You asked for it...

Angell has been asking for a write-up of the shows, and although I did my usual exhausted semi-drunken rambles to Sarah, I haven't pulled anything together for the rest of my readers. (And other than Angell, I'm not sure anyone who reads this journal really cares about the details!) I will say that I got the chance to talk to Lawrence about A Little Night Music…  ::evil laugh::

But anyway. Because Angell has been so patient, I'll appease her (and amuse everyone) with my favorite picture of Lawrence from last week, taken by Ken at the Anaheim House of Blues.

Thursday 13: Thirteen Things I Wanted For Christmas But Didn’t Get

1. A solid three-book contract for Out of the Frying Pan plus two connected books, with promo commitment from the publisher.
   
2. A new sofa for our media room, that’s comfortable to sit on, comfortable to sleep on, and will fit the space and style.
   
3. A personal chef.
   
4. New sofa and chairs for the living room, comfortable and yet somehow also Victorian in feel.
   
5. Lawrence Gowan. Just for a night. Or maybe a weekend. I’m not greedy.
   
6. Unlimited free air miles to visit family, friends, and Styx shows all over the world.
   
7. To have completed Ghosted by the end of 2007.
   
8. An agent.
   
9. Fat-free cheese that tastes like full-fat cheese.
   
10. The ability to write like Guy Gavriel Kay crossed with Nora Roberts.
    
11. A flying car. Weren’t we supposed to have those by now?!
    
12. Seeing my family, who are all on the opposite coast.
    
13. A self-cleaning house.
    

Shiny!

That's the cover of a forthcoming anthology Teresa and I are in. Isn't it gorgeous?!

In the Future, All Men Will Be Hotter

That's the theme of Wednesday's Lust Bites article, written by myself and Teresa. Whether you're hot for bad boys like Captain Jack and the original Starbuck, or your heart still belongs to Han Solo, or you fantasize about being quietly swept away by the men of Firefly, this post is for you! Please stop by and leave a comment about your favorite man from the future!

Easing back to reality (or what passes for it)

What a strange day this is. After four days of full-time with Ken, not to mention being surrounded by Styx friends and Styx themselves, I’m home alone. Ken’s visiting his mom. Other than a chiropractic appt and dentist appt (to pick up my mouth guard), I’ve been on my own. I’m playing music loudly to counteract the silence I’m having trouble getting used to. I’m feeling out of sorts. I finally realized that I also haven’t had a full night’s sleep since…Tuesday night last week? (I woke up in the middle of last night with a headache, plus Ken’s alarm went off earlier than mine.) So I’m tired. I have to ease back into Real Life and regain my energy, rather than hit the ground running and exhaust myself further.

I got just over 500 words done yesterday at Lulu’s, after taking Christine out to lunch at Versailles for her birthday. We poked around online before we got to writing (given I hadn’t seen e-mail since Thursday morning, I wanted to make sure there was nothing crucial that needed immediate attention). I thought I’d get more done after I got home, but what with unpacking and laundry and e-mail and general exhaustion resulting in catching up on recorded TV (Torchwood geekery: I ::heart:: Ianto.), none was forthcoming. Today, we shall see.

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Currently Reading: Valiant: A Modern Tale of Faerie, Holly Black
Lately Listened To: various Gowan. I’m bringing myself down slowly…
Recently Watched: Law & Order: SVU

PCD and other ailments of the psyche

Yes, I have PCD (post-concert depression). It’s almost a little worse right now, because I had the chance to go to the Vegas show tonight—knew someone selling a front-row ticket, had offers of a ride and a hotel-room share, and would’ve gotten into the Foundation Room afterwards—and after agonizing over it for a day, in the end I obviously chose not to. I’m not fully convinced it was the right choice, but in the immortal words of Burnard & Sullivan (Shock! Not Gilbert & Sullivan, which I’ve been lead to believe since high school!) in Cox and Box, “Oh, it’s too late now.”

I’m tired, I have raspy sexy Concert Voice, and I’m here at Lulu’s struggling to switch from Concert Brain to Writing Brain. I’m strongly considering going to the Novel Workshop in Oregon over my birthday weekend, but that means I not only have to finish Ghosted by the end of this month to get my damned Beautiful Trophy, but I have to have the synopsis and 50 pp. to Dean by March 10 and the full novel ready for two readers at about the same time. The problem is that I’m such a pantser that Ghosted is really all over the place—I’m not sure how all the scenes are supposed to go together, so I’m writing scenes that need to be in there and I’ll figure out how to thread them together later…which means there will be moving things around and weaving things together and picking apart things that no longer flow and stitching it all back together… And editing is the part that’s hardest for me.

I’m going to really hammer at it this week, and if by the end of the week I truly feel I can get it done in time, I’ll sign up for the workshop. Ken and I will go up on the bike and then wander around the coast for a few days afterwards, so I can finally have the birthday trip that was aborted two years ago when I ended up in the ER on my birthday. We won’t go all the way up into Washington, but there’s enough on the Oregon and California coasts to amuse us for days, if not weeks.

Unless, of course, I want to pay through the nose for scalped tickets to the Manchester, NH, Styx/REO/Def Leppard show that’s on my actual birthday…

But either way, I have to get into Writer Brain, and sending Nikki to a rock concert is not something that in any way needs to happen in my book, even if one of the ghosts already in the book was a secret girlfriend of Jim Morrison. And I do not need to think about a sequel involving rock star ghosts.

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Currently Reading: Sea Change, Robert B. Parker
Lately Listened To: Um. Duh.
Recently Watched: Torchwood, Lost, If Walls Could Talk