Stephanie Burgis - Magical Books for Ages Ten to Fifteen

Literary families

September 7, 2010, 8.49 pm

Today I re-read one of my favorite contemporary fantasy novels for adults, Ilona Andrews's On the Edge. It's a great fantasy adventure, it's also a wonderful romance...but what struck me this time, in combination with that mental list I made last week of the comfort books I'd want to carry with me everywhere, is that it's also a fabulous book about family.

Rose, the heroine, is a young woman who had to become a grown-up very fast when her parents both (in different ways) abandoned her. The family that she does have left - made up of her two younger brothers and her grandmother - is her main focus in life, the thing she'll give everything to protect.

They're all fabulously well-drawn characters, but when I finished the book this time round, I found myself really missing my grandma in California, because Rose's own grandma is such a great character. She's strong, she's smart, she's loving, she never lets Rose get away with lying to her or to herself...and in my favorite scene of the two of them together, she gives Rose heartfelt, perfect advice that is ABSOLUTELY WRONG for her granddaughter. It's such a perfect family moment: two people loving each other, trying to protect each other, and sometimes screwing up anyway for all the right reasons.

Families: strong, believable, flawed (because they're made up of humans, who are never perfect), and fiercely loving. They're my favorite things to read about.

Looking at my list of comfort books made me realize that that's the big constant, for me, in almost all of my favorite books. I looooove reading about families, whether they're bohemian and eccentric, like the family in Hilary McKay's wonderful Casson family novels, or aristocratic and repressed, like the central family in Loretta Chase's Carsington novels...the main point is, I just love reading about how families interact with each other. I find it endlessly fascinating when it's done well.

And it's the one theme that keeps popping up in my own writing, too, which I guess is not surprising. Even in the dragon book, where I physically separated my heroine from her sisters before the book ever began, that same old family theme keeps coming back again, like an irrepressible force. I just can't stop exploring it.

What about you guys? Do you prefer reading books where the heroines/heros are safely isolated from any family influences, free to have adventures without interference from any interfering relatives, or do you prefer the ones where they're pushing and pulling against their families (whether loving or not) throughout the adventure?

And what are your favorite family books?

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Hair, life, links

August 11, 2010, 7.12 pm

Here's the great thing about having actual public events lined up: they're the perfect motivation to keep myself from falling into the soooooo tempting stay-at-home-mom-writer pit where I NEVER get my hair cut (or worn-out clothes replaced) because it never seems worth finding the time. Today, shockingly, I had a new haircut just one month after the last one.

It was the first time I'd had two cuts so close together since before MrD was born...and my hairdresser was visibly relieved! After finding out last time that it had been the first cut in five months, I think she had dire concerns about whether or not I was really grown-up enough to maintain the nice haircut she'd given me...and I have to admit, if I didn't have tomorrow's launch party as a spur to make myself presentable, I probably wouldn't have.

I really loved this bit from one of Sarah Dessen's recent blog entries:

I know I've said this before, but for some reason, I keep waiting for things to Calm Down. You know, get manageable again. But it's been three years since I became a mom, almost, and the chaos is clearly here to stay. I also realized recently that I have this habit of just waiting for, you know, that finish line moment, when everything will fall into place and it's smooth sailing from there on it. Like the end of a movie, right?

I loved the whole entry but laughed in particularly rueful recognition at that paragraph. Ohhhh, yeah. After MrD was born, I was SURE things would calm down within a few months...and yeah, they did, but then he became a toddler...and then, and then, and then... Funny, it turns out life is just a lot more full and complicated (as well as rich and often joyful) after you become a parent, and it doesn't ever really go back to the streamlined non-parenting timeline. (Well, except maybe after they leave for school or university? Obviously, we're not there yet.)

I really liked LK Madigan's blog entry Do You Need a Door?, which collects thoughts from a whole bunch of writers about what kind of writing space they need (including some thoughts on how that can change after having children). I am soooooo jealous of Deva Fagan's lovely writing desk, shown in a photo there! Nowadays, I do most of my writing while lying on a couch or a bed, while MrD is at his childminder in the morning or (if I'm lucky and he sleeps deeply) during his afternoon nap. But I still think longingly about coffeeshop writing trips...maybe I will fit one in soon. After all, I spent several months thinking that I couldn't fit in haircuts, and it turns out those really are possible. So who knows?

What would you guys really like to do, if you only had the time?

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Publishing, Writing, Treats

August 6, 2010, 5.13 pm

It's been five days since A Most Improper Magick officially came out, and I've finally stopped running to my bookshelf every day to prove to myself that it really was published. It's gone in and out of stock at Amazon.co.uk (and stayed steadily in stock at the Book Depository); it's finally started to hit the shelves of a first few branches of Waterstones in the Midlands, although it'll probably be another week or so before it's unpacked at all the different Waterstones branches around the country.

I've sworn to myself to STOP looking at the Amazon rankings (AND the Book Depository rankings, for that matter). I've been thrilled by the first few reviews on Amazon, which means that now would probably be a smart time for me to stop looking for any more. (We'll see if I manage to restrain myself...wisdom says one thing; experience says another...)

Here's the one thing that has reliably worked every time this week that Publication Crazy has started to overwhelm me: writing something new.

I'd planned to give myself this week off writing, since I'd worked so hard to finish Kat3 in time to send off last Friday. Well. That was a really, really bad plan. What I'd forgotten, when I decided that, was that NOT writing always makes me antsy and edgy - and when you add that to Publication Crazy...urk!

Wednesday, when I found myself in such a crazy mood that I kept checking Amazon every few hours just in case anything exciting happened (and yes, I am embarrassed to admit this!), I finally went back to a very, very silly short story that I'd begun several months ago (but left unfinished because I didn't have time to work out the plot tangles at that point). Reading through the story-so-far, I giggled out loud. I wrote the obvious next few lines...and I felt my muscles begin to relax. All that buzzing stress slowed down and melted away.

Writing is really, really good for me. Funny how easy it is to forget that...

Which makes this a good time to finally mention that the Clarion West Write-a-thon ended last week! Thank you SO much to everyone who sponsored me in it this year. I really, really appreciate it. My original plan was to finish the Kat3 rewrite and send it off by July 1st, and then to write 40 pages of new projects. Unfortunately, about a week after the 6-week write-a-thon began, MrD's childminder went on unexpectedly early maternity leave, and we were left with about a month of little to no childcare at all...and there went all my major writing sessions for a month. Oops.

In the end, I finished the Kat3 rewrite, sent it off last Friday (on the last day of the write-a-thon), and wrote about 15 pages of new projects as well, along the way. It wasn't all that I'd hoped at the beginning of the write-a-thon...but it was a LOT better than it could have been, considering the circumstances. And it's way more than I would have accomplished if I hadn't had sponsors who'd believed in me and contributed to Clarion West on my behalf. I remembered you guys every time I felt too tired to write, or felt tempted to just blow off a writing session and surf the internet instead. Knowing that I had sponsors kept me honest, and I am so grateful for it.

It's tempting to lash myself right now for not doing everything I wanted to do - surely there MUST have been a way somehow to get all my goals accomplished even without childcare - but for once, I'm not going to. I'm trying to learn how to not freak out when I don't accomplish everything I want, and to be happy with what does get done.

Right now, I'm about to make myself a really rich hot chocolate, in honor of everything I have managed to do this summer, often in difficult circumstances. What about you guys? What small treats have you been giving yourself lately?

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Voting against perfectionism

July 23, 2010, 4.32 pm

Whew. With nine days to go until A Most Improper Magick releases in the UK*, I feel like I'm standing in the middle of a whirl of to-do lists, all of them AMIM-related...but the single most important thing that's happened for me this week is that - incredibly - I actually hit THE END on my rewrite of Kat3! I still haven't sent it to my editor because I need to do a very quick last read-through for historical fact-checking and to make sure I haven't introduced any inconsistencies...but this still feels absolutely huge to me.

Ever since MrD was born, I've had to realize over and over again that my understanding of how fast I can write is no longer completely accurate. More than that - I just can't control my own schedule the way I used to. I started this revision on May 1st and planned to turn in the finished draft on June 1st - but it turned out that I just couldn't revise fast enough. Then I planned to turn it in by July 1st, and I really think that could have happened - but MrD's childminder unexpectedly went on maternity leave a month and a half early, and we lost almost all our childcare for about a month. Oops. There went all the time I'd planned to use on finishing the rewrite.

Add in viruses sweeping the family and all the other complications of having a little kid and having CFS...and, yeah. The feeling of relief that swept through me when I typed THE END was one of the sweetest feelings I've known for quite a while.

Thank goodness my editor is really, really generous and tolerant! The only pressure on me has been self-inflicted - she just told me to take the time I needed and not to freak out about it. After all, it won't be published for another 3 years - who cares if I'm a month or two later than planned? But for a perfectionist like me - the girl who HAD to get all A's in school or else (or else what? I don't even know anymore)...well, forgiving myself for missing a deadline is an almost impossible goal.

But I am learning - slowly and painfully - to be a little kinder to myself about my new, slower, post-baby pace. Sometimes I see childless authors producing multiple books a year, and I feel a twinge - that's what I should be doing! But then I look at MrD, and I think about all the joy he gives me, and the joy we give each other by spending so much time together right now while he's so small. That would be worthwhile no matter what. And when I look back later in life, I can't imagine myself thinking I should have spent less time with my son so that I could write faster!

So today I'm consciously working to celebrate my achievement without all the internal qualifications that want to pop up and take over. (Like: Yeah, but you'll still turn it in almost 2 months late! Loser!) Today, I'm not going to let that nasty internal perfectionist be the one who wins.

Yesterday I printed out the Kat3 manuscript for my final read-through. Tonight, some very much loved family members are coming into town, and I'm going to enjoy my time with them this weekend without freaking out about what other "productive" things I could be doing. Monday, I'll sit down with my manuscript and read it through. By Friday, it will finally be on my editor's desk. And right now, I'm just going to be happy about that.

What about you guys? What small or large achievements are you celebrating right now?

--

*It's become a little complicated to talk about my book now that it has two different titles! My solution for now is to refer to it as A Most Improper Magick when I'm talking about the UK edition, and to switch to Kat, Incorrigible when I'm talking about the US edition...but you may see me wavering awkwardly between the two from time to time in the next several months!

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The good kind of tears, write-a-thon, and links

June 15, 2010, 5.39 pm

This morning I cried for the best possible reason. My UK editor emailed me the brand-new, completely re-vamped British cover for A Most Improper Magick - and it is *perfect*. Not just a great cover, but EXACTLY the perfect cover for the book I wrote and dreamed about for so long. When I saw it, I started to cry because it was so amazing that my book had been so perfectly understood.

I'm sorry to tease by saying this and then not actually showing you guys the cover, but I'm not allowed to share it publicly yet. I really hope I can SOON - but in the meantime, it just would have felt really wrong to write a journal entry today and not mention the new cover, because it made such a difference to my day (and week and month!). It's been many hours since I got that email, but I've still got the PDF of the cover open in another window on my computer, and I haven't gone more than half an hour between ogling sessions ever since I first opened it. ;)

There are some days when writing is easy, some when it's hard, some when it's angst-ridden, interfered with by panic about publishing issues or fear of what people will think of the book or, or, or [insert neurosis here]]...and then there are days like today, when I am just filled with awe that I have been so, so lucky.

(And I wish I could go back in time and show this cover to the self of 7 years ago, who was - at just about exactly this time of year - taking Nika on long walks in the woods and crying the terrible kind of wrenching tears as she walked, because she was so convinced that she would never, ever manage to sell a novel or even a short story, EVER. It really was worth all those years of crazy, stubborn persistence in the face of all the odds, to get here.)

In other news, the 2010 Clarion West write-a-thon is about to begin. I finished the first draft of A Most Improper Magick during the first write-a-thon, and the first draft of A Tangle of Magicks (Kat2) during the 2nd; then last year I set myself super-ambitious goals that turned out to be way too challenging for life with a young baby who would only nap on my lap. This year, I've tried to figure out goals that are both challenging AND honestly do-able. I'm hoping to finish the rewrite of Kat3 and write 40 pages of some other project/s, whether that means the dragon book or a new short story or something completely different.

My write-a-thon page is here. I'll be really grateful if any of you donate in support - going to the Clarion West workshop was the best decision I ever made for my writing career (not to mention my personal life, since I met Patrick there!), and I could never have afforded to attend if I hadn't been given scholarship money. The write-a-thon raises money to give scholarships - and thereby opportunity - to other new writers who couldn't afford the workshop otherwise.

But even if you don't donate, I'll just be really grateful for the moral support as I work toward my writing goals this summer.

And my very last link - today I interviewed Angie Frazier about her wonderful YA debut historical-adventure-fantasy novel, Everlasting (which Heidi Kling called "Part Titanic, Part Raiders of the Lost Ark with a spunky teenager heroine"). You can read the interview here!

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Unqualified Goodness

May 2, 2010, 9.43 pm

I really love this blog entry by the very awesome Karen Healey, where she orders women to stop qualifying their achievements and start taking pride in them. (And I'd personally extend that order to the men I know, as well.)

In that spirit, I am not going to focus on the fact that I started my Kat3 rewrite one day late. I am going to focus on the fact that today, despite feeling absolutely terrified, I took out the first draft and began to read, aided by three perfect pieces of encouragement and motivation:

1. This quote, which I came across on the internet yesterday, stared at in shock (because it felt SO relevant to my blocked state), and ended up saving onto my computer to keep open on my screen as often as possible over the next month:

"May I have the courage today to live the life that I would love, to postpone my dream no longer, but do at last what I came here for and waste my heart on fear no more." --John O'Donohue

2. This song, Jem's "It's Amazing", which is directly relevant to anyone trying to get up the nerve to do what they have to do to make their dreams come true:

(It's the kind of soft pop that I don't normally like, but the lyrics more than make up for it, for me.)

3. A vegan chocolate hazelnut brownie...because not everything that's good for me is healthy. ;)

I read through the first third of the novel, not stopping to make any large changes yet, but making notes where I felt things didn't work, so that I can come back to them later with a sense of how the book works as a whole.

The best part? I realized tonight that, without ever consciously thinking about it, my whole attitude had shifted since that moment when I forced myself, with so much difficulty, to start reading. This morning, when I thought about the book, I felt terrified: OMG, how will I fix the problems in the first draft?

This evening, as I settled MrD down to sleep, I spent the time thinking about the problems in the first draft - not fearing them, but thinking them through, puzzling at possible solutions with the same feeling I have when I'm working on a kakuro puzzle: calm curiosity and absorbing interest.

It's a really good shift.

What do you guys use to motivate yourself to do the things you're scared of doing? And: how has your weekend been?

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The Scary Stuff

April 26, 2010, 2.09 pm

Here's the weird truth about fulfilling my dream for the past 25 years and selling my first books - oh, and finishing the trilogy, too, and being about to see the first book come out in bookstores where I live. (97 more days till the UK pub date, according to my daily Waterstones.com update!)

Last week I went into my local Waterstones (and no, I haven't yet gotten up the courage to introduce myself to the manager as a local author) and looked at the space on the shelf where my book will be. It's a good space. It'll be eye-catching. It's what I always dreamed of.

I felt sick to my stomach with panic.

I finished the first draft of Kat3 in early February. I planned to start revising it in March. I didn't, because sitting down to revise it made it feel much, much too real that I was turning in the final book in my trilogy.

I started writing another book, my dragon novel, which made me laugh and feel giddy with happiness every time I thought about it. I wrote the first 11,000 words. Then someone asked me a fair, well-meaning question about whether one particular aspect of the novel was going to be commercially sensible at this point in my career...

...and I stopped. I haven't written a word of it for about a month now. Because right now, as I wait for my first book to come out, to find out whether anyone will buy it, whether anyone will love it the way I love it, whether my publishers will be thrilled or horrified to have paid me for it?

I am TERRIFIED about the concept of what is commercial and what isn't. And every time over the past month that I even thought about going back to the dragon novel, which had been making me so happy before, all I could feel was sick panic about my career as an author...which is distinctly different from my work as a writer.

I feel weird and insecure about posting this entry, because I feel like I should be staying positive and upbeat on my blog, as a general rule. But I read a wonderful entry a few days ago by one of my favorite authors in the world, talking about her own insecurity issues, and it made me feel like a ray of light was shining down into the dark, panicky corners of my own brain...so I decided I should go ahead and post about the scary stuff, too.

I just got my first two crits for Kat3, and they were both incredibly useful AND incredibly positive and enthusiastic, which was a huge relief. Patrick's reading it for critique right now. As soon as his crit is ready, I'm going to sit down and force myself to dive into the revision, even though that means admitting that yes, for better AND worse, I really am almost finished with this series I have loved so much.

In the meantime, my goal this week is to brainstorm and make a collage for my dragon novel, diving back into everything I loved about it and focusing on those aspects and those alone to figure out how I can have the most fun possible with this novel. After it's finished, I can let myself (or better yet my agent! hi, Barry! :) ) worry about whether it's commercial or not. Right now, that kind of speculation is the kiss of death for my creativity, and I can't let it take charge.

Whew.

Hitting the "post" button now, before I can give in to insecurity one more time and press "delete".

What are your goals this week? Or: what are you scared about?

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Friends, Moondust, and Short Stories

April 12, 2010, 4.02 pm

Oof. MrD has been sick again this past week - a throat infection that started about three days after the chest infection went away, and which requires a whole new round of disgusting antibiotics to be forced down him four times a day - so we’ve all been pretty exhausted. Then, yesterday, I woke up with an ominous, thick-headed feeling, and today I officially have a Cold From Hell.

So in other words, I am very tempted to spend this whole entry whining, because colds always make me feel very, very sorry for myself! But I will take pity on you guys and restrain myself. Instead, I’m going to focus on the good stuff that’s happened in the last few days.

First, our friend Tricia drove four hours roundtrip to help us clean out our old house after we moved out, AND she brought homemade soup for us to eat after she’d gone. That was way beyond the call of friendship, and it made such a huge difference to us. (The soup was delicious, too.) Thank you sooooo much, Trish!

Second, I’m reading a really fascinating book right now: Moon Dust: In Search of the Men Who Fell to Earth, by Andrew Smith. It’s about the twelve men who walked on the moon between 1969 and 1972 - still the only twelve men in history to have done it - and how they spent the rest of their lives afterwards.

It’s got elements of a history book to it - I love the intensity and vividness of his descriptions of the actual moon-walking experiences - and elements of biography, too. It’s mostly written like a memoir, though, with the focus on Smith’s own personal experience of meeting with the moonwalkers and finding out their stories. I’ve never been particularly interested in the history of the space program, but I’m finding this book incredibly compelling, and it’s really inspiring me to find out more about the whole subject.

Lastly, I just got an invitation to a very cool-sounding anthology, so this morning I started a brand-new short story. It’s a bit different from any of the stories I’ve written in the last year or so, so it feels like it’s stretching me in really good, creative directions. Working on it reminds me of Ursula LeGuin’s theory that what everyone in life is really looking for, deep down, is work-play - the kind of satisfying, challenging work that feels like playing.

It’s the kind of work I love to do…even when I do have to sniffle and gulp down gallons of tea as I do it.

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Happy Saturday

March 20, 2010, 11.25 pm

WHEW. We've been approved for the new house! There are still lots of reasons to cross our fingers (for instance, we hope to be able to move in April 1st but have been told that the house might not be ready yet on that date - and our current tenancy expires March 27th!), but right now I'm just massively relieved to have that next stage figured out. And if we end up having to put all our stuff into storage and go hang out in a holiday cottage somewhere in the Welsh mountains for a week or two...well, darn, is all I can say. ;p

(I really, really like the Welsh mountains. Have I mentioned that before?)

This morning we went out to the local market, where we followed our recent Saturday tradition of buying fabulous curries and baghlava from the Persian food stall. The nice thing about being regular customers is that my "small" tray of delicious, fresh-made baghlava gets stacked higher and higher every time! (I have become a VERY loyal customer because of developments like this.) I also found out that today is Iranian New Year. So: happy New Year! :)

The CFS is doing a lot better. I feel a little nervous writing this publicly - I don't want to jinx myself! But I've been holding off on saying this for a few days now, and I'm starting to feel confident again. I really am feeling much better. WHEW.

And best of all, I wrote 1530 words today and finished Chapter Three of the dragon novel. Yay! I am having so much fun with this book. My neurotic back-brain - the same part that made me give up Kat1 for a year because it convinced me I could never, ever pull it off - keeps trying to waylay me with regular panics about my competence as a writer (this one is too hard for you! you'll never pull it off!), the idea's inherent marketability (it will never, ever sell, and people will sneer at you for even imagining it could!), etc., etc., ad nauseum...but what keeps me going through all the assorted panics is just how much fun this book really is to write (combined with fabulous cheering-on from Patrick and my beta-readers, Tiffany and Jenn).

Today I managed to make Patrick laugh out loud when I read the chapter to him. Score!!!

So it's been a happy Saturday. :) How about you guys? How is your weekend going?

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Bad Week, Cheer-Ups

March 11, 2010, 11.15 am

I try to keep this journal upbeat, but the truth is, this has been a very bad week, mostly for health reasons. The CFS has been a real pain all week, and I'm not even sure why. (This is one of the frustrating things with CFS - you learn how to manage it, how to carefully balance activity and rest, and then, suddenly and unexpectedly, it goes haywire anyway. What a cheat!)

So I haven't been doing as much writing as I wanted to do, and I'm way, way behind on emails (even more so than usual). Sorry!!!

On the other hand, here are some things that have cheered me up this week, and I'm really hoping you guys can suggest some more things for me to check out while I wait out this crash.

1. I am incredibly proud of my brother Ben, who is now officially known as Dr. Burgis! (Ten years ago, I didn't know a single Dr. Burgis. Now there are two of them in my immediate family, and within a few years, there will be three. It's pretty incredible. But I rely on my youngest brother to keep me from being the only non-PhD in the family...okay, Dave??? ;p )

Seriously: congratulations!!! I am so proud of my little brother. (Who is now, of course, about a foot taller than me. But whatever!) And here is the great webcomic one of Ben's friends drew to express the terror of an oral PhD defense, which made me laugh a lot.

2. My glittery dragon stickers arrived! I had so much fun arranging them on my moleskine for the new novel. Inspiration + laughter = perfect. :)

3. Before the big crash hit, I managed to get halfway through Chapter 2 of the dragon novel, and it's making me really, really happy. I can't wait to get back to it!

4. Ying Lee's first book, The Agency: A Spy in the House just had its North American debut! I love this book, and burbled about it last year when it debuted in the UK. Ying is the first novelist I ever wrote a fan letter to, because I was so excited when I finished reading her book. Girl spies in Victorian England! Disguises, mystery and intrigue! A perfectly-toned romance! A genuinely unexpected family secret, a whole host of strong, interesting women, and a completely non-stereotypical view of the Chinese community in Victorian England!

So, so cool. You can read an excerpt on Ying's website.

What about you guys? What's been cheering you up this week?

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I R Serious Writer (TM), and a gruesome TV side-effect

March 7, 2010, 4.47 pm

OK, there are some days, ever since I signed my first book contracts, when I can actually pretend to myself that I am a Serious Professional Writer...and then there are days when I just can't.

Here is the most recent evidence, from my Friday night of prewriting play for the Austen-y dragon novel:

Erm, yes. Well. Um... ;)

Of course, as hopelessly silly as it is, playing with the novel also really, truly works. The more playful I am, the more productive I am and the easier the novel flows. My evening of pre-writing play resulted in me finishing Chapter One today and feeling total happiness about it...

...but, well. It's not exactly the kind of thing that looks like an impressive, grown-up job, does it? Oops.

In other breaking news, dark chocolate also helps writing, in a pinch. And vegan hazelnut brownies are full of super-delicious WRITING MAGIC.

Also, I may have been watching just a few too many episodes of "Castle" lately. I keep finding myself imagining all my surroundings, wherever I am, as the setting for one of the gruesome victim-discovery scenes that open every "Castle" episode.

Eep.

Then, of course, I need more chocolate...

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Inspiration and dragons

March 3, 2010, 11.25 pm

So, life goes on, and now that I've finished Kat3 and I've signed the contracts for the UK sale...well, it's time to start writing the next novel.

Actually, I'd been planning to take off some time between novels, because there's a lot more research I have to do before I can get started on the 30s screwball comedy I've been planning. I figured I'd just play around with short stories for a month or two...but then I realized that I honestly just can't cope with the angst of waiting for my first book to come out unless I'm involved and obsessed with a brand-new book.

But which book? It's really scary to start a new, unrelated book after working on one trilogy for the last four years - especially while I'm waiting to find out how that trilogy will actually do in the marketplace. I've spent the last few weeks feeling really unmoored, and every time I started trying to have fun with novel-planning, I ended up feeling panicky and scattered - the least creative mood possible.

What finally did the trick for me, no matter how weird this may sound, was a computer desktop wallpaper that I found in Smashing Magazine's March collection. I saw this wallpaper - a girl walking down a road into adventure - and something clicked inside me: Yes.

Symbolically, it works on such a great level for me, because that girl is exactly who I'm writing for - the twelve-year-old girl I used to be. And that's who and what I need to focus on right now.

I downloaded the wallpaper onto my computer. I spent some time just looking at it and letting myself daydream. Things began to click into place in my subconscious.

And then yesterday, I sat down and wrote the first 1000 words of...

...a very Jane Austen-y YA dragon book! It's silly and romantic and just for fun, and I am having such a good time with it. This is the one that has been bubbling in my subconscious for a while now, in one form or another. For a long time I thought it was a no-go because all I had originally was the concept without the characters - but then yesterday while settling MrD into a nap, the characters slid into place, my whole body started tingling with excitement...and voila! I was scribbling madly about ten minutes later.

I'm over halfway through the first chapter now, and that girl is on my desktop, reminding me every step of the way why I'm writing and who I'm writing this book for.

What about you guys? What works to inspire you when you're feeling scattered or stressed?

___

PS: I am still researching the 30s screwball comedy while writing this, so please do keep on keeping me in mind if you run across any fun 30s novels in the meantime...

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Life Interruptions and a Call for Help

February 6, 2010, 5.45 pm

Poor MrD has been sick the last few days (nothing dangerous, just the usual kind of baby virus), so life has pretty much ground to a halt...between sheer exhaustion on all our parts, a cranky, sad toddler who needs full-on cuddles and attention, and the usual round of paranoid (and mostly unfounded) parent fears, I've been feeling lucky to manage 600 words a day. So in other words, Kat3 is Still Not Done (I feel like Aragorn: Still not King!)...which is kind of frustrating but also kind of a relief.

It's a weird feeling, coming to the end of a trilogy. On the one hand, part of me feels furiously impatient: I want to FINISH this book, I'm SO CLOSE to the end now! But on the other hand, I genuinely have to fight down tears when I think about how soon I'm going to be done writing this series. I love Kat SO much. I love her sisters and her brother so much. I love writing about them all so, so much - I can't bear the idea of saying goodbye!

So far, the only thing that's worked to cheer me up is thinking about my next book. I don't want to go into too much public detail yet in case it doesn't work out, but I had an idea several months ago that's gotten more and more compelling to me. It's a really scary idea to contemplate, though, because it's set in a time period I don't know much about - 1930s America. (If ONLY it could be set in 1930s Britain - I know so much about that setting! That would be easy! But no, this one insists on being America.) So: major research time!

I don't know how other historical writers work, but for me, the three things that help the most are letters/diaries, biographies, and novels from the time period. Of course, general history books are useful and important, too, but they don't work as well for personal inspiration. So, for the Kat novels, I read a ton of biographies of women from the right time period (especially Jane Austen, since I was basing Kat's own general family situation - her father a clergyman who used to be a Fellow at Oxford and now takes in male students for tutoring; lots of siblings; not much money - on Jane Austen's own upbringing), read Jane Austen's and Fanny Burney's letters voraciously, and of course re-read Austen's novels, especially Northanger Abbey.

As far as the 1930s goes, I grew up obsessed with 30s screwball comedy movies, which are a great start, since I want this to be a screwball comedy of a novel. I've started reading nonfiction books about Hollywood in the 30s and biographies of different film stars from the period. But what about novels from the period? There, I'm drawing a huge blank. All the American 30s novels I can think of - Grapes of Wrath, etc. - are excellent books but massively depressing, which is exactly the wrong mood for my novel.

If I were setting this in England in the 30s, I'd be re-reading Dorothy Sayers, Agatha Christie, Stella Gibbons, Nancy Mitford, Evelyn Waugh...so many great options! But I really don't know where to get started with the American 1930s. Can you guys think of any genuinely *fun* American novels from the 30s? Ideally, they'd be funny, but at the very least, they shouldn't be depressing.

I'd be so grateful for any recommendations. Help!

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Sleepy brain, speedy book, scandalous shopping temptations

February 3, 2010, 11.17 pm

OK, I sat down at my computer tonight, called up livejournal onto my screen...and thought, I'm too tired to write an entry tonight. The only problem is, that's what I thought last night...and the night before...and if there's one thing parenthood has taught me, it's how to write even when you're so exhausted, the world is starting to go blurry around you.

(When MrD first started waking up every 1-2 hours through the night, I stopped even trying to write fiction, because really...how could anyone possibly be creative on such an insane, tortuous sleep schedule? I figured I'd just wait until it got better before I even bothered to try again. Then I finally realized that, oops, it wasn't actually going to get any better, at least not any time in the short-term future...so I had to learn how to be creative and productive anyway, no matter how little sleep I'd gotten. A year later, it's become pretty much second nature, but it sure didn't feel that way at first.)

Luckily, the book has been speeding along again after the temporary block last week. Today I finished the chapter that was the scariest and most emotionally wrenching chapter to write in the whole trilogy. I embarrassed myself by actually starting to cry yesterday as I read part of it out loud to Patrick. I am sooo not the distant, sophisticated type of writer...oh well. Not a surprise, really, to anyone who knows me. But I am making a note NOT to ever read that particular chapter out loud in a reading, if I want to keep my own makeup smear-free...

And speaking of dangerous things, for my own financial sake, I have GOT to unsubscribe - and soon! - from the Jane Austen Centre gift shop's mailing list! Today they emailed me about their Valentine's Day collection...and ohhhhhh, I want so many things! But what made me jaw LITERALLY drop open was this compact mirror. Anyone who's already read A Most Improper Magick will know exactly why I got so excited - and even if you haven't read AMIM yet, you can just check out the front cover illustration to see just how important a certain compact mirror is to the magical (and emotional) plot...

I am not going to buy it for myself. I am NOT. I am strong, and I will resist. But I might just peek at it a few more times...

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Serendipity, Turtle Steps, and Modified Success

January 31, 2010, 4.30 pm

Serendipity can be a funny thing. This week I've been re-reading Martha Beck's (wonderful) life/career guidance book, Finding Your Own North Star, for the umpteenth time, and this time, like every other time I've read it, I've come across various bits that are newly helpful for this particular point in my life. But it's never happened with quite such spookily perfect timing, before.

I've been reading it pretty slowly, because it's my book for reading while I settle or re-settle MrD into his naps. Yesterday, when I went upstairs to settle him down into a nap (my main writing time, btw, comes while he sleeps), I was at a point of total writer's block and absolute panic about the whole thing. Kat3 had been progressing so, so well lately...but then, just as I hit the beginning of the final, climactic showdown between Kat and the Big Bad, I froze up completely. Mostly, I think this is just because it really hit me that, OMG, this is the climax to the final book in the trilogy - it has to be REALLY GOOD!

And that has to be the least helpful message to hear screaming in the back of your head as you sit down to write a difficult scene...

So in other words, I was totally stuck, to the point where on Friday I hadn't managed to write at all, and Saturday I was convinced I wouldn't get anything done either (and maybe I just COULDN'T FINISH this novel at all, OMGOMGOMG!!!!!). But then, as I got MrD to sleep, I hit the point in Finding Your Own North Star where Martha Beck talks about how to get yourself to do something you REALLY don't want to do, something that's been looming over you so intimidatingly that you've completely panicked and turned to avoidance instead of even trying. (She used writing her PhD thesis as her example.)

She gave lots of different strategies for getting going, but the two that stood out to me were turtle steps - picking very, very tiny daily goals, SO tiny that they feel manageable even at your most panicked - and Do it badly! - which means, let go of the need to do it perfectly (or even well). Just DO IT, and if you're doing it badly, at least that's better than not doing it at all.

I had been reading fairly casually up until that point. But those points really, really resonated with me. I stopped reading. I started thinking. MrD went to sleep...and I went downstairs, chose a daily writing goal of 300 words (rather than the 1000 I'd been trying for before), and sat down just to write a rough draft, no matter HOW rough that turned out to be, and not to let myself worry about quality, just to get the words down...and I ended up writing 1200 words that actually made me really happy AND set the whole showdown in motion, making the whole rest of the novel so much easier to write.

WHEW.

So. My original goal was to finish Kat3, which I'd expected to be 70,000 words long, by the end of today. I'm pretty sure - well, no, I'm positive - that that is just not going to happen. On the other hand, in today's writing session, I passed the 70,000 word mark, and I liked what I had written. I've got less than 10,000 words to go, and I'm having fun.

So...for once, I don't feel too bad about not hitting one of my own goals. And even if I have to turtle my way through the rest of the book, I think that'll be okay after all.

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Writing caves, glamor, and Regency-era TV fun

January 29, 2010, 4.05 pm

Wahhh, our friends are gone...which means it's time to go back into the writing cave! And as we all know, the most vital supplies for trekking through unlit and dangerous writing caves are dark chocolate and Earl Grey tea. (Unless, like Patrick, you prefer Sencha green tea, or, like the pre-baby me, you get to enjoy the intense and decadent luxury of drinking coffee...oops. I may have started drooling on the keyboard there. Sorry about that!) (One more year till I can go back to drinking coffee. Only one more year to go...)

Anyway, it was great being social. And yesterday I had one of the coolest things ever happen to me. I got a beautiful invitation on thick, cream-colored paper, inviting me to a London Literary Event (TM) at a super-glamorous hotel. Eeee! Obviously, I said yes...and equally obviously, my first thought was: I need a new dress! Honestly, I really do. That's the thing about having a baby - I don't have any dresses that actually fit anymore, because my size first went WAY up and then WAY down. And all the comfy jeans and toddler-food-stained T-shirts that I normally wear just don't quite gel with my idea of appropriate attire for an evening party serving champagne and canapés, to say the least...

So thank you to everybody on Twitter who leaped in last night to help me pick out a Little Black Dress! It was incredibly fun to shop with help from friends all across the world. Now all I still need are some shoes...hmm... ;)

(And of course part of me right now is asking, "Who do you think you are????" Because once you become a mom - or no, I should be honest and say, once I became a mom, the concept of wearing a little black dress and going off to an evening party suddenly started to sound like a total pipe dream. But I am going to be strong and have faith that I can still carry it off after all, even after 16 months of living in stained T-shirts and jeans and a total lack of glamor!)

Now back to the writing cave...but with really excellent music to cheer me on. Patrick recently bought the full boxset of Sharpe TV episodes and got me totally addicted to them. Sean Bean plays a rough Northerner promoted to the rank of an officer (to the horror of all his upperclass-twit colleagues) who swashbuckles his way through the Napoleonic wars with awesome female guerilla commanders fighting by his side in Spain, obnoxious aristocrats blocking him at every turn, and - of course - evil French captains twirling their mustaches menacingly. It's just enormously fun...and now that we also have the Sharpe soundtrack on CD, that's become the perfect writing music.

So off I go. Wish me luck in the cave!

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Tea, Werewolves, and Social Whirls

January 27, 2010, 7.12 pm

I am LOVING all the food requests at <a href="http://lisamantchev.livejournal.com/340771.html">the online ARC tea party</a>. OK, it's become obvious that I have TOTALLY different taste in desserts than many people - but that's fun, too! And mostly, I just love that so many people are playing along. :)

(And FWIW, I personally believe that traditional cream teas are the most blissful culinary experience EVER. I grew up reading Elizabeth Peters/Barbara Michaels novels where American heroines go to England and get teased by the hero for going SO INSANE over the cream teas...and guess what? They were totally right.) (In both respects, actually. Unlike me, Patrick is not a cream tea fan, possibly because cream is not vegan.)

In other news, remember the urban werewolf anthology I talked about, the one that's going to publish my story "Locked Doors"? The editor, Ekaterina Sedia, has just posted the Table of Contents, and it looks awesome. Now I'm even more excited about it!

And this week we are being astonishingly social, since some wonderful friends have come into town. No, this doesn't mingle well with my plan to finish Kat Book 3 by this Sunday...but it has been really wonderful and fun, especially after our last month of being hermits in our writing cave. I did have one moment where I wondered whether I should stay home and write instead of hanging out...and then I thought, Are you CRAZY, woman?! Because our friends are only here for four days, and this is, after all, a self-imposed deadline. All the same, I'm sneaking in 500 words here and there every day, so the end is getting closer...and closer...

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ARC ahoy!

January 25, 2010, 4.51 pm

I promised back in December that I would give away one ARC a month through April - and even in the midst of writing madness, I have not forgotten. But this time, you'll have to go on a visit with Kat to find it. She's been invited to take tea with Lisa Mantchev's Bertie and the fairies!

Join the teaparty and enter to win an ARC of A Most Improper Magick!

I love that Lisa let me write fanfic for her characters and world. And can I say how bizarre it is that it felt SO much easier to write fanfic for her characters than my own? Kat's voice is SO strong and clear in my head that it's been sheer pleasure to write her first-person narration in her own novels - but I found it almost impossible to write her in third-person in someone else's world. Funny, that...I guess I'll have to leave Kat fanfic to other authors! ;)

(And can I just say how much I LONG for people to write Kat fanfic and draw fanart for her world? That's one of the biggest things I hope for when the book is published. My understanding is that legally I'm not allowed to read any Kat fanfic...but oh, I really want it to exist somewhere out there in the world! And any fanart will be devoured by me with great delight.)

Today has been a day of irritating but mundane trials - our car battery is dead without warning, so far too much of today has been devoted to trying to get it replaced - but today has also been a great day, because I wrote 1,410 words, finished the first stage of Kat3's climax, and had such a fabulous time with it. I really think I might finish this draft by the end of January after all. Knock on wood for me, please...

And then go join Kat's ARC teaparty! Winners will be chosen on Sunday, January 31st...by which point I HOPE to be the tired but triumphant writer of a complete draft of Kat3.

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Writing, critiquing, and jewelry-shopping

January 23, 2010, 4.45 pm

Oops. I knew I hadn't been posting as much as usual, but then I actually looked back at my last post and...I hadn't realized I'd let that much time slide by. Sorry! I am still here, I've just been in mad, final-push mode on Kat3. I'm at about 64,000 words right now, which would mean I was nearly done if I was still aiming for 70,000 words, total...but there is NO WAY I'll be done at 70,000 with this one. That's the downside of writing the most complex book in the series, with the biggest number of characters and subplots - it does take longer to wrap up!

(Just in case my editor reads this: but not too much longer, honest! I promise not to turn in anything that makes the desk shake beneath its weight. ;))

On the upside, though, I am really, really enjoying it, and I hope - knock on wood for me, please! - I really, really hope that other people will enjoy it too.

Kristin Cashore wrote a great blog post about first readers, which is great for any writer to read. I'm very lucky in that I've found a circle of really fabulous first readers and critiquers for my books. This becomes a little easier when you're writing a series - if someone has liked and given great suggestions for Book One (and really, for a good first reader, both of those points are equally essential - someone can be an absolutely brilliant critiquer, but if they don't like your kind of book, if your tastes don't mesh in that particular way, then the book you're trying to write won't be the one they can help you to refine), it's a good guess that they'll be great first readers for Books 2 and 3. On the other hand, this definitely ups the personal nervousness factor - if someone loved Book 1 and Book 2 but didn't like Book 3, that would be terrifying.

Right now, since I'm still in the middle of writing the first draft, I don't ask for any critiques, because that would completely stifle me. (I've made that mistake in the past and ended up blocked for MONTHS.) Instead, every time I finish a new chapter, I read it out loud to Patrick and then email it out to a couple of trusted friends (this time round, Jenn Reese and Karen Healey), who send me back encouraging emails like: "Ha! I love that bit", "Ooh, Charles is being HOT!" or simply: "Aaack!" (Trust me, that one really is encouraging, in the right circumstances. ;) ) I can't even express how helpful this is in terms of pure motivation. Sometimes, when I'm feeling tired and blocked and completely unmotivated, I open up their old chapter-response emails and re-read them to remind myself that people are WAITING for the next chapter - so hurry up, writer lady!

Then I finish the book. And at that point, all the critiquing floodgates are opened, and all my encouraging friends suddenly show their teeth. For instance, with Kat2 (A Tangle of Magicks), Jenn sent me a critique that involved one suggestion so massive and terrifying that I was HORRIFIED. No way! I could NEVER do that! It would change EVERYTHING! It would be SO HARD! It would make Book 3 completely different! It would...be a really good idea. Sigh. Needless to say, I did it...and I am so, so glad I did. I'm really lucky to have smart friends.

Anyway. Soon I will have other things to talk about besides writing! (I hope.) Right now, though, between childcare and intense novel-drafting, my life is very uneventful. (I loved the line I read recently in a book about eighteenth-century women, in which one 18th-century mother described her parenting day as a succession of "a thousand little nothings". Parenting is wonderful, rewarding, difficult work, but unlike most other jobs, it's hard to point at any concrete productive accomplishments on a day-to-day basis.)

Oh, but wait, here's one exciting event: I bought new earrings! Yes, this really was exciting. ;) (My brothers are both rolling their eyes at me right now.) I just discovered a new-to-me Etsy store that I LOVE. I bought myself these earrings, and Patrick bought me these. When they came out of the package, I let out the loudest and most embarrassing squee-ing sound of delight! They are absolutely adorable. So if you feel like doing any jewelry shopping, I heartily recommending checking that store out!

Now back to writing. I have a chapter to finish!

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Poe's birthday, and my first sale

January 19, 2010, 7.15 pm

It's Edgar Allan Poe's birthday today. Hooray! I loooooved Edgar Allan Poe's stories when I was a kid. I can still remember turning off the light in my bedroom, closing the curtains and curling up in the dark with a flashlight to re-read "The Tell-Tale Heart" in the perfect ambience and be deliciously creeped out. I've always been a wimp with a weak stomach for horror (and oh, the embarrassment that caused over the years - I VIVIDLY remember the shame of having to walk out of my class's viewing of "Poltergeist" in 8th grade!) - but Poe always worked for me beautifully.

And I have a special, added fondness for Poe because he was responsible for my first short story sale. When I was 15, my English teacher assigned us to all write short stories in the style of Poe. Well. I LEAPED on that assignment! I had so much fun writing my big, Gothic, Poe-styled story, "La Maison Cherbignac"...and then, incredibly and mind-blowingly, I actually sold it to Merlyn's Pen (a magazine edited by adults but written by teens)! (I also got my first taste of what professional writing really feels like, since the first phone call I got was to ask me for revisions. If I revised well enough, they would buy the story...so that was my first experience of frantic and passionate revision for a sale!)

By the time I was 15, I had dreamed for years of being a professional writer. Making that first sale, when I found out that my revision had actually been accepted...oh, it felt like pure bliss. It was the best thing that had ever happened to me.

Unfortunately, adults running kid-written magazines aren't always ethical, and I've ended up feeling pretty unhappy about the way Merlyn's Pen used the story in later years, especially after they bought the copyright from me (something I should never have sold - if any 15-year-olds read this, please remember that lesson!). But the sheer joy of that sale - that first moment when I thought Maybe my dream will come true, after all - will stay with me forever. And for that, I will always be grateful.

Happy birthday, Edgar Allan Poe!

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Happy Thursday

January 7, 2010, 4.58 pm

It's been a bad last few days for many reasons, foremost among them that MrD has been sick. Nothing dangerous or unusual - just a normal combination of winter illnesses for toddlers - but as I'm rapidly learning, any time my baby is sick, life pretty much grinds to a halt until it's over. I didn't quite give up writing in the past few days, but my wordcount shrank very, very low, and for once, I couldn't make myself regret it. When my baby's sick, looking after him - and decompressing while he sleeps - really does cancel out all my other priorities.

But! Today the whole world is shiny and happy because he's feeling better. Yayyyyy! Everything feels happier and lighter now, and all my goals suddenly sound so much more do-able. So I thought I'd list some of the things that are making me particularly happy today:

1. For the first time since I moved to the UK 8-1/2 years ago, we have what I would call a real winter snowfall. We've got 4 inches in our little Welsh town, and Maya goes mad with joy every time we let her out. She does high bunny-hops through the drifts, bites off snowballs and even throws them for herself! Watching her makes me laugh and laugh and feel pure happiness. (Plus, snow just inherently makes me happy, even here in the UK where it also makes things deeply inconvenient, since there's no real set-up for dealing with it, and therefore the trains stop running, many of the roads don't get salted, etc., etc. I don't care! It's snow, and it feels like magic every single time I step outside.)

2. My friend Aliette's first book is being published in the UK and Australia TODAY, and I can't wait to read it. (I pre-ordered my copy from Amazon, and it still hasn't been dispatched. GRR. But still: book birthday!)

Aliette is a fabulous writer (she was nominated for the Campbell award for best new SF/F writer last year!), and this book sounds absolutely awesome - a smart, dark, historical fantasy/mystery for adults set in the Aztec empire. It won't be published in the US until September, but you can order it from Amazon.co.uk - it's a paperback, so not too expensive to buy internationally. (You can also order it from The Book Depository for free, world-wide shipping as soon as it's back in stock - it seems to have sold out there at the moment.)

You can go congratulate Aliette here, and you can also read the first three chapters of Servant of the Underworld on the blog My Favourite Books. (I probably would have bought the book even without this, because I have faith in Aliette's writing in any genre - but then I read Chapter One and pre-ordered immediately afterwards! :) Yay Aliette! Congratulations!

3. I just made a new short story sale! The story is called "Speaking English", and it's a YA ghost story about Croatian immigrants to America. It sold to an Australian anthology, Belong (an anthology of spec-fic stories about immigration), which is due to come out in April. So now I have even more reasons to look forward to that month!

4. And finally, reading the comments on the interview Ivana Mariç posted with me yesterday made me really, really happy. I can't even begin to express how amazing it feels to hear people I don't even know saying that they're looking forward to my book. That really is magic - there's no other word for it.

What about you guys? What's making you happy this week?

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TV redemption, writing inspiration, and a touch of madness

January 4, 2010, 3.01 pm

OK, I admit it. As much as I truly disliked the Dr Who Christmas special, which was Part I of the season finale, and as much as I wondered if I should even bother to watch Part II after such a disappointing Part I...well, by the end of Part II, I was in tears. It totally blew me away.

I am so, so sad that David Tennant (my favorite Doctor ever) has left the show...which makes it all the more impressive that, after watching the very end of the finale, and after seeing the preview for next season (which we raced to watch directly afterward), I am actually incredibly excited about next season. I'd already been pleased that Steven Moffat (my favorite TV writer) was going to be head writer in this next season, but now I'm even tentatively excited, after all, about Matt Smith. Of course, he isn't David Tennant...but then, nobody (except Tennant) is, and I'm starting to hope that he'll also be wonderful in a different way.

So, yes. My TV disappointment was completely turned around.

I also watched a really lovely, inspirational writing video made by Jackson Pearce and a bunch of other YA writers. Most of you have probably seen it already, but just in case you haven't, here's the link to watch it on YouTube: Everybody's Free (to Buy a Laser Printer). It's a great video not just for aspiring writers but for published writers, too. I plan to watch it several more times, whenever I need it.

In other news, I've reached the beginning of the climax for Kat3, and I'm in a mad writing daze. This is the point where a lot of full-time writers stop showering, answering phone calls, or cooking meals until the novel is DONE. I feel some wistfulness about that - that approach sounds really tempting right now - but as a mom, and as someone with CFS, I just don't have the time or mental energy to go that route.

Even without 24/7 writing, though, I've doubled my daily target wordcount, which feels like speeding to me, and I'm at that crazy stage where the novel is constantly running through my head, even as I read Where the Wild Things Are to MrD for the thousandth time (and even when I'm howling along with him during Max and the Wild Things' wild rumpus). It's a dizzying, almost schizophrenic feeling - here I am with my family, and there I am with my characters, both at the same time - but it's also the most magical feeling I know.

I've been hoping for a long time to finish this draft by the end of January. Knock on wood, I really think I will. But I hadn't been anticipating just how sad I'd feel as it drew close to an end...

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Sleet, Shame, and Resolution Difficulties

December 30, 2009, 12.20 pm

Oddly, I am much less excited by the post-Christmas sleet than I was by all that lovely white Christmas snow. Sigh. I'm trying not to take it as a sign...

Apart from the sleet, though, everything has been going really well. Or, at least... Ahem. Everything has been going well apart from The Horrible And Humiliating Pie Incident, but I don't think I'm quite ready to write about that in any detail yet. Let's just say it'll be a long time before I feel confident enough to bake pecan pie again - or, especially, to offer to bake it for a whole, big family gathering.

Oh, the horror, the horror... shudder!

In other news, I'm trying to come up with a set of reasonable, challenging-but-do-able New Year's writing resolutions. That's harder than it might sound, because I still feel like I haven't totally gotten a grip on what reasonable resolutions actually are when you have a toddler in the house. (Partly, of course, because the answer keeps changing as he grows and learns. What I could do when he was 8 months old and had only just started to crawl has NOTHING in common with what I can do now that he's 15 months old, walking, and curious about everything!)

At various points this past year, I got really frustrated by not meeting some personal goals that - as it turned out - were actually pretty unrealistic. Now, I finally feel like I've gotten into a pretty good writing schedule again, but I'm really torn between aiming high, to push myself as far as I can possibly go, or aiming low, to avoid sickening frustration. Hmm. Putting it that way, I guess there's an obvious answer: aim high but don't hate myself if I fail. Hmm...

How do you guys balance your New Year's resolutions? Or do you not do them at all?

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Werewolves and Copyedits and Guest Posts, oh my!

December 19, 2009, 12.01 pm

This week I had two pieces of writing news that made me very happy:

1. My short story "Locked Doors" is going to be reprinted in the upcoming anthology Running With the Pack, edited by Ekaterina Sedia.

It's an anthology of urban werewolf short stories with lots of great contributors (check out the ones on the cover!) and I'm really excited to be included. Better yet, it's due to be published on May 29, 2010, so I'm guessing it'll be on sale at WisCon 2010 (making the con even more fun for me)!

2. My wonderful editor wrote to let me know that she's sending Kat Book 2, A Tangle of Magicks, over to copyediting. That means that all the major editing is finished, and we're down to mostly line edits for the rest of the process. Yay! And: that's one step closer to making it a real, published book! I feel sooooo tingly excited about this. It's also an enormous relief to know that I'll be able to keep writing straight through Kat Book 3 until that draft is finished, rather than having to take a month off to do more Kat2 editing.

(Also: how cool is my editor? She is so cool that she is also the lead singer of a really great band, Ninth Street Mission. You can download their songs for free on their website. That is pretty cool. :) )

And in other news, I guest-posted last night on Margie Gelbwasser's blog as part of her "Eight Nights of Writing Tips". My post is all about the very best writing tip I know. I hope you enjoy it!

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The trouble with Christmas

December 7, 2009, 5.25 pm

I love Christmas. Really, everybody who knows me knows that. I love picking out presents. I love listening (obsessively) to Christmas music, decorating the tree, lighting advent candles, indulging in long, drawn-out fantasies about how the presents will look under the tree on Christmas morning...

Well, maybe you're starting to see the problem.

Pretty much any parent of a toddler will tell you that time is the thing they have least of in the world. Personally, I'd add "mental energy" right afterwards, and not just because of the CFS. Even if I didn't have CFS, I'd still be exhausted after months of teething (i.e., no sleep for any of us).

Which means...well, I also really, really love writing, but honestly: which sounds easier and more fun to you? Sitting down and working out a tangle in the plot, or browsing etsy.com for cool, unique Christmas presents? Forcing myself through the first 15 minutes of stuckness in every writing session (all the fun ideas and inspiration demand 15 minutes of perspiration to prime the pump before they start flowing, every single time) or...putting on more Christmas carols and checking all my online accounts to see whether Patrick's presents have shipped yet?

Yeah...me, too. Sigh.

So I'm being tough with myself. I just (gasp!) turned off my Christmas playlist. When I finish writing this journal entry, I'm going to turn off the internet for an hour. (If you see me replying to comments before the hour's up, you'll know something has gone wrong, and wow, will I be humiliated! I'm hoping the peer pressure will help me keep my resolution on this one.)

And even if the doorbell rings with a new Christmas package delivery, like it did half an hour ago when I first started trying to focus on my novel, I swear I won't open the package until my writing session is over.

Eek. I'm already feeling a little short of breath and panicky at the very thought of it.

No Christmas fun for me?!?!

Well...not for another hour, anyway.

What about you guys? Do you have anything you're struggling to accomplish right now? I'd love to hear about it to cheer you on (although I can't do any cheering for one more hour)!

ETA: And it worked! Yay!

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Back in the groove

December 4, 2009, 5.31 pm

Can I say just how happy I am to finally get back into my writing groove, after having involuntary time off? SO happy! I would do a dance of joy right now, if it weren't for the fact that it would frighten the neighbors. (I'm sitting in front of an open window, and we don't have any lace curtains. They already have more than enough to deal with, believe me. Between an active toddler and an active dog...let's just say they see a LOT of clutter through our windows.)

This is one thing that makes it soooo convenient to be married to another writer: your partner totally and completely gets that not being able to write can feel like The Worst Thing in the World sometimes - that getting to the end of the day and thinking, I haven't written...again! can feel like the equivalent of saying, What is the point of my life, anyway?!?!

...Which is exactly the kind of ridiculously melodramatic angst that starts flying through my head when I'm not writing. It's another reason why writers have to write: because otherwise all that dammed-up urge to create fictional drama comes surging out into your personal life instead of staying on the page, where it belongs.

Luckily, like I said, Patrick understands why I start flailing around with melodramatic Despair (with a capital D) when I'm blocked on the writing front, and he's wonderfully tolerant of it. But that can't make it fun for him either, I'm sure. And the whole house definitely feels happier when I'm writing again.

I'd had four very unhappy days off (blocked mostly by exhaustion) when I found out about a really disappointing rejection on Wednesday afternoon. Powered by the energy of sheer frustration, I wrote 250 words that night, breaking through my block and FINALLY finishing the chapter I'd been stuck on - because although there's nothing you can do to change an editor's rejection, fresh writing is the best cure for rejection that I know.

I spent yesterday re-reading through the book so far to get a sense of what the pace should be in the next few chapters...then today I wrote 1100 words and left off in the middle of a scene that made me giggle out loud as I wrote it. I'm having fun again, and the whole world feels better.

What about you guys? How are your Fridays going?

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Treats?

November 2, 2009, 6.41 pm

This last week has been full of lots of good things, but it's been an awfully tired week for me, as I've been slammed with post-move exhaustion at the same time as a new phase of teething has hit poor MrD. So even though lots of good things have been going on, I've been feeling kind of bleagh.

Being me, of course, my natural solution to any dilemma, no matter how large or small, is: read a book! ;) Luckily, this time my favorite strategy has actually been working. Right now I'm reading Martha Beck's The Joy Diet: 10 Daily Practices for a Happier Life, and even though I'm a little wary of most self-help books, this one is turning out to be incredibly smart about an awful lot of things. (Her earlier book Finding Your Own North Star is the best career book I've ever read, which is why I gave this book a try.) One of the points that really resonated for me was this:

Our deepest pleasure doesn't come from total lethargy and ease. It comes from experiences that both interest and challenge us. [...] Menu Item #7 shifts your focus from dreading and avoiding difficulty to finding the sort of difficulty you can love, and making sure you don't take it too seriously.

This is so true, at least for me. When I came down with CFS several years ago, I had several well-meaning but clueless people say to me, "Oh, you're so lucky - you can just spend all day doing nothing."

Well...no. Before I had CFS, when I was working a demanding fulltime job and trying to write novels, work on a PhD thesis, and still have some semblance of a family life, I used to think yearningly about doing nothing...but the joy of doing nothing only lasts for so long. After a certain point, it becomes excruciatingly boring. Life begins to feel horribly empty unless you can find a way to fill it with interesting challenges even when you're lying on a couch...which is, of course, one of the many reasons I'm grateful to be a writer, someone who can do their work even while lying down in their own living room.

But she's so right, too, about not letting yourself take your challenges too seriously, because that is absolutely the kiss of death for productive creativity, and something I've been really struggling with ever since I signed the three-book contract. It can be astonishingly hard to remember how much fun something is when you're getting paid to do it! All the neuroses suddenly leap in - Oh, no, I have to take this seriously now... BAD idea.

Anyway, one of the other points in The Joy Diet is that everyone should give themselves several treats a day. Not the kind of generic treats everyone in the world is expected to enjoy (luxurious massages, etc.) but individual treats designed specifically around the kinds of ordinary things that make you smile spontaneously when you're doing or having them.

It's an interesting way of thinking about treats, and when I thought about them that way - what makes me smile? - I came up with a completely different list than I would have otherwise. Here's the list of some of my personal favorite treats, all of which I gave myself yesterday:

• Playing music: not listening to a CD, but actually making music myself, which is one of the biggest joys I know, and one I haven't indulged in for over a year. I pulled out my beautiful alto recorder yesterday afternoon and enjoyed it so, so much. I only played it for about ten minutes, but they were ten minutes that left me feeling loose and happy and wondering why on earth I had ever let that habit disappear from my life.
• Playing with MrD: not just looking after him, but really whole-heartedly throwing myself into a real and protracted play session with him. I can't remember the last time I laughed so much and felt so perfectly happy.
• Writing more of Kat 3. This is one of those things I usually call "work"; in fact, when the CFS arrived in my life and I had to give up my dayjob, it was incredibly important to me to call my fiction writing work, because it meant that I was still doing something productive and important. But after reading Martha Beck's book and thinking about it, I remembered that really, writing fiction is supposed to be play - and last night after MrD went to bed, although I'd seriously planned to take the day off and didn't expect myself to write anything, I surprised myself by having the most joyful and productive writing session in ages, doing it just for fun and enjoying it wholeheartedly. Even after I went to bed, I lay awake beaming into the dark as I thought about the scene I'd written and how much fun I'd had with it.

What about you guys? What would you define as your personal treats?

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Writing tips for teens

October 25, 2009, 6.25 pm

Whew. We've been settled in our new house for a few days now, and it's finally starting to feel like home. Our neighbors have been really friendly - there's a lovely feeling to the community around here - and today is the first day I haven't been to my favorite coffee shop. (I needed to take a day off to protect myself from their gorgeous vegan brownies. CANNOT RESIST!!!!)

So...in other words, it's time to get back down to writing again!

I actually had a really wonderful experience related to my writing in the last couple of days. I got a pair of emails from a very cool twelve-year-old girl and her mother, both of whom had read and enjoyed an ARC of A Most Improper Magick. Their emails made me so, so happy - it feels like a bubble of happiness expanding inside me to know that there are copies out there which people are not only reading but really enjoying in just the way I hoped for. It truly is a dream come true.

One of the things that came up in the emails was a request for writing tips for an aspiring teen writer. I spent all of last night thinking about that, trying to think of the best tips to pass on. When I was twelve years old, I knew with all my heart that I wanted to be a professional writer when I grew up. What would have been the best things for me to hear, if I'd had the chance to ask a pro writer for advice? Here's what I wrote back in the end:

As far as writing tips, of course every writer will probably give you different ones, but here are the things that have been most helpful for me:

-Write as often as you can (every day if possible)

-Write what you want most to read - for instance, I LOVE Regency romantic comedies like the ones Jane Austen and then Georgette Heyer wrote, but I always wished they had magic in them, because I love fantasy so much, too. So with The Unladylike Adventures of Kat Stephenson, I'm actually writing the books I always most wanted to read and wished that I could find on the shelf in the library.

I wish I had let myself do this a lot sooner - I wasted a lot of time trying to write what I thought would make other people respect my writing, which is really a waste of time. You'll always write best when you're writing something you genuinely LOVE, instead of writing to please somebody else.

-Work to improve your writing. Personally, I can't think critically about a first draft, whether it's a novel or a short story. I have to write that draft straight through and just for fun, without getting any critiques or even letting myself think about what could be done better. AFTER I've finished that draft, though, it's time to think about what could be done better, and to ask other people for suggestions. It's a bad idea to take all of everybody else's suggestions - only take the ones that make sense to you and feel right for the story - but it's important to take the time to improve every story, even your best ones. That's how your writing skills will grow.

-And here's my last, totally subjective point...personally, and speaking only from my own experience and that of my friends, I think that majoring in creative writing in college is usually a bad idea. Creative writing classes can be very, very useful - I've taken some wonderful classes & workshops that really helped my writing - but most of the productive, happy writers I know actually majored in something else, and now they have something to write *about* because they know about more than just writing.

I majored in music performance and history, and not only did that give me really rich, interesting experiences that I can draw on for all my stories and characters, I also learned a lot of history that has been particularly useful for my historical novels. I also know writers who majored in physics, film studies, theater, math, biology...the main point of college, *I think*, is to stretch your brain and learn about the world. A lot of people who major in creative writing only know about the skills of writing, and don't have much else to actually write about, which is a real lack.

Again, though, that's just my subjective, personal opinion, so feel free to ignore it! :)

(And a quick note about that last point: I think MFAs in writing are quite different from undergraduate degrees, so I'm certainly not trying to discourage anyone from pursuing an MFA. I think an MFA can be a great and very valuable experience - I just think, personally, that undergrad is the time to explore and find out more about the world, rather than the time to focus on learning writing skills. For my money, the best thing you can do for your writing career, at the age of 18, is learn about the world, and how people work. Writing craft can always be picked up later on.)

What about you guys? If you're writers, what advice would you give a twelve-year-old who wants to be a professional writer one day? If you're readers, what's one question you would love to ask?

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A long whine and a brief Hollywood touch

October 13, 2009, 10.39 pm

OK, it was bad this morning when Yahoo! mail ate an email I'd just finished writing to a good friend (after having written it over the course of two days, because I have so little time to write email right now). But when I actually burst into tears at the loss...well, yeah. That was a pretty clear sign, even to me, that I'm feeling a wee bit high-strung at the moment.

Writing, as the parent of a baby, has turned out to be an exercise in ruthless prioritizing. I have a toddler who's bright, active and curious and needs non-stop supervision while he's awake (which is almost always); I have a novel that needs to be written. Because I want to do my best by both of these (very, very wonderful) creatures who need me, I barely ever watch DVDs anymore, or do almost any of the other things I used to do to relax. That's fine; it's completely my choice, and it's more than worth it. Getting ready to move, though, has taken self-discipline to a whole new level.

I haven't just had to give up DVDs and the BBC iPlayer; to get my novel written as well as parenting, getting the crammed-full-of-junk house sorted out, AND getting all the associated errands taken care of (changing our address with various different authorities, etc., etc)...well, in the end, I just feel like there are a thousand things I SHOULD be getting done every day, and no matter how many I actually do, I always, always feel overwhelmed and behind. Which leads to stress and anxiety and bursting into tears when I finally manage to write a long-overdue email to a friend and silly Yahoo eats it. Sigh.

Whine, whine, whine. ;) Aren't you guys looking forward to next Tuesday, when we'll be settled in Wales? I know I sure am. And I'm very grateful to have this sounding-board for my whining. After next Tuesday - knock on wood! - I should have time to start writing real emails again, and my anxiety levels should go way down. In the meantime, though, it's important for me to keep up with this blog, so that at least I can send up smoke signals to my friends: Hey! I'm still here, even though I'm not answering my emails! I still love you guys, really!

In better news, though, I am still reading, albeit slower than usual, and what I'm reading is awfully fun: Dark Victory: The Life of Bette Davis, by Ed Sikov. It's a really entertaining biography that's making me want to watch Bette Davis's films (as well as making me realize, with some embarrassment, that I've never seen ANY of them); and it's giving me just the right spice of classic Hollywood glamor/cattiness to offset my moving gloom. Take, as an example, the Bette quote on the back of the book:

The laaaaaast movie I made with Joan Crawford was Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? I played Baby Jane, and Joan Crawford played...whatever.

SO much fun.

Kat 3 Wordmeter

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Bullet Points Galore

October 9, 2009, 9.45 pm

I've been saving up points for a blog entry for SO long now, I think bullet points are the only way to handle it! Otherwise I might just explode trying to link them all neatly together. ;)

• This morning several wonderful people emailed me different articles about the most positive and important medical discovery about CFS/ME that's ever been made, to my knowledge. The physical virus that causes the syndrome may have been isolated; if this theory turns out to be correct, even though the syndrome will still be lifelong and incurable, there will actually be *possible treatments* - something that's been completely impossible until now. This is so incredible, it's...well, there really aren't words for how wonderful it would be. But as I read the end of this article, I found myself chanting under my breath, "Oh, please, please, please..."...and really, that sums it all up. Here's the NY Times article about it.
• My awesome friend Jenn Reese (the one who came up with Kat's series title!) has truly awesome news: she's now agented by Joe Monti at the Barry Goldblatt Literary Agency! I am enormously happy to be agency-mates with Jenn, and I can't WAIT for her to sell her wonderful trilogy of girl-powered science fiction adventures! You can congratulate her here.
• I was lucky enough to win a copy of Megan Crewe's YA novel Give Up the Ghost last week. I was expecting it to be fast-paced and fun, but to be honest, based purely on the description, I also expected it not to necessarily have much depth. I was right on 2 out of 3 points. It was fast-paced and fun...but what made it honestly wonderful was the raw emotionalism of the novel. I cared passionately about the heroine, and that was what made the story matter so much, way beyond the snappy pacing and banter.
• We're in the process of getting quotes from moving companies, sorting through masses of old clothes and books, and generally being overwhelmed by moving madness...but all the same, in the best news for a long time (on a completely subjective personal level, that is), I'm actually powering with some speed through Kat3! The big motivator for me (apart from JoNoWriMo, which definitely helped to kick-start me after far too much time off) was my realization last week that it had been a whole year since MrD's birth...and yet, I still wasn't back in a regular writing habit. Ouch. So I made a vow that from now on I absolutely have to average at least 500 words/day until the novel is done - and if I manage to stick with it, I should actually have a draft done by the middle of January at the very latest. WHEW. Just to keep myself honest & accountable, I'd really like to set up a wordmeter at the bottom of my posts from now on, but the old one I used to use at zokotou.co.uk doesn't seem to work any more. Does anyone have any wordmeter recommendations?
• And in not-very-surprising related news, I'm having SO MUCH fun with Kat3 now that I'm actually playing in that world every single day instead of only popping in and out at long intervals (and thinking, What? Who? Was I planning something here...?). Now that I'm absorbed in it all again, it's just a totally different experience. I was actually giggling out loud yesterday with pleasure as I wrote one scene, and one of the moments I wrote today...well, all in all, I just feel really, really lucky to be getting to do something I love so much. Getting paid to write this trilogy, in particular, is just one of the best things that's ever happened to me in my life. And I'm so glad to be finally giving Book 3 the energy and focus it deserves again.

That's it for me! What about you guys? What are your highlights from this week? And can any of you link me to a good wordmeter?

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Today's blog entry

September 29, 2009, 3.34 pm

...is over at Blogfest, where today's question from a teen reader is: “When you’re writing a book and making up characters, do you feel like you become that character, as well as that character becomes a part of you?”

Here's how I answered. What about you guys? Those of you who are writers - have you had similar experiences with your characters? What about from a reader's POV? The first time I read Izzy Willy-Nilly by Cynthia Voight, which is about a girl who's lost one leg in a car accident, I actually forgot that I still had two legs! It was a real shock when my dad called me down to dinner and I saw that both legs were whole, because I'd gotten so absorbed into Izzy's mindset.

So what about you guys? As readers, have you felt that you ever became certain characters as you read about them?

You can leave a comment on the Blogfest entry. Hope to see you over there! :)

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Friends, writing, and photos

September 15, 2009, 5.52 pm

Sigh. I love having guests, but it always feels so sad when they have to leave!

We had a great time with Tiffany Trent, who came on Saturday and stayed until this morning. We talked writing, books, pirate girls and perfect SF convention T-shirts...we went out to Bolton Abbey to show Tiffany what my imagined "Grantham Abbey" in A Most Improper Magick was based on (and ohhhh, that was a poignant trip, since it may well have been my Very Last Trip to Bolton Abbey, if we really do move to Wales in a few weeks)...and in a brilliant move, Patrick and I used the excuse of a houseguest to justify getting lots and lots of wonderful Indian curries from our favorite restaurants. Yum!!!

It was a really smart move to invite a writer to stay, too, even beyond the sheer pleasure of Tiffany's company. There is nothing more stimulating and motivating for my own writing than to hang out with another working writer, especially one who's working on so many cool projects! After my week off from Kat3 to work on Kat1's ARCs, I had really fallen out of the groove of my current book. I kept opening up the MS Word document, looking blankly at the half-completed scene I had been working on beforehand, and thinking: what in the world was I planning to do next? I can't remember!

Then Tiffany arrived, we talked for hours about writing and fantasy and books, and the very next morning, I sat down, opened up my document, and wrote 600 new words, finishing the scene and chapter with a totally unexpected plot point that makes me really happy. I LOVE hanging out with other writers! Thanks, Tiffany!!!

While we were at Bolton Abbey, Tiffany and I did a totally silly, punchdrunk-on-history-and-afternoon-tea video blog, which I hope to post here soon. (First I have to figure out how to get it off our super-fancy digital videocamera! We'll see how long that takes...) In the meantime, though, I've posted a bunch of photos from that day on my flickr account, and you can see some of my very favorites behind the cut.

Continue reading blog entry...

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Excellent Distractions and ARC Panic

September 9, 2009, 9.01 pm

First of all: I blame Karen Healey COMPLETELY for the fact that I can't get this chorus out of my head: "Omigod You Guys!", from the musical of Legally Blonde. I've never even seen the movie because the previews turned me off so much, but Karen raved about this song & video on her blog, and I thought, oh, well, why not give it a try...

Sigh. Those must be some of the most dangerous words in human history, repeated in SO MANY dubious situations! ;p

For the past several hours, voices in the back of my head have been singing the refrain of "Omigod, omigod you guys!" over and over AND OVER again....! BE WARNED.

Of course, after watching that first video I had to watch a couple other videos from the musical...then I started wishing there was a full performance online of the entire show...and now I'm wondering whether or not to put the movie on my rental list, after all these years of resisting it. Darn you, Karen!!!!

In other news, on Sunday I finally summoned up the nerve to actually start reading through an ARC of A Most Improper Magick, which I'd spent two days feeling way too scared to attempt. How come some of the most exciting parts of publishing are also so terrifying? I think part of the issue with ARCs is that these advance copies are the ones that are going to be sent to reviewers...so I am PETRIFIED by the fear of finding something TERRIBLY WRONG and knowing that it's too late to keep any reviewers from seeing it. Eek. Luckily, I'm about halfway through the book now, and while I've come across a couple small inconsistencies and several line edits, there's been nothing that makes me swoon with horror. At least, NOT YET...

Here's the thing that makes it all so scary. The embarrassing truth is: I really, really love this book. It feels terrifying just to admit that, even to myself. The thing is, if it were a book I didn't care so much about - if I'd just tossed it off, or if I'd written it like an assignment without any passion, I could pretty much shrug off any bad reviews. But that isn't how it happened. I wrote this book with so much joy and care, and I am so in love with Kat and all her siblings, and all of that makes me feel more and more horribly vulnerable as publication day approaches. Because as much as I've longed for it to be published, I also know that not everybody will like this book. Even the books I love most in the world are hated by many people. That's the way the world works.

But I'm petting my ARCs a lot right now, even as I hunt through them for typos and still-fixable flaws. And the occasional bout of distraction therapy - like the one I got sucked into this afternoon, thanks to Karen's blog entry - is priceless.

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Zombie Daze

August 15, 2009, 12.19 pm

I've been moving through a zombie-like haze of exhaustion for the last few days, since MrD is teething and therefore none of us are sleeping. Days like these, I don't do much writing or anything else productive beyond survival. I am in AWE of moms who manage to work fulltime jobs when their babies are this age. How do they not fall asleep or space out in the middle of important meetings? Here are five things that have been making me happy, though, even in the midst of my zombie haze:

• Blowing bubbles with MrD: I hadn't blown bubbles for at least twenty years. But one of the other moms I know recommended getting a bottle to entertain the baby...and guess what? MrD likes the bubbles just fine, but the person who really loves them is me! They're beautiful and magical, with all the rainbow of colors swirling around them as they float away from me through the air. There's something incredibly relaxing about sitting outside on the grass in the cool English summer air, blowing iridescent bubbles through the air. We do it every afternoon now...and I have to admit, it's not really for Mr Darcy's sake.
• Y.S. Lee's The Agency: A Spy in the House: I finished reading this book yesterday and absolutely loved it. Girl spies in Victorian England! Disguises, mystery and intrigue! A perfectly-toned romance! A genuinely unexpected family secret, a whole host of strong, interesting women, and a completely non-stereotypical view of the Chinese community in Victorian England! It was just so cool, and I can't wait to read the second book in her trilogy. This is the first time in ages I've actually written a fan letter to an author. You can check out an excerpt here.
• Upcoming ARCs: the ARCs for A Most Improper Magick are due to arrive on my editor's desk next Wednesday, and I'll be getting copies soon after that (making adjustments for the speed of international mail, of course...why yes, I am obsessing! ;) ). I have been literally counting down the days until I might be able to hold one in my hands! I don't know yet how many I'll get, but I'm hoping to use them in a series of giveaways over the next eight months.
• Lara St John's Bach Works for Violin Solo: the awesome sent me this CD, and oh, wow. Listening to it feels kind of like getting my heart ripped out...but in the best possible way! I can't even count how many times I've listened to it over the last week.
• Primeval: this show is so silly. So, so silly. And yet...dinosaurs rampaging through London tube stations! How could I possibly resist? I absolutely love it. I'm nearly finished with Season 1 and planning to start watching Season 2 very soon. On zombie exhaustion days, it's just exactly what the doctor ordered. :)

What about you guys? What's been making you happy lately?

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Thai Food & TV Rationalizations

August 12, 2009, 4.05 pm

Wow. It's a rare weekend when I'm actually bitter-conning over two different places at once - but last weekend definitely qualified. Tons of friends at WorldCon in Montreal, mmmm; tons of other friends at the SCBWI conference in LA, sighhh...yup, there was lots & lots of bittercon around this neighborhood.

But not as much as there usually would have been, because WOW, was our anniversary night out wonderful. We ate really delicious Thai food at a restaurant loaded with beautiful, romantic atmosphere; we made a deal that we weren't even allowed to discuss any baby issues while we were out; we actually (gasp!) held hands for the first time in ages, since for once, neither of us was pushing a stroller or holding a wriggling baby...wow. What a weird, weird way to have a date! ;) Best of all, Mr Darcy had a fabulous time playing with his best friend "Captain Wentworth", so it was a completely guilt-free night out: parenting gold. :)

And it was a nice, low-key weekend, too. The downside was that I've been really tired because of an unnamed baby's nighttime wakefulness (ahem); the upside was that because of that, in the last three days I've actually allowed myself some total downtime for the first time in a long time. Instead of grabbing all my free time to write (please look away now, Barry! :) ), I actually watched DVDs. Whoa. I hadn't seen a movie or a TV show for...umm...well, I can't even remember the last time before that. It had definitely been at least a month. I managed to convince myself, though, that using my baby-free time on Sunday to watch the 1990s BBC version of "Emma" (starring Kate Beckinsale) wasn't being lazy - it was doing research! Yeah! This is where it really helps to be writing Regency novels. I LOVE having justification to watch Austen films! And this was a fun adaptation - worlds better than the Gwyneth Paltrow movie! - and in fact was so good that, amazingly, I only barely cringed at the "romantic" line, as the hero is finally drawing the heroine into his arms: "I held you in my arms when you were three weeks old..."

EWWW. But really? In context, it was only a little bit gross. Honestly.

Of course, it was a little less convincing when I told myself later that watching the first episode of "Primeval" also counted as research (it's, um...spec fic! And I write spec fic! So...???), and when it came to mainlining the first four episodes of the BBC documentary "Underage and Pregnant" yesterday (great for learning about human character! really! er....)...well, I was pretty much grasping at straws by that point.

But today, for the first time in four days, I actually sat down for a solid writing session, and I wrote 750 words that made me pretty happy. So who knows? Maybe the TV did help after all.

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Anniversary secrets revealed

August 10, 2009, 2.25 pm

Woooot!

I have to admit it was touch-and-go for a while. Two days ago, when I received my own Mysterious Package, Patrick gazed at it with great longing and open speculation. We looked at each other. We said, "Well, we could open our anniversary presents just a little bit early..."

But we didn't. We were strong, like pioneers! Or, well, like people who enjoy getting nice presents on important days, and who learned hard lessons when they were seven years old and went crawling through every closet in the house, hunting down every hidden Christmas present weeks early...and then had a really, really sad and disappointing Christmas Day when there wasn't a single surprise left.

Okay, I'm really just talking about myself now. Patrick and I do have a lot in common, but I can't swear he actually had that last experience. I did, though, and boy did it stick with me. It was a Learning Experience.

So! We waited until this morning, then, like all the classiest couples do, wrapped the gifts in towels or baby blankets, whichever was handiest for each of us, and did the exchange. Mr Darcy whooped in glee at the boxes, by far the most exciting part of the experience for him! But I screamed out loud when I saw my gift, because it was Just Exactly Right and What I Wanted.

Continue reading blog entry...

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