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Better than a Lego brick to the eye…

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.

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

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. :)

Lego Light

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.

Monkeys in a blender

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!”

Noir me, Baby

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?

On Purple Velvet Coats & Excellent Mustaches, Agents, EBooks & Hair

Well. If that blog post title didn’t confuse you, just read on. There is a method to the madness.

Okay, not really. Just go with it. My brain is full of very many random competing things today. There’s a short story going to post later (for #TheBet) but right now, right here, this is just me and I’m having an “interesting” day (wherein interesting is a pseudonym for crazy. And other things.).

The purple velvet jacket. Loverly, eh?

Not sure if you remember, but some time ago I think I had blogged (unless it was just a dream) about how one of the things I really love about living around the Notting Hill/Portobello area is that you can see so many interesting people wandering around. Like the tall skinny fellow with the incredible mustache I’d seen a few times wandering about in a purple velvet suit. I had hoped I’d run into him again because he just looked so darn interesting (yes, there’s that word again, but really here I just mean interesting. And cool.). And I also saw him often carrying around an instrument, which makes it even better. Music makes everything better.

Anyway, we stopped off in a pop up shop yesterday on Portobello Road (pop up roughly means hello, this is really just my house, but come on up and see the cool stuff I and my friends make and have some tea. You can buy some if you like.) and lo, there he was. His name is Robbie and not only does he make really cool clothes (Humphries and Begg) along with another lady, but he still has the most excellent mustache AND he does some type of music class for kids on Wednesdays. So we’re definitely checking that out.

If you’re curious about the clothes OR the mustache, check out the pictures on their website. I think I need the green velvet vest. Oh, and the art was very cool as well, from a number of people, all very interesting.

I obviously need a new word.

Anyway, continuing on. I got some very interesting news today. I’m not sure yet what it’s really going to mean for me, but my agent (Larry Kirshbaum) is leaving agenting to run Amazon.com’s new ePublishing venture. Which is huge news for publishing, but also kinda big news for me. If you followed my agent-y saga, I switched agents to work with Larry (I liked my original agent a lot and had no issues with her, but Larry flew out to Chicago and wooed me and we got on really well). Haven’t talked with him yet or with the agent taking over his agency, so really am just kind of up in the air at the moment.

The really good thing about it, I guess, is that I’m sure Larry will really shake up the ePublishing world and I’m sure it will be in a good way. So I’m looking forward to see what happens there.

So.

Anyway, I shall leave you with a conversation The Max and I had yesterday. I should also mention that he’s started picking up the accent here, mostly with the letter O. If you hear him say home or stone or anything with an O in it, he’s gone all British on us.

That, however, doesn’t really explain this conversation:

Me: Max, what’s wrong with your hair? (it was standing up and very mussy in general, just all over the place)

The Max: It’s English!

The Max and Mommy rocking tattoos

The Max and I are rocking some Sucks to Be Me tattoos today. World, be prepared.

I be cool.
Look, Ma, we match!

And, yeah, if you want some (also have batty), you can email me and tell me. Signed bookplates too. You’ll need to tell me your address too, of course.

On fathers and daughters

This makes me smile. I needed it today too. And thanks to an old high school boyfriend on Facebook for posting the video (yeah, Facebook is good for some things and if you’re reading this, Stephen, which I highly doubt, I don’t mean that you’re old. At least, not any older than I am… Okay, sorry, we’re old. But you’re still cool and I still thank you for really introducing me to all that Led Zeppelin has to offer.).

It was one of those heartwarming little things that made me have to go out and do a search and see what else I could find out about these people. And yes, I’m late coming to this. Apparently, it’s been going viral for a while and they’ve already been on Ellen, etc., etc. So I’m late and old.

It was this article by Craig J. Heimbuch (dude. That name. Wow.) that really did it for me though. Go read it. Just a lovely piece of writing and such a story.

It makes me want to get a guitar and sing with The Max. Except that I can’t play the guitar. But I can sing and we do that already, so maybe we’re half way there.

Hey. Excuse me. I need to go sing with my little man.

Be well.

The dangers of betting, bargain books, and my new favorite bookstore @travelbookshop

Well, just to warn you…this will be a rather rambly, long-ish post.

If you were curious, The Bet I was in with three other authors has partly been decided. I was the grand loser (winner). If you recall, I had picked Uncle Mo as my horse for the Derby, but then he was scratched because of gastrointestinal issues. So then I had to pick another horse. I narrowed it down to Comma to the Top and Mucho Macho Man. I wasn’t able to watch the race because of the time difference, but apparently Comma to the Top was either first or second throughout most of it…to get an ankle injury or something at the end and finish dead last.

Catherine Ryan Hyde gave me this title for the short story I had to write: Uncle Mo’s Gastrointestinal Tract

Um, yeah. That’s why you should never make a bet with authors. I’ve got a first draft of the story done, but I need to do some edits. All I can say is…poor, poor Uncle Mo.

More on that soon…

In other news, have noticed that the hardcover of my second book, Still Sucks to Be Me, is being sold at a deep discount over at Amazon, probably in prep for the paperback release in June. So, if you wanna you can pick one up there pretty cheap right now in the US. No idea how long that will last. You know Amazon. It jumps from “in stock” to “only 3 left!” to “in stock” to “only 7 left!” in the space of a day.

In yet other news, I have some news that I can’t tell you. Sorry.

Related to that, I’ve heard some really good news about a friend. But I can’t tell you that either. Sorry.

Hopefully I’ll be relating both to you pretty soon. If I don’t die of the waiting. Is that possible? Probably not. If it were, writers would be dropping dead all the time (warning: if you crave instant gratification, don’t become a writer).

Anyway, the new SUPER SHINY SEKRIT PROJECT THAT STILL NEEDS A CODE NAME is coming along nicely. I’m so happy and excited about it that it’s absolutely terrifying. I’m closing in on 20,000 words (very, very close) and am on chapter 12 at the moment. ACK!

In Notting Hill / Portobello Road kind of news (technically, Blenheim Crescent), I’ve now found my new favorite bookshop. The great thing about this area is that there are lots of little bookshops, many with very specific focuses (can you guess what Books for Cooks sells?) There are the big shops, like Waterstones and W.H. Smith and Foyle’s, but I have to admit I prefer smaller ones. I do like Daunt books, which is a small chain with just a few stores, but their closest shop to us is up by Holland Park Gate (which isn’t super far, but I’m not that way all that often). They do have a lovely children’s section.

But my new favorite is quite close to us. It’s called The Travel Bookshop and it is a fixture of the area. It’s also one of the inspirations for the bookshop in that Notting Hill movie (you might have heard of it). I’d gone in before, but only on the weekends and it is absolutely slammed then with tourists. We went today because Max and I had won a Travel Bookshop bag and some tea in their Kissing Photo Contest.

Um, maybe I should back up. Back a weekend or two ago, I’d noticed they were having a kissing photo contest. You were supposed to go outside their shop and take a picture kissing and then send it to them for their Facebook page.

We were out walking around on Portobello for the market (we’re so close, we pretty much go every week…it’s just a few blocks) and I thought we might as well do it for the fun of it. Anyway, we were one of the winners, which I’m sure is completely attributable to The Max.

So we stopped by today to pick up our prize and the store had just a few customers in it instead of being the madhouse it usually is when I’ve gone there. I actually got to browse around today and I just love it. It’s definitely focused on travel books, but they include literary works about the different areas (like go to the Italy section and you’ll find books on travel, but you might also find something like Under the Tuscan Sun). They also have a bit of a children’s section and even some YA books too! All in all, just a very nice little shop. I’m happy to have a new favorite local independent bookshop now. I’ve been missing that. Back in our old neighborhood north of Chicago, all of them had closed. It’s great to see so many here.

On Slaying Dragons

Just so we’re clear, this post isn’t actually about Dragons. It’s just what I wanted to call the post and I let my brain do it even though it doesn’t make sense. What this post is about is actually Dungeons and Dragons. No, wait, it’s really about feeling old and never growing up ALL AT THE SAME TIME.

So maybe I should start over.

Punjar CityLast night I went for my second D&D session (an adventure in Punjar City, with my first real D&D character — a half-elf Warlord) at The Counting House pub. Honestly, I’ve wanted to try D&D for years. I had friends who played in high school, but I never *really* played. I know a lot about it in general from playing related computer games (I shudder to think how many hours I spent playing Baldur’s Gate and Daggerfall and things like that…not to mention the very ancient Eye of the Beholder back in college which my boyfriend-now-husband and I were addicted to…along with Civilization). Playing it for real is different. Of course, playing a 4th edition game is also very different from what my friends back in high school played (which would have been either first edition or the edition before they started numbering the editions…if that makes sense).

So, you might ask, why are you playing D&D now?

It’s research. Really. For a book (which I am unable to tell you anything else about at this time because stuff isn’t finalized yet but I will say that it has a great female lead character that I like very much). But besides being research, it’s also a great excuse to try D&D out. Not that I needed an excuse, exactly. Ahem. I am a grown-up, right? It’s just that D&D can seem a little intimidating to get into, especially for girls (women, whatever). Let’s be honest…mostly guys play it. There are women who do (I’ve met them! And they are generally, as a breed, incredibly awesome and cool and just the kind of women I like to hang out with), but the majority of people who play are guys. And it seems rather mysterious, with all the rule books and plus one this and that and the language that only D&D players seem to know (which is not the same as Klingon, but sometimes seems rather close).

But, since I had this “research” excuse, I finally did it.

I am proud to report that I have not died yet. My half-elf warlord is adventuring within Punjar City (Throughout the Known World, no city is more notorious. A sandy collection of spiderwebbed tenements, chaotic alleys, crumbling walls and rat-ridden bazaars, Punjar is also a city of chance and wealth, where fortunes are won in a night, and lost before dawn.) along with a motley collection of other adventurers. My worst fear was that I would slow down the game for the other people since I am never sure when to use what die to roll (a D6? a D20? a D8?) or what type of attack I should try or that they would, quite simply, think I was just an idiot. But they’ve all been really nice and very patient with me.

I have to say that really playing D&D is different than I thought it would be, but also the same. Which, yes, makes no sense. I’m enjoying it (more the second session than the first), especially being able to just role play and come up with silly things on the fly. I love that kind of stuff. I think as I get more comfortable with the mechanics of it, I’ll enjoy that even more. There’s a bit more technical-ish-ness to it than I thought there would be (though I think that’s partly due to my only hazy memories of real games being back before there were so many rules). That’s the bit that makes me feel old. As you talk to a lot of people playing, they often say the same thing: “Oh, I haven’t played since high school! Just thought I’d get back into it again.” At which point I remember exactly how long ago high school was for me. My brain can never quite wrap around that.

But it’s also making me feel young again (okay, let’s be completely honest…in my brain, I never feel old. I am probably forever a teen in there) in that I’m getting to do something kind of similar to what I do when I’m writing (erm…you know, making stuff up as I go) but I get to do it WITH OTHER PEOPLE. Now that’s fun.

Hmmmm. Okay, looking back I can see that this post didn’t really have much of a point at all.

Alrighty then. How about this: if there’s something you’ve thought about trying and you haven’t done it, for whatever reasons that sound good to you that day…just do it. What’s stopping you? You only live once. Life is too short not to try things.

 

On those womanly curves (why isn’t it lady-ly?)

So, I was thinking last night about that dress that I found at that cool shop that upcycles (From Somewhere) and London-ish-ness in general. There’s nothing like moving to a large city to make you feel unfashionable and stodgy, especially when half of your clothes are packed away in storage somewhere. Sure, we lived near Chicago before, but the operative word is “near”…the Chicago suburbs aren’t the same thing as being in Chicago. That was one of the reasons why we rather wanted to move…we lived in a wonderfully idyllic neighborhood surrounded by…not much, really.

Since I’ve been in London, I’ve felt really, um…not up to snuff. Not to mention that the equation of moving stress + eating out loads and loads (mostly not being able to cook for various reasons, such as not having access to a kitchen…or not much of one) for nearly 4 months + a month of staying with my mom, who loves to feed people + getting through the holidays = quite a few extra pounds packed on. I think I’ve gained back nearly all the weight I’d lost last year. Maybe not quite all, but a lot more of it than I’d ever wanted to see again. It’s hovering…er, quivering, really…around my mid-region, deciding whether or not it wants to take up permanent residence or not. I think I have managed to lose a few of those persistent pounds through recent walking and the fact that we are cooking again and I’ll be working on the rest this year. Anyway. Let’s just say that if one were to compare me right now to a cartoon character, curve-wise, I’m much more Jessica Rabbit than Olive Oyl.

Which brings me around to why I was thinking about that dress (ha, look how I did that!). The shop girl was one of those incredibly thin Asian girls (like in Shanghai, another place I felt very frumpy, even though we went while I was waning rather than waxing) who can most properly be compared to a toothpick, but a toothpick with great style and panache. I was trying on various dresses and finding lots of them to be rather more revealing of my lumps and bumps than I really wanted the world to see. “But,” she said after I mentioned I was feeling rather large, “you’ve got curves! You’ve got a lovely tiny waist.” And some other things to that effect (though, cynic-me thinks “ha, she’s quite the sales lady then, isn’t she?”) while gesturing to herself and her toothpick-ness.

Me, circa high school

When I was in high school, I was a toothpick with (small) curves. I weighed 85 lbs (keep in mind my height, or lack thereof to put that in perspective).

And I thought I was fat. Felt like a blimp. A whale. Didn’t believe anyone when they told me how pretty I looked or anything complimentary at all. Was probably borderline anorexic at times.

I try to be healthier than that now. I don’t starve myself (heavens, the hips are testimony to that). And I try to be smart about it and tell myself that, yes, self, you are heavier than you should be right now, but you’re not a bucket of lard, so stop all the inner moaning, would you? You’re being healthy now, after a stint of not-so-healthy, so suck it up. You’re just fine, alright?

Anyway, not that I really had a point with all of this. Just that, perhaps, you should try to enjoy who you are RIGHT NOW. Take pictures. Be in the moment. Over the years, sometimes you’ll be heavier, sometimes you’ll be thinner, sometimes you’ll have zits, sometimes your skin will rival that of a porcelain goddess…things change. They always do. So buy that dress or those skinny or not-so-skinny jeans. Be spontaneous. Dance when no one is looking, but dance when they are too. Be silly. Be beautiful.

Because you are.

P.S. Yes, I am going back for that dress today.