Shanna Swendson's Blog, page 221

Happy Book Day!

It's new book day! After long years of waiting, Much Ado About Magic is available in English.

Before I head off to herd second-graders around art and music camp (and since it rained all night, we may not get our playground time), here are the order links that I know are live:

Barnes & Noble

Amazon US

Amazon UK

Apple

Others will be added as I learn about them, after I get home from herding kids. Much as with regular bookstores, the various online sellers don't always "shelve" e-books as soon as they get them. Any other questions? Check the FAQ.

I would really like to show my former publisher just how wrong they were not to publish this book by having it be a huge smash (or I would at least like to make enough money from it to buy a new dishwasher). But to do that, I need the help of my readers. What can you do to help?

1) Buy the book (duh).

2) Mention it on Twitter, Facebook, your blog, relevant online forums and message boards, or whatever other venue you have, though standing in the street and shouting may not be very effective. You can "like" the book for Facebook from the Amazon or B&N page. Or "like" the Enchanted, Inc. series Facebook page.

3) Once you've read it, you can post a review at Amazon, B&N, other online booksellers, Goodreads, Shelfari, etc. The more reviews, the more "credible" the book looks.

Oh, and please be nice about spoilers once you've read it.

Though I must say that not everyone at my old publisher deserves to suffer. There are some cool people there. For instance, they invited me to their party during WorldCon, which is a cruise. I noticed that the cruise lasts from 8 to 11, making it a (dun dun dun!!!) three-hour tour, which we know from television reruns is doomed to disaster. I mentioned that in my response and asked if there would be someone on board who can make radios out of coconuts. The response was "If we somehow get off course and end up on a deserted island somewhere in Lake Michigan, I believe we will have a wealth of knowledge on board… enough to found our own society and eventually build a spaceship that will get us off the island." So at least they're planning for that.

However, it would be very fun to be able to swan around the party as a bestselling author that they missed out on, so tell everyone you know about this book!

Jedi Mind (Game) Tricks

I survived the second day of music and art camp. The kids did, too, but a few of them barely squeaked by. I may have to ask a friend just how attached she is to her son because he may not make it. He's already pretty close to not being able to go from session to session without holding my hand because he starts goofing off in the halls and slamming other kids into the walls. Every single teacher has had to call his name multiple times. I will probably have a chat with his mom tonight at ballet. I'm not sure if he's seeking attention, hyper or possibly both. I may ask if she has some behavior strategies she uses to calm him down. I've just about lost my voice from shouting. I had to resort to my drill sergeant voice that comes from way down in the belly.

However, I did gain some credibility with some of the boys by being able to discuss Star Wars, and that led to the idea to stop all the puppy brawling that seems to go on when you get a group of boys together. I told them that if they want to fight, they have to be Jedis and use their lightsabers. Only the blades (which are imaginary) touch the other people. So they wave their hands and make "bzzz" noises and leap around, and they get the fighting out of their systems, but no one gets hurt. However, I've discovered that I automatically go into the fencer's crouch even when pretending to do a lightsaber fight with a group of kids. I wouldn't have thought that one semester back in college would so ingrain a behavior, but if I even think about holding a sword, I instinctively go into position.

Sometimes I think about getting back into fencing, but I'd have to learn to fight left-handed because my right knee can't handle all the lunging. Plus, I'd get the chance to say "I'm not really left-handed!" during a bout.

Meanwhile, during the singing class, the choir director made me help demonstrate one of the parts that required a soprano, and because I'm losing my voice, I had to use the full-on classical voice (it's less straining to use the really proper technique), and the kids were all "ooh, opera." I'm pretty sure I'll be mocked some by the kids tomorrow.

The book comes out tomorrow! I've seen that Barnes & Noble is offering pre-orders of a paperback version for release August 31, but I don't know what that's about as we don't yet have a paperback in process that B&N would have access to. What seems to have happened is that they've pulled from the ISBN registration, where August 31 was put in as a placeholder. When I know about paperback availability, I'll announce it.

Now I have to do some promo work and try to get some writing done even though what I want most of all is to crawl in bed for a while. Morning came very early this morning.

What Was I Thinking?

In a bit of a scheduling oops, back when I didn't know what else would be going on with my life this week, I agreed to volunteer for the summer music and arts day camp at the church this week. So, on the week that I have a book coming out and need to be doing PR kind of stuff and while I need to get a book written, and worse, coming off of several days being rather sick, I have to spend all morning at the church Monday through Thursday of this week. I have the second graders, and all I really have to do is get them from one session to the next and keep them from being too insane along the way. Fortunately, I have a lot of teen helpers, and they were all on the choir trip earlier this summer, so they know me (I got an enthusiastic hug from one of the Crazies when she saw me). I don't know any of these kids, but one is the son of one of my ballet friends. It wasn't too bad today, though I'm not quite at 100 percent. I mostly had to make sure they washed their hands after the craft project, which involved molding dough, and keep them from killing each other with the rhythm band instruments. There are a lot of boys in this group, so anything that can be weaponized will be weaponized.

The group dynamics are always interesting in this sort of thing. I'm amazed at how easily boys make friends. The girls are a little aloof and cling to the other girls they already know without being too welcoming to newcomers. The boys were immediately clustered in a circle, talking about lizards they'd seen in their yards, and as new boys arrived, they'd widen the circle to include the newcomers, especially if they had a good lizard story to tell.

Speaking of lizards and other creatures, the season premiere for Grimm is tonight. Yes, on a Monday, and yes, this early. Apparently, they're trying to capture any holdover audience from the Olympics. The episode will also be repeated in the usual Friday timeslot, in case you forget or didn't realize that they were doing the Monday thing for a few weeks.

In case you'd forgotten or just somehow showed up here, Book 5 in the Enchanted, Inc. series, Much Ado About Magic, will be released Wednesday. Just a couple more days! And then remember that book 6 is coming in October, so you don't even have to wait that long to find out what happens next.

And then there's this, a trailer for Terry Pratchett's next book. It looks like he's doing Dickens, with Dodger. I'm mildly irked because it sounds similar to part of a story line I have in mind for a future project. Mine has a lot of other stuff going on that I doubt will be at all similar, but it still has enough similarities that I might look like I'm following a trend. Then again, in publishing these days, it takes clout like Pratchett's to start a trend. They aren't keen on anything that's too different from other stuff.



And now to see if I can get my brain into work mode. I've finally stopped sneezing and sniffling, and I only cough when my throat gets dry. I guess the storms that blew through last night wiped out whatever has been making me miserable.

So Not Impressed

I don't know what's in the air, but I am currently dying of allergies. I need to make a sling so I can more easily carry the tissue box with me wherever I go. That kind of killed my productivity yesterday, but I think my subconscious was hard at work. I came up with an idea that I think will really add a level of tension to the plot, but I need to think more coherently to be able to figure out exactly how to use it. (Achoo!) Then last night as I was lying on the sofa in a Benadryl haze, watching Olympic diving, I realized that I'd left out a very important scene. It was one of those "steps in a plan" scenes where we'd already seen them carry out a similar step, so I'd figured that we knew how the pattern worked and didn't need to see it repeated, so it could take place off-stage. But then I realized that there are all kinds of ramifications to this particular one, so that doing this step would be a big decision. And, really, that same thing applies to all the other steps, just not as intensely. I need to think more about this. If I could stop sneezing for a few minutes. (Achoo!)

I'm kind of glad that the Olympics are drawing to a close. I remember watching them obsessively, but I can barely get into it this year. I can blame the Internet in part because I can find out who won early in the day, and if it doesn't sound like something I want to watch, I don't watch it. When I do watch, mostly the gymnastics and whatever they have on the same nights, the broadcasts are so painfully bad. Most of the announcers are inane, and the camera work is insane. Like with the gymnastics, where the competition is about what they do with their whole bodies, and for some strange reason, they just zoom in so tight on their faces that they're practically giving them an endoscopy. "And now that we've verified that the gymnast has no nasal polyps, she'll do her final tumbling pass." They did the same thing with the diving I was watching last night. The diver would be pressing to a handstand on the edge of a platform 10 meters above the water, which is an impressive feat, and instead of showing the diver's whole body while doing this, they're zooming in on her face, which tells us nothing. Really, NBC, I take it as a given that someone competing in the Olympics is focused and determined and fierce or whatever it is you think this shot is showing me. But this is an athletic competition, not a nose-hair grooming competition, so show more than a tight close-up on the face. Not to mention the fact that they seem to have written their scripts for their coverage well before the events and they have trouble straying from those scripts even when the events don't go that way. It's like, "We're going to show you everything this one person who was supposed to win does, and oh yeah, by the way, this other person we barely bothered to show you actually won the event." Since the prime-time coverage is tape-delayed, there's no excuse for not being able to present what actually happened.

I can already tell you, McKayla is not impressed. In case you haven't seen this meme, American gymnast McKayla Maroney was supposed to win the vault but had a bad performance and was seriously pissed-off at herself when she got the silver. A photographer caught a rather unfortunate facial expression. And it went viral, with a very unimpressed McKayla superimposed on all sorts of amazing (or not) things. I would consider it kind of mean because I know what it means to have the kind of facial expressions that show up looking evil when photographed. Most candid photos of me look like I'm about to cut a bitch. However, she seems to be taking it with a sense of humor and is having fun with it, even Tweeting her favorites. I was thinking about making a new LiveJournal icon with it, but my photo editing skills aren't that good and I don't have good software for it, so I thought I'd go searching to see if someone else had already done it. Bad idea. LiveJournal is difficult to search, and you never know what you'll find. Like, say, real-person slash stories about the women's gymnastics team getting it on with each other. And now I need a gallon of brain bleach. I'm pretty sure McKayla would not be impressed.

Now to go lie on the sofa in a Benadryl haze with my tissue box at hand and see if my subconscious can solve all my book problems for me. Achoo!

Shelving Decisions

Tuesday night's ballet class has suddenly hit me full-on. Ouch. I thought the muscles in my legs were pretty good, but I'm discovering muscles I didn't know I had. It looks like I'll need to do some yoga today if I want to be able to get up and down the stairs.

On the other hand, once I'm done with the stuff that requires Internet today, it might not be a bad thing if I can't get upstairs. Then I can sit downstairs and do a lot of work. I think I've figured out the next part of the book, so I should be able to write for a few days before I have to do more thinking and planning.

I did finally succeed in buying myself a birthday present and in doing my errand shopping at Target, except of course I realized after I got home that I forgot a few minor things. But I did hit the school supply sale, so I have notebook paper and pens and spiral notebooks and note cards. I also got a couple of pads of drawing paper because they were calling out to me. I'm not sure what I'll do with them. Maybe I could try mind mapping or brainstorming with colored markers or something like that. At any rate, I just felt like they were somehow going to be essential for something, and they were cheap. I did resist the urge to go skipping through the school supply section, tossing items into my basket with reckless abandon, like in those "The Most Wonderful Time of the Year" commercials. Oh, but I wanted to, so very, very badly. I always loved school supply shopping when I was a kid because I was picturing my ideal school experience that was like something out of a book or a movie and that was probably about a decade out of date. I felt like my whole life would just click into place if I only had the right pencil box and binder.

While I was making the decisions of how to classify my new books and getting frustrated over the fact that the place where they were shelved in physical stores was the one place none of the readers seemed to be looking for them, a publishing news item came up about a publisher trying to create a new category but running into resistance from the bookstore chains in not wanting to shelve it that way. They were trying to create what they called the "new adult" category, which was a bridge between the teen young adult books and the regular adult section. That makes a lot of sense because in the past several years, YA has been one of the more profitable categories for both publishers and booksellers. But those readers do grow out of reading about teenagers. Are those huge swells of kids and teens who got into reading with Harry Potter and Twilight being retained as book customers? Adult fiction sales don't seem to be getting the kind of surge you'd expect, considering that the kids and teens who were in the right age range when those books were published would be mostly adults now.

Making that transition from the safe boundaries of the kid and teen sections to the adult section can be difficult. When you're 18-25 or so, you may not want to read about teenagers anymore, but you're also not all that interested in forty-something parents, and it's impossible to tell which books you might find interesting at a glance. The idea for the "new adult" category was to have books for readers in that age group, with characters in that age group who were doing things that happen with that age group -- finishing school, going to college, getting that first job, being on their own for the first time, etc. But apparently the bookstores totally resisted the idea of creating a new section. They thought these books should be shelved either in the teen fiction or in the relevant adult sections, I guess because they don't like making money or have no interest in retaining their best customers.

As a fantasy reader, I guess I had it easier in making that transition from teen to adult because the heroes/heroines of fantasy novels at that time tended to be very young. We had the late teen farmer/apprentice who gets chosen to go on the quest kinds of stories. In fact, a lot of the adult books I read as a teen have been reissued with new covers and shelved in teen fiction (I don't recall having a designated teen section when I was a teen -- books about teens were mixed in either with children's books or with adult books). I do remember standing in the tiny science fiction/fantasy section of the mall bookstore, which was probably smaller than my science fiction/fantasy bookcase in my house now, and flipping through the books to find those that fit my criteria. I wanted either a heroine I could identify with or a hero I could fall in love with, and I didn't want it to be an "old" person who was over 30. I can't imagine doing that in a superstore. The adult section can be overwhelming, especially if you don't come from a family of avid readers where your parents have already started introducing you to the authors they read. That was my other transition aid. I was in fourth grade when my parents started giving me the Alan Dean Foster Flinx books to read. In those early books, the hero was a teenager, and I'd have considered them good "new adult" reading as adult books that younger readers would enjoy.

Apparently, the chains were worried that the new adult category would limit who would buy those books -- that adults wouldn't shop there and that teens might not find it, and that's such a narrow range (never mind that they're the age range buying most of the books these days). That brings up another bookstore question: why not cross-shelve? They'd sell a lot more books if the books were easier to find. Create a new adult section and stock it with some of the older teen and younger adult books, and then also stock those books in their relevant sections. Once readers have found those authors in "new adult," they can then transition more easily to the regular adult shelves, and then the bookstore has secured a long-term customer. Because if I'm selling books and I look at the statistics about what's selling, I'm definitely going to want to do anything I can to hold onto that vast YA readership and make sure they keep buying books as they enter their adult years and have jobs and money of their own.

But alas, I don't rule the world and the bookstore chains are very mired in their old ways of doing things, resisting the changes that might allow them to survive. One advantage of digital publishing that I'm seeing is that you can "shelve" a book as contemporary fantasy, fantasy romance and chick lit. I've even been tempted to throw in paranormal mystery, since that's where my books seem to pop up in Goodreads and since most of the "people who bought this also bought" items for my books are paranormal mysteries, but since they aren't technically mysteries, mystery readers might be annoyed. I also don't think they're technically romance, but it does seem like a lot of readers view them that way, so who am I to argue?

Preparing to Be a Novelist

I sort of failed at birthday yesterday. My plan was to take a little shopping trip, pick up the Grimm BluRay set and get some other fun stuff at Target so I'd get gifts on my birthday. I went to Best Buy first because their advertised price was lower and it's closer -- on the way to Target. But they didn't seem to have it even though their web site said it was currently available for immediate pick-up at that store, and I couldn't find any employees to ask for it. When I went back out to the parking lot, the sky had turned a sick color of black and I thought it might be best to get home rather than be caught in a nasty storm. Then we got all of about three drops of rain. That was when I made some of my Magical Cake. I just reheated leftovers for dinner since ballet started last night. I had my first intermediate class, and my thighs currently hate me. I came home and had more cake. So I ended up doing nothing much special for my birthday. Yay, me. And I was just about to go do yesterday's shopping, but the sky got black again and now there's thunder. It's a conspiracy. Rain would be nice, but the way Texas storms can be, I try to avoid being out in them because I don't want to have to deal with hail damage to my car.

However, I did manage to write nearly 3,000 words in spite of being kind of a slacker. I think I'm at the halfway point in the story, also known as the part where I've been saying I'd figure out exactly what happens when I get there. In the synopsis, I spent most of it on the first quarter of the book, a page or so for the middle, and then I wrapped up the last half of the book in about four paragraphs. I guess that means I need to figure it out now.

For this week's writing post, I had a reader question about getting started as a writer. If you're a young person who aspires to be a novelist, what can you do?

I think the most important thing to do is read. You'd be surprised by how much you absorb about storytelling and character development from reading the kinds of books you want to write. When you read something that really grabs you as a reader, re-read that book and think about it as a writer. What was it that grabbed you? How did it affect your emotions, and can you tell what the author did to affect you that way? What is it about the characters that made you care about them? How does the pacing work -- is it a non-stop thrill ride, or did you find yourself enjoying the smaller character moments? Identifying what works for you as a reader is a good step toward finding your voice as a writer. It doesn't hurt to do a similar exercise with a book that you wanted to throw against the wall. Why did you dislike it? Were there plot or character elements that bothered you, or was it the writing style? Look at online reviews of that book to see what it is that other readers liked or disliked about it. You can sometimes learn a lot by trying to understand why people love a badly written book. Obviously, they're responding to something.

While you're still in learning mode, I recommend reading as widely as possible. Read from a variety of genres and read a mix of current releases and classics. That will help you figure out exactly what you really want to write. Once you start narrowing in on a genre, read as much as possible in that genre. That will make you more likely to know how original your plot and characters are, which will push you to move past the genre cliches.

It's also a good idea to learn about the industry. When I was a teenager, one of my favorite things to do at the library was to read the writer's marketplace books -- those listings of publishers and agents, what they publish and how to submit to them. It was mostly dreaming at that time, but it meant I learned the difference between a legitimate publisher and a scam, I knew what a query letter was, what a proposal was, and about how long a novel should be for the publishers I wanted to target. Those books tended to be in the reference section, so I couldn't check them out, but I'd sit and take notes. Most libraries also have a pretty good "how to write" section -- even my neighborhood branch library has good stuff -- and you can teach yourself a lot by reading the books you find there. The Writer's Digest series on the elements of writing fiction is particularly good. I also like reading screenwriting books for story structure.

Other than reading, the best thing you can do to learn to be a writer is to write. You don't have to be writing publishable stuff at this point. Just write. Write plot outlines, even if you never write those stories. Create characters and think of situations you could put them in. Write short stories or scenes. Let yourself explore and experiment. I have spiral notebooks full of this kind of stuff that I did when I was a teenager. Most of it will never see the light of day, but there are a few characters that started back then that I've worked into books, and I think all that writing ended up being part of those however many words you supposedly have to write before you can write something worth publishing.

When it comes to formal education, there are a few degree programs in commercial fiction. However, most creative writing programs lean toward the literary side of things, so you won't find much support from your instructors or classmates if you try to write something like fantasy or romance. There aren't really any "entry level" jobs for novelists, so you may need to major in something that will allow you to earn a living until you sell enough books to make a living as a novelist. Otherwise, I'd recommend taking courses that give you something to write about. If you want to write science fiction, take astronomy to satisfy your science requirement. History can be useful for writing fantasy. Psychology and communications courses are wonderful for character development. Acting classes are also good for character development. I majored in journalism, which helped me have a way to earn a living as a writer, but I think it also taught me to meet deadlines, write quickly and have a writing style that's easy to read. Even so, it's my non-journalism courses that I tend to draw upon the most in my career as a novelist.

So, bottom line: To become a writer, read and write.

The Much Ado About Magic FAQ

I have learned the secret to great writing productivity: Have your Internet connection go down for most of the day. Starting sometime between 12:30 and 1 p.m., I lost my Internet access. I had network connectivity, but the network wasn't connecting to the Internet. That sometimes happens intermittently, so I figured I'd just write until it came back. After a couple thousand words, I checked again. No dice. After another couple thousand words, still no Internet. After another 2,000 words, I called tech support and got a recording saying essentially, "we know, and we're working on it." I ended up with nearly 8,000 words, which may be a one-day record for me. The Internet is back today, and it's funny that AT&T hasn't sent any kind of acknowledgment or apology to its customers, although I've seen reports that it was a system-wide "rolling blackout." Maybe I could get them to take down the Internet more often. I'd get a lot more written.

Fortunately, it was back in time for the flood of birthday wishes on Facebook. I feel so famous and loved.

Among the messages and e-mails and reviews I couldn't deal with yesterday without Internet (oh, Internet, never leave me again, unless I need to write) were a lot of the same questions I've been getting about the new book release. Since I suspect some of the regulars are tired of seeing the same questions come up in the comment threads whenever I post about the new book, I thought I'd do a nice Frequently Asked Questions file and maybe deal with them all at once.

Will Much Ado About Magic be available for Nook, Kindle, Kobo, other e-readers?
Yes. It will be available in the mobi format for Kindle and epub format for other readers and will be offered for sale at most of the usual e-book outlets, starting with the on-sale date of August 15. It's currently available for pre-order at Amazon and Apple's iBookstore because those are the outlets that allow pre-orders of self-published titles. Some of the stores, like B&N, are good at making the books available almost immediately. Others take a while. That's not too different from the way physical bookstores work. Some have the book out even before the official on-sale date. Others may take a few days or longer to get the book out of the box and onto the shelves. The digital world seems to work the same way. We're making the title available to all these outlets at the same time. It's up to them when they want to start selling it. There will also be a pdf version available at some outlets, and it will be made available for the Overdrive system that libraries can use to offer e-books.

Will there be a print edition available?
Yes, there will be a print edition available through Amazon's CreateSpace, but it may be later than the digital edition is ready because there's more to be set up to get the print book ready. It will be a trade paperback like the earlier books in the series, and it should be available through the various global Amazon outlets. We're also working with Ingram for a print version through their system, and it's possible that bookstores could order that, but it likely won't be appearing in the major chains that way. You'll have to either special order the book through a store or order online.

But I don't have an e-reader and I don't want to wait for the print version. What should I do?
If you're reading this, then you can read an e-book. I don't have an e-reader, but I've been able to proof the e-book files by using free software to read both of the major e-book formats. There will be a pdf version, as well, that just about any computer can read using the Adobe Acrobat reader or Preview on a Mac. I've also got some e-reader software on my phone. If I can manage to review these files without having a reader, then I think it's pretty easy for just about anyone to access this book. It may not be the way you normally choose to read, but you can do it.

Will I be able to buy this book in bookstores?
Probably not. Bookstores tend not to stock self-published titles. You may be able to special order it, and some really supportive independent stores could choose to stock the title, but this is one you'll probably have to order online.

That sucks. I wish I could just go to the store and buy it instead of having to order it or deal with an e-book. Why are you doing this to us?
The original publisher opted not to publish this book and the other publishers weren't interested in continuing a series started by someone else. The Japanese publisher did want to continue the series, which was why I wrote this book in the first place, and then I finally forced myself to admit that the US publisher was never going to see the light, so I'm doing what I can to make this book available. This is the best I can do without the support of a publisher, so it's either this way or keep waiting for a publisher to come around. Would you rather read this book in a way that doesn't entirely fit your usual reading preferences, or would you rather not get to read it at all? I have to admit that anticipation of this gripe was one of the reasons I held off for so long, and while most readers have been joyful and appreciative, there's been enough whining to validate my concerns in this area and to dampen my enthusiasm. "There's a book I've been dying to read for years, and now it's available, but it's not available in the way I want it and that makes me angry" is such a first-world problem.

If I buy a print copy, can I get it autographed?
Because these books probably won't be available in stores and because bookstores hold author signings to sell books, I probably won't be doing bookstore signing events. If you're going to be at a convention I'll be attending and if you want to bring your copy, I'll be happy to sign it for you. If a library or writing group invites me to speak, I'll sign books there. If a store wants to sell copies and have me do a signing, I'd be open to that. But signing opportunities for this sort of thing will naturally be somewhat limited.

Will this book be available in other countries?
This e-book is being offered in English worldwide and with no DRM (but I'd best not find it pirated). There is a Japanese edition already available. Other foreign translations will depend on publishers in those countries buying translation rights. I'm not in a position to do self-published translated editions. Something is possibly in the works to make the English versions of the first four books available digitally outside North America, so stay tuned for that.

I'm a reviewer. Can I get an advance copy to review?
A review copy is available via NetGalley. You can easily get a NetGalley membership and submit a request. I would recommend that your profile include the URL for your blog or review site and information about it, as well as where else you might post reviews, what your audience size is, etc. When I evaluate requests, I make sure the site is appropriately targeted, has been updated somewhat recently and frequently, and is moderately professional. If you meet those criteria, then you'll get a review copy.

Happy Monday!

I survived Friday, but got next to no writing done because the non-writing part of work was pretty consuming. There are a lot of upsides to self publishing, such as actually getting stuff out there when publishers are being weird about it, but I have to say that in my ideal world, I'd send a novel to a publisher and let them deal with all the major and sometimes even minor decisions so that I could focus on writing. Spending time worrying about white vs. cream paper (and how do you define "white" and "cream"?) isn't really my thing. I've often thought of myself as a control freak, but it turns out I'm really not. I guess I want to be in control of the things I care about (the story) and I'd prefer for someone else to make all the other decisions.

I was even so busy that I never got my cake on Friday. Fortunately, my birthday week started early on Saturday with a group gathering that wasn't actually about a birthday but at which we had a true CAKE to celebrate several birthdays that all fall within the same timeframe. It's very convenient when you can jointly celebrate a birthday with others.

Now today I hope to catch up on the writing. I napped on Sunday and still ended up going to bed early and sleeping very late, and now I finally feel somewhat rested (if a wee bit groggy). I even know what comes next. I also know what I'll need to fix in the next draft, but I think I'm going to get to "the end" before I revise, except in cases where I need to fix something to move forward.

It was a big movie weekend, as I got together with friends for a big movie-watching (and cake) day. I got a nice college flashback with two movies that were a big part of my college days but that I don't think I've seen all the way through since college: Monty Python and the Holy Grail and Real Genius. My college years were amazing because that was the first time I'd been surrounded by geeks. I had been the lone weirdo in my high school who was into that sort of stuff. Some of my friends were kind of into it and we did have a group trip to see one of the Star Trek movies, but they graduated before I did, so by my senior year, I was pretty lonely. Then I ended up on the geek floor in the dorm and it was like coming home. We were a lot like the gang in Real Genius, except for not having an evil professor stealing our work to sell to defense contractors (that I know of). I could quote most of Holy Grail by the time I saw it at a midnight movie on campus because it was just part of the group's vocabulary. The group of friends I have now is a lot like that college bunch (and some of them are friends with my college friends), so the day was both a nostalgia trip and a reminder of how lucky I am to have the friends I have.

Finally, in case you don't have anything to accomplish today, here's a good way to waste an hour of so. It's a collection of snippy (and hilarious) notes posted around offices. Some people are very creative about reminding their co-workers to clean up after themselves, make more coffee and unjam the copier. It's a nice reminder of why I'm so glad I don't work in a real office anymore. Since I've had nightmares about having to go back to work (restless nights are one reason I've been needing extra sleep lately), I think I'm going to go work on my book now.

It's Another CAKE Day

It is a really good thing I have CAKE supplies because today is really going to test my limits. It started with frustrating news. Then I went grocery shopping and ran some errands, and it seemed to be Who Let the Idiots Out? Day. There was the couple who apparently decided that the place to sit in their car and have some kind of discussion was in the middle of the entrance/exit lane for the library parking lot, and right down the middle, so there was no getting around them as they entirely blocked the parking lot that was full of parking spaces for, you know, parking. When I finally gave a short honk of my horn to draw their attention to the fact that they had blocked me in, they just backed up but stayed in the driveway instead of pulling into a parking spot. Just around the corner, I got behind a lady who decided that the four-way stop with no traffic coming in any other direction was a good place to do her makeup, and then I got stuck behind her at the next light, where she finished her makeup job during the green light, barely making it through on yellow, so I was stuck there for another cycle of the light. At the grocery store, the theme for the day seemed to be "park your cart diagonally across the aisle while you peruse the shelves and then act affronted when someone needs to get past." And then my favorite checker wasn't there to snap me out of my bad mood before I went home. I hope he's okay because this is around the same time I always go, when he's always there. Maybe he just got a day off.

But the fun wasn't over. I got home and found the sheetrock guys to fix the hole in my bathroom wall waiting on my front porch. The contractor had said he'd call to let me know when they were coming, and since I hadn't heard anything, I'd figured it would be next week, so of course they showed up the moment I left the house. The first call I had from him was a message saying his guys were there. Um, thanks, that's helpful. It was a good thing I was already so irritated by the drivers that I changed my mind about doing some additional shopping while I was out. And then there turned out to be a conference call I was supposed to be on at that time, but my invitation to it had bounced, so I just got the "why aren't you on the call?" message. Fortunately, that was able to be rescheduled so that I don't have to be dealing with a conference call with workmen in my house.

To heck with CAKE , I may need wine. And I may start the CAKE at lunch. I should probably avoid human interaction as much as possible for the rest of the day because they're all out to get me.

On the upside, I got more than 5,000 words written last night, and the US continued our women's Olympic gymnastics all-around streak.

Teaser Time

It appears that not only do I run out of words at a certain point, but if I go over my limit, I can't dredge up any the next day because I barely got anything done yesterday. I did ultimately force myself to at least review the previous day's work and then finish the scene I was in the middle of, which added about a thousand words. Though I'm not sure I can blame the previous day's success for the slump. It was kind of a "Squirrel!" day, with the pre-orders going live and all the questions that came up from that and then the excitement of very briefly making a couple of the category bestseller lists on Amazon. Alas, I've dropped down again, but it was fun and exciting for a while, and very, very distracting. I think I know the next scene to write, and I don't have any appointments today to force me out of the house into the heat, so I hope to get back on track. I was enough ahead that one bad day won't make me miss any deadlines.

In the meantime, we've got all sorts of preview-y goodness going on. They released the teaser trailer for the next season of Doctor Who, and I can hardly wait:



And there's a teaser for the third season of Haven. I tried embedding it, and it didn't work, so here's a link that should work.

But I have to finish a first draft before either of these shows come back. Maybe that will make the time fly.

While I'm teasing things and talking about my books, there's now a teaser excerpt of Much Ado About Magic up on my web site. This is the first scene that opens the book. I hope it whets your appetite for the book itself, coming in just under two weeks.