Monkeys and Cadillacs

What's going on? Do I have any stuff going on? Or is it all coffee and éclair?

No, it is not all coffee and éclair, so you can stop giving me that look right now, missy.

Here are some thing that are going on, bullet style:

• Lisa and I took a curvy mountain road out to Indian Wells (that's, like, around Palm Springs or something) to see the NBA Phoenix Suns beat the Dallas Mavericks in a pre-season game played in an outdoor tennis stadium. It was very pretty out there in that clean, rocky, witheringly hot kind of way. I do not miss living in a desert. But the game was quite fun, and I ate peanuts.

From Suns game - Indian Wells 2010

• I've got a school visit set up for next month, which is something I'm hoping to do more of. My publisher says the ARC for my next middle-grade book will include information regarding setting up visits with me, the gist of which I've put up on my website.

• Speaking of the next middle-grade book, there's not much to say at this juncture. I reviewed and approved copyedits last month, so the next thing for me to do will be reviewing typeset proofs. I've seen the latest iteration of the cover art, and I'm looking forward to showing it off once it's final. The artist is the super-talented August Hall.

• My mom's having some major surgery in a few weeks, and while everything's shaping up to look good and improve her quality of life, there's Stuff and Logistics I'm helping her and my dad with. The nature of Stuff and Logistics means that I've had to make several trips to their house recently, with several more upcoming. Depending on traffic, it's 2-3 hours to my parents house, each way, so I'm a bit drained physically and mentally, but not as drained as my parents are, surely.

• Said draining has made it harder to find Novel Brain, the condition under which one drops into the flow of work and produces words the way a crazed macaque produces spittle and monkey poo. But I really can't wait for the macaque, so I've been working on Osteomancer's Son at a more laborious pace. We don't always get to choose the conditions under which we work, but work must get done anyway. Or else it never gets done and you miss your deadline and everyone sues you and tries to run you over with their big publisher Cadillacs.

The truth is, missing deadlines is very bad for all kinds of reasons, but publishers generally don't punish you to the extent of demanding your advance back. And I've still got more than a year to write this book, but I want to get it done early and leave myself plenty of time to fix the cruddy parts and get a head start on the next book, and also leave myself time to write things not currently under contract. I try to look at finishing by deadline as the worst-case scenario.

• To tell you the truth, I can't remember the last time I had an éclair.

• I have to do laundry now, as I'm getting down into my emergency underwear.