Boards on my ceiling . . .

I think it's a bit of overkill on Guy's part, but there are boards on my ceiling.  Seems that when we fixed the foundation by raising one side a good four inches, and a center wall six, (and put a supporting wall back in where someone had taken it out) we cracked the caulk around the upstairs tub and it's been slowly gathering water above our downstairs ceiling.  I knew there was an issue, but I'm not convinced that it's not a cracked pipe.  In any case, we have boards on the ceiling until we go somewhere for spring break and the guys can get in and fix it.  Ahhh the joys of restoring a 120 year old house.  This is irksome, but not tremendously difficult compared to what we've done already.  Sort of like a boob lift.  -ha!-

I spent what time I had yesterday getting all my names straight for the Hollows Insider, which is available for pre-order, by the way!  No cover yet, but it's there.  I am so jazzed about this that I can't stand it.  A few years ago, my editor came to me and asked for a world book, citing a few in the industry so I could get a feel for what they wanted.  Dates, figures, character descriptions, maps, you get the idea.

Well, I tried.  I really did.  I blame it on the MPL.  I wanted a real certificate, so I spent an entire day trying to figure out how to make one, and I did.  Once I had that, I wanted Rachel's driver's license, a menu from Juniors, and a walking tour of downtown Cincinnati.  It just got worse.  I added pictures, (Thank you, Mark!) and spell books, and journal entries, and performance reviews, and police reports, and newspapers.  It evolved into an entire story line that explained the Hollows while giving that same dry information most world books contain.  I had fun–too much fun, as I cramped my writing schedule and ate up my vacation.

Heart in my throat, I bundled it all together and sent it to New York, knowing it was not what they were expecting, but hoping they could see what I saw.  This could be beautiful, colorful, and utterly unique.  And I waited.  And waited.  And waited.  Wrote another Hollows book, and waited until I got the news that they could work with what I gave them and I wouldn't have to rewrite the whole thing to make it easy to produce instead of beautiful to hold.  Now I can't wait for you to see it.  There's just a few pieces missing, and I'll be asking you for that over the course of the next few months with several contests where you can submit pictures for the newspaper pieces.  I'll give you the caption, and you get creative.

But today?  Today I'll spend today going over chapter one a last time for content before hitting chapter two for accuracy.  Then it's wash, rinse, repeat until I'm done.  And then . . .  And THEN . . . .  I AM WRITING SOMETHING NEW!  I've got all summer to play with an upcoming anthology, and I've got tons of ideas that only need a little space to play in.  Yay!

HOLLOWS INSIDER