Category: This & That

Of Note

I’m feeling tons better, and life is slowly getting back under control. So, ta-da, one blog post before the weekend. Watch, now no one will comment because I said I wouldn’t be here again until next week.

Not getting any writing done, but on Monday I had a 90-minute long Skype brainstorming session with a former critique partner, and now I have a ton of excellent revision notes for SEX, PIs & PACKING TAPE. Really looking forward to solidifying my approach to the revisions and digging into that book again. Will pass the notes by a writing friend who critiqued the full first, though. I have another manuscript I can work on in the meantime.

Guess what? I’ve already received, signed and mailed back the hard copy of the contract for the HEAD OVER HEELS manga rights. When I approved the contract via email (last week) and my contact in the Tuttle-Mori contracts department said I would receive the hard copy contract soon, she wasn’t fooling. I don’t think I’ve ever received a contract that quickly.

Also, I find it interesting that this contract was the easiest to understand and read of any I’ve ever purused for either myself or Penny. In other words, the easiest to read and understand contract from any North American publisher with whom I’ve dealt. The legalities are all in place, but not in a “foreign language,” to speak. They’re written in plain English. What a switch! 

Bad Things

I’m taking a break from blogging this week. The universe decided to dump all over my family over the last few days, and I don’t have the wherewithal to draft posts. First, a member of My Liege’s immediate family was rushed to hospital for the second time in a week in very serious condition. She spent the weekend in the ICU, and although she’s back at home now the details of her condition remain a mystery. We hope to find out more by the end of the month.

The day after that happened, we learned a lightning strike had created a fire on our woodlot. My Liege had to deal with that (the fire’s contained now, as far as we know). No idea of the damage to the timber.

The same day, we finally got our new stove, only to discover an 18-inch long gouge in the side. Back to the store it went, and we’re waiting for another.

We thought that was Bad Thing #3, and we couldn’t possibly receive any more grungy news.

Pitiful humans. A gouge in a stove doesn’t even count as a Bad Thing, it appears.

Yesterday, just as Eldest Son was leaving on a four-day camping trip without cell access, we learned that the room in the private home he was to move into in two weeks for his last year at university was damaged in a fire that occurred while the owner was on vacation. The repairs won’t be finished until October, which leaves him a month without a place to live. We have fantastic friends in his university town, and they offered to let him stay with them while repairs were underway. But I’ve been in that position before—staying in one home for September before moving into the “permanent” spot in October, and it’s not the best situation in the world. It’s hard to dig into your studies when you don’t feel settled.

So…yesterday, I quickly gathered information for the remaining available housing. He and I went through them, and our friend in the university town checked out the only two of the seven or so that responded. The good news is Eldest Son has a new place to live, not quite as private as his former situation, but cheaper, so he’ll be happy when he comes home and learns that’s settled.

Then last night I awoke in the early hours of the morning with the worst sinus headache I’ve had in years. I’m still battling it.

Today is Youngest Son’s 19th birthday! That’s the best news I’ve heard all week. I’m doing nothing more strenuous than baking him a cake, reading, relaxing, walking the dog, fighting this cold, and maybe going over some notes for a manuscript revision that, at this point, I don’t even remember brainstorming with a writing friend yesterday afternoon over Skype. Good thing I was typing while she talked!

Tuesday, September 1st, romantic suspense author Kylie Brant is guest-blogging. Her promo post will go up on Monday. Unless I feel markedly better between now and Friday, that’s the next time you’ll hear from me. The universe had taken this round. I know when I’m beat. 🙂

Thursday Tidbits

Yesterday I enjoyed a “turn-around day” where I basically caught up on stuff so that today I can begin to dig into my revisions on SEX, PIs & PACKING TAPE. Thought I’d get to them way before now, but summer intruded. Also, the news I didn’t announce yesterday intruded, and I wasn’t gonna complain.

I don’t know if anyone remembers, and I’m too lazy to check back through my posts and provide a link, but awhile back we were talking about how agents could help alleviate author stress, specifically the stress created when an electronic query or submission floats off into the stratosphere and we never hear from the agent again. I mentioned email auto-responders. To me, it seems like such a simple solution. Set up the query/submission email to automatically let the writer know her/his submission or query has been received, give an estimated time frame for your response and ask that the writer not bug you during that time frame. Well, the other night, I submitted a story electronically for Penny, and, wow, how nice to receive an auto-responder in a matter of minutes. Makes me feel bad that I put a return-receipt indicator on the email. Now, this was a publisher that deals in ebooks, so manbe that’s why they’re so on the ball. But the auto-responder works so well it still makes me wonder why more agents who take email queries and submissions don’t make use of one.

Another tidbit…I went to see Julie & Julia the other night. Anyone seen it? What did you think? I loved it. Heartily recommended.

Fire in the Sky

Refer to my Smoke on the Water post from last week.

This weekend, My Liege and I went away for some lake cottage R&R. Unfortunately, that fire I mentioned last week that filled our neighborhood sky with smoke? It came back with a vengeance. Just a few days ago, the people who’d been evacuated from their homes were allowed to move back in. On Saturday night, however, after a peaceful but very hot day on the lake, the fire blazed up anew. A second evacuation alert went into effect, and the road was closed. We weren’t in danger, but watched the following spectacle from the dock. These photos were taken over about an hour, two at the outside (I wasn’t counting, but as the night grew darker the shutter took longer and longer to click).

fire_1

fire_2

fire_3

fire_4

fire_5

 That’s all she wrote.

Writer in Absentia

I’m a very bad blogger. I should be smacked. I can’t help it, though. I’m way too busy right now to blog. Will be working on My Liege’s massive website update the entire week. Now that I’ve accepted that, I know I can’t expect to get to the revisions on my cindypk ST until next week. But that’s okay. I need to do what I need to do, need to be where I need to be.

How are you dealing with summer writing? Summer blogging?

By the way, my next guest blogger is Elisabeth Naughton, July 28th. I’m looking forward to her picking up the slack.

I’ll drop in as time permits. Otherwise, my July is jam-packed. Please keep checking in, though. I’ll return to my regular blogging schedule (3-4 times a week) as soon as time permits.

Post-Conference Yawning

How is it that I didn’t attend conference and yet I feel as exhausted as if I had? I realized this while trying to catch the RITA announcements via Twitter Saturday evening. Despite that I didn’t travel to the other side of the continent, despite that I didn’t spend my days tromping from workshop to workshop, from appointment to appointment, from party to party, by Saturday night I was toast.

It’s been a busy week.

On Monday I discovered the fate of my 2007 Golden Heart finalist manuscript. As I’d feared, following the departure of the requesting editor, the manu went…somewhere. My thanks to the assistant editor who looked into the lost manuscript for me and gave me the opportunity to resubmit via email. I spent Monday re-editing the manuscript, trimming/tightening by  another 850 words, then emailed it off on Tuesday.

Tuesday to Thursday, I continued writing and revising Penny’s new short. It’s done! Still needs some editing, which I will accomplish this week. I have two sequels planned, so I need to write teensy blurbs for those, then brainstorm a series title. I hope to send off the whole package in a couple of weeks. As usual, I want to let the short story sit before I look at it again.

Friday was town errands, a doctor appointment, then visiting Sandorf Verster in the sun. A great time (the visit, that is). All weekend (and I do mean all) I took pictures for a major website update (not one of my sites, but another one I designed and maintain). Plus, I worked on scheduling and piccies for my group blog.

Oh, Eldest Son discovered Friday that he didn’t get into residence for this fall. He’s like #400 on the waiting list. So I’ve been scouring off-campus listings, and he’s done likewise with Craigslist. Cross your fingers—we might have found him a place. Just waiting for an email from the landlord before we send off the deposit.

I’d intended to start revisions on my cindypk ST this week. Not sure yet if I’ll meet that goal. It might be more realistic to say I’ll start by Wednesday. I need to catch up on my didn’t-attend-conference sleep. And there’s that website update calling my name…

Oh, cripes, how did I forget? Saturday morning, Youngest Son and I washed the house. The vinyl siding. No wonder I’m exhausted!