Amy Lane's Blog: Writer's Lane, page 186

In my brain with a fisheye lens...

'kay... tomorrow is Zoomboy's b-day, but all the pictures of cake & ice cream at grandmas are on Mate's phone, and the Six-Foot Rat nightmare is next week, so I'm going to do something different today. I've got a new release on Wednesday (so you can expect a book cover up on the top for a while-- sorry, I know that gets old, but I really like to get the word out!) and in the meantime, the sleeping animal thing continues. What can I say? They were cute. I mean... look at him... he didn't even finish his puzzle!

Anyway, some of you read the interview, and one of the things on it was, (roughly) "So, is Amy Lane the same person who goes and gets groceries?" and my reply was that I was actually too distracted to do a good job of that. This occurred to me today as I was grocery shopping, and I had this idea, right, to make a blogpost about what it's like to have a brain on high-inspiration-alert... and then, well, life-as-irony appeared, and, you'll see what I mean.

Going to get groceries. Need soda first. So.da. soooooooodddddddaaaaaaa.. SODA! OH, bless you McD's, extra large diet coke my savior my drug my mmmmmmm...... (So, what's it like to be addicted to something stronger than caffeine? You've seen it fuck up some perfectly good people... what's that draw like? Smoking? Alcohol? Heroin? What's that feel like? How do you overcome it? My brother has some perfectly good vices, what's it like to not kick those by forty...forty one? Forty two? Hell... when's his birthday?)

OH SHIT! I need to get Zoomboy a birthday card to go with that monstrously horrible birthday present we got for him. Mom will like it... I'll let her go in on it. I'll need to. It cost a frickin' fortune! Zoomboy... God he's cute. Isn't he funny when he's on defense with his talking buddy? Two boys, young, falling in desperate love on the soccer field at seven, ten, twelve, a first look, a first kiss, a disapproving mother, an accepting mother, a boy falling into that chemical addiction to supplant the approval addiction he's been deprived of, another boy heartbroken as he matures and his first love does not, a separation, a funeral, a eulogy, a grieving lover, connection, plotbunny, plot DRAGON... BACK MOTHERFUCKER, BACK! I'M STILL WRITING THE LOCKER ROOM YOU BASTARD AND I'M ALMOST DONE, DAMMIT! LEAVE ME ALONE!

Here we are, at the grocery store. This parking lot looks like ass, but I love this store, and they love me. Oh, look. A bakery. I'm going to have to ask to get a cake for Zoomboy, or a pie. Pie. Cory likes pie. Will she be able to eat pie pregnant? Will Grace even let her eat it? Is she going to have pregnancy diabetes? High blood pressure?Will the twins be affected? Would Green be able to cure that? If I ate pie when I was pregnant, I'd be chuking all over the place... will Bracken hold her head? Will their anger connection make that freaky? Will Green have to step up? Will Nicky be able to deal?

Carrots, tomatoes, avocados, yoghurt... I don't know... do we still have yoghurt from last trip? Doesn't matter. Can never have too much yoghurt. Or crackers. No, I don't know what's for dinner tomorrow. Hey--that manager with my given name is working tonight. She's nice. Grocer. He's smart, got a degree, but likes the money and the people. He's a manager, the kind everybody likes. And then... enter a mad bomber, and a love interest in a hurry for a blind date, and he's stronger than he looks, and he disarms a bomb and then him and Mr. Blind-date misser get it on in the meat freezer... oh shit. Too campy. But maybe I'd have to learn to shop to write it...

Or cook! Look-- cookbooks! No, can't buy cookbooks--I never use them. Yeah... but it looks so good. And you'd have to check out whole sections of the store that you don't usually shop from, and it might stop me from just throwing shit into the cart and oh yeah--friendly pharmacist, wave to him, smile, offer to race the little old lady in the walker, enjoy her laugh, enjoy the pharmacists laugh and What if the pharmacist is her grandson, and she's dying. She just wants to see him mated off before she goes. Hey... he could get it on with the florists, I still like writing het... but what if the florist is a man? Ooooohhh... that could work. And maybe the meat cutter has had a crush for a while. And then we could make the florist a woman but make the meat cutter really manly and aggressive. Could we have the guy who makes the Chinese food into a threesome? I don't know, depends on what he looks like Oh HELL noes! Ewwww! Perfectly nice man, but I may never write grocery store romance again!

Oh wait. Did I remember to buy toilet paper? Fuck. Back around the frickin' aisles again. And wait--I didn't get meat. Or sauce for the pasta. Or... oh, for crying out loud, don't we already have seventy-eleven goddamned cans of chili? Hope not. I'm not putting that shit back. That's another trip around the fucking store. Just throw in some hotdogs to go with that... and some baked beans... and some brown sugar... and... oh hell. What am I bringing to my mom's tonight? And what am I making for Thanksgiving? And whose house am I going to? And... oh shit. Who's getting Alexa and can someone do that one way? When are both dinners? Crap... will I be able to get the house in order in time to cook? Shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit...

No, I'm sorry. I don't have my card--but I have my phone number. Yeah, I'll sign up for that internet thing later. I just don't think about it when I sit down to the computer. All I do is write. Oh... wow. I need another cart? Well, I was going to take it all out myself, but if I need another cart, I guess not. Thanks for the help by the way. Wow-- hot today for November. And this wind! Skeery! Apocalyptic weather, actually. With the November light and the wind and the heat, it's almost steampunk. I could write m/m steampunk... I mean really, it's all about the glasses and the scarf, right? And metal bugs and Victorian gentleman who dress in purple and twisted religious iconography and frightening machines made of shiny welded metal with leather joints and faintly magical power sources... that would be cool. Metal spiders with active intelligence? Too evil... metal chameleons? Perfect... I would call it Bertrand, and it would make a noise like Perry the Platypus when I oiled him just so...

Hey-- I know that homeless man... he looks better. Someone must care for him. He always smells of cigarettes and sweat, but his hair is brushed back and trimmed, and his mustache is trimmed, and... Jesus. He's really pissed off. He's yelling and gesturing and trying hard to listen to what the other person is saying. Who is he talking too? They're hidden by that post... I hope he's okay. He seems hostile most of the time, but I'm used to seeing him in the neighborhood... who didn't avoid making eye contact... oh. Nobody. He's having that conversation with himself. Wow. That was weird. He was listening for responses and changing his expressions and everything.

Wow. Paranoid Schizophrenia at it's most frightening. Who knew.

Okay... is it possible that paranoid schizophrenia is really a writer's imagination without the brakes? Must ask Mate what I really look like when I'm talking to myself. Do I wait for pauses? Should I write about someone in love with his Paranoid Delusion? Ohhhh... that could be tragic...

I'm home! No... I didn't remember that birthday card for Zoomboy. Shit. shit shit shit shit shit shit...

But I DID remember soda!

Batshit, bugshit and crazysauce

(Thanks, Chris, for the big ol' link to the sleeping animals. I have now resorted to putting this up on my blog, and I am almost ashamed at how sweet it is. And now Chicken wants a rat. Dammit!)

Okay--I may have mentioned that the woman who brought Steve in to give her away as a rescue kitty was, well, three parts batshit, one part bugshit, and an extra dash of crazysauce. You want proof?

This cat is a real sweetie--but she's also a real squirrel. Getting her to really cuddle--old fashioned, purr in your arms, tilt back her throat and willingly be your bitch cuddle--is all a matter of location.

To wit? The bathroom. Yup... she will follow me down the hall, push her inquisitive little pink nose through the door, take a running jump and catch up on the days events as I am sitting on the commode. She'll stay there through fair, she'll stay there through foul, and she'll even stay there through Squish, who likes to cop a squat on the pile of clean laundry within viewing distance of the commode through the open door--and ask my why the cat loves me more than it loves her... Like I said.. batshit, bugshit, and crazysauce.

And in more news...

Chicken's hair is now blue. Yup. Blue. And for the record, so were my hands. @@#$$ cheap-assed plastic gloves. I used to wonder why nice, middle aged women always had those yellow gloves around. I thought it was so they didn't tweak out their hands as they scrubbed shit (as if that gets done around here) but now I know the truth. It's so they could color their hair. And now we know.

And some shit Zoomboy knows...

He knows about pilgrims and stone soup and where Perry goes in Phineas and Ferb and what tones his new Thanksgiving song involves and what shape pizza is in and why Chuck E. Cheese is cool. (In case you're wondering about that last one? It's because that's where he's having his birthday.

And why Squish is gonna take over the world before she can read...

Mama?

Yeah?

Look, they're taking the plants out of the dirt.

(Mom clears the taking-kids-to-school-haze out of her eyes, and actually looks sideways.) Yup, Squish, they're going to switch them up for some plants that do better in the winter, so that the flowers don't look so sad.

Now, flash forward seven hours...

Mama?

Yeah?

Look, all the new plants are in.

(And, sure enough, we're back at the same intersection, which I had totally forgotten about until she reminded me.)

Well, aren't you clever to notice that.

Mama?

Yeah Squish?

I'm gonna go home and plant a tree. Everybody should plant a tree. Trees are good.

(Well, she's got us there, right? Trees are good!)

And why Date Night was a success...

1. We put it off from Thursday to Friday. (Yes, I know that means we had to DVR Supernatural, but, dammit, there was nothing but crap out last night, and things looked better tonight!)

2. We saw an awesome movie. (Unstoppable. We thought it was gonna be dumb. Turns out, Tony Scott knows how to direct a movie about really big objects. Go Tony!)

3. I saw a Jon Stewart episode that he did not. Something about quoting Harrison Ford when he told Stewart that his movie was "Fucking Brilliant" on the Daily Show made the two of crack up for most of dinner.

Voila! Successful date!

Me, and then some more me, and, uhm...

So I scored a huge-ish interview and I thought I'd share. It's funny how people can get such an interesting impression from interviews--I don't feel like a whirlwind at ALL. In fact, when I plop my big ass down on the stuffed chair, I gotta tell y'all, I feel more like an earthquake! (I may be losing weight though-- this is based on nothing more concrete than "These pants USED to be a lot less comfortable" but, besides the "I was sick for a WEEK" thing, I think this can also be attributed to the "purple twinkies, flying monkeys, everything else has gotta go" thing. Well, silver lining, right? Just don't ask where that thing is showin' up!)

Anyway, I was going to pin down the world's squirreliest cat for my first 'goddammit Steve!' moment, but she was off plotting the demise of a slug, a moth, or someone's toes-- only the victim knows for sure!

I got a chance to nap today--although that wasn't what it was supposed to be. It was supposed to be Squish sitting on my lap while we watched Hunchback of Notre Dame (one of my top 3 Disney movies at any time.) What actually happened was that I snored, and she woke me up every ten minutes to fast forward the commercials. (It's on DVR.) But the best part was when she grabbed my chin in her pudgy, hot little hands, and said, "I love you mom!" before anchoring my arm more securely around her waist. She's a girl who knows what she wants, and what she wants is to be cuddled.

She IS the center of the universe, after all.

Ooh ooh ooh! good television alert! Psych was on tonight, and Burn Notice is on tomorrow night! I can not WAIT for Burn Notice--tonight's favorite line?

"Hello, Sam."

"Michael, you know you're the reason I drink."

LURVE that show!

And other than that? Not a whole lot going on--I'm locked in the house with all four children tomorrow, thank you Veteran's Day, and I need you all to root for me there. Enforced time with Squish has not made me all sparkly and happy about time with my beloved offspring. By summer, it'll be different. By summer, I can leave the EDJ in my dust, but right now? Looking forward to it.

And now, an ambiguous youtube.com essay of my twisted psyche, and I'm back to writing-- The Locker Room awaits.

Frisky Dragons

OKay-- I do admit that I left Thursday's post up for a couple of reasons, one of the most important being that for many of us who write or read romance, it seemed to strike a real chord. I get tired of defending my reading or writing choices, tired of explaining all of the academic reasons why romance is important culturally as well as emotionally--let's just say that post had been building for a really long time.

The other reason is that I've been sick, and although I can write just fine--I've done about 10,000 words in three days for nanowrimo--I haven't actually had the wherewithal to DO anything besides write. And that's not a lot of fun, really. Woke up, vegged on the couch, fielded whining children, tried to fix something to eat, watched a movie that I fell asleep during, decided that I could do something productive in front of the computer, and wrote through the whining children. Uhm, whoopee? Zoomboy's a little sick too, although Squish has managed to escape the worst part of it. (We think she's kind of sick, but we're not sure. MOstly, it's just that she's winning a whinging contest we weren't aware we were running, so we think that might make her sick. Or us crazy. You know, six-one, half-dozen the other.)

Anyway, this nanowrimo thing is a lot of fun--I'm thinking I might actually finish this novel, even though it will probably be about 20-30K longer than the required 50K, and that's good, because that makes it eligible for a print copy at DSP. I love being able to put my stuff in the word counter and go, "Lookie! This time it counts for something!" (Okay-- it counted for something before, but, really, yanno, a website makes it official?)

And, other than that--and Mate's continued stalking of Steve as that damned cat gets into the most destructive places in the house--nothing going on around here. I just had a thought... I'm going to start taking Steve pictures. Samurai did "Sekhmet you fucker" and I LOVED those posts. Maybe I can do "Goddammit, Steve!" and that will be fun. (Well, for me, anyway, right?) Not original, but a great idea is worth making one's own. (And Gordy doesn't DO anything. He's so entirely Chicken's cat that all of his antics are performed in her room, with the door shut, where none of us infidels who are NOT Chicken might see!)

And that's all. I've told myself that tomorrow is absolutely, positively the last day that I can be sick. My spare time goes away as of December first, and I want to spend the next three weeks cleaning shit that ain't been cleaned, and working muscles that ain't been worked. Oh yeah-- and finishing "The Locker Room", which I think is going to be one fantastic little book! (And making some progress on Living Promises, which I think is going to be a whole lot of powerful if I don't fuck it up, right?)

(Oh... and The Dougie? Believe it or not, I'm the last person on the planet who hasn't seen "The Dougie". Just proof, I guess, that I am the least hip person I know!)

I Do Not Write Porn

I've joked about it-- a lot! I'm self deprecating about my writing--I called Vulnerable"my smutty vampire novel" when I was finished with it. When I was working on Jack & Teague it was "gay werewolf porn". I mean, we bloggers, we tend to be a self-deprecating lot, right? It's as though we feel that just putting ourselves out there online, that's a big enough act of hubris. We don't need to do anything else to offend the gods.

We can do amazing things--I have met people online who have DONE amazing things--knit an impossible scarf, put out a phenomenal number of quilts for charity and rumballs for friends, brave the hazards of cursed yarn, juggle the demands of a beloved faith and an obsession with fiber, teach one's self to sew in order to please an adored child, or earn a degree in a subject way too complicated for me to even remember, or balance a difficult job and a serene, positive outlook on life.

I have met all of these women on the web, and all of them, in some way, shape, or form, take away from the things they have done. "The scarf only looks impossible. Double-row lace is really easy once you get the hang if it," "Rumballs are really easy--here's my recipe. See?" "Well, yeah, it was a project for church, so I sort of had to do it," "Yeah, I'm a science geek," "It was a simple pattern--really easy to do!" or "I really doubt that yarn had it in for me. Mostly." I read your blogs, I boggle at your accomplishments, and I understand what goes into that job, that classwork, that scarf, that recipe, that manuscript, that pattern, that weight loss, that serene outlook, that whatever, because I am a woman, and I try hard not to make too big a deal out of my accomplishments too.

So I get minimum sleep, agonize over my manuscript, my readers' wants, the things pushing at my heart to be written, my genre, my word choices, and my place in the universe and whether or not I'm making the most of what the Goddess gave me to forge a better one. And when someone asks me what I'm doing with all of that sweat and blood, I say, rather shyly, "You know. Writing fantasy or some dumb shit like that. Me and smut, heh heh heh, don't you know it!"

I do not write porn.

Nothing I've ever written or ever shall write will ever fail The Miler Obscenity test. My stories have plot, characters, theme, socially redeeming value, a message, literary devices and some really lovely passages of description. My characters make people cry, make them angry, make them hurt, make them think, and my themes appeal to a truly diverse span of the population, if my fan mail is anything to judge from. People tell me that my stories haunt them, and that my characters feel like family.

I do not write porn.

So what is it do I write?

I write romance--fantasy romance, urban fantasy romance, contemporary m/m romance, you add it all up, and it's romance, and while puckered angry white men (and women--I've been watching the political arena, there are some REALLY puckered angry women out there who have lost all perspective about what they do or do not need to care about in terms of other people's sex lives) will tell you that romance is not particularly important, I would beg to differ.

Hell--so would the entire publishing industry.

25% of the entire publishing industry is made up of romance. Now, again, puckered angry men and women will tell you that this simply indicates the prurient nature of a decaying society.

I think they're full of shit.

People reading great literature for the first time are often startled at the amount of sex in it--and not just in Brave New World or 1984. Patrick Henry told the Virginia Convention that they were laying on their backs "supinely" and getting screwed by hope. Thomas Paine used the idea of German troops coming into frontier houses and raping the women and getting an entire generation of Prussian offspring on them as a goad to get people to keep fighting. Ben Franklin talks about why you want to shag an old mistress instead of a young one, and Walt Whitman... *whew* brother was bi and proud and descriptive about it. So was Lord Byron. Hell--so was Shakespeare.

It's just that people always assume that great works of literature and the people who spawn them are above sex, and I don't know why. (Well, I do know why, but let's save my rant for why we can expect puckered angry white people from the Puritans, because any people who thought the Dutch weren't white ENOUGH are BOUND to stir up some stupid ass shit for later, shall we?) But assuming that literature is above sex is overlooking the entire nature of humanity, and so, for myself and any imaginary puckered angry white people who would land on this site (and I like to imagine them bursting into flames if they do... I do have a streak of pettiness in me that I have tried valiantly to hide, but it keeps getting away from me!) I'm going to remind us of why that's not true.

There are four basic human relationships. Four.

There is the filial, the platonic, the romantic, and the divine.

So, there's your relationship with your parents and children, your relationship with your friends, your sexual relationships, and your relationship with the God/Goddess of your choice. (Or all of them--whatever your conception of the divine, well, theryago. Jeff, god of biscuits, hear my prayers, right?)

Only one of these relationships has an age taboo, and that's mostly a physiological thing, right? You don't want to explain sex to your six year old because he thinks it's just naked wrestling, and as long as it's happy naked wrestling that only grown-ups do, you're pretty happy with that. But your teenager? Your young college student? Well, you assume they will grow into the romantic relationships in great literature just as they will grow into their own, and good for them!

But the romantic relationship is actually bigger than the age/sex taboo, and that's something that people forget. The romantic relationship SPAWNS the filial relationship. That John Mayer song, "Fathers be good to your daughters?" Absolutely-- the parents' working partnership (romantic relationship) helps to set the tone for the parent child relationship. It's the alpha--and the omega--of the holy trinity of parent/parent/child. Ah ah ah...

Wait--the romantic relationship just took over a whole other quarter of the relationship building, didn't it?

Because many people see the divine in their families. The other parent or the child--well, that's proof that God/Goddess exists, for some of us. Some people existed in a lonely void, until a beloved's voice or touch awoke them to the possibility of a warm presence in the universe that just might have some use and comfort for those of us in a lonely void. A friend to hold hands with and keep us warm in the night, right?

And there you go. The fourth wall of the relationship cottage, firmly usurped by the romantic relationship. Because our partner is supposed to be our best friend, right? I mean, I'm not about to go all Christian on the diversified and faintly pagan lot I know lurks out there, but isn't that in the marriage vows or something? Our spouse is our friend?

So there you go--this one relationship, this one side of the relationship building, well, it's not just the wall, it's the foundation and the cornerstones for a lot of us, isn't it? Sure, it's POSSIBLE for the human race to accomplish great things without the goad of romantic love... but why would they? Why would they even want to.

Notice, by the by, that there is no room in our little house for government? I don't know... anybody out there, no matter WHAT the outcome of an election, getting the electric buzzy sexy tingles for whoever is wearing Uncle Sam's stilts?

Yeah. Didn't think so.

So there you go. The romantic relationship--25% of the publishing industry, but even more than that to the human race! (And, of course, that "25%" number is completely overlooking those other genres that CONTAIN romance but are not LABELED romance--yet another reason I dislike labels intensely, right?)

And yes. There is sex in romance. There are things that people say to each other when their skin is bare and the world is night-dark and private that define who they are, and what happiness is to them. In order to write successful romance, very often, a writer must needs write successful sex.

But to call it porn is more than self-deprecating. It's damned near a criminal insult to something that I know I have labored over--and that a lot of other people that I know now, have also labored over. Romantic literature is age old, and it's important. No one reads about King Arthur because he wrote political law and set it in stone. They read it because the tortured triangle of Lancelot, Gwenyfar, and Arthur makes our hearts hurt to this day. That terrible angst set in motion wars that killed and treaties that saved and boundaries that defined a people. Even if it never happened, the story itself defines us, and it is not porn.

So the world seems to be crumbling around our ears, and I'm here, in my hole, writing romance and hoping that my words make a difference. Is it futile? Does it make me hopelessly naive?

I'm going off the classics again.

Aristotle said that poetry is more important than history or philosophy. That's because if you change the way someone FEELS about something, you have done something infinitely more important than recorded what has happened or delineated the rules of thought that the world operates within. If you change the way someone FEELS about something, you have CHANGED history, and you have CHANGED the rules of thought that people believe the world operates within.

My romance--my fantasy, my urban fantasy, my contemporary m/m romance--has the potential to change the world. People have written me and told me that this is so. My work has changed the way they think, and they, in turn, will go out and change the world. Even if it's just a small number, my imagination, my writing has changed the world.

And it is not porn.

Mama Got the Bug

Came home with a virus, and then wrote about 8,000 words in two days. (It's nanowrimo-don't know what to tellyou. This year I thought I'd make it official!)

Anyway, I'm sort of sick and really sleepy, so I think I'm gonna go knit, and leave you with the following pictures to assuage my guilt. Enjoy! (Oh yeah-- signed my Jack & Teague & Katy contract today-- the books will be released every other month next year, starting in February. I'm so excited I can't hardly stand it!)

So Much To Report--So Few Pictures!

Okay-- firstly and most importantly-- you WILL have a picture of Zoomboy in his VERY original costume tomorrow. It was precious, there's a story behind it, and, well, Mate's got the pictures and I'm trying to post NOW so, you'll see it tomorrow.

Second of all--of the two lovely ladies in the picture from Yaoi-Con, the one I want to give kudos is NOT the stunningly beautiful and very charming Marie Sexton in the middle (although, yanno, she ain't bad atall!) No, I want to give thanks and bows and hugs and knit long-johns on size 1 needles to the equally beautiful (and yet badly photographed, and I can't believe I didn't get a better one) Mary Calmes (pronounce it 'Calmay', acuzza that's the way it's pronounced!)

Mary was my bestest bestest friend during yaoi-con--we roomed together, talked until one in the morning, compared notes when we went different places and watched out for each other (her for me more than me for her, mostly because I seem to need a keeper, and she had the warmest, most comprehensive sense of 'keeping' a person safe as anyone I've ever met). Anyway, she was awesome--EVERYONE was awesome, and I've got a picture of some lovely writers--but only one--and no pictures of Ariel and Elizabeth and Lynn and Connie and Nikki and Chris and Juliette and Andrew and all of the other lovely people that I met and chatted with and fell instantly, irrevocably in love with at first sight. (Never again will I roll my eyes and laugh at that trope in a romance book-- apparently it CAN happen, even if it's platonic love and not romantic love.)

But Mary was the awesomesauce on top of the awesome cake, and I adored her--and obviously, I had an amazing time.

*whew* Well, I'm sure some of those stories will come out (including the look of utter incredulity on Lynn's face when I confessed that I might have been a wee bit timid before I hit thirty. And Andrew's priceless response of, "Yes you were timid. In the WOMB!" ) but, in the meantime, there was ALSO Halloween, and short people did precious things that need to be reported.

Okay--first of all, MUST discuss Zoomboy's costume. Thought I could get away with it. Couldn't. Zoomboy was going to wear his ninja costume that grandma got him--and he DID. But while at yoai-con, I spent most of my money on presents for the kids, and Zoomboy's present was, well, a fish hat. It was a piranha with a wide mouth, eating his head. He wore it with the ninja outfit.

Knock-knock-knock-- "Trick or treat!"

"Hello, what are you?"

"I'm a ninja who didn't have any brains and then the shark tried to eat my brains but now it's starving."

"That's nice kid, here, have some candy!"

*snicker*

And then there was Cinder-Squish (pictured at her daycare Halloween party with her best friend in the world:-) Squish had to make comments at almost every house.

"You have lovely decorations!"

"Why thank you!"

"Happy Halloween!"

And then, as she was coming down a walkway, there was a gentleman all dressed up as a cadaverous coachman, and she said, "I like your costume!"

"Why thank you. You look very beautiful yourself."

"I know. Happy Halloween!"

*snicker*

And to make the whole holliday awesomesauce, I got home from yaoi-con feeling a little sick (I came down with a cold the first night--thanks to Mary and her magic giant motrin, it didn't really screw up my time, but I was pretty tired when I got back) and a little like hunkering down to knit and...

Mate and the kids had cleaned and decorated, and I almost cried.

There really IS no place like home!

That, and Big T got dressed and went and trick-or-treated with what looks to be a sweetie who adores him (mom is happy!) and Chicken and her friend Stivie trick-or-treated too (and a lot of teenagers showed up at our door) and basically, I love it when happy, well behaved teenagers go out and do happy, little-kid things, because trick-or-treating is an under-rated pleasure, and it makes me happy when teenagers recognize that it's a helluva lot better than getting drunk and throwing up. Of course, it's been a while since Chicken has been trick-or-treating--she was supposed to come home with candy. What she came home with in actuality was a little gray kitten, whom we're CALLING Candy, until she can go back to the houses surrounding where she found the little goober and see where Candy belongs. I told her she was doing it wrong--sugar, not kitties--and she seemed to feel this was uncalled for. Well, really? Who goes trick-or-treating for candy and comes home with a cat?

Apparently, Chickens.

Anyway, and now there's a whole other happy...

Jack and Teague are going to be taken down from the website. Why? Because Torquere Press is going to publish them as e-novellas for their BareBAck Angels menage line. If sales are high enough? They're going to put them out in print. C'mon, guys--help me make sure the sales are high enough, yeah?

Seriously-- I'm thrilled. That's my Little Goddess, getting out there some more, and more people willing to embrace Vulnerable in spite of the shitacular editing, and if that happens, I may be able to start Quickening a little sooner than planned. HUZZAH!

And now? I'm tired. I'm gonna go lie down with Zoomboy and cuddle.

*woot*

Heigh Ho, Heigh HO!

Okay, other matters have sort of overshadowed this, but Im actually leaving TODAY and I'm SOOOOOOOOOO excited.

I'm going to Yaoi-Con.

Now I know I don't write and illustrate manga graphic novels featuring young male/male romances--I am aware that I write fiction, and that it's very different, but my publisher and a lot of other m/m publishers are having book signings in the media room, and, well, I'm going to be signing books tomorrow.

Uhm... SQUUEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!

It's gonna be SO weird-- the last time I spent a night away from my family, it was for a wedding, and I wasn't prepared to spend the night, but for those of you who remember Jack & Teague? Teague's unlamented father dies by driving his car off of Mokolumne Hill--and I was inspired by the very real Mokolumne Hill not to drive home in the dark. So, it was sort of impromptu, and not very fun, and I was REALLY lonely but this is gonna be different.

For one thing, I've got a roommate!

I'm so excited-- now I've blogged with a lot of you for over four years, and I've longed to meet you all in person, and I'm waiting for the day when we can sit down for a soda and a chat and a knit. You know that. I think it goes without saying--your e-buddies are your buddies, and you want to see them in real life, and give hugs and hear the trill and timbre of voices and see expressive hands used in place of expressive pens. And now, I REALLY GET TO DO THAT!

Mary and I have been chatting since I ended up on the Dreamspinner author group, and not only do I get to MEET her in person, I also get to meet Chris and Ariel and Elizabeth and Lynn, the ceos of Dreamspinner Press and all sorts of people that I've only met on line and EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I'm so excited. I have to sign books tomorrow (first shift--it's like 11a.m.-2p.m or something like that--I'm pretty sure Mary knows, which is good, because I have comPLETELY forgotten! And she's spending the day hanging with Ariel, who is sort of in charge of DSP at the con, and we all have the same time slot so I think I'll be there on time) and other than that? It's Mary (who is also being cut loose from her family) and me, running around the con like school-girls cutting class. We may actually go out to eat with other adults, and have drinks (I've been promised a shot of Ketel One, at the very least) and...

Oh, brother, do I need to go eat, drink, and be merry with grown-ups. I mean... it's sort of becoming a soul-deep necessity, if you know what I mean. I'm going to miss Mate--he's my social safety net, usually, because, yanno, if I'm too socially inept or, well, a complete dorkfish, then he's there, to assure me that he'll love me even as I chase verbal corndogs through an ocean of chat, but Mary and I have promised that we'll be each other's safety net. We even have plans to watch Supernatural in our jammies with a bottle of alcohol and snacks if nobody wants to hang with us tonight--and you know what? That STILL sounds like one hell of a night! (*Note to self, though--must bring a season of SPN in case we do end up in the hotel room for a night. A glass of rotgut, Sam & Dean, & thou, Mary-- we're gold!)

Anyway, so... that's where we're going. We'll both be back in time for Halloween with our family... tired, hungover, and, I hope, very, very happy. *ahh* bliss.

And for those of you still uncertain as to what yaoi-con is, I have this quote from Chicken, who reads the milder yaoi graphic novels. She was flipping through a new book from the library, uncertain whether it was yaoi (m/m) or shojo (m/f romance) and looking for a picture to show her what she was getting into.

"Okay... maybe it's not yaoi. Maybe it really is a regular romance set in an all boy's school, where all the boys are incredibly pretty and nobody is gay at all." *finds page she's looking for* "NOPE! It's yaoi!"

(Chicken is going to school today dressed as Paige Foxbtw. She has capri pants, a sweatshirt, and a stuffed iguana hanging from her ponytail. The real genius of this costume is that all of her friends know EXACTLY who she's supposed to be!)

Oh-- and the picture? The picture is from Squish's soccer banquet, which was wonderful and fun and held at Chuck E. Cheese's, which is a place we had avoided taking our children for most of their lives. It's okay--the most tightly wound kid on Squish's soccer team ripped off Chuck E.'s nose, and then followed him into the bathroom as the poor stuffed rat tried to set himself to rights. I promptly reported this to the boy's mother, and all of the mothers on the team-- and you get pretty tight as soccer moms--laughed our collective arses off. High comedy, good fun.

Squish's best moment (for me, anyway) was when she came howling to me because "Mom! I dropped a quarter!" Now, my approach to this would have been to say "It's okay, honey, you have lots more!" But there was another mother there (whom I am learning to adore!) who promptly reached over with another token and said, "It's okay, honey. We found it."

"Already?" Squish asked, her big wet pansy eyes big with appreciation.

"Yeah, honey," said Michelle, winking at me. "Here it is."

"WOW!" Said Squish, and then she took her 'quarter' and ran off into the melee.

*happy* Yeah-- it'll be fun at yaoi-con, but yanno, I do have some seriously fun reasons to come back.

Mo---ommmmmm!!!!!

"Mo--omm! I'm bored. Take me somewhere RIGHT NOW!"

"Sorry, Squish, we've got nothing on the menu until we pick up Chicken and Zoomboy, and then you go to dance lessons."

"But I don't WANT to go to dance lessons. That's not the somewhere I meant!"

***

"Mo--omm! What do you think of the Lawrence Olivier Hamlet?"

"Uhm... it was in black and white and it went really slowly."

"I think they were trying to make it too much like Citizen Kane!"

"And I think that was just '40's movie making!"

"Well *I* think they were trying to make it too much like Citizen Kane!"

"Are we really arguing over this, Big T? It was made at a time when they were supposed to be showcasing the language, okay? Yeah- not the most stimulating filmmaking ever!"

"Okay--if they were supposed to be showcasing the language, why is my stupid English teacher making us READ the abridged version?"

"Okay-- we're NOT using Hamlet as a reason to beat up on your English teacher... for cryin' out loud, are the dishes done yet?"

"Fine. I'm going to my room."

"Fine. Just finish the dishes first!"

***

"Mo-omm! I had a poop. And I flushed it. But it didn't go down because it was too big. And the water pressure wasn't strong enough to turn it into little pieces of small poop, so now the poop is stuck because the hole is too small for the poop to fit into!"

"That was, uhm, extremely detailed and informative, son. Next time, maybe just say, 'The toilet's plugged'?"

"But I had a poop..."

***

"Mo-omm--that book you're letting me read is SO funny!"

"Yeah? Which part are you at, Chicken?"

(Quotes Drool, from "Fool" by Christopher Moore) "Pocket, I shagged a ghost!" "I know, Drool, it couldn't be helped."

(Happily) "Oh Fuckstockings!"

"Yeah, Mom. Best. Book. Ever."

***

Yeah-- sometimes, answering the calls of offspring to parent yields some pretty nifty rewards. (And sometimes, it just warns you to use the other bathroom and buy the Kenneth Brannagh version of Hamlet!)

It's Not What It Looks Like...

(Well, it is what it looks like, but it's not what you think!)

Okay, so this is supposed to have some fiber content, and this is fiber at it's most lush: crocheted alpaca. As in, omigod, this is better than bathing in champagne ALPACA!

It was lovely, lush, and amazing--but not when I was knitting it. No, this yarn really came alive for me when I was crocheting it. I think it's the lack of spring, but for some reason, I just was not loving the knitted fabric, so I decided to crochet it instead, and since I was doing alternating mesh blocks with solid blocks, I thought, "Well hey! Wouldn't it be cool if I did those chain-three-slip-stitch designs in the mesh blocks?" And it WAS cool. I thought I'd repeat the designs every so often, and then I just kept getting more and more ideas, until I got about three quarters of the way through and then (you knew this was coming) I thought, "Oh shit. I can't THINK of any more baby themed motifs to put on a frickin seven x seven frickin mesh!" So I was KILLING myself--I repeated ONE MOTIF in the entire blanket, and then I just kept coming up with desperation ideas. I mean, there's a PI symbol there--and you know, when *I* reach for the math? It's gotta be frickin' bad, right?

So, one of those little motifs is a rattle. I swear. When the blanket is right side up, it looks like a rattle.

So, in the second picture, it's right side up. You can't see the rattle, but trust me. It's there.

In the first picture, you can see the rattle. It's second row from the bottom, second motif from the left.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I can hear you all from where you are, saying, "Uhm, Amy? That doesn't look like a rattle."

I SWEAR TO BOB, IT'S FRICKIN' RATTLE! *sniffle* I swear--the blanket's for a little girl baby. It's a rattle. It is. For real. I wouldn't bullshit you about that. *hurt sniffle* I mean, guys... you KNOW I wouldn't put *that* on a baby blanket, right?

Right? Anyone?

*sigh* I'm still sending the blanket out. The kid was just born, and she lives in Colorado, and it's a small blanket and I want mom to get it before winter hits, because, yanno, it's alpaca, and that's what alpaca is made for, right?

I'll just put a little post-it note on that square.

It'll say, "I SWEAR it's a rattle!"

I think the mom will understand.