Tattoo you

Silly me! In the rush of getting home and Thanksgiving and whatnot, I completely forgot to mention that I have a post up at Lust Bites! It's all about tattoos and why they're sexy, with bonus! excerpts from some of my work.

Check it out, and let me know what you think!

Naughty gobbles

We arrived home Wednesday night after a pleasant but uneventful trip (listened to the entirety of Neil Gaiman’s Anansi Boys on CD, ate dinner at Pea Soup Andersen's, stopped on a deserted overlook to look at the stars). Yesterday morning consisted of unpacking and organizing and grocery shopping, and then in the afternoon we toddled over to Morgana and Brian’s for Thanksgiving dinner (12 of us altogether). Quite lovely. In deference to everyone’d food preferences, there were two kinds of mashed potatoes (including cheesy ones!), three kinds of stuffing and gravy, and the green bean casserole did not contain even a whiff of mushrooms (thanks!). Oh, and two pies and a cake and cookies. Sometime much later we waddled back and lazed in front of the TV…

Today has been all about work work work: four loads of laundry, a gazillion e-mails answered, mail opened, files filed, bills paid, one contract signed (for Yes, Ma’am), two stories submitted…you get the idea. But it feels good, you know? Productive. Satisfying.

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I was delighted to find comp copies of and payment for Naughty or Nice in the mail—mine is the lead story! Squee bouncity! And it’s chock-full of stories by other fabulous writers and friends, like Teresa and Shanna and Alison and Rachel. And it’s listed in the Playboy Gift Guide! How could you not put this on your holiday wish list? Or better yet, snap up a copy now to get you in the holiday spirit! (It’s working for me!)

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Currently Reading: The Golden Compass, Philip Pullman; No Plot? No Problem!, Chris Baty
Lately Listened To: hm. The printer?
Recently Watched: CSI; Graham Norton

Thursday 13: Thirteen Things in my Purse

(beyond the obvious “wallet, tissues, etc.”)

1. one Tazo “Awake” teabag (because most restaurants have crappy tea, and I’m a tea snob)

2. a measuring tape (because I never know when I’m going to suddenly need to buy fabric)

3. one of my two flash drives, backed up regularly (in case the house is burgled or burned down in my absence)

4. Palm and keyboard (because I never know when I’ll want to work; also has a tip calculator and my Books to Buy lists. Yes, plural lists…)

5. notebook and pen (for quick notes)

6. lace-edged sticky notes in a faux-leather holder

7. a Lara bar for low blood sugar emergencies

8. extra pens (of course!)

9. one of my kumihimo disks, in case I get bored

10. small plastic envelope for paper lists, coupons, notes, etc.

11. business cards in green leather holder embossed with a Celtic tree

12. tin of Altoids

13. camera (because the world is an amazing place and I often want to capture a brief snippet)

Cranial perversities

Rejection from Clockwork Phoenix for “Soulsearching.” Shot the story out to the “Traps” anthology. It’s a matter of interpretation whether it can be called dark fantasy—it’s fantasy, and it’s rather dark, but it isn’t horror. I think it fits the theme, though, so I’ll leave it to the editor to decide.

Still slogging away at the novel. My brain is perverse. I got back to the apartment after we had dinner with Lev & Gayle last night (a delightful evening, made so in part because we didn’t think we’d be able to organize it with Ken working nights, but we did, hurrah!) and my brain would just not settle down to work. When did it do so, causing me to type furiously to keep up? Approximately five minutes before he walked in the door. I continued while he got ready for bed, and then we started reading, and I had to get up once to add a pithy sentence I knew I’d forget if I left it ‘til morning. Yeargh.

But I also left myself notes on little things that are happening in this scene, so picking it back up is easier.

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We’ve stayed a couple extra days here because another unfinished work project of Ken’s finally burped through (i.e., the other guy working on the project, who has a full-time job and busy family life, suddenly had some free time). The good news is, they pretty much solved the problem! so we’ll be heading for home sometime today. Ken has to go in to work this morning, though, and he hasn’t actually started packing up his room yet, so it remains to be seen what time we’ll actually get on the road. Then again, it looks like he’ll have to come up for a few days in December, so we can always bring the car again and get last-minute stuff.

The “vacation” has been nice, but it’ll be good to get back home. We’ve got Thanksgiving plans with Morgana and Brian and I’m guessing Morgana’s mom and grandma and I believe Brian’s dad, and that should be fun and nummy (other than the fact we’re going to have to buy our contributions for dinner that morning). I don’t know if we’ll hook up with any of Ken’s family over the weekend. Other than that’ll, there will be the sorting of mail and the paying of bills and the catching up of TV shows and the scritching of kitties delighted that we’ve reappeared, and food shopping and good lord and lady do I need to get back to the gym.

What are you all doing for Thanksgiving? What are you foodie traditions for the big meal?

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Currently Reading: The Golden Compass, Philip Pullman; No Plot? No Problem!, Chris Baty
Lately Listened To: Influence, Shaw Blades
Recently Watched: nothing recently!

The Gods of Mizithra

Wait, it was just Friday, and now it’s…Sunday? How did that happen? The days are really blurring here, with Ken working extra hours now. We’re going to stay a couple more days because another project he’s been working on for at least a year now has sort of burped through, and hopefully he can finish it and get paid and then he’s all done. (He’s working with another contractor who has another fulltime job, hence the delays and need to work in the evenings.)

So yesterday we went to Powells, where they took fewer than half our books on credit but gave us more credit than I expected, so I was quite pleased. I bought mostly urban fantasy and paranormal romance this time around, as well as No Plot? No Problem!, a writing book by the guy who started NaNoWriMo. Even though I’m not officially doing NaNoWriMo, I do try to write pretty fast, so I thought it would be useful.

Then we went to dinner with Ken’s roommate Thom and Thom’s fiancée, Dorothy, at The Old Spaghetti Factory. Oh my gods, they sell containers of mizithra cheese to take home! I was so brave. We need one of these in Ventura County. That, and a Hooters.

Today we attempted to tour The Pittock Mansion, but they neglected to say on their website that they’d be closed all this weekend so they could decorate for Christmas. WTF? Closing for weekend? Since it was raining rather heavily, we couldn’t go to the zoo or The Grotto, so we found a funky little place to have lunch and then came back to the apartment and toiled away at our respective computers until Ken had to go in to work. So I’m on my own tonight (well, Thom and the kitties are here), and expect to get lots of work done.

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Squee! Preliminary sale (awaiting publisher approval) of a fantasy story I wrote recently! I haven’t sold one of them in a while, so this is particularly sweet. I’ll announce full details when it’s all finalized. It was a fun story to write, and I could see future stories with the main character (she runs a ghost hunting business called Paranormal Manifestation Services. PMS, get it?).

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Currently Reading: Touch the Dark, Karen Chance; No Plot? No Problem!, Chris Baty
Lately Listened To: Lullagoodbye, Taylor Mills
Recently Watched: Corpse Bride, Torchwood