Pictures!

Mom got out her camera and between the two of us, we managed to take some pictures (she has trouble with some fine motor skills like getting the fiddly little camera's memory card in and out of the slots; I have trouble with knowing what the hell you do with a camera at all). So here's a picture of my car with the tree I planted. I crammed that tree into my car!

We were supposed to have rain all day today. Fortunately it held off, since we finally got the guy out to build a tiny deck out back so Mom can get to the patio easier, and a handrail along the front of the house. We'll paint both white once the wood has weathered properly, probably early spring. So here is Mom standing on the front porch of our new little house.

I planted daffodil and tulip bulbs this afternoon and mowed the front lawn. We are ready for Halloween!

A gallon in a pint pot

I really wish I could post pictures I took on my phone. I'm sure there's a way to get the picture off my phone and onto the computer, but it would probably cost cash money and I already spent my money on the tree.

Mom wanted a ginkgo tree in the worst way, so last week I called around and found a nursery that had them. Two hundred bucks for a six foot tree! But I got some unexpected birthday money from my good and deserving Aunt Barbara, and I figured buying a tree with part of it would be good karma. Plus, I like ginkgo trees too. So Saturday after work I went by to get the tree.

First of all, it was much taller than six feet--probably eight or nine. And it was half price! HALF PRICE! See, the karma already kicked in.

So with the help of three nursery workers, we stuffed this gigantic tree into my Mini Cooper, with about three feet of it sticking out the passenger side window. I was certain I'd be pulled over by an incredulous cop before I made it home (a half hour drive), but I made it and got the tree planted in the front yard where Mom can see it from her bedroom window.

Then I ordered some books with the left over money, because that's what I do.

If you ever run into me in person, ask to see the picture of the tree in my car. It's most amusing.

Filled with anticipation

I found an outline for a younger middle grade book, an outline I wrote a year or two ago and promptly forgot all about. I looked it over today and thought, "Whoa! Here's my NaNo book!"

It's the perfect NaNoWriMo project, light and silly. It's about a group of wild animals--a deer, a raccoon, and a fox--who find a cabin in the woods and decide to make it look like people still live there, which will make it a safe den for them to hide in. Just go with it, okay? It'll probably only run about 30,000 words and I doubt it'll find a publisher, but I want to write it.

In fact, I can't wait to start. I have a wonderful, detailed outline and I made up names for all the characters today. It's so tempting to write just a smidge of it, maybe the first chapter--or two. But I have to wait.

I'll try to come up with a decent title before November. The working title is The Cabin on Wildwood Hill, and that's pretty awful. Any suggestions? All my creativity went into naming the Raccoon character Delicious-Smell-of-Walnuts (he goes by Walnut).

Bring me candy, minions

Halloween is coming up! Today Mom and I went shopping and bought some decorations--nothing fancy, just a garland of jack-o-lanterns for the porch, some cute little yard decorations (a ghost, a skull, and a jack-o-lantern, all smiling benignly), four big bags of candy, and a big orange bowl to put the candy in. We live right across the street from the elementary school now, so we're expecting a lot of trick-or-treaters. If not, I'll be forced to eat all that candy. Mom may discover me on November 1, passed out in the living room surrounded by wrappers.

I finally arranged my books properly on the shelves. I'd crammed them in all anyhow while unpacking. Now I can find what I want to read! With some judicious arranging and stacking, I've made room for everything with a little extra space to spare for new books.

My birthday is Friday. Mom bought me a new phone. It's blue and has a querty keyboard, and I got a new cell plan with unlimited texting. I'm now living in the same decade as everyone else! And my monthly bill actually only went up like five bucks, which is cool, except that actually it went up forty bucks because I got Mom's plan hooked together with mine so we only have one phone bill, and I'll be paying for hers. But overall we both save money, so that's a good thing.

And since my birthday is Friday, I expect that to be the day Angry Robot sends me my rejection. They say all twenty-odd of us still waiting for final decisions should hear this week. At least I have Halloween candy to console me.

Soon we'll all be reading the same book over and over

Harry Connolly, author of the awesome Twenty Palaces series of kickass, blood-soaked urban fantasy, posted an announcement today. His publisher, Del Ray, has dropped the series after disappointing sales.

A few months ago Moira J. Moore, whose Hero series is set in one of the most unique and unusual SF/fantasy worlds I've ever read, posted a similar announcement. Her publisher, Ace, has dropped the series.

And earlier this summer, mystery writer Karen E. Olson, who is one hell of a writer and whose books ought to be required reading for anyone who wants to study character and voice, announced that her publisher, Obsidian, declined to extend her Tattoo Shop series contract.

I could probably find several other examples without trying too hard, but these are three authors whose books I love and whose books deserve much more attention. I just don't get it. Ebooks were supposed to save publishing, right? So why are publishers nosediving like this? Why aren't books selling, if everyone's buying Kindles and Nooks? Why the hell am I trying to break into a field where I'll be lucky if I get a few thousand bucks advance per book and will probably see my contract dropped after three or four books?

If you read this, please go out and buy a book this weekend that you might not otherwise have bought: a book by an author who doesn't get tons of advance hype and all the reviews, who doesn't have an HBO series based on his or her books, who maybe only has one or two books on the shelf instead of half a wall. I guarantee you'll discover a great new author.

What a query is good for

I am pretty sure all my obligations are currently met. I returned the edits for The Weredeer and Blood and Ashes, and I read and critiqued a (very good) YA book for someone. And I still have three weeks before NaNoWriMo!

I still want to finish the Misfits revisions. It's the first book I've written where I knew immediately that I needed to fix something, but I couldn't figure out what, so rather than convince myself I was wrong and it was ready to query, I just set it aside. Of course, I was busy with other stuff at the time. But it still counts as growth!

Figuring out what was wrong with Misfits turned out to be easy. When I started writing the query, every time I got past the hook I had to stop. I couldn't put my finger on the main theme of the book, which meant it wasn't clear enough. So once I had time, I jotted some notes down on ways I could focus the book--and then I had to do those damn edits, and never did get around to the revisions. Not until now.

Old and sad

Ugh. I was all set to start reading The Lightning Thief today, but when I got to work my coworker had brought me a mystery I'd expressed mild interest in last week. She'd finished reading it and gave it to me. Now I have to read it. The pressure!

Mom wanted to watch a movie this evening, and as it happens I'd brought home "Clerks" a few days ago. I found it in the $5 DVD bin. I hadn't watched it in probably 15 years, although for a while in my 20s it was the number one movie to quote among my friends. Say "THIRTY-SEVEN?!" to any one of my friends and we'll scream with laughter, and we'll probably answer with "That's his fuckin metal face." I'm admitting both my age and what I was like as a 20something when I say that Clerks is the quintessential GenX slacker movie.

So we watched it and laughed a lot, but now I feel really depressed. It only seems a little while ago that I was living in a crappy apartment and hanging out with my friends Wolfgang and Qathy, and planning revolutions that wouldn't require, you know, a lot of effort. We were going to change the world someday. In the meantime, we drank a lot of Slurpees and published zines and didn't have any health insurance because we were all young and healthy and couldn't get real jobs.

I think I'll go read that crappy murder mystery my coworker loaned me. It'll probably make me feel old.