Lyda Morehouse's Blog, page 90

New Cover

This just in... Tate's newest cover:



So... what do you think?

Cold Turkey

Unbelievably, we have almost no leftover turkey in the house today. This is made especially amazing by the fact that I roasted a ginormous 24 pounder. To be fair, there is some ground turkey in the freezer awaiting soup, but there's almost no stuffing left, no potatoes, no gravy, no yams, and just a tiny bit of cranberry sauce. How am I supposed to have lunch? I suppose I could have the stuffing and cranberry sauce, but that's just kind of sad, don't you think? Although my stomach just growled at the idea....

We had our usual Thanksgiving guests, the Jacksons, for fud and jigsaw puzzling. My friends, who love me, got us this awesome puzzle, which was entitled "Michael the Archangel Slays the Dragon While Almost No One Pays Attention." Tell me that wasn't tailor made for me?! Plus, it was actually challenging. It took us almost the whole time the Jackson were here to put it together. Luckily, Shawn "the Closer" Rounds helped at the very end when most of the rest of us (except stalwart Michele, of course,) were completely burned out.

Plus, we got to have the occassional discussion that started with Jack saying, "Why does Michael fight the Dragon anyway?" Though I probably never properly explained it, since I had a hard time talking and puzzling.

Also, since the Jackson kids are now old enough to be excellent babysitters, Shawn and I got to have an adult night out with the Jacksons which involved dinner and a movie. We went to see HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS (Part 1). I am now glad that we decided NOT to take Mason to this in the theatre. More under the cut...
It was still cool to go to the theatre. The last time Shawn and I were out to a movie, it was for Star Trek (the new one.)

The only other news I have is that while I was cut off from the interwebs, Tate's Ana #2 arrived all copyedited, which means I have to review that and get it back to the office by Dec. 6th. No more lying around playing video games for me, boy howdy.

The Cold, Gray Morning After

The day after your birthday is such a rip-off. I mean, yesterday, it was AWESOME that I was turning another year older. Now I'm just old.

But, one of the fun things we did to celebrate yesterday was go to HPB. Shawn and I often argue a bit about my book buying habits. Thing is, I have a tendency to want more books than I read. I know that we all do that to some extent, but, for me, some books that I buy NEVER get read. I've been trying to be better about only buying things that I'll actually read (and trying out books that I might not get into from the library.) But, Shawn will often remind me of this when I have a pile of books in my hand, and I end up very glummly putting them back. (*Especially* glum, because I know she's right.) At any rate, I got to get what I wanted for my birthday. I didn't end up buying any books, though. I bought a bunch of comic books.

In fact, I still had a list of comic books I should try to find in my pocket from a visit with another writers' group several weeks ago, and I managed to find a few. I picked up JMS's Thor (1-8) and Secret Warriors (Hickman) collection, and while I was thumbing through the comic books for other titles I almost lost my lunch because I saw an artist with the last name Braithwaite working for Marvel. I actually had to surrepticiously open up the mylar to see if this Braithwaite was my cousin, Laun. My cousin was the one who first introduced me to his (and his father's) comic book collection and the two of us used to draw and write our own comics ever since we were knee high to a grasshopper. Laun, in point of fact, drew in a more than passable Jack Kirby style and so it wasn't completely impossible that Laun could have gotten a gig as an illustrator/artist. He was also the sort (and probably still is, though we haven't spoken for decades) who could name a comic book's writer, artist, illustrator, and letterer. However, last I'd heard, Laun was busy being a dad and a rock star in LaCrosse. Alas, this Braithwaite was some dude named Doug Braithwaite, a Brit. But, man, what are the odds?

Today my big plans are to go home and take care of all the various animal needs. I have fish tanks to change, gerbils who need fresh bedding, and cats who could stand to have fresh litter (srsly!).

The glamorous life of a published author, I'm telling you!

And, I'm going to try to avoid reading too many Harry Potter Part 1 reviews. I seriously considered dragging my family to a midnight showing last night, but Mason is still awfully young for a film like that. It's a funny thing, but books are different. You can close them. You can take a breath and talk to people about how you feel about the scary or sad stuff as it happens. In a film, everything happens so fast. It looks SO real. It's so BIG. Mason has had trouble with this in the past, when he went to a double feature as part of a school field trip. At any rate, I didn't want to see the film without him, so Shawn and I have decided to wait until it comes out on DVD. I can hardly wait, though. Last night at Wyrdsmiths we talked a lot about our opinions of DEATHLY HALLOW, and... well, now I think I may have some fanfic to read. naomikritzer said that someone's done Neville Longbottom's year at Hogwarts and I think that might have made a more compelling first part of DEATHLY HALLOWS.

At any rate, I hope you all are well.

It's My Birthday

I woke up with a birthday headache, which thankfully went away. Now I'm hanging out with Mason at Adventure Peak and he's coaxing me into doing things my 43 year-old body really rather resists (and laughing at me.)

Late to the Internet

Today has turned into a very weird day for me. I knew we were meeting with an energy audit guy from Xcel, but I didn't count on how much I've gotten used to my morning routine of internet, coffee, etc. It's already 3:12 pm, and I'm only just now done checking my usual things. I feel completely out of whack.

On a more positive note, our 100 year old house is leaky, but not nearly so much as I'd have thought. Probably the biggest thing facing us is the fact that we NEED to get insulation in the attic floor. Because of our big roofing job, we now have vents in the roof, which are basically big holes for heat to escape (which is in fact why they were installed, but, well, this sort of thing works much better on a modern house in the winter.) But, the guy who came out was actually VERY good at reading us. He could tell from our conversation what we would entertain and what we would not.

I'm afraid I'm very adamant that air is a fine insulation for a house that was built 100 years ago. Despite what our energy auditor attempted to imply, people who constructed houses in 1912 did know how to insulate with the technology they had, and they did KNOW that houses built in Minnesota needed to stay warm in the winter.

However, I would definiately entertain the idea that now that roofers poked holes in our roof, the situation in the attic has changed.

Of course, the auditor tried to sell us an Xcel plan to fix all this, but he also offered other options and told us about a lot of little things we could easily do ourselves to help keep the house warmer and the gas prices down for the winter.

So, for $30, I think we got a good deal, honestly. We now know what we should be considering/saving up for, etc.

In other good news, my second Tate book has been finally officially accepted, so money should be coming shortly for that. Also, my editor sent along cover art, which I like well enough. I only have a .pdf of it right now, so I can't share it yet. I'd suggested a theatre mask be involved to hide part of Ana's face, but they decided not to go with that. Instead, they hide part of her face with her hair. It works okay, but it makes a little less visual sense to me. I'll let y'all decide when I post it. However, they're going with the same model, and the same font, and same basic style, so you know, it could be worse as we say here in Minnesota. She's a very striking woman, and she's looking straight out at us again, so it's very clean, visually.

I finally finished reading an illustrated novel called RAGGEDY CHAN by Camille Picott, Illustrated by Joey Manfre, which I'll be reviewing shortly for my ODDyssey gig (general note: thumbs up!). As part of that, I also recieved a book called IMMACULATE DECEPTION by Scott B. Pruden. You can perhaps see from the title why I thought it might be a good fit. I'm going to try to read it over the Thanksgiving break, since I won't be able to write much with Mason home any way. naomikritzer also loaned me her daughter's copy of THE AMULET OF SAMARKAND by Jonathan Stroud, because I pretty much trust Naomi to know what I like in YA after several successful recommendations.

Other than that, my birthday is Thursday. I'll be 43. I already got my present, which is a year's membership to kuk sool wan, which I expect to enjoy twice a week. (Last night was once again made of awesome. I will not only be Captain America by 45, I expect to be Kung Fu Panda by 44!)

Cheers.

I'm up, I'm good

Wow, I had one of those weekends where I totally disappeared from the universe. Sorry, here I am. How are you?

I think I got buried in the snow. It was cool, wasn't it? After slipping and sliding our way to Mason's second to last swim class, Mason and I played snowballs. Much wet fun was had.

I've been having dreams about forgetting my flight back from Europe and driving without breaks. I think that means I need to get more writing done. Or I should check to make sure I'm not forgetting other gigs.

Okay, Mason's bored now (he has off for Thanksgiving, etc.) and we went back to out old coffee shop, and for some reason he gets bored here a LOT quicker than at the new place. Plus the prices have gone up. I won't be coming back here any time soon, alas.

New "Link Salad"

So here's some stuff that happened while I was away from the internet:

I'm now available to be researched: http://niurarebooks.blogspot.com/2010/11/lyda-morehouse-papers-now-available.html

My newest graphic novel review is up: http://sciencefictionmusings.blogspot.com/2010/11/contrast-in-outer-space-two-sf-graphic.html

Words!

I was able to write yesterday! Whoot! In fact, I wrote about five or so pages (in courier, double space) -- somewhere over 1,000 words on Tate's Ana #3. However, I didn't excercise. I made the decision not to go to the gym thinking that we MIGHT make it out to karate later after Mason's after school class called "Safe at Home." But, everyone was too pooped. Plus, it was PITCH dark outside. Damn.

Alas, I'm paying the price today. I've got low-grade back pain which is adding to my general sense of ennui. :-)

Today the big thing I need to do is get my driver's license renewed. I just realized that my birthday is coming up in nine days, and that's the deadline, isn't it? Thus, after I finish this stuff, I plan to go to the gym, bathe (so I can fix my very crazy hair), and go get my picture taken and pray I still pass the eye test.

Wow, the glamorous life of a published author, eh?

What's Wrong with Me?

I have a new book to write (Tate's YA book #3), and I've been having a hell of a time getting motivated (or, as my family likes to say "motor-vated") to write it. I think the truth is that I've fallen out of the habit. naomikritzer and I have talked about this before. Even after however many years publishing books, it's still easier for me to write if I DO IT EVERY DAY. Writing *isn't* like riding a bicycle. I seem to totally forget how to write/have discpline if I take too long a vacation from it.

One of my big goals today is to actually put words on screen.

The weirdest part of this fallow period is that, although I have been doing quite a bit of "in-take" as I talked about before, I'm actually kind of excited about the proposal that I sent in. Book #3 should be fun to write. I just have to start it.

The weekend was busy. Friday was Mason's half-day, and we had a lovely fire and Mason read a lot in front of it. I did some more yard work, because we as many trees as we have, the raking is never done. I managed to put the herb garden to bed, which is a big project.

On Saturday was Mason's continuing swim class. He's still having a great deal of fun with it, and really seems to be on the brink of really, for real swimming on his own. Saturday, despite the wind, I did a little raking -- though the front could use another pass, since our really-late to change maple finally dumped most of its leaves. (With the early winters we have been having lately, this tree usually sheds onto snow.) I must have bagged about a dozen bags. Can I just say the compostable bags SUCK. It takes almost no pressure to rip them to shreds, so all I can say to the St. Paul garbage folks who will be picking them up: "sorry! But, dude, you brought this on yourself!" (The compostable bags are required now, or they won't pick up at all. It's awesome that the city picks up our lawn waste, but, man, the bags are whimpy.)

Saturday afternoon we did an exchange of junk with Shawn's brother Keven, with whom we've been estranged for two years. We reached a kind of truce via e-mail, which is... good? It's all very complicated and not something I really want to go into with great detail, because, honestly, the various problems we've had with Keven have spanned the entire twenty-five years Shawn and I have been together. Still, that first meeting in two years was nicely anticlimatic, but it still left Shawn and I exhausted. I think we'd had a lot of anxiety leading up to it, so we crashed hard afterwards. We ended up watching BBC's "Planet Earth" (a small bit of the several disc set) and eating Red Savoy's pizza in a daze.

Sunday we spent more time in the attic, which we are still trying to clear of roofing detrius. Not exactly a fun-filled weekend, and it was made somewhat less pleasant by the fact that the sudden change in barometric pressure gave me a sinus headache most of Sunday.

But tonight should be fun. Mason has an afterschool class called "staying safe at home." And, then, if we're not too pooped after that, we're going to try and hit the later kuk sool wan class for white belts/kids (we usually do the 5:00 pm class, but I don't think we can make that one with Mason's schedule tonight.) I feel badly that we haven't quite settled into a routine with karate yet, but I have faith that we will.

Okay. No more stalling. Off to write and then excercise.

Early Release Day

Crossroads does this thing they call "early release days," which always makes me think of prision and parole. But, what it means is that Mason is off a bit early from school today. When I asked him what he wanted to do with his free afternoon, he told me that he wants me to make a fire in our chiminea outdoors and bring out a big pile of books to read while warming his toes. Doesn't that sound lovely?

Speaking of Mason's school, I need to complain about something. Apparently, this year they're replacing parent-brought snacks with a "new veggie a day" program, where they supposedly introduce the kids to various fruits and veggies they might not otherwise try. They've had things like strawberries and kiwi and mango, which all sound lovely. But Mason reported they also had sweet potato...

...raw.

Who the heck eats sweet potatoes raw??? I mean, I know you CAN, but my response was, "What are they *TRYING* to get kids to HATE vegetables?"

I shake my head.

Well, I should head home soon. I was hoping to make meatballs for dinner tonight and maybe bake up a batch of dinosaur cookies.