Progress meter for my current solo project, The Warrior Angel and the Demon Queen. It is a silly cracktastic title to go with a cracktastic and not-so-silly book. ;-)

32800 / 100000 words. 33% done!

Will try to post one of these at the first of every month, and see how it goes.

Found this via apocalypticbob: Teacher looking for YA books to transfer to Braille format

"I am Patti Smith and I teach at OW Holmes, which is an elementary-middle school in Detroit Public Schools in Detroit, Michigan. My students are visually impaired, ranging in age from 2nd grade to 8th grade. Five of my students are Braille writers and two are learning Braille. I would love books for young adults in electronic format (Word or RTF) so that I can plug the file into my computer program and emboss the book in Braille so my kids can have something to read. I have found it very difficult to find books for young adults; most seem to be written for very young readers. My Braille readers are all age 11+ and it is a challenge to find relevant books for them to read. Thank you so much!!"

Patti's email is TeacherPattiS@gmail.com

I would also add pictures from Wicked (which was the "OMGOMGOMG" level of awesome) but we unsurprisingly weren't supposed to take any, so I didn't. I really wanted to get a shot of the stage, though. That set was fantastic. But you'll just have to settle for pictures of me scribbling my name instead. ;-)




( Two more below the cut )

We had a book signing at the Carnegie Library last night; it was fantastic! The Arts Council brought together eight local authors-- both self-published and traditionally published-- to talk with people about the process of writing and publishing and to sell their works. It was so much fun. Also, the Council gave each of the authors $100 just for participating, so that was beyond great. :-)

I brought a few copies of each of the trilogy novels, and five copies of In the Darkness Find Me. At the end of the night, I'd made $116 from book sales. Wheeeee

I also talked up Mandy Roberts, EMG Portrait Adoptions, and lulu.com as much as I possibly could.

And today, since I got an unexpected windfall, I bought Devin a mini-fridge to keep in his room since he's been wanting one for a while. :-) All in all, great weekend.

Available here! Cover art by the fantastic Mandy Roberts. You can see more of the art she did for this novel here.

*skips off*

Maggie Stiefvater has a great piece about writing and using negativity and rejection to your advantage.

I'm still learning how to do this, honestly . . . most days I can see publishing stories and go, "Oh wow how cool for them!", but there are still too many of the days when I see that and look at the stuff on my computer and think, "Why isn't any of it good enough?"

Which I logically know is not the case. It's not that my (or our, for the manymany things I've written with Kath) stuff isn't good, it's just that it's a matter of timing. Sooner or later we'll send the right project off to the right people.

It's been weird, going from a schedule where I worked early mornings and Chris worked late afternoon and evening, giving me hours every day to write, to staying home with Kaylee and feeling like I can't even keep up with the housework, let alone my writing. But I think I'm finally starting to get the hang of it-- I play with Kaylee and get laundry and dishes done and always keep a notebook nearby so I can scribble notes. Then when Chris gets home from work I transcribe the notes I wrote that day, and when he gets time off he spends part of it taking Kaylee out of the house, so I have a several-hour stretch to get editing or large chunks of writing done.

Also, I've self-published before, and if it comes to that I have no problem with doing it again. Which doesn't mean that I'm never sending anything off to publishers again, of course. :-) I would love to actually make a living doing this, but it's just that my goal, really, is less being able to make a living off it and more having a physical copy of my books out there so I can point them out to anyone who might be interested. If that makes sense.

The rough first draft of something I'm working on for Kaylee. . .





Right now I wake up at 4 a.m. to the very uncomfortable knowledge that my water just broke.

Your dad is telling me to not worry about feeding the cats, he'll come back to do it later, just get in the car so we can go to the hospital now please.

I'm biting down on a washcloth to get through the contractions.

Your dad is silently considering yelling at the lady giving the epidural because this is the fourth time she's tried to get the needle in.

I'm very, very mellow and tipsy and can barely feel a thing below the waist.

I see you for the first time-- just your foot, looking so purple-- and then I hear that the cord's wrapped around your neck and I'm as freaked out as the drugs will let me be until I know you're okay.

They bring you to me and I can't decide whether I'm thrilled to finally hold you or terrified that I'll drop you or just flat-out exhausted.

My younger brother holds you for the first time, in the same hospital where I first held him.

Your grandma and your Aunt Ashley stay with me for a few days since your dad has to go right back to work at his new job.

I'm calling mom, crying, because you're crying and I've tried everything and don't know what else to do.

I curl up with you on the couch, and the cats curl up with us, watching you warily.

You don't come close to fitting into the peace-sign onesie your Aunt Kathy sent you yet, but we put you in it anyway and take pictures.

I'm getting some help to calm down the chaos in my head, because even though the idea of talking to other people about it terrifies me, you're more important.

You're a month old, and we've taken about 30,000 pictures of you so far.

Even when you're in the middle of a temper tantrum, I can turn on Casino Royale and you calm right down.

You get frustrated when you can't roll over.

You need to play with someone's hair as you're falling asleep.

I think you've inherited my complexion-- the instant you start to cry, or laugh, your face goes from pale to beet red.

You're pulling yourself up and trying to walk before you even get crawling fully mastered.

As we're shopping, you spot the fish tanks and start grinning and clapping.

We take you to an Aquarium, and you're in heaven.

You have an entire bookshelf full of books and you can't even read yet.

You have not yet learned self-preservation: you jump off chairs and couches and climb coffee tables and generally terrify me.

You flail and smile and point whenever you see a dog.

You toddle up to where Zot is lounging on the floor, crouch next to him and rest your head on his stomach, and it's the cutest thing I've ever seen.

Playing with hair has morphed into pulling hair.

I'm cutting my hair shorter than it's ever been to help you break the habit.

You love toddling around in the backyard and trying to catch up to the stray cats.

At almost sixteen months, you spend the whole night in your room without one of us having to get up and go to you.

Right now, as I start this project, you're asleep and I really should be.

Things are going well on the writing front! For a while trying to find time to get anything done has been a huge chore. But I'm starting to get into the swing of things again:

1) Got a submission in to Verb Noire

2) Received a call from a lady working on the 100th anniversary celebration for our Carnegie Library. One of the things they're doing is a group book signing thing for local authors, and she asked me to participate. So by July, I'm going to get some more copies of Kath's and my trilogy, and also

3) Finished up with In the Darkness Find Me, going to print up several copies to sell at the signing. Did a price-check at lulu.com-- it'll cost me about sixty dollars to do that. Where has that site been all my life? :-D

4) Getting some artwork done for ItDFM so I can also put it up on my website as an illustrated novella

Not to mention the work Kath and I are doing, with revamping an early project of ours.

Busy and loving it!

You can check out the community here.

Okay, so I'm currently in limbo.

Not writing-wise; that's going great. I've got several projects going, both solo and with my cowriter. Getting that writing off the ground, though . . . a bit more problematic.

I submit things to agents and publishers, never gotten anything back other than "Thanks, but not what we're looking for". I go about 60/40 between "sooner or later you'll find the right place; just keep trying" and "why bother? You know what the answer'll be".

I've found out over the years that I work best when I don't work alone. Not necessarily writing with someone else (though that's my favorite way) but at least with someone reading along as I write, for batting character backgrounds around and letting me know that they either like a new development or hate it or want to know exactly how stoned I was when I came up with that idea. It's more fun that way, but I also know it's because I basically don't trust my own judgment. :-P And I'm working on that, but while I'm working on it I've let more than one thing fall by the wayside because with only myself to 'discuss' it with, I lose interest. Also, there's the problem of the Annoying Little Voice gleefully chattering on about how project of choice is just a waste of time, anyway, because if it wasn't then it would've gotten some feedback by now. However much I logically know it's wrong, that doesn't always help.

Obvious answer? Internet. Which is where my second problem comes into play: when I first started posting some writing several years back, someone decided to steal it and claim it as their own. Again, working through the paranoia. I know a lot of people who write amazing fanfiction, but I'd rather have something fully mine. Work up a project with the sole intent of putting it up on my site?

I don't know. This is less of a question and more of a Random Babblings of an Insecure Writer. ;-)

Okay, so here's the situation:

1) Writing a YA sci-fi series with my best friend.
2) Just got started on the second book in a planned fantasy trilogy.
3) Revising a draft of the first book in the series mentioned in #1.
4) Also, y'know, the whole new-baby thing, which kindof cuts in on the time to do any of the above.

The point?

I'm considering participating in NaNoWriMo.

Please kick my ass, would you?

-- Kaylee's figuring out how to use a sippy cup. Right now she's standing at her baby gate, amazingly enough holding the cup the right way instead of trying to drink from it upside-down again. She's also gnawing on the spout just as much as she's trying to drink (can't blame her, really, her top two teeth are starting to come in). The front of her shirt is soaked. I'm debating about whether it would be ethically right to just take her out to the backyard and spritz her down with the hose.

-- Probably not, since when I woke up the house was at 50 degrees. I try not to turn on the heater at all until November, but made an exception for that one. Gah.

-- The house is a complete mess. I'm trying not to concentrate on it, but it's difficult. Especially when Kaylee's figured out how to pull DVDs off the shelf and scatters them around the living room. We need a cabinet with doors. Maybe next paycheck.

-- Chris is working from 4 in the afternoon to 2 a.m. all this week. Considering that Kaylee doesn't usually fall asleep until 12:00 or 1 a.m., it makes for some long nights. It's quite possible that I'm turning into a zombie.

-- My brother just got this cool SAS Survival Handbook. I'm going to go through it for story notes sometime. Possibly at the aforementioned 1 a.m. ;-)

I love you to pieces already, you seem like a lot of fun, but I have one request: can you please not decide to start babbling at me at midnight when I have to be up at five? Thanks muchly. *collapses*

Stayed up until 2 in the morning editing. Got up early, got back to work, and kept working until about twenty minutes ago. Novel now submitted to publisher. Hopefully good things will come of this.

*collapses*

I asked mom and dad to do me a huge favor and watch Kaylee today so I could get a couple of my books final-stage edited and submitted to a publisher. Mom picked up Kaylee at 9:00, and I parked it here and have been working since (well, stopping for a quick food break because Chris called from a friend's house and said, "It's 4:00. Have you eaten lunch?") Got both of them finished and sent off, so now all that's left to do is cross my fingers.

Now I have to figure out what to do with the rest of my evening. Update my website? Work on notes for my next book?

Don't know yet. I do know that sometimes when Kaylee's here I wish someone would babysit her for a while so I have uninterrupted writing time and now that I have uninterrupted writing time I miss her. My brain is a contradictory pain in the butt. :-)

Not only is the next segment in Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog up (and I laughed so hard I scared the baby. Sorry, Kaylee) but here's a call I got at the bookstore:

Ashley: "Hey! You have until fall to get cable back."
Me: "I dunno. We're fine without it so far."
Ashley: "Just trust me. New TV show coming out called My Own Worst Enemy--"
Me: "I can get it on DVD."
Ashley: "-- starring Christian Slater."
Me: "We have until fall to get cable back."

I swear, it's pathetic how easy I am.*

And I got ten pages written in my new novel yesterday! Once in a while, I can actually be productive.



* Ashley, not a word.

Okay, aside from the fact that a good part of it was spent sitting on the couch watching The Stand. And now I'm reading the book again-- haven't done so since the seventh grade, but now that I have the 'complete, uncut and illustrated' edition. . . :-)

On the getting-stuff-done side, though, Kath and I just finished the first draft of a new novel. Now comes the editing. lol I got one run-through done on a series of ours; now I only have fifteen pages of notes and new scenes and changes to make instead of fifty! Getting there.

Finishing an edit on that series is one of the things on my 'get done before the baby's born' list. So was going through my CDs and weeding out some stuff, which I got done this morning. Other thing is to go through old bills and financial papers and get stuff organized, which may or may not get done depending on how motivated I can get to go upstairs and sort through the Desk Drawer of Cluttery Doom.

I love getting started on a new writing project. Figuring out names and profiles and (depending on if it's sci-fi/fantasy or not) world history, typing out pages and pages of notes, playing the always-fun game of, "Now if I could cast anybody I wanted as this character. . .".

This is probably going to sound bonkers, but I get a lot of ideas for my novels from dreams. I've always had really vivid dreams-- not great when nightmares come along, but for the most part it works out perfectly. I'll dream of myself in someone else's body and situation, and when I wake up if I can remember it clearly enough and know it's something I can work out, I'll start a new notes file.

That's why I really prefer weekends . . . if I get up and immediately have to rush to work, even if I know that I had something in my head I quickly forget about it. On the weekends I have time to lie there for a little while and let it drift back in, and then I can go fix some breakfast and think it over instead of the whole routine of "awww man, it can't be 5:00 already, one of these days I'm gonna smash the alarm clock and yes, cats, I'll feed you now quit winding around my ankles-- hey, where the heck did I leave my keys?!"

Anyway-- I've got Phish Food ice cream (10th anniversary of the flavor, so it has little fudge cows in it. Hee. Yes, I am easily amused), music playing, and a blank file calling my name. Time to work. :-)

The third novel in this trilogy is now available at amazon.com and iUniverse!

There's a link to an excerpt and purchase information on the sidebar. :-)