimes randomly during the day), when I first open my right eye, I feel like someone is stabbing me with a serrated knife. It’s been so long though and it’s so weird that it’s only in the mornings that I was starting to wonder if I was crazy (not my normal crazy, but crazy-crazy).

Turns out it’s perfectly normal. Apparently I have this huge jagged gash in my cornea from when he got me with that brick. STILL. From like 8 months ago. And overnight it starts to heal and put new cells or whatnot together. Which then sometimes adhere to my eyelid. And then when I first open my eyes in the morning…kabang! I literally rip those shiny new cells right off my cornea. Hence the pain.

And my husband wonders why I hate mornings.

The bad news is that it can take (obviously) a long time to heal. And last night while The Max was thrashing around in a feverish daze, he got me IN THE SAME FREAKING EYE. *sigh* I may start wearing an eye patch. (kidding) (mostly)

In writing-ish news, the copy edit phase is now complete on CAT GIRL’S DAY OFF. Woot! Now it’s the publisher’s turn to go do all their fancy stuff. I’ll get one more look at it in the final proof stage and then…book baby! Probably in April.

Now *that’s* better than a Lego brick to the eye.

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The Max is in school (and has his own blog now)

Posted on September 8, 2011
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I can hardly believe it, but The Max has officially started school. He is officially a Big Boy. It’s only half days, but still. He’s so proud of himself and so excited. He’s been waking up every day at 7:30 (and trust me, that’s big news. He’s like Mommy — he’s not a morning person).

 

Look, Mommy, I have my very own book bag!

He really loves it. And me, I get some writing time in the morning now! This week is still kind of unusual though — my husband’s mother is visiting and he’s taken off work, so it’s not “business as usual” around here by any means. But great for Tony, since he can actually have a chance to walk The Max to school (it’s just around the corner from our flat, which is AWESOME).

The Max also has his very own blog (and twitter) now. Kinda crazy, I know.

Never said I was sane, did I?

As for me, I’m working on the FINAL revision pass on Cat Girl’s Day Off. I am attempting to add some more Impending Doom per editorial order. Just about done. :)

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Lego Light

Posted on June 13, 2011
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We have created a Lego monster. No lie. The Max is the king of Legos. His reward for making it two weeks with no potty training accidents was a big Lego set (he chose a Star Wars Jar Jar Binks set + a Clone Trooper Speeder set).

So I had the bright idea (ha) a few weeks ago that it would be cool to make him a light out of Legos. I looked online and saw some examples and even a few you could buy, but ultimately decided to just try my (our) own hands at it.

We tried with regular sized Legos first, but we didn’t have enough. We’ve mostly got sets (Kingdom ones or Star Wars ones) and I wasn’t about to break a set to make the light. Heck, it took Tony three hours to put the big castle together. So yesterday the light went on (ha) and I realized we had all these Lego Duplo blocks that he only plays with occasionally since he started getting into “real” Legos.

So this is what we came up with. The beauty of it is that you can always remake it again later if you want. Our first try was a lot smaller and not quite as interactive.

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Monkeys in a blender

Posted on June 10, 2011
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So, I never knew this before, but foxes? In the wild, real life foxes? They totally sound like two monkeys in a blender having a fight with a peacock. Not kidding. A couple of them went crazy last night roaming around the neighborhood from 1 AM to 4 AM. They woke me up when they were down the street and again in our front yard. The Max, too. We watched two foxes running around together in the early dawn light, shrieking (the foxes, not us). “Wow,” said Max. “Foxes are loud!”

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Noir me, Baby

Posted on June 9, 2011
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I was a weird teenager.

No, really.

From the time I could read (and talk my mom into taking me to the public library), I went through seriously intense book adoration phases. I didn’t just read a book on a topic or “like” an author…I devoured everything to do with said topic or said author. And I seriously mean EVERYTHING. Did you know that Louis L’Amour wrote over 120 books? I read every single one of them when I was fifteen (and no offense to Mr. L’Amour, but quite a few of them are essentially the same story with different characters).

My interests were far reaching (as evidenced by my foray into cowboy literature read primarily by middle-aged men) and literally knew no bounds.

One of those phases was a Mickey Spillane one. And I don’t mean just the Mike Hammer books either. My two favorites, that I read and re-read until they were dogeared beyond recognition (and I still own, by the way…I couldn’t get rid of the ratty old paperbacks even now, not even when I had to purge over half my book collection when we moved to London) were The Deep and The Delta Factor.

Why?

I don’t really know. Goodness knows they are rife with violence and have, ahem, antiquated & stereotypical views of women (to say the least). Would I recommend that thirteen and fourteen year olds pick them up and read them like I did? Eh, I dunno. Of course, in today’s world, the violence in them seems really quaint compared to the majority of the movies and TV shows that we all watch on a daily basis.

There was just something about them. Something primal. And fast, lordy, they were fast reads. They are slim volumes, probably half the size of the books that I write (and I write for teens, which historically have been shorter than adult novels…okay, unless you’re J. K. Rowling or Robert Jordan or Stephenie Meyer). I could read them in about an hour. And I did. One after the other, like so much literary candy.

In fact, sitting here typing this…I really wish I had those books in front of me right now (our stuff is still in storage in Chicago).

What books do that for you? Take you away, wring you out, and bring you back?

If you’re wondering why I was thinking about this today, it’s because I posted up a “new” free short story for download (One of the Boys) and it’s one I wrote years ago during a Spillane-ish writing phase. I even found a home for it (which was hard, since noir-ish fiction hasn’t really been in demand for a long while) at Hardboiled magazine back in 2004. Reading it again brought it all back to me.

Man, just looking through potential cover images over at iStockPhoto was like a blast from the past. There are some amazing photos over there (just look up noir). I finally settled on this one guy because I liked the craggy lines of his face, even though the main character in the story probably has a much weaker chin (he’s that kind of guy).

Anyway, any Spillane or Hammett fans out there?

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