Amy Lane's Blog: Writer's Lane, page 185

Reprieve!!!

Okay-- first of all, this ISN'T the photo for Talker's Redemptionthat they eventually elected to use. There's a cute little trick that people use to download the photo from the website and then get it onto a blog--I don't know what it is, but I'm jealous. Anyway, this was one of the rejected photos, but for some reason, it was downloaded, and, well, I LIKED the rat. I didn't think anyone else would like it, but I liked it. Anyway, if you follow the link, you can see the blurb and the actual picture and everything... get ready to suffer. This one's not for the faint of heart! (It's also not out for another month, so I'm not getting too ramped up about it. The prayer will come:-)

In the meantime, I'm gonna be a little bit psyched. Granted, no blog reviews yet, but the buzz on both Hammer & Air and Christmas with Danny Fit seems to be... well, flattering. People seem to get that Hammer & Air is about the one big word, (Nope--not sex, not porn--the real one. The one that's important.) And the response to Danny Fit... I'm so pleased. People love my sweetheart couple in a way that really stuns me. They get Kit's hidden strength, Jesse's terrible vulnerability, and the way two damaged souls can really complete each other. That, and they all want to beat Kit's mother to death with a shoe--and I'm like, "Well, that's an appropriate response! I have done my job!"

(Hey-- just saw Sean Bean in an HBO movie coming down the pike called "Game of Thrones". Uhm, one word. Me-OW!)

And good news in the sanity department. I've found some affordable pre-school/day-care for Squish on a temporary basis. It's only two days a week, but I think it will make us both happier people, and I can get some work done without feeling guilty about letting the poor muffin veg by herself in the house. I'm happy--it starts tomorrow, twice a week for as long as I need it, and, well, yay. It's also next door--let's hear it for the zero in carbon emissions, yes?

Anyway, my friend Wendy came by today-- huzzah! Seriously-- haven't seen her, but she's on the odds with her boyfriend, and that usually means more face time--it was good to see her, and that's the truth. One of the funny things, though, was that she was watching Squish while I went and got the two kids who need rides home. While she was here, she answered a piteous mewling at our door, and discovered none other than... Steve, the rambunctious girl kitty, who had managed to escape as we were letting the dog out for her two-thousandth pee. Steve, suitably chastened, ran into Chicken's room to fitfully lick the mud away. Score? Wicked evil mom & Dad, who let kitty out only when it's pissing rain? Three. Overly curious cat who wants to go outside? Zero!

And I'm nodding off... (Well, I get up at five a.m.-- what can I say?) Anyway, I'll chat with you later!

Amy

Ding dong, the season's dead...

Soccer season, that is!

Yup, folks, there you see the triumphant Wild Things, who won three of their last five games, even though they were one or two men down for most of their last, four game tourney. (You may notice Chicken is the least mud-spattered of them all. "It was easy, mom-- all the muddy girls said, "Do you want a hug?" and I said, "Sure!" The hug was a lot less muddy than being thrown in the mud!") The girls played with joy and verve and enthusiasm-- it was fun to watch. Right up until the other team called it quits--they were on their second yellow card, and seemed to feel it was unfair. Our coach kept turning to us and saying, "Keep it upbeat! If you guys get negative, I get yellow carded, and I'm the only coach you've got!" So our team parents were very careful to cheer our girls on and not to scream, "What in the fuck is that kid doing! Make her get her shoe off my kid's thigh!" Eventually, it worked."

So that was it-- the final knell of what felt like the world's LONGEST soccer season ever. The girls got a little sniffly. The parents all wished we could go out and buy each other mojitos or something, because... I mean... Dayum. Since August, y'all!

Anyway, Mate took today off to do a little Christmas shopping with me, and it was... well, it was one of those moments that help make or break a marriage, actually.

I put a big ticket item in the basket for Squish, and Mate looked pained, and I said, "What? This is well within the limit--we have lots of other things we can get her with this!"

"Well yeah! But then you're going to want to buy other stuff on your own!" he said, sounding like this hurt him. Well, I almost DID hurt him after that.

"No, dammit! Remember? We're doing this together so we can both agree on their presents and we don't spend too much money on shit they really don't need? THAT'S THE WHOLE REASON YOU TOOK THE DAY OFF!"

(A little sheepishly) "Oh. Yeah. You're right. Sorry."

So, well... it was a start. Like the guy said as he was ringing up the tiny pile we managed to buy. "Your video game's in the bag next to the comfy pants." And thereya go. One thing for Chicken, and one for Zoomboy--same bag. A shitload more shopping to do!

Oh-- Big T asked this one today, feeling a little sorry for himself, I could tell. "Mom, do you talk to me differently than you do the other kids?"

I was out of patience. "Have you heard me to tell you to brush your teeth if you want to be a princess?"

"No."

"How about 'No, dammit, we're not going to McDonalds for one more goddamned toy!'"

"No."

"Have I started dishing on hot men lately? Have we had any scintillating conversations about Alex O'Laughlin or Jensen Ackles?"

"Oh HELL no!"

"Well then, yes. I DO talk to you differently than I talk to the other kids."

"And I'm grateful."

"You should be."

On the writing front, I am thrilled to announce my homework's done! I have officially completed one edit of Talker's Redemption and my publicity homework for Jack & Teague's first story, Yearning. (Those of you who love Jack & Teague, I have to tell you, I was tickled to realize that their release date, February 11th, was also the day of their wedding ceremony that starts out Rampant. I don't think it was on purpose, but it sure was awesome!)

And that's about all-- we spent our weekend freezing our asses off in the rain, and doing it joyously, and now Chicken is back in the world of writing a paper for Grape's of Wrath. (Poor baby--all I've ever read are book reports for that beast... she has my sympathy.)

Anyway-- I shall leave you with this:

On his way to bed tonight, Zoomboy put his arms out from his sides and started to hop up and down.

"Lookit me! I'm a jackhammer!"

Chicken and I couldn't stop laughing:-)

Nanowrimo and a Surprisingly Full Plate

Okay-- the whole thing about nanowrimo sounds ludicrous, doesn't it? It's all about writing a novel in a month, and, really? Who does that?

Well, the goal they set you is 50,000 words, which his about the size of one of those Harlequin Temptation books-- the kind with the wonderfully lurid red covers and the super-slick storylines inside, and, yes--something that long, really CAN be pumped out in about a month.

Because I'm me, my novel was longer than that.

It came to about 84,200 words.

I think that the final number in the nanonwrimo calculation engine (which was, oddly enough, about 600 words behind the one on my MS Word program-- don't ask me to explain, but it did piss me off) was 79,600 roughly--but the final verdict (on December 2nd) was 84K. I'm oddly proud of that. Don't ask me why.

Maybe it was because the story was dragon ridden--and yet, I was mostly sane for this dragon ride, and I feel like the story was well crafted. Maybe it was because I sent it off to my beta readers on a chapter by chapter basis, and was met with a lot of satisfying, "No! You can't leave it there!" and "Auuuughhh! How could you do that to them!" and "Poor Xander! What's he going to do?" or "Poor Chris--he's so unexpectedly fragile!" sort of responses. (By the way, if you've never written a book chapter-by-chapter for beta readers, it's a little bit like eating one crack-laced cookie at a time. Man, you will climb mountains for that next feedback fix--writing another chapter ain't no big thing!)

Anyway, it's finished. It's more than finished. It's revised, proofread, and sent in to my editor, who scoffed lightly when I suggested that she would need tissues, but no vodka and probably no cookies either. (She seemed to be having cookie issues--I'm thinking she almost wanted it to be cookie worthy. Maybe next one.)

The weird thing was, I couldn't explain why that deadline seemed so important to me--just couldn't. No idea. These days, I got nothin' but time, yanno? (Last soccer tourney of the season this weekend... can you hear the people sing?)

But sure enough... on December 1st, as I was pushing hard for the end, there dropped on my plate the revisions for Talker's Redemption, and some publishing homework for Jack & Teague.

And I've got two Christmas freebies to write!

And yes... writing, and writing alone, can leave you with an unexpectedly full plate!

In Kid news?

This morning, we are taking our reluctant first born to the SAT's. He's come up with six-thousand excuses why he shouldn't take them, but we finally convinced him that it's an American right of passage that must be experienced and endured in order for him to become a man. The fact is, he didn't come up with any of his really GOOD arguments until after he was already registered, and, dammit, if we're gonna pay the $35, he's gonna have to put out a little bit of blood, sweat, and #2 pencil lead!

We are also attending Chicken's soccer tournament in the rain--because we're hardcore stupid like that. It's okay--Squish has been bored silly this week--she can use a little bit of cold and wet. It'll liven up her day!

And Zoomboy's teacher's conference... uhm... can we say learning disability testing? Yeah. Yeah yeah yeah... I figured we could. Except, because Zoomboy's school age, we actually have to call doctors (with T, we called the education department when he was two, and THEY provided the doctors!) and now we're involved with Kaiser and their nefarious "Classes on how to fill out paperwork." Blargh. And Mate is NOT on board with the teacher's suggestion we do this. I tried to explain that Zoomboy was just a little bit... off, in his social skills, and it was hindering his learning processes, and the teacher wanted the gate opened to move him to an alternative classroom environment if the social thing got too painful.

"But he's just shy!"

And this is probably the God's honest truth, yanno? But our family has learned first hand that in today's school environment, being different--even a little bit different--can lead to crucifixion, evisceration, flogging, filleting, and excruciating pain. Whatever we can do to save my Zoomboy from all that? I am the fuck on board.

Christmas With Danny Fit

Have you ever had something you felt you "had" to do, turn into something you "loved" to do, and then turn into something you positively adored?

See, last year, I wrote If I Must (and I can not figure out where my image capture went for that adorable kitten!) and I was REALLY surprised at how well it did. It was light, frou-frou, and totally against my grain and well-earned reputation as someone who likes to just grab heart-strings and yank like I was trying to land a red, beating fish.

I mean, it featured a cat called "Manky Bastard" for sweet Goddess' sake--how adorable is that?

But people seemed to like it--even when they gave it three stars on goodreads, they were like, "It's cute! It's a comfort read! I loved it!" And I was like, "Hey-- here's a whole new way to look at writing! It doesn't have to rip your heart out!" And I indulged in that once or twice-- "Phonebook", "Gambling Men", "Bella's Brother"-- these were all FUN to write, and I've enjoyed the hell out of them.

So when the chance to write something for Dreamspinner's next Advent Calendar came around, i was like, "Okay. Fun! Christmas! I've got the perfect idea!"

I told you guys that last year, Mate and I started a workout regime. It didn't last long, but watching the energetic, charismatic fitness gurus take me through my paces, ("How'd you do on the ab-video, Mate?" "I rolled around a lot." "Me too." "And that dark-haired chick didn't even break her smile. Bitch.") sort of made me wonder: Were there any other fat people out there who wanted to just, you know, look good and do well for the guy on the dvd?

Enter Kit, my chubby virgin. Kit is the classic browbeaten child who grows into a shy, awkward adult. Enter Jesse. Jesse is cute as a button, as much of a sci-fi geek as Kit, and... damaged. It's every day damage, but Kit has been dreaming about Danny Fit, and the dichotomy between what Kit has been dreaming about, and what a real relationship is like... well, that was the fun of the story.

This story had surprising heart for me. I was expecting happy and light, and I got poignant and sweet, and when I was going through edits, I found myself continuously going, "Awwwwwwwwwww..."

And that makes me smile.

So, folks, let me introduce Christmas with Danny Fit.

I hope you guys love this story-- like I said, it surprised me, and Mary Calmes (who just e-mailed me about it) said that it surprised her too, but in the good way where you're expecting one thing, and what you get is totally out of formula, but it really works. This makes me smile too. I love it when stories surprise me like that--it is, as always, one of the ways in which literature shows me the divine.

Oh yeah-- and let us not forget the prayer! (I almost forgot it with Hammer & Air... sales have only now barely recovered!) Holy Goddess, Merciful God, let it not suck! Canyagimmehallelujia? Amen!

And in other wonderful news? For those of you who have gone to the website to check out "Dreams of Terrible Brightness", you will know that the story was inspired by a fellow writer, Patric Michael, who had cancer.

Emphasis on had.

Those of you who've been privy to my own private roller coaster, know that this news was a high point, and I actually got to scream with joy.

Shit I Will Never Understand

(Forgive the promotional picture for Christmas With Danny Fit-- it comes out on Wednesday, and I'll chat it up then, because it features a chubby virgin, and I really adore it, and I haven't talked a lot about it, so I thought I'd just get everyone thinking about it first:-)

Anyway...

Back to shit I will never understand...

* How Squish can sleep through the apocalypse, but she can't seem to GO to sleep without flights of angels singer her cherubic little eyes closed.

*. Why Steve can't understand that she is not, was never meant to be, and never shall be an outside cat.

* How the washer works.

* Why it sometimes chooses not to.

* How a reasonably (for us) clean house can self-destruct in the time it takes me to bend down and pick up a scrunchy from the floor.

* How Chicken could have left a book called "Island of the Sequined Love Nun" on the floor of a movie theatre, and nobody there claims to have seen it. (We're on a Christopher Moore kick-- I'm a little disappointed to lose the book, to say the least.)

* Human viciousness. (In the news, in person, in specific and in general, it boggles me. Just does.)

* Human kindness. (When it's aimed at me, and it comes unsolicited, I am always grateful.)

* How people can call a perfectly good ending in which two lovers live together until the end of their days, "bittersweet." (But it pleases me that they do--even if the end of Hammer & Air DID make people cry.

* How soccer season is STILL going on.

* How grammar schools can just cut their days in half for an ENTIRE WEEK and not expect parents to be just SCRAMBLING for day care. (Of course, it's on the week when the EDJ resumes again, so Mate's up for child care. He's not pleased.)

* How I could have nearly two hundred unopened messages on my e-mail. What in the hell am I saving them for? Later? TWO YEARS later? (This does explain why my uncle put a sign up for my grandma over the paper shredder, though. The sign reads: For stuff that you think you'll look at later.)

* Why I keep putting off looking at those messages.

* Why the dog's digestive system started setting it's phasers on 'kill'.

* Why none of my kids can EVER top talking. (Okay... I may have a teeny-tiny little bit of a clue with this one...)

* Why I felt compelled to watch Dead Poet's Society this last week. Twice.

* Why my son loves it as much as I do. (He watched it three times.)

* Why the sweet older man who sent me the most adoring fan letter was forced to wait until his fifties to acknowledge that he was in love with another man. (They spent 28 years together, and his husband passed away in 2008 at the age of 95. One of the most romantic things I've ever read--all truth.)

* How I could cry at the end of Tangled. Am I really that much of a sap? (Don't answer that. And yes--the movie was awewewewesome!)

* Where my rainbow lanyard wandered off to, dammit! I LOVE that thing!

* Why even my knit socks disappear in the drier. (Goddammit, they're the ONLY SOCKS IN THE HOUSE THAT AREN'T WHITE!)

* Why one ply malabrigo hasn't been declared fattening, addictive, or illegal. (Everything else that feels that good has been.)

* Why I love my rattiest sweatshirts with the white-hot passion of a thousand suns.

* Why knitting a sock makes me feel like an uber-genius.

* How sitting on the couch with Squish in my lap can be one of the greatest accomplishments of my day.

* How writing 73K for nanowrimo can be considered winning it when I didn't actually finish the frickin' manuscript! (But I will--it's really close.)

* How to download the frickin' badge so I can brag about it anyway!

Day After

My big kids don't like to do anything on the DAY AFTER. Seriously-- they make BIG plans to sit, play video games, eat leftovers, read, watch whateverthehelltheywant on television, whatever. Unfortunately, the little kids have made no such plans. Is it 48 degrees F. outside? Yeah-- they want to go to the park! Yippee! The park!

Mama said no.

I've had this bizarre...(shakes hands, shrugs, makes weird gestures to unruly lower extremity) THING going on with my leg. See, the thing is, I had that plantar's thing, the facsaeitis (Okay-- YOU spell it!) for the early part of the week. I had no patience with it, right? I walked on it. It got BRUTAL. So I decided to rest it, and I spent, I dunno, all Tuesday, just letting that thing rest, knitting, whatever. You know... being a good little girl and resting with my afflicted foot up in the air.

And then a weird thing happened. We're talking the world's biggest fucking charlie horse, and it WON'T GO AWAY! Now before everyone gets upset about a DVT, my stepmom freaked out about it already, gave me the checklist, and the thing is, the back of my leg is CONSTANTLY stressed and bruised, and it doesn't come and go like a DVT. I broke out the magic vibrating wand (get your mind out of the gutter--it's supposed to work on your BACK--I SWEAR it's not as dirty as it sounds!) and worked on my muscles, and it helped, but... it still just... just aches. I stand and stretch it and sit and put it down and stand and stretch it and NOTHING is comfortable--nothing except laying flat in bed, and, seriously, since that happens around ten o'clock at night, that doesn't lend itself to doing ANYTHING productive.

I've never felt more like a multi-ton banana slug in my life.

But it did give me a chance to join a 'chat' which is fun-- pretty much every writer in my genre on the planet showed up online and chatted to each other and left excerpts and stuff, and one of the things I learned via the chat is that Truth in the Dark is going to come out in audio book, and there's just something so... so... so... ROCK-FUCKING-AWESOME about that. I can't wait to hear someone read Naef and be all prickly and sarcastic, and grouchy. I've got a soft spot for that kind of character, and, well, someday you'll know why this story means so much to me. But until then, just be happy for me--it's totally cool, and this story is going to go on to move a whole bunch of people who would not have known it otherwise, and that makes me VERY happy.

And in the meantime? In the meantime I'm gonna go haul my multi-ton banana slug ass out into the 40 degree night and stretch my muscles in the cold cold air and try to pretend I'm not fat, flat-footed, and over forty. (Pretend with me, yes? Make me 25, lithe, and allergic to fatty foods... it'll be fun!)

And...

And I didn't write a Thanksgiving post.

Don't get me wrong--I've got a LOT to be Thankful for. I do. But you know them all by name, you've seen my birthday cards to them, you've heard their bizarre little stories and their quirks and their idiosyncrasies. Yesterday, I spent my time with my family, and in spite of a plethora of funky bullshit that I shan't bother you with, I was deeply, warmly, eternally thankful. But I was also quietly thankful, and although my heart was overflowing, it was overflowing in peace. For a person who uses words with such joy, even I know that sometimes quietly thankful is the way to be.

Anyway-- some book goodies here that I'm not so quiet about. Enjoy!

Michele'n'Jeff and Whipped Cream both liked Guarding the Vampire's Ghost.

And Elisaliked Making Promisestoo.

The Blog Post That Wasn't

Okay-- I had a beautiful post--I did. I still do. It was an in depth reflection about when we go out and fight battles and when we stay back and protect the home, and it had a crapload of classical references and movie references and some rock-awesome prose, but, for a lot of reasons, it didn't get put out. Anyone who wants to read it is welcome to send me a PM and I'll send it to you individually, but for now, we're going to settle for a really awful joke about effluvia, and a picture of a sleeping animal.

The awful joke about effluvia was really a realization that Zoomboy had about synonyms:

"Mom, mom! I thought of two more synonyms, want to hear them?"

"Sure!" (I said in all innocence.)

"Two synonyms for 'barf' and 'vomit' are 'throw-up' and 'puke'!"

"Your teacher must be so proud." And so am I. Mostly.

And other than that? Tomorrow I'm going to be up to my eyeballs in pies and other cooking shit--and then it's the split family juggle on Thursday. I'm sort of looking forward to the cooking shit--the family is getting a little stir crazy with all this vacation!

A real blog post next time--swear. Sometimes, it's just that discretion really is the better part of valor.

My Favorite Scorpio

(With apologies to Wendy, Mary, & Chris, who I think would all understand.)


My youngest son, Zoomboy, is a scorpio.

Scorpios are "intense little creatures" and Zoomboy is a textbook case. He has a laser like concentration--he can focus on a craft project he's interested in to the exclusion of everything: drafts on the floor, hunger, the need to pee. NOTHING comes between Zoomboy and the object of his interest, including other people's conversation and logic. When we pick him up from school, he will often review with us the thing he has learned that day or that week, and Goddess help anyone who interrupts with silly things, like "Fasten your seatbelt" or "For heaven's sake, shut your door!"

These last few weeks, he's been studying homophones, homonyms, and synonyms. In the middle of a perfectly logical train of thought, he will suddenly become very excited: "Mom! Mom! They're, there and their are homophones. These are words that sound the same, but mean different things. That's different than words with multiple meanings. Like bat which is a baseball bat and bat which flies around." I always nod, and say good job, even if he's said this before--it's important to him. Very very very important. Everything the teacher says is important--even when she's telling him not to talk and he just can't help himself. Sometimes, he's like a very intense little chihuahua-- he wants to please but his tense, bony little body was just not made to stay in the same place for any length of time.



Zoomboy has always been my "miracle" baby. We weren't digital when he was born, so I can't show you the picture that was taken about a week after he shot out of my uterus, but his entire face was recovering from one big bruise--his eyes were brick red, and everything from his upper lip to the crown of his downy little head was purple, green and yellow. Apparently he scraped his face on my hipbone as he was being pushed out--imagine that. My Zoomboy doing things the hard way. Everybody hold onto your suprise.

After he was born, he spent five days in the hospital, three of them without me. Now since then, I've heard worse stories--in fact, older brother, Big T, was almost one of them, because when he came out, he was all blue and refused to breathe (the little shit--there goes five years off of my life, I'm telling you--and that was when we fist met!) But Zoomboy suddenly decided that his blood sugar was too low to wake up, and he spent five days getting a tube shoved up his nose so he could eat, and getting his heel spiked for blood, so they could see if he'd eaten enough, and getting tested for Strep B because the admitting embryo was too green to see that sticking her hand up my wazoo and pretending to feel me up did NOT yield accurate results regarding the progress in my labor, so I didn't get my antibiotics in time. (People wonder why I refuse to bow down to authority. Could it be because when I have been at my most helpless, authority has invariably pissed on my head and let me down? Could be. Just sayin'. Could be.)

Anyway, five days. I spent two days there at the hospital, and then we came home, returning twice a day to keep feeding the little goober One day we got caught in traffic, and found him in the "control room" with the other nurses, because they hadn't fed him when it was feeding time. Apparently, he was (in the words of the night nurse) "showing those premie babies what a fully developed set of lungs was supposed to sound like, when they got their own."

Zoomboy has been living up to that ever since.



His best friend in the world, Sam, is a quiet, intense little boy too, with a quiet, intense smile. They have been best friends since last year, and will, I hope, continue to be best friends. I don't know of another little boy who could watch Zoomboy pick up a stick, and instantly comprehend that a game of warriors was about to commence. I don't know of another little boy who could play so intensely, and still play nice. (Okay--one. I know one little boy--but he's got his own focuses and I don't know if Zoomboy understands them.) At any rate, I'm glad that Zoomboy has found his childhood kindred spirit, because otherwise, he has the capacity to be a very very lonely little boy. His own head is quite full of his own things, and he can become lost in them with very little effort at all.



Zoomboy plays soccer because it allows him to hunt ladybugs, pick dandylions, and show other little boys how good it feels when they haul the hem of their long soccer shorts up to their chins. He is vaguely aware that there is a ball involved somewhere--very often, behind him, when it is zooming into the goal. That's okay--he still looks forward to being a "soccer boy" even if he doesn't understand that everyone else's passion for the game roughly equals his own passion for homophones, the daily joke, and absolutely matching sets of Happy Meal toys. He doesn't understand them at all, but we all hope that someday, he will.



He still sits on my lap--still treasures that time. He will back up to the kitchen and say, "Are you ready for it?" and then hold out his arms and rush into me across two rooms for a "super big squishy hug". He hugs until it hurts--I've had to limit these to one a day, to minimize the bruising from the sharp and hollow bones of his tense little body. He gets angry when I say he's bony though--he wants to be 'squishie'--he thinks that makes him more lovable.

He does not realize that it would be impossible for me or his father to love him any more than we already do. That would be "infinity plus one"--and he keeps telling us that there is no such number.



He asks me how much I love him, and I say, "Bigger than sky and deeper than blue."

He says, "Do you know who I love more than you (and Arwyn?) I say, "No, I don't." He says, "No one."




And really? I have no words for that. We waited nine years for him, after his big sister. It was an odd time for him to come, but it was precisely, exactly his time.

We wouldn't have him any other way.

Happy B-day Scorpios, and the Trials of Clive

Hammer & Air is out, and I'm thinking that although it's a leetle too early for things to be conclusive, it's possible that it doesn't suck! (I'm nervous-- I forgot my usual supplication to the gods... shall we throw in a quickie? Holy Goddess, Merciful God, LET IT NOT SUCK! thankyaverymuchamen!)

Anyway, I was looking through my favorite Supernatural fanvids for a friend's birthday, and I came across this one after I'd already sent her my top ten favorite.... Requiem for a Dream and my guys... *happy sigh*



And as for kids? We took Zoomboy to pick out his favorite cake--I was all excited for a whole nanosecond when I thought we were going to get Harry Potter this year, but, no... he took one look at the new Spongebob Doohickies available at Baskin Robins, and we're up to our eyeballs in Spongebob all over again. (Okay... we've been watching Spongebob for ten years now. God knows I loves the little yellow man but, can we just say, I need to watch something else in the afternoons? Please?) Anyway, he's all primed and ready for his run in with the six foot rat tomorrow, and I'm vaguely ashamed. It's a HIDEOUS expense for us right now--but Mate... sometimes Mate is as indulgent as I am, and I let him. It's not fair that I get to spend all the money, right? But stilll I can't help thinking that Zoomboy would have been just as happy with his best friend and sister at Chuck E's as opposed to a party for ten. *shudder* (And nobody comes to our parties... we have inconveniently timed children for that!)

Squish is... well, very bright, but also really looking forward to going back to daycare. She NEEDS other kids--and I'm looking forward to hearing her talk about her day, because she is highly entertaining.

Chicken and I went to see Les Miserable at the movie theatre--they were doing a simulcast of the performance at the Met, and it was WONDROUS. Of course, the Met didn't STAGE the play--the singers were costumed and acting and emoting but they weren't blocked or "doing business" as my old drama teacher used to say--at least not extensively--and the stagecraft was evocative rather than useful.

But Chicken didn't care. Neither did I. I filled in the blanks (because it's hard to follow some of the story when you're just listening to the songs) and together, we were moved by the music in astonishing ways. You want proof? Chicken spent the entire next day asking me to replay this:



She adored it.

Of course, the one glitch in the system was that there was a Jonas there, playing Marius. Don't ask me which Jonas... I don't know my Jonases, but I called him Clive. Anyway, all of these highly trained, inhumanly lovely operatic voices were just knocking the music out of the park, and then Clive opened his mouth, looked embarrassed, and pretty much destroyed the roll of Marius. Poor Clive. Seriously-- I felt for him. He tried, he really did, but, like most of us when we're young, he underestimated the power of training, passion, and god-given-talent, and thought he could play with the big boys. I have no doubt that if he trains for another ten years, he could sound like the real Marius... but not this night.

The cool thing, though, is that Chicken noticed too-- she was completely enamored of Alfie Noie, but Clive Jonas? Left her cold. Go Chicken!

Big T managed to successfully rally his father and sister to go see Deathly Hallows. Mate LOVED it-- he said that the best part was that it ended on a cliffhanger... and that the audience, who MUST have known that it would have, and had probably read the book, all screamed NOOOOOOOOOOO!!!! at the end!

And now everyone's sleepy and disoriented... and I WANT TO WATCH SUPERNATURAL! I've had one burning a hole in my DVR for an entire week!

Hammer & Air

Okay, at one point in time, I was asked what my favorite fairy tales were. My response was, "A bunch of ones that no one has heard about!" When asked to clarify, I gave the following list:

The Little Goose Girl
Felicia and the Pot of Pinks
The Three Aunties
The Story of the Boy Who Knew No Fear
Twelve Wild Ducks
Snow White and Rose Red
Tam Lin

--See? Nobody knows these! So when presented the chance to write an m/m version of one of them... well... zomg. All of my love, right? Just like Truth in the Dark, this one was going to get all of my love.

And that's howHammer & Air was born.

The story itself is based on Snow White/Rose Red, which is, as best as I can tell, a Grimm's Brother's casserole of the story of Psyche and Cupid, with a little bit of Cinderella, a dash of Rapunzel and some Hansel and Gretel thrown in.

Of course, when I was given a chance to rewrite it, a whole lot of that shit got thrown out, and what was left was...

Well, I love it. Technically it's m/m/m--and yeah, that LOOKS cutting edge and dirty when I write it like that, but for the Little Goddess fans who have gotten to Bound and Rampant, well, you know I've written that before, with some serious /F thrown into the center of that for good measure.

This, oddly enough, is nothing like that--at least it wasn't for me.

There ARE girl cooties--if you go to the link and read the excerpt, you will see a pretty graphic scene featuring a boy in a tree, watching the boy of his dreams going at it with the innkeeper's daughter. The thing is (and it's hard to explain unless you read it) that in spite of the girl, that scene was still all about Graeme (Hammer) and Eirn. Even the m/m/m scenes are all about Hammer and Eirn. It was an INTERESTING book to write from that perspective, because the premise is, "There will ALWAYS be a Hammer and an Eirn." It was also, "We've got to find better words than that."

Now, I've always made my feeling about labels pretty damned clear--I'm against them. But there are some words of such power, such necessity to who we are, that to live without them is to live without a part of ourselves, and at the core of it, THAT'S what this book is about. The fact that the word is discovered by two young men (18 & 19) who have NO, NONE, NADA, ZIP, ZERO in the way of emotional vocabulary?

Well, uhm, let's just say that there's a lot of physical 'communication' before our guys figure out which word they really need.

I, uhm, hope you guys find that word too, when you're reading the story. I fucked with grammar, perspective, HEA expectations, and all of my usual literary victims when I wrote this one.

I'm so very proud. I hope you love it too.

(And thank you everyone who wished Zoomboy a happy birthday--I'm going to reflect on him this weekend. He is, as you all know, a most singular, particular child, who fully deserves his own birthday post.)