The Best Laid Plans

Okie dokie, folks. Here's a great book recommendation for your weekend entertainment. Tamara Mataya, aka @FeakySnucker, aka my very first critique partner and the most effective Pants Kicker I've ever encountered, is officially PUBLISHED! *everyone stand up and celebrate with a brief sexy dance* *trust me, this is the most appropriate response*

The Best Laid Plans

So if the cover alone isn't enough to grab you, let me share my feelings.

I adore this story. Malcolm and Jayne each have their own motivations when they meet at an office party, but there's more to their instant chemistry than either of them realize. Malcolm knows exactly who Jayne is: the high school classmate who he feels was responsible for instigating years of bullying he suffered through. He thinks running in to her again might be the perfect opportunity for revenge. He intends to seduce her with the sole purpose of crushing her emotionally. Jayne, however, only knows him as the incredibly sexy successful musician he's become after leaving behind his old identity. She's trusting a little book of dating advice to give her the confidence to go out and snag herself a scorchingly good time, and thinks Malcolm might be the man for the job. Let the games begin!

Not only is this possibly the freaking hottest thing I've read all year, but the steaminess of their romance is just the beginning. It doesn't hurt that Malcolm is good enough to eat, or that Jayne is one smart cookie herself. Each of them starts off with their own secret and devious plan for the other, and as the title implies, things quickly go awry for both of them.

I am so tempted right now to just shake you by the shoulders and make you read it, because otherwise I'll start yelling incoherently and pointing in an effort to keep from squealing out all my favorite bits. I try to stay spoiler-free here. Tam would appreciate that. She hates spoilers. So just go read, dearies, and enjoy. I'll just be over here ready with the fan and a glass of ice water for when you get all hot and bothered.

GO BUY IT AT AMAZON RTFN!

EYRE HOUSE Cover Reveal!!! Feast your eyes on THIS!

How fantastic is this?! *hint: really, really fantastic!

What a perfect cover for Cait's gorgeous EYRE HOUSE. Since every description running through my head sounds like a horrible cliche, here's what you need to know, straight from the source!

When eighteen-year-old orphan Evan Richardson signed up to work at Eyre House, on the sleepy tourist getaway of Edisto Island, SC, he never expected to find himself dodging ghosts. But Eyre House seems to have more than its fair share of things that go bump in the night, and most of them seem to surround his employer’s daughter.

Back from her freshman year of college, Ginny Eyre is dangerous from word one. She’s a bad girl with ghosts of her own, and trouble seems to follow her everywhere she goes. But living or dead, trouble isn’t just stalking Ginny. When her ex-boyfriend is found murdered in the pool, Evan knows he’s got two choices – figure out what’s going on, or become the next ghost to haunt Ginny Eyre.

Goodreads - https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17694883-eyre-house

If you enjoy a good Southern Gothic story full of mystery, romance, and treachery, go add it to your Goodreads right now. I'll wait.

Done? Good. Now try to hang on until July. :) In the mean time, follow Cait on Twitter for updates, or check out her blog for more details (and a few teasers).

A Grand Day Out

I've been trying to get to local author events and book signings lately, especially now that Lulu is beginning to explore the YA genre, which I read a lot of, and is also showing an interest in writing. *quiet, nonthreatening squeeing from me* *wouldn't want to frighten her out of the Writermobile*

When I learned that Maureen Johnson was coming to speak at the Bethesda Library, I knew Lulu would enjoy it. *and yes, I knew I would enjoy it too*

Thursday nights are Family Night around here, since it's Helper Monkey's only night off work. We try to do something together, as a family. I asked him if he'd mind if I took Lulu to this event, and he responded that he'd actually like to come with us. I was pleasantly surprised.

Helper Monkey grew up in Bethesda, and it's also where we met 17 years ago. It was a little trip down memory lane for us. As a bonus, a friend of his works at a great Lebanese restaurant just a few blocks from the library, and he's been asking us to come for dinner forever. The plan was for us to go to the event, and then have a nice dinner out.

I half expected him to simply tolerate the book event. He's not exactly the YA book target market. Sure, he'll read a Harry Potter, or a Percy Jackson, but that's about the extent of his forays into books for non-adults.

I am now 100% convinced that Maureen Johnson is contagious, or possibly emits some sort of radioactive mutation field. In the best possible way. Helper Monkey was absolutely delighted by her, and is now following her on Twitter. He's going to read Name of the Star when he's done with whatever it is he's reading now. My reaction:



So the family had a lovely time. Thanks to Maureen, the Bethesda Library, and Politics and Prose. :D

Once we were done, we went for Lebanese food at Bacchus. Oh. My. Commas. It was a feast. Let's just say I wished I'd worn a skirt with an elastic waistband. On the plus side, I ate a lot of tomato slices in cucumber sauce. Nom! I apologized for stealing all the tomatoes, claiming I was in the middle of a Tomato Jones. For the rest of the evening, the family referred to me as Tomato Jones, and suggested I write a series of detective novels starring this new character. Perhaps, Tomato Jones: Sliced and Diced.

There was this:

Then there was dessert. This custard was flavored with honey and rosewater. I would like to marry this dessert. I told Helper Monkey I was leaving him for it, and told Lulu she should learn to love her new father as much as I do.

Unfortunately, I ate it all, so I decided to stay with Helper Monkey. At least until next time...

There was also Turkish coffee and baklava. Noms.

I haven't eaten that well in...years, probably. All the noms.

All told, it was truly a grand day out.

Reading, in all its many glorious forms

There's been a ton of debate in the last few years about the future of publishing. Are e-readers going to replace paper books? Are bookstores doomed? Is publishing doomed now that self-publishing is so easy? I will say no to all of that, at least for the foreseeable future.

I read A LOT. Paper books, e-books, unpublished manuscripts - as well as heaps and piles of book and publishing related blogs and articles. I want this to be my career, so of course I want to take the most positive outlook on the future of publishing in general. But I've noticed something when I read, whether it is the latest hardcover release from a favorite author, a worn-out old paperback that I got third or fourth hand from a friend, an e-book on my kindle, or a manuscript I'm reading for a CP on my laptop. I ENJOY ALL OF IT.

*note: I don't really do audiobooks. Never got into the idea of someone reading aloud to me. I know it's a popular source of entertainment for a lot of people, but I withhold analysis, since I'm not familiar with it like I am with reading with my own eyeballs.*

I don't think I completely prefer one method of getting the words from the author and into my brain over another. For most people, the choice is between physical paper books and e-readers (or another electronic device with e-reader software installed), so I thought about the pros and cons of each method, and came to the conclusion that I like both equally, but for different reasons. Let's begin with good old-fashioned paper books.

Pros of paper:

• The wonderful tactile and sensory experience of books. I love the way new books smell. I love the feel of the paper, the repetitive act of turning pages, the gorgeous covers, and in hardcover books, the secrets that lurk beneath the book jacket. Often you remove that beautifully printed outer cover to discover something equally lovely underneath, a secret clue to the heart of the story contained within.
• I love being able to see all my books stacked around me, on the bookshelves decorating my home, and randomly piled up waiting to be read and loved.
• I can easily loan a favorite book to a friend.
• A friend can easily loan their favorite book to me!
• While reading, I can easily skip around, page back to find a passage that only shows it's true meaning several chapters later when a larger secret is revealed, or even page ahead a few chapters because I'm terrified something scary is coming up for one of the characters and I need reassurances that everything will be okay. Yes, I cheat sometimes. Sue me.

Cons of paper:

• Paper books are often heavy and bulky. They're hard to carry around.
• When I go on a trip, I like to take more than one book with me. I'd hate to run out of reading material, but lugging several books in a small suitcase is impractical.
• If I spill coffee on my favorite book, I'd have to go buy a new copy. Paper and liquids are not friends.
• Books are fragile. They wear out after a while, even when well taken care of, especially if Helper Monkey or Lulu hauls them around for a few weeks. Nice books plus middle-schooler's backpack equals battered books.
• I can easily skip around (which means sometimes I spoil books for myself because I can't stand the sadness or fear I feel for a character). And yes, I also listed this as a "pro" for paper books. So now you know I'm indecisive AND a cheater. Congratulations. :P

But e-readers also have their pros and cons:

Pros of e-books:

• It's easy to carry around HUNDREDS of books at any given time, in a package smaller and lighter than a single paperback. I'll never run out of things to read!
• An e-reader is relatively inexpensive, and the prices keep coming down. Even if I spill coffee on it (or squish it, like I did to my original kindle), all my books aren't lost forever. I can still access them through my laptop, or even my cell phone, in theory. Replacing it would only cost about the same as buying four or five new release hardcovers.
• An e-reader is lightweight. It's SO much easier to read in bed. My wrists have thanked me. Not to mention, I don't have to worry about dog-eared pages or torn covers from carrying an e-reader around in my purse or pocket.
• I have a kindle paperwhite, which I love. I don't need a book light to read in the dark anymore, and the battery lasts quite a good long while. Like for the duration of four or five books worth of reading. I haven't tested how long it will last, but it's long enough that I haven't been worried I'll lose power in the middle of something.
• I can buy a book and be reading it within seconds. No waiting for shipping, and no drive to the mall to pick up a book on a whim.

Cons of e-books:

• I can't easily share them with friends. I could theoretically loan someone my kindle, but I'm not likely to do that. *glances protectively at Gary Jr.*
• There's not a lot of romance in the plastic of an e-reader. No literal page turning, no smell of new book, no gorgeous cover artwork.
• It's nearly impossible to page back and find something that's referred to later in the book. It's highly irritating sometimes when you really want to find that one little passage that gives a richer experience of later revelations in a story.
• I can buy a book and be reading it within seconds. And yes, I also listed this as a "pro." It's convenient, but hard on the bank account. :D

I'm sure I've left out a ton of reasons why either format is great or lacking. If you've got a definite preference, please let me know your thoughts and reasons.

I'm just glad I live in an era where everyone has easy access to any book they might want to read. We can walk into a library, a bookstore, or surf the internet to find WONDERFUL stories to cram into our brains in whatever way is easiest or most enjoyable for us. Isn't is FANTASTIC and MIRACULOUS?!

I mean, five hundred years ago, books were only for the very wealthiest people. Now they are for EVERYONE! HOORAY!

Ever: Team Frankie and Team Toby

That lovely banner above features the absolutely beautiful cover of Jessa Russo's debut novel, Ever. If the cover isn't enough to draw you in (in which case you are either vision-impaired or hopelessly unromantic), I wanted to share my favorite aspect of the entire novel. Before I start, I thought it best to introduce you to Ever and her friends.

In case you can't bring yourself to look away from that breathtaking cover, here's what the back side of the book says:

Seventeen-year-old Ever’s love life has been on hold for the past two years. She’s secretly in love with her best friend Frankie, and he’s completely oblivious.

Of course, it doesn't help that he’s dead, and waking up to his ghost every day has made moving on nearly impossible.

Frustrated and desperate for something real, Ever finds herself falling for her hot new neighbor Toby. His relaxed confidence is irresistible, and not just Ever knows it. But falling for Toby comes with a price that throws Ever’s life into a whirlwind of chaos and drama. More than hearts are on the line, and more than Ever will suffer.

Some girls lose their hearts to love.

Some girls lose their minds.

  

Ever Van Ruysdael could lose her soul.

 

Just as spectacular as the front, right? But here's the hard part for me. In nearly every book I read where our heroine has a difficult choice between two boys, I almost immediately know which boy's Team I'm signing up for. I've read Ever twice now (and also read a few snippets from Ever Two! Shhhhh!) and I STILL HAVE NO IDEA IF I'M TEAM TOBY OR TEAM FRANKIE! (!!!)

Each of them has their merits. Frankie is the love of Ever's young life. He's been her best friend as long as she can remember, and throughout that time she's harbored a secret love for him. When he's killed, his ghost follows her home and stays with her. How can she ever have a relationship with a ghost, no matter how much she loves him? But none of that matters to her. As long as Frankie is with her, even as a ghost, can she ever move on?

But hold the phone! Because Toby will come along and sweep Ever off her feet. She's never met anyone like him before, and the mystery of her new neighbor becomes irresistible to her. The more she gets to know about him, the deeper she and Frankie are drawn into a shadowy world they never knew existed, but could be the undoing of all three of them.

I am definitely not the only one who feels torn between Frankie and Toby. In fact, it's such a common phenomenon that when Jessa had tiny charms made from her cover, she had to feature THREE designs, instead of just a Frankie and a Toby design. The third is "Team Undecided," and has Frankie's glasses and Toby's wing. So at least I'm not alone in my inability to pick a team.

If you've read Ever and were able to choose a side, I'd love to know your reasoning. Also, if you've read it and can't make up your mind, I'd love to commiserate with you about our shared dilemma.

But if you haven't read Ever, you'd better get on the ball! It's time to find out who YOU think is the right guy for our girl.

You can get your very own copy this very minute! Here's the links:.

EVER on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Ever-Jessa-Russo/dp/1620070898/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1351098991&sr=8-1&keywords=ever+jessa+russo

And you need to follow Jessa, too, because you don't want to miss out when the second book in Ever's journey is released. I'm on pins and needles for it!

Twitter: https://twitter.com/JessaRusso
Jessa on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/jessarussowrites
EVER on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/EverTrilogy
Blog: http://jessarussowrites.blogspot.com/
EVER on Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13625388-ever

Truly Sad Panda

Here in the DC suburbs, news of a panda birth at the National Zoo has been everywhere for the last week. We've all been on the edge of our seats for a month as Panda Watch 2012 played out. When a baby was born last Sunday, it was thrilling. This morning, the eagerly anticipated little panda died. It just breaks my heart.

Mei Xiang, the panda mom, must be heartbroken. That's what alerted zookeepers that there was something wrong, they heard Mei's alarmed cries. She's such a good mom, and after watching her care for the baby all week, it tears me up that she's lost her cub.

I'm sorry to share all this sadness with y'all, but it's put the emergency brakes on my writing. I absolutely can't write the novel I'm working on right now. I need something to cheer myself up. I will gratefully accept links to good news today. Happy things. If you have such things, please share.

I do have a Progress-O-Meter update, since it's been a few days since I wrote one up. Don't be too judgy at my slow progress. I took a break yesterday to read The Enchantress, which has been sitting unread on my desk for months. I supposed that qualifies as good news. I loved the Immortal Nicholas Flamel series.

So that's it. I'm trying to snap myself out of the sad panda induced doldrums. I think I'm going to resort to ice cream. Hopefully that will help.

Progress-O-Meter:

Words: 55,007
Pages: 171
Edit Page: 61

Getting back on the horse after tumbling off and rolling around on the ground for a few months...

So, I've been a little ranty-pants for the last few days. I hope y'all can forgive me. I was under the weather with the blergs, but I feel a lot better now. My posts from now on will hopefully reflect the improvement!

On the up side, I have had a lot of time to read. When you can't do anything other than lie there like a lump, reading is an excellent option, at least until you fall asleep on the book and drool on the pages...

But I've largely caught up on my beta-reading duties. I've also been FINALLY reading The Enchantress by Michael Scott. I'd already read the rest of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel series, and since this is the final installment, I can't believe I've been sitting on it since it was released in May. That is just how busy I've been. Then again, it got buried on my coffee table for a month or so, and I completely forgot it was there. When I found it again a few days ago, I was THRILLED! HEY! NEW BOOK!!! *_*

And now, while I wait for my CP's to finish writing their current wip's, or to finish their revisions, I shall return to the writing trenches.

It's George! Hows about we go for a ride?

It has been so long since I worked on book three in the series I'm querying right now that I have absolutely no recollection of the details I've written so far. I remember the basic story up to the point where I left off, but revising two of my own books, plus doing critiques and beta reads on several others, not to mention all the summer vacation business, I'm afraid I drove all the plot details right out of my little pea-brain.

I know the worst thing you can do is go back and edit before the first draft is complete. I'm trying to promise myself to leave all the words alone, but I must go back and reread from the beginning. I don't remember some of the minor characters' names (folks who are necessary to the plot, but with very little time on the page so far), all the little twisty-turns I've written, and exactly that the timeline looks like. I MUST go back and read it from the beginning. I hope I don't fall into the trap of revising the first draft in progress. Then again, I revised books 1 and 2 so much in the last few months, some revision will probably be necessary. Required, even. Otherwise, what I've already written won't make sense with the other revisions... Sigh.

So there it is. The main reason I've been procrastinating on getting back to writing. Editorial Paralysis.

I'm looking to George for support. Come on, George!

I will repost the Progress-O-Meter as soon as I make some...

Has summer derailed your writing plans? Or have you ever walked away from a half-written manuscript, only to return several months later? How did you get back into it?

Buccaneers: Favorite Books and Authors

The second post of Week Three of the Buccaneer Blogfest is pre-programmed to walk the plank at 9 am on Wednesday. Long before 9 am on Wednesday, I will be entombed on a southbound bus. This way, at least I'll have a post to, er, post...

To the Books!

Today's post is all about our favorite books and authors. My brain interpreted "favorite" as meaning "those books I read over and over again like a super geek fangirl. Without further ado, here are the most reread books in my library:

1. Dracula. I'm a total dork for the original Bram Stoker. And yes, I've also read all the other progressively weirder things Mr. Stoker wrote. Lair of the White Wyrm, anyone?

2. The Hobbit/Lord of the Rings/Silmarillion/Unfinished Tales. These are reread ever December.

3. Harry Potter. I reread them every July (except for this July! I haven't had time! I promise to start them again when I get back from Savannah on Sunday.)

4. The Decameron: Boccaccio's compilation of 100 stories told by a group of friends fleeing the Plague in Florence. The stories were written in 1350, and shed a huge, mostly bawdy light on life in the Middle Ages. There was apparently NOTHING uptight about people in that era. Nothing was out of bounds, off limits, or considered too dirty to talk about in public.

The premise of the work is that ten friends leave Florence to avoid succumbing to the Plague. They hide out at a villa in the countryside, and decide to tell stories each day to entertain themselves. Every day, each person must tell one story (except on Saturday, which is devoted to chores, and Sunday, which is a day of rest). Every day for two weeks, a different person is put in charge of the day's storytelling. Sometimes they pick a category the story must fall into. All ten friends relate a different story each day. Some of them are weird, some are raunchy, some are poignant. It's amazing how nearly 700 years later, the stories are still relevant. Wowie!

That's it for my compulsive rereading list. There are other authors whose books I never miss. I wait on pins and needles for Jim Butcher's Dresden Files novels. I read just about anything by Stephen King (next up from Mr. King, the Dark Tower series which Helper Monkey is finishing up at the moment).

And I shouldn't leave off one of my favorites, but one that I don't reread as often as the others: Sherlock Holmes stories. I love these. The original stories are all wonderful, but I also enjoy some of the modern stories told by authors other than Conan Doyle.

I think that's about it for this post, since it's now a full hour later than I planned to be up tonight!

Buccaneers: On the Reading List

Ahoy again, mateys! This week's Blogfest is all about reading! This is a big deal to most writers. We love to read, or we wouldn't bother creating books to spread our love of the printed (or electronic) word to others. That being said, like a lot of other writers, I'm hopelessly backlogged on the list of books I'd like to read. There are just too many to keep up with!

The first part of today's post is supposed to mention the last three books we've read. That's an easier question to answer than the second part, which is to discuss our to-be-read list. Entering that list on a single post has the potential to crash Blogger, so I think I'll stick to the first part of the question for now...

Recent Reads:

The book I'm reading currently is Gail Carriger's Timeless. I pre-ordered this book, and started reading it the day it was released, back in March. Life conspired against me, and I had to put it aside. It got buried under a pile of blankets, and I only found it when I finally put the blankets away in the closet, a few weeks ago. I restarted it from the beginning, and read most of it while I was camping last week. I swore I'd finish it this week. Wish me luck. Side note: I adore the Parasol Protectorate series. I devoured the first four books, and this is the final installment in the series. I've decided that my procrastination on finishing it is a desire to keep the series alive. Either that, or I'm just being lazy.

Before Timeless, I read Purgatory Chasm by Steve Ulfelder. It's a great mystery story, with a believable, messy protagonist. I've been trying to get my mitts on the sequel, The Whole Lie, but I've sworn not to buy any more books until I finish the books in my physical TBR pile before ordering more...

I also recently read Unraveling, by Liz Norris. It's an imaginative, fast-paced race to stop the whole world from falling apart. I can't wait for the sequel!

I know I've read other things between reading these three, but I can't remember the order I read them in, and these were the first three that popped into my head. I guess that says something about them?

As for the TBR pile/list:

I have a lot of series finale type books to read, including the last book in the Kane Chronicles (The Serpent's Shadow) and the last of Michael Scott's Nicholas Flammel series (The Enchantress).

I also have a ton of books that I would like to re-read. I usually go through and take a week in July to reread Harry Potter, but I haven't had time this summer. I've been wanting to reread the Decameron by Boccaccio for a while. I absolutely love that book. If you've never read it, you must. It's free for Kindle. It's definitely beyond copyright protection, since it was written in 1350. I'll talk about it more in my next post...

And all this is in addition to the reading I do for crit partners and as a beta reader, and re-reading my own work either for editing or to make sure I still like what I wrote. If only there were another two hours in a day. I might finally make a dent in the list....

Blah blah blah (in the teacher's voice from Peanuts cartoons)

This is sort of how I've been interacting with the world for the last few days, and I just realized it. This makes me sad, and yet relieved.

I tend to get a little dissociative when I'm under a lot of pressure, or when the pressure finally breaks and I can take a few deep breaths. Right now, I'm under a lot of pressure in one area of my life, but another huge burden is about to be lifted. Without going into the tedious details, it's enough to know that the odd combination of things going on has led to a mild state of depression. Not sadness, it's more like my body and brain go into a sort of static hold pattern.

The good thing is that I noticed it. Sometimes I don't, and it just gets worse and worse until Helper Monkey things he's living with a 5'7" slug instead of a human being. By the time I've completely turned into a puddle of goo, he'll point out the goo is starting to leak all over the floor, and maybe I want to consider doing something about it. He's lucky this time. I'm already mopping before he even realized the goo was oozing.

Battling back from the doldrums is hard. I don't want to do it. I'd rather wallow right now. That won't help anyone, and there's still stuff to do, and that pressurized situation is ongoing whether I want it to be or not. I have to get jumping on it. So that's what I'm doing today. I'm making sure the whole world doesn't fuzz out, that things keep getting taken care of, because if I don't do them, nobody will, and when I finally come out the other side of this funk, Bad Things will be waiting for me if I shut down completely now.

Sorry if this doesn't make much sense, but this post is my personal pep talk. It's sort of working, so thanks for bearing with me.

In other, more human news, yesterday was a wash because the new Anita Blake novel came out, and after reading 20 books in a series, you kind of feel obligated to read the 21st. So I did. It took up most of the day, but I'm glad I read it.

Over this past weekend, I beta read for a Twitter friend, and LOVE LOVE LOVED her concept and characters! Thanks so much, Tamara, for letting me take a sneak peek at Moondreamer! And of course, being me, I can't wait for the sequel...to an unpublished beta read....because there must be a sequel! :)

So much reading, but little writing this week. It is the last week of school, and then Saturday is the 100th Anniversary of Girl Scouts, and the huge Rock the Mall event in D.C. So I get to go sing campfire songs with 250,000 other Girl Scouts. After that, no alarm clock for FOUR WEEKS! Yay! Four whole wonderful weeks of sleeping until I'm done. I won't have any idea what to do with myself. Probably, I'll write a whole lot more, since I won't be so freaking sleep deprived.

That will be good. And hopefully, the rest of the world will come back into focus soon. At least I know it's blurry now, though, which is a huge step up from yesterday.

Gaithersburg Book Festival Fun

Lulu and I trekked down to Monkey County today to visit the Gaithersburg (Maryland) Book Festival. It was a great way to escape the traffic of Frederick County during the G8. Well, except for the fact that Frederick G8 traffic is STILL lighter than Gaithersburg on a random Saturday afternoon traffic.

It was well worth it, though. Crab cakes for lunch! Meeting Authors! New books! A trip to the "big mall!" Well, that last bit was Lulu's favorite part, anyway. She got several new outfits for summer, since she's somehow become too tall for all her shorts over the winter. I thought winter was supposed to be the dormant season where the kids stop growing for a few months. I guess that only applies to lawns.

We ended up leaving before we had a chance to meet Jenny Lawson, a.k.a. The Bloggess. I did manage to pay full price for her book, Let's Pretend This Never Happened. So I suppose that sort-of makes up for missing her. Lulu couldn't stand melting in the heat any longer. Apparently the crab cake bribe had expired, so further bribery was needed to keep her happy. To that end, we got Godiva chocolates at the mall. I endured, somehow.

The main author I went to meet was Steve Ulfelder, though. He writes the fabulous (Edgar Nominated!) Conway Sax mystery series, beginning with Purgatory Chasm, and the newly-released The Whole Lie, which I must get ASAP! On top of that, he's a really nice guy, and it was interesting learning how Conway evolved into the character he is today.

On the way home, driving up I-270, we saw something eminently cool. A convoy of three Chinook helicopters headed straight toward Camp David. Always a neat thing. I had Lulu try to take a picture, but the trees kept getting in the way, and the helicopters were going a lot faster than traffic. This was the best she could do:

Yeah. Not great. I swear they're there somewhere.

This is what they looked like:

Since I don't have a picture of the actual helicopters, for anyone who cares, this flew over my house about 20 minutes ago.

The MetLife blimp, which is superior to world leaders in Chinooks, because it has Snoopy on it.

I'd like to see any of the world superpowers at the G8 try to compete with Snoopy on a blimp. Blimp wins every time.

Sad thing with this blog, I had a FABULOUS idea for this post this morning before I left for the book festival. I had this really catchy title, and a humorous couple of paragraphs about something that I thought was hysterically funny. Can I remember any of it now? Of course not!

Nor did I remember to hand out my fancy-schmancy new business cards to a single person I met today. My brain is going soft. In my defense, it was 88 degrees outside today, and I'm a little fried.

Finally, by the time we got back to the familiar roads of rural Frederick, Lulu and I were completely slap happy. This always makes for a fun drive. We like to play the Alphabet Game, where you have to find the letters of the alphabet in order on signs, other cars, etc. When we reach a letter that's hard to find, we start changing the words we see to incorporate the needed letter. Worthington becomes Jorthington, Taco Bell becomes Taco Jell. It gets completely nonsensical after a while, and usually devolves into discussions of our least favorite words (currently tops of Lulu's list: muffin top and jeggings, as well as Mantyhose. Yes, that is a real thing, unfortunately.) We start inventing bizarre stories involving all the reviled words, and end up laughing so hard I can barely see to drive.

All in all, this was a great day. I didn't write a lick, and I have no intention of starting now. I'm going to unwind with my new books from the festival, and relive the story of the woman with the muffin top having a convo about her vacay, while wearing her jeggings. She bought some mantyhose, decided to change into blousy trousers, and insisted they be called pantaloons, instead.

And with that, I can't focus on this nonsense anymore. It's been a tiring day.

Unraveling, unwinding

I spent ALL DAY (other than a two hour break to take my daughter to a dance) writing synopses (synopsises?) for my first two novels. I actually had a two page synopsis for the first novel, but I'd recently learned that agents might want a shorter, one page synopsis. Ack! Don't they know how hard it is to relate everything in a 350 page book in just two single spaced pages? Now they want it chopped to a single page? Whasa?

So I started with that. I copied the long synopsis that I made during my first round of edits into a new document, and started chopping and rearranging, rewriting and condensing. It took hours, but eventually, I got that sucker to fit on a single page. And then it was on to the difficult task.


I took notes during the first round of edits on the second novel, but I never transcribed them into a proper synopsis. When I reread after the first draft, I make notes of every plot point, character intro, and anything else I think is important to the story. I started by transcribing all fourteen pages of notes. Fourteen pages! Granted, that's fourteen pages of my handwriting in a 6x9 legal pad, so it's not as bad a fourteen pages of typed notes, or fourteen pages of notebook paper. Still, though, I write kind of small...

When I finished that, I had four pages of typed, single-spaced synopsis. It was nearly 2300 words. Too long even for a long synopsis. I got out my chainsaw and started cutting, pasting, and rewriting. I finally got it down to two pages, single spaced. I renamed the file "Long Synopsis", saved it and copied it into a new document. This time, instead of a chain saw, I used a scalpel. I pared everything that wasn't absolutely necessary to coherency and after hours of this, at 12:19 this morning, I finally had a single page that defines Devil May Care. Then I went to bed.

Seriously, it took about twelve hours to do that. I promised myself a reward today if I could get it done. So I'm paying up. I've spent most of the day today reading Unraveling by Liz Norris. It's great! I'm about a quarter through it, so I'm eager to get back to reading now. It's the kind of book you can't put down once you pick it up, and I'm too eager to find out what happens next, and what's up with the mysterious Ben, what Janelle's dad knows about the victims in his case, and what it has to do with Janelle. So....gotta go now.

Oh, one last thing. I was enamored with Lulu's fashion choice this morning:

Stripey!

Faerie Winter

There's a great contest on right now to win all of Janni Lee Simner's books! If you've never read them, and you like a good fantasy, they're a lot of fun! I read Bones of Faerie, the first book in the series, and the second book, Faerie Winter, is coming out April 10. Even if I'm not a winner in the contest, I'll be sure to read it.

I picked up Bones of Faerie when I worked at my daughter's elementary school library. I thoroughly enjoyed the mix of a dystopian futuristic world that had been brought around to a more primitive society because of an interdimensional war between Faerie and humanity. Fear and isolation drove the people to be suspicious of outsiders, magic, and anything out of the ordinary. The main character, Liza, finds out she is anything but ordinary, herself, and sets out to make things right between the worlds.

If you're interested in entering, too, here are the rules, also posted here.

The Rules

- Mention in a blog post, fb post, tweet, tumblr, and/or anywhere else online and publicly visible that Faerie Winter comes out in paperback on April 10 and that it's the sequel to Bones of Faerie (or, alternately, book 2 in the Bones of Faerie trilogy). If you want to say something more about either of the Faerie books, that'd be lovely, though not required.

- Link to the Faerie Winter website

- Come back to this post and link to the places you did both of the above

- (optional, for blog entries) Copy these rules (including this one :-)) to your post, and encourage your readers to enter this contest by doing all of the above in turn, and telling them to then to come back to your blog and link to their mention or mentions

- Deadline is April 20 (at midnight Pacific Daylight Time) and I'll ship anywhere.


Good luck, and enjoy!