Blog Entry: Autumn, Embarrassment, and Chapter One
Autumn has definitely arrived in northern England. The leaves are starting to change, the sky is pale gray, the air is full of chilly mist, and we had to turn on the heating in the house a few days ago.
But hey! We just got good news yesterday: our rent application has been approved. We're definitely moving south to Wales! Unfortunately, I have to say that the weather is not noticeably better down south (I always love the mock-tourist ad in Jasper Fforde's Thursday Next novels that promises Wales: not ALWAYS raining!), but still, I've been indulging in fantasies of balmy southern weather...maybe a warm sea breeze...
Oops. I think my fallback fantasies are actually about my brother Ben's neighborhood in Miami, not Wales. Time for a quick mental shift...chilly autumns, but also castles! Two coffee shops AND a library in walking distance of our house! Yup, that does it for me. :)
Yesterday, errands ate most of the day in the way they often do - as usual, we figured, well, we'll just get these few things done...and then the day was over. Oops. But the weirdest errand by far (which was also the most fun) was buying birthday gifts for MrD. I still can't believe it's been almost a year since he was born.
Actually, my huge mental block on that - it can't have been a whole year, surely! - led me to make the most embarrassing mistake ever. I found out last week that a good friend is coming to the UK in early October, I said oh yay, come visit us in Wales! (thinking, oh, October is a long way off, I'm sure we'll have moved by then)...and then this morning as I was lying in bed, it hit me: October is NEXT WEEK!
Oops.
Luckily, she is a very good friend, and only laughed at me a little bit rather than throwing things across the internet at my head. And she's even changed her travel plans so that she can see us in Leeds instead of Wales, so I am feeling very relieved (while also still horribly embarrassed). (I would love to blame that kind of mistake on baby-brain and lack of sleep, but really...as my family can attest, I've ALWAYS been awful with stuff like that!)
But to alleviate some of my embarrassment, I got a piece of really good news: my editor said it would be fine to put up the first Chapter of A Most Improper Magick on my website! So I did.
Here's Chapter One, free to read online. I hope you enjoy meeting Kat and her sisters!