Pay attention!

Here it is, the only picture of me you're ever likely to see here, at least without me half-hiding behind something. I don't like having my picture taken. Halloween, though--that's different. Here I am as a rather pleasant-looking witch (a costume I threw together from stuff I already had, when I realized the little kids are already out trick-or-treating):


That's my cat Saint Vincent I'm holding. And yes, I'm looking rather annoyed because Mom kept telling me to smile. I didn't want to smile. You can't tell from the picture, but I'm wearing orange and white stripey socks. Happy Halloween!

Do you have any Halloween pictures? Let's see them!

Just in time for Halloween

I just found out that my story "Voices" is up at Everyday Weirdness (actually it was up yesterday). You may recognize the influence on my fiction of me watching way too much Ghost Hunters. (Speaking of which, live show tomorrow night, woot! Yes, I'm spending Halloween night watching TV.)

ETA: My mom just posted on her blog about the naming of Skunk Cat Book Reviews, for your reading pleasure.

Review blog up

I've started my new book review blog, Skunk Cat Book Reviews, for those of you who are interested in that sort of thing.

Two days and a few hours until NaNoWriMo, and I have made peace with the fact that I have no freaking idea what my NaNo book will really be about. Serenity now, serenity now. I have a title, what else do I need? Also I've already named my main character, so I don't have to sweat over that. Everything else will be pirates and ninjas, if necessary.

In book-reading news, I have just over two months left in the year and ten books left in my "read 50 books in 2009" thing. Since I won't be reading much in November, I'd better start sorting my to-be-read books by thickness again.

Because I don't have enough to do

I've decided to start an informal book review blog, mostly so I can keep track of which urban fantasy books I've read and which ones only sound like ones I've read. Well, also I think it might be interesting. I'll probably recruit a few folks to post reviews too--I've asked my mom and she said sure, which is cool.

Anyway, I can't think of a title for the blog. I'm hopeless at titles no matter what I'm titling. Any suggestions? It's not going to be themed to a particular genre or anything.

As you can possibly tell, I'm deep in denial about Nano. Why yes, it's only three days away and I have no plot. Of course this is a great time to start a book review blog.

More words! More words!

I just found out today that my story "Orcs and Trolls" will be included in the Every Day Fiction 2009 Anthology! I really didn't think I'd be in this one, although I have two stories in last year's anthology, which you should totally order. Every Day Fiction will be publishing another of my stories soon, "Fall or Fly."

I wrote a bunch of new scenes for Bell-Men today. I need to type them up, but as of last night I was up to 94,500 words. I suspect I'm closer to 98,000 words today. Eventually I'd like to, you know, stop writing on it. On the other hand, the scenes today were fun to write. Cam got beat up a little (again, poor thing) and she retaliated by hitting the guy in the head with a glass paperweight. Yeah.

Saving the world

Oh yeah, I have a blog, don't I? Maybe I should post.

I've been adding to Bell-Men this evening. There's a lot I want to change and add, which is worrisome. NaNo starts next Sunday! I don't even really know what Tiger's going to be about; I had planned to spend the week thinking about it, but Bell-Men won't let me go yet.

I've noticed that the Bell-Men plot is morphing into something more fantasy-ish than I originally had. I try and stay away from the "hero saves the world" fantasy plot, but it's hard to resist. I think "more is at stake than the hero initially realizes" is one of those tropes woven right into the fabric of the genre. Well, you know what I mean.

Finally, I can read again

Mom gave me the new Terry Pratchett book for my birthday, Unseen Academicals, and I spent many lovely hours today reading it. It's awesome. I had to set aside Jim C. Hines's The Mermaid's Madness to read it, and in turn I had set aside Fritz Leiber's Swords & Deviltry to read that. I am surrounded by awesome books. And now that I'm done with Bell-Men, I can read them all muahahaha at least until NaNo starts next Sunday.

Next Sunday! And I'm already wondering if maybe I should throw out Tiger and write a YA story I have in mind instead--but I think I need to spend more effort worldbuilding and plotting and ultimately writing the YA story. Tiger is just a fun throwaway idea, perfect for NaNo.

And despite the reading, I find Bell-Men creeping into my thoughts frequently. The writing is solid, and the plot and pacing is good up to about 3/4 through. Then things feel rushed and the ending frankly sucketh mightily, with a bonafide deus ex machina. I'm already coming up with ways to fix all that. I wasn't intending to tinker with Bell-Men until probably January, but I suspect I'll be writing new scenes for it this week. I wouldn't be at all surprised if the final wordcount comes to 100,000.