We merry few, we band of writers

Our small group/one-on-one Structure workshop with Dean is mostly over, except for lunch tomorrow. We had no assignment tonight, so Leslie and I crashed, snagging the DVD A Night at the Museum from the main building. It’s one of her favorite movies, and I greatly enjoyed it. We laughed and laughed… Ah, it felt good.

Leslie and I have been getting along smashingly, negotiating a small cabin (her bedroom’s basically the living room; mine has a groovy beaded curtain for a door) with aplomb and great humor. I’m sooooo glad that when Phae bailed last minute, I thought to ask Leslie if she’d be willing to share the cabin (I couldn’t have afforded this otherwise, and she was thrilled for the price break as well).

Truth be told, we weren’t incredibly stressed this week. Dean swiftly figured out that none of the six of us had problems with story structure¬—we had other things blocking us. Teaching us some tricks of structure—things to internalize, send back to the subconscious to work as we’re writing, oblivious to them—was intended to get us past those blocks.

Fact is, every writer hits the same block at about the same place. Some writers have figured out how to get through it, so they don’t notice it as much. Neil Gaiman hits it. Charles de Lint hits it. Dean hits it. Man oh man, do I hit it! But now I’m feeling like I know what to do when I hit it, rather than flailing around in the dark like a drunken monkey.

The worst thing for a writer is for someone else to get into the middle of their project. You should be alone in your office: shut the door on critics, naysayers, editors (during the initial creation, this is), market news, etc. So, for the purposes of this week, Dean forced us all to start novels we didn’t plan on. Novels we didn’t, in some cases, even want to work on. For me, it was to take an exercise we’d done last weekend, which involved writing up a shopping list, and start expanding it into a novel.

I knew I should’ve made my shopping list for a sex toy boutique instead of a grocery store…

So now I have this here begun novel. It’s at about 6000 words. It’s funny, potentially sexy, and hoo boy, the problems I’m throwing at my characters.

It’s also, unfortunately, about cooking (among other things), so I see a bunch of eps of Top Chef in my future… Did I mention it’s called Seasoned With Danger?

The proposal is written, even, so after I clean up a few small details, I can actually get it circulating. (I’ll finish blanketing the world with the Waking the Witch proposals first.)

This weekend is the Contracts and Copyright workshop, and I sorely need it. I know there isn’t enough time to get nearly as deep as we’d all like, but we’ll come out of it with a far better grounding. I brought a couple of really bad contracts I’d been offered and refused (after the publisher declined to negotiate), and Dean nearly fell out of his chair when he read them….

Anyway. I’ll post this tomorrow (which is already today). Right now I’m very sleepy, and we’re having breakfast with Chris York tomorrow at the Inn at Spanish Head—yum!

Workshop Time

Workshop Time is an entity unto itself. Sometimes it feels as though I’ve been here for a week; other times, I want to refer to my reading as “last night.” The days blur, stretch, compress, expand. How many times have we walked on the beach? Which night did I toss and turn? How can I still have so many sandwich fixings but no milk?

I’m also trying to consider, each day, what motivates me here. What positive influences I can take home that drive me to the computer day after day. (Don’t get me wrong: I love writing. I can’t not write. But sometimes I avoid it, and I need to figure out why so I can stop doing it. The fear moves constantly. Bastard.)

Today Leslie and I woke about the same time, so we chatted during breakfast (about epic fantasy and religion and Kris’s books and, briefly, boobs), then we made tea (I brought my electric kettle). Now we’ve both retreated to our corners to sip tea and work, after which we’ll shower (not together, you pervs) and continue on. We’ll meet with Dean at The Hilltop for a session at 2 p.m., at which point we need to have our assignments done.

What would I be doing at home? Sipping tea and reading blogs, most likely. I’m not getting a strong enough wireless signal here in the cabin, although I did pop e-mail on my phone this morning. (Got some preliminary good news about a positive review, and my writing alias e-mail spammed my home e-mail address. Go figure.)

Now, to my assignment, one that made me giggle out loud more than once while I was working last night….

Sproing!

I’m in Oregon, having completed the first of two weekend workshops, which will bookend five days of a writing retreat. We studied story structure, which I thought I mostly knew, but apparently my definition of “story structure” was much, much more limited than I realized… Not nearly the level of epiphany as the Marketing Workshop last year, but hoo boy, did I have some light bulbs go off! Definitely some new tools for my writer’s toolbox, as they say. And at least one new short story idea I’m quite chuffed about.

I flew up on Thursday and met up with Leslie, Cindie, and Dave. Traffic was horrid, so we stopped for a late lunch/early dinner at a hole-in-the-wall Mexican place before really getting on the road. Still more traffic (a huge thanks to Leslie for driving through that with great skill and calmness!), but finally it thinned out, and finally we were in Lincoln City.

That night we hung out with a few other folks who’d come in early, as well as Dean, Steve, and Chris, before Leslie, Chris, and I repaired to our room to polish off a couple bottles of wine. (Dean stopped by to drop something off for Leslie and stayed for ages to chat, and also showed off his bartending skills by pouring us wine. Hee.)

Leslie and I are rooming together, and that’s proving to be a blast. We’ve known each other through a number of workshops, and while I had a pretty good sense that we’d get along well, I’m delighted just how comfortably we room together. Especially since her bed is in the living room of the cabin, and my bedroom doesn’t have a door, just a beaded curtain. (Groovy, man.)

We’ve managed to walk on the beach several times, which is always a highlight. The round trip takes 45-60 minutes and includes a nice uphill on the way back; we plan to have glutes of steel by the time we leave…

Originally I was going to just have a writing retreat for the five days between the two workshops, but after experiencing the Story Structure workshop and talking to Dean, I’ve decided to do a one-on-one session with him to work on some advanced structure issues. I’m not yet sure what my precise issue is, but I trust we’ll find it and he’ll beat it out of me with a club (or at least some hardcore assignments).

Now, however, I must dash: I have to finish a scene on PUM and get it off to Teresa before I meet with Dean to get tonight’s assignment, and I’d also like to maybe work on a short story if I have time. I still have a bunch of stuff to bring ya’ll up to speed on, though, like how my reading went, and some very very very exciting news about Ken!

Boggled

Long-time readers will remember that I grew up in a relatively small town in upstate New York where we didn’t get MTV for the first few years of the channel’s existence. I even remember asking Sarah (in one of our exchange 40-page-leters-every-two-weeks) what the hell this MTV she was babbling about was?!

In very great hindsight, I find myself wondering whether this ended up being blessing or a curse. If we’d had MTV, would I have tuned in to MuchMusic on one of the Canadian stations we were able to receive? Because if I hadn’t, I never would have seen the glory that was the “A Criminal Mind” video (complete with shots of Gowan, as he was then known, in a cage—my 17-year-old hormones didn’t have a clue what to do with that, but now we understand, oh, do we understand!). And goodness knows that was instrumental in leading me down the road that leads right smack dab to here. (When Styx announced Lawrence as their new keyboardist, I believe my response was “My Lawrence Gowan?!”)

But I digress. I’m not really here to talk about Styx (at least, not tonight). I’m here to talk about seeing Yes, with Special Guest, Asia, at the Anaheim House of Blues Sunday night.

I admit it, what I really wanted to see was Asia. I was listening to them while I was writing, I believe it was Thursday night, and some part of my brain blipped to the forefront and said, “Didn’t we hear something about them touring?” Honestly, I hadn’t followed the band’s career, didn’t know much more than the first couple of albums. But I had the power of the Internet at my fingertips, and lo! they were opening for Yes, and as the House of Blues is GA, that was the show to hit this week in the area.

I don’t have time to review the whole show here; I just want to say this: The highlight of the night—the highlight of a good chunk of my life—was when John Wetton said that these were the first hands ever seen on MTV, and Geoff Downes started playing a song from another band he’d been in.

The Buggles.

That’s right, Asia played “Video Killed the Radio Star.”

I didn’t get to see it launch MTV, but I got to see and hear it live.

(FWIW, because I’m also a band geek, my runner-up highlight was “Fanfare for a Common Man.” I am a total sucker for rock bands who do a stellar job of reinterpreting/reimaging classical music.)

In the Flesh reading

I'm going to be a featured author at July’s In the Flesh: LA in Hollywood!

Here’s the info:

When: Wednesday, July 8, 8 p.m.

Where: Hustler Hollywood, 8920 Sunset Blvd., West Hollywood, CA 90069, 310-860-9009

What: In the Flesh: LA is the West Coast version of the acclaimed In The Flesh reading series founded by Rachel Kramer Bussel, and “features the city's best journalists, authors, scriptwriters and more offering their torrid tales for your entertainment and titillation.”

I’ve never done a reading before so I have to confess I’m getting kind of nervous… Oddly, I think I’ll be less nervous if I look out and see people I know, rather than complete strangers. I realize that it’s in the middle of the week and (for those of you in outlying areas*) it can be quite a trek to Hollywood, but if you can possibly make it, I would be eternally grateful and would love to see you.

Plus, there’s free underground parking on-site, complimentary snacks and desserts, and the chance to win a goodie bag of prizes! I have to admit, I wasn’t sure what to expect from Hustler Hollywood when I went to last month’s reading, so I’m delighted to say it’s a clean, bright, inviting store with a café, lots of books and t-shirts, and a fantastic, fun, positive atmosphere.

(*Yes, I know a lot of you aren’t even in southern California and that this post is really aimed at my friends who are local. However, I’m imagining all the rest of you will be there in spirit! Don’t let me down!)

If you have any questions about the reading, feel free to e-mail me at cyvarwydd@mac.com. Wish me luck!

and on and on

So much to update, so little time…

Two weekends ago was Carreg Wen Anniversary, and it has been far too long since we’ve visited that fair Shire. On the way we picked up our friend Lareej. We’ve known her forever, but she took a hiatus from the SCA and in the past year or so has been getting active again.

We’d forgotten what Lompoc was like—essentially fogged in—so we pretty much froze our patooties off, but we had a great time. The event was small, so we just hung out with friends and laughed a lot. And Ken won the rapier tournament so he’s Carreg Wen’s Rapier Champion! My Renaissance man: three motorcycle rally wins in a row and now a rapier championship. (And more on that later…)

Then Lareej came home with us and we were up drinking and carousing until 5 a.m. Yeah, I’ll sleep when I’m dead…

Ken spent last week finishing up stuff around the house, including building some new bookshelves for our joint office. (We’ll be moving the magazines to those, then shifting everything over so he has more space behind his desk for stuff.)

Then he headed off to Oregon for another rally, and I headed off to CP Prize Tourney, because I haven’t been to a Kingdom event in ages and ages and I’ve missed everybody. I carpooled with Ismay and Alia and Lareej (who crashed here the night before, and I swear we stayed up only until 1 a.m. this time, given that Ismay was due to show up at 7 a.m.), and you now how it’s like when you put four women in a car together… I had a massively fun day, reconnecting with folks I hadn’t seen in ages and winning a gorgeous bracelet in the raffle (it was the only thing that really sparked for me; I stuffed the rest of my tickets in for things that Lareej wanted, since much of her SCA stuff has disappeared over the past few years). All in all, a hugely enjoyable day, despite how hideously hot it got in the afternoon. We four grabbed dinner in Fillmore before heading home, and then lo, there was much sleeping (at least on my part).

Sunday I headed off to CB&TL to meet with another writer, and while I was there, I got the text from Ken: he’d won his fourth rally in a row! It’s an unprecedented win—as far as anybody knows, nobody has done accomplished this before. Wooh! *\o/*

In between all of that, I’ve been working working working. I was relieved to discover one of the anthologies I’m writing a story for has extended its deadline for a month; that was the one I didn’t have an idea for yet anyway. As for the rest of them, so far, so good…

Okay, it’s well into Tuesday and I have a writing-and-lunch date with Christine tomorrow morning, so I need to fall over in a wibbling heap of sleepy.

---

Currently Reading: Dance of the Gods, Nora Roberts; RT Bookclub; Faerie Magazine
Lately Listened To: Then and Now, Asia
Recently Watched: Doctor Who: The Next Doctor; NCIS rerun

This is what happens...

...when I let my Fabulous Gay Hairdresser free reign with a blowdryer and hair-straigtening thingie.

The cute receptionist at my gynecologist's loved it, so I guess it can't be all bad.

But I laughed in FGH's face when he suggested I, oh, buy a hair-straightening thingie. Really, who has the time?

When it rains, it pours...of course!

Right now, I have only one official deadline. By “official” I mean a deadline imposed by an editor. Everything else I’m working on has deadlines I’m imposing on myself. Not everyone thrives in that kind of atmosphere, but I do.

So (gulp) here’s what I’ve got on my plate right now:

By July 1, I have 4 (four!) anthologies I want to submit stories to. Two are erotica, and those are pretty short. I’m tempted to say “easy” as well, but no story is ever truly easy. With one, at least, I want to push a little bit, delve into the emotions a little deeper than I normally do.

The other two anthologies are science fiction. I write more fantasy than SF, and with one of the stories (which I’ve already started), I’m dealing with a difficult subject matter. Right now I haven’t a clue what I’m writing for the other story.

So, for the record, that’s four stories due in 12 days. Which is pretty darn easy when you look at it like that, given that I’ve written any number of overnight stories at workshops. I have ideas for three of the four stories, and one is already started.

Then there’s the new Custom Erotica Source assignment that landed in my In Box yesterday. It’s another fun one, and at 3K shouldn’t take me too long. It’s due July 6, but I’d certainly like to get it in sooner than that.

On top of that, however, the client wants a 500-word synopsis of what I’m going to write. I don’t really plot ahead of time (although I’m certainly capable of writing novel proposals before I’ve written a word of the novel), so it’s a bit of a challenge, and I’m nearly finished with it. (Goal: Send it to the editor tonight.) [Edited to add: I wrote this entry Friday night, and got the synopsis out then as well.]

But what about Possessed, Undressed, and in a Mess, you ask? Teresa and I are about halfway through the book right now, and the deadline in my head for that is July 9, the day I leave for Oregon.

My reasoning is this: I’m going to Lincoln City for two workshops, each over a weekend, and the five or so days between them are a writing retreat for me. During that time, I want to work on a single project, and PUM wouldn’t be a good candidate for that, because Teresa and I are tossing chapters back and forth, plotting as we go, and we frequently have to wait for one or the other to write something in order to know how the next scene should flow. If she were coming with me (and how fabby would that be? but alas, no) then we could easily finish the manuscript and maybe even hammer out a couple of stories… But she can’t be there, so whatever project I work on needs to be something I can focus on myself. And I’d rather have the draft of PUM out of my brain before then.

(I haven’t yet decided what my project there will be. In the running are two novels-in-progress—I’d shoot to finish one of them—or writing 5+ short stories—I have lots of ideas that get pushed aside in favor of an anthology theme, not to mention there are any number of upcoming anthologies I could work ahead for.)

So, to recap: Five short stories and one novel ms in about three weeks. To which I say, Whee! Let the roller coaster begin!

[Edited again: CES client liked my synopsis so much that he’s asked for the story to be doubled in size! Is it possible to say “Yay!” and “Eek!” in the same noise? ::gg:: ]

All I've got. You?

I have an entry written for today—well, for Friday, which has technically passed—but it’s downstairs on Afalwen and I have to get up at 7 a.m. to go to an SCA event, which I might’ve tried to bow out of had we not been bringing someone with us.

So this is it. This is all I’ve got.

What are you doing this weekend?

A meme I can actually get behind

If there is one person or more on your friends list who makes your world a better place just because they exist and who you would not have met (in real life or not) without the Internet, then post this same sentence in your journal.

Best Lesbian Romance 2010 for the win!

Sale! I opened up my e-mail this morning to find a contract from Best Lesbian Romance 2010 for “Queen’s Up”! The story will first appear in Lesbian Cowboys: Erotic Adventures from Cleis Press in August.

Plus there was an e-mail from another editor saying she should have final approval on the table of contents for another anthology by mid-July. What often happens is that an editor will select the stories, and sometimes even send the contract, but the publisher has the final say on the selections. I’m keeping my fingers crossed, because this is a very exciting potential publication!

(The same caveat applies to Best Lesbian Romance 2010, but I’m being positive because it’s also being published by Cleis, and they’ve never nixed one of my stories as far as I can remember.)

Today is starting out quite nicely!

We <3 Alison Tyler

Editor and author Alison Tyler is being coy as usual. She’ll admit that June is her birthday month, and that she likes to celebrate all month, but she won’t admit which day is her actual birthday.

She ducks her head, hiding behind a fall of dark hair. She says she’s shy while she reveals intimate details of her life. She won’t let us see her face, but she’ll show us her shoes, her little skirts, her panties (okay, maybe not always in pictures, but she paints pictures with words, and how can we help but fill in the rest with our imaginations?).

She writes, she edits, she drinks coffee in the morning and tequila at night (or is it the other way around), and all the while she reminds us how much you can confess while at the same time divulging just enough to tease.

Because you know what teases get? A spanking. Spankings: They’re not just for birthdays anymore.

We’ve declared today to be her birthday, whether or not it actually is, because, well, we wanted to throw her a party. Any excuse to party, right? If you follow the link above, you'll get links to everyone else who's staggering around with glasses of champagne and party horns, wrapped in streamers and smeared with frosting.

So, Happy Birthday Alison! I’ll be thinking of you tomorrow at the Erotic LA expo, imagining you’re there with me, saying, “Oh, I have this toy, and this one, and this one, and ooh, this one’s great, too, and…!”

On staying positive

One of my writing mentors, Kristine Kathryn Rusch, has been doing a series of articles in her blog about how to be a freelancer. She’d originally conceived of doing writing a book, but realized that in these difficult times, people needed the information now.

The series is, well, outstanding. Kris has been a freelancer for most of her adult life, and she’s overcome her share of adversity more than once to be a successful, prolific award-winning writer and editor. She’s also not afraid to be honest, candid, and blunt.

So far she’s covered everything from how to set up your office to the various insurance issues you need to consider, but the article that so far has been the most useful to me is about Staying Positive.

You wouldn’t think that would be a hard thing at some stage of the game. Maybe at first, when the rejections pour in, but hey, I’ve sold two novels and 85 or so short stories. Certainly I must dance to the computer every day and the words flow while rainbow-colored sparks shoot out of my fingertips as I type, right?

Yeah. Snort.

Oddly, hearing someone I have respected for a very, very long time (I was a fan of Kris’s work well before I took the Master Class in March 2002, and I still sometimes have awestruck fangirl moments around her—note that above, I called her one of my writing mentors rather than one of my colleagues. I’m working on that. ::gg::) admit to having moments of self-doubt is somehow encouraging to me. I know that sounds weird. It sounds weird to me. But I know I put people I admire and respect up on pedestals, and I’m working on that, too.

One of the things Kris said she does to stay positive really resonated with me: She keeps a desk calendar at hand, and every day writes down the good things that have happened, writing-wise: fan mail, awards, payments, covers, and the like.

I had the perfect blank journal for this already waiting for me. It’s one that Phae bought for me in Lincoln City during one of our workshops there, at a coffee house with wireless Internet that we frequented (before the workshops moved to a hotel with wireless access). On the front it says, “This is the way you slip through into your innermost home: Close your eyes, and…surrender.” Inside are some other similar quotes. On the back it says, “Unfold your own myths.”

How fucking perfect is that?

So with a purple pen I’ve started logging things. Not every day (yet), but as they come in. The glowing thank you from the client calling my first CES story “PERFECT” (yes, in all caps). The nice things Shanna said about me in her blog (and which I at first downplayed in my own head, rather than embracing—I am prolific, dammit, and I have to believe that for it to be true). The recent e-mail I got from an editor about a novel query: She didn’t think it was for her, but rather than just rejecting it, she saw enough merit in it that she “checked with a few of [her] colleagues” and gave me the direct e-mail of another editor who’d like to see it.

I’m even tracking the good writing days, the ones where I hit my goals. No dancing or rainbows, but close enough for me. It’s good to be reminded that some days, the writing does flow. You just have to get out of your own way and let it happen.

My fantasy has turned to madness

After a frustrating couple of days—problems with my shoulder killed my productivity and sapped my energy and enthusiasm—today was quite lovely and productive.

• We threw the fixings for white bean/chicken chili into the crockpot. Nom.
  
• We watered the cat (i.e., gave Grimoire subcutaneous fluids).
  
• I did some dishes. (There are now more, and I think they’re my chore again. Dammit.)
  
• I sent an e-birthday card to a friend.
  
• I wrote on Possessed, Undressed, and in a Mess and submitted two recently returned stories. (Sadly, did not get to short story or critiquing.)
  
• I compiled some info for a nonfiction article and did some other related research.
  
• We worked out at the gym.
  
• We detoured on the way to the grocery store to watch the sunset from the beach (the beach is about half a mile farther away than the store, so…).
  
• We watched several episodes of season three of Alias while trying to figure out if this is the season where the show jumps the shark.
  

Tomorrow, more of the same. Ken’s going to go to fighter practice, and I may wander by with a handwork project or the laptop and watch him poke at people with long metal objects. Or, if she’s up to it, Morgana and I may go for a walk. Either way, there will be writing and critiquing and nonfiction article brainstorming and querying.

Now, very soon, there will be bed. And that’s always good.

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Currently Reading: Getting Over Jack Wagner, Elise Juska
Lately Listened To: RWA workshops on the iPod while working out
Recently Watched: Alias

Hittin' goals

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lab.drwicked.com

Brief update

Arm still tender, after bruising massage by therapist and adjustment by chiropractor and lots of icing and Advil. Ulna and first rib (where it meets collar bone) both out of whack (well, not anymore).

Car back! I’m just shy of $5000 poorer.

Pirate Tournament tomorrow. Well, Pirate Tournament/Darach Anniversary/Darach Equestrian Championship/Altavia Equestrian Championship. Me, I’m putting on my pirate duds and being Wicked Red. Who is really more purple now, but Wicked Purple just doesn’t scan well.

Potted herb garden is thriving, except for the thyme. Who’d’ve guessed?

Six stories to mail. Then, back to writing and critiquing and novel subs, and…

More when I’ve dug myself out of the pile. Gently, still favoring forearm.

Timing is everything

Oh for the love of all that’s holy…

Ken’s got a bunch of errands to run tomorrow, and today I hammered out the details of a short story I need to submit by the end of the month, so I was looking forward to an all-writing, all-the-time day tomorrow (well, writing, submissions, continuing to read a novel I’m critiquing, updating my mailing list, etc.).

But I’ve apparently been doing too much mouse work of late, because my right forearm is hurting and a wee bit tingly, which means I’m developing tendonitis.

I iced it tonight and just took a bunch of Advil, but I should probably stop typing now. I think I’m just going to limit my computer activities for the next few days to only writing and anything else crucial. I’ll be scarce on Facebook and e-mail; I’ll check e-mail, but if you need me, calling will probably be better.

Of course, Friday is Brian’s day off and it’s our turn to do house stuff (he gets every other Friday off, so he and Ken are switching between houses to work on projects, as are Morgana and I)—and Morgana and I were going to work on curtains for our living room and dining room. Sewing. Not good for arm.

Frak me.

Radio silence: Commencing. Think healing thoughts, please!

Plans for today

Plans for Today:

• meal planning and grocery shopping w/Ken
  
• short story planning and beginning
  
• Waking the Witch submissions
  
• gym
  
• Textile Guild at Morgana’s – assembling the leather bodice
  
• ideally, some e-mail catching up
  

Let’s see how it goes!

Feeling the love...and the pain

We left for Phoenix Thursday last, late morning, stopping in the Valley for lunch at Lulu’s. Half a caprese sandwich and salad, nomnom, plus a mocha to go. It was strange to be there without Christine or Jenn, and without my laptop, though. After a brief stop at a Radio Shack to pick up an auxiliary cord so we could plug in my iPod or Ken’s iPhone for music, we were on our way to Phoenix. We stopped once for gas, as well as some homemade beef jerky to supplement our road food, on the way. Good music, good conversation, good company.

Our friend Sara and her husband Lee had been at their timeshare in Sedona until that afternoon and wanted an evening in, so we picked up coleslaw and BBQ kettle chips to supplement their planned picnic in front of the TV (deli meats and cheeses, etc.). We watched an ep of Castle that Ken and I had missed, plus Nathan Fillion in a leather kilt on a talk show (mmm), and then Sara and I talked late into the night about all things Styx and Ren Faire and goodness knows what else.

The next day we took them out to brunch at The Good Egg and they took us to a fantastic used book store, where I only bought books on my list, I swear….

We’d hoped to meet up with some friends before the show, but none of the arrangements worked out, so the three of us (Lee isn’t into crowds) had dinner at an Irish pub (note to self: fish and chips plus a pint of cider isn’t the best meal before a show) and got to the venue comfortably on time. We had second-row pit seats between JY and Tommy, and it turned out that two of our friends (from LA) were directly in front of us. (Actually, Ken and I had the second-row seats and Sara had a third-row seat a few seats over, but Ken traded tickets with her and then smooshed in behind me.)

Sara had never gotten a “green bag” (the Styx-logoed tote bags that each member tosses to the audience at the end of each show) and this was probably her only show for the year, so she had a sign asking for a bag, and I had a sign asking for her to get a bag. To our delight, Tommy not only saw the signs but made sure his bag got to her. I also managed to duck a security guard to get her a set list after the show was over. :-)

We stayed up far too late playing the “Spot Dayle in the Audience of the One With Everything: Styx With the Contemporary Youth Orchestra DVD Drinking Game,” so peeling ourselves out of bed the next morning wasn’t an easy prospect. But we did, said our sad farewells, and made it home in time to snuggle with the kitties.

We didn’t have to leave for Fresno on Sunday until just after lunch, so we were able to spend a productive-ish morning at home. We had fourth-row tickets for this show, but snuck up to the first row for the encore. Another great show! but then we had a 3.5-hour drive home… Yawn.

My camera crapped out after the Phoenix show—the pictures looked fine on the camera but wouldn’t download to the computer properly—but I’ll upload the ones from Fresno soon. Really. Honest.

Fast-forward to Thursday, when we hopped on the bike and headed to our friends Nanci and Lenny’s so I could fluff-and-buff before the show. Ken went on to San Bernardino to pick up a couple of vats of gumbo (long story) while I got ready and hung out with Nanci, then we rode with her to the show. Sixth-row seats on Tommy’s side again, but damned if Tommy didn’t spot us in the crowd during the very first song. And Lawrence sang a line of “Come Sail Away” at me, so we were totally feeling the love. :-)

Oh, and much to my great amusement, when we found our seats, we were next to a woman doing kumihimo braiding! She does Ren Faire rather than SCA, but we still had a great chat, and I need to e-mail her with the heart braid pattern I found online.

Friday afternoon Ken headed up to Hanford with the gumbo; I stayed home to try to have some modicum of a productive weekend. Alas, I was suffering from Post-Concert Depression as well as a severe case of I Don’t Give a Sh*t, so I gave myself some time off to regroup. Saturday I went to Morgana’s and we cut out a leather bodice for me for Pirate Tournament—provided I can get the spring steel boning in time, we’re talking three long seams, two shoulder seams, and sewing the boning channels, plus grommets. Piece of cake. Afterwards, she and Brian invited me to dinner. I actually did get some writing done later that evening, and then Ken arrived back home last night from his bike adventures.

Yesterday I went to CB&TL, but I hadn’t seen Ellenie in months, so we spent our time catching up. A good recharge, though, and we have a writing date for Wednesday evening. Plus I got a little writing done yesterday evening.

After I finish the PUM scene on my agenda (it’s written in my head…), and review Teresa’s, and send more Waking the Witch proposals (now that all of the PUM and OOTFP proposals are in the mail save one that was recently returned), and write a short story, and…

Never a dull moment ‘round here!

::guiltily waves hello::

You know you haven’t updated your journal in a while when your mother e-mails to ask if you’re okay.

Sorry, Mom.

I have several updates in the works, but no time to finish them, so here’s the short version: Concerts fabby (Tommy pointed at me in the sixth row!), but all the travel put me behind on work. Combine that with Post-Concert Depression and a serious case of I Don’t Give a Sh*t, I’m still clawing my way back up out of the mire.

So, apologies to all. I have high hopes for getting back on track this week…as long as I can pull a full night’s sleep one of these nights…

For the win!

Okay. We managed to rent a car for a not-hideous price for the next four days, so we don’t have to take the bike to Phoenix in 101° heat. Because the thought of that made me want to weep. We did consider going out at night (leaving in the evening, riding for a few hours, sleeping, riding in the early morning), but in the end, the cost of the car wasn’t much more than the cost of two nights’ motel (assuming we’d stop in both directions). This will also allow me to get some work done in the car. :-)

Ken arrived home yesterday while Morgana and I were on our walk, and had the U-Haul unloaded by the time I got back. We returned the truck and then went out to lunch at Fresh & Fabulous to celebrate their move from the small space in the historic Woolworth’s building annex into the large Woolworth building restaurant space. I hope they do well there. The ambiance is all wrong for their Saturday high teas, but if they’ve been doing well enough to support the move to a much bigger space, that’s fantastic! I had their potato-and-garlic soup and oh my gods it was good! and half a sandwich (turkey, muenster, avocado, and bacon on whole wheat ciabatta with pesto mayo, toasted), also nommy. Ken had pear and walnut salad with champagne dressing, which is funny, because they usually have a small portion of pear and walnut salad with the quiche course for high tea.

Then, um… I don’t remember. He was pretty wiped out. We watched a little TV, and he took a nap, and because we hadn’t gone grocery shopping, we ordered a pizza. Then we toddled off to sewing at Morgana’s, where I finished beading the third of four pieces of Italian sleeves and cut out a bunch of fabric to make into presentation bags. Now, to find people willing to cross-stitch a Caidan cross on one or two of them! :-)

Then it was a little more TV catching up (Castle!) and bed…

Today has been go-go-go, it feels. I had a chiro appt, came home briefly, then had lunch with my friend Janice. She’s someone I never really get around to hanging out with, so I suggested lunch, and we did, and we’ve already made another lunch date in two weeks (since next week’s a little busy for me). Suuuushi, nomnomnom!

Then I got home just in time to grab Ken and go get my blood drawn for some tests—I wanted him to drive me home on the off chance I felt wibby afterwards. They didn’t take much, though, so I was mostly fine, except that it was hot and I hadn’t had any tea yet today, so I was hitting an afternoon slump. We swung by the grocery store to pick up a few essentials an ingredients for supper tonight (sloppy joes with ground turkey, plus salad); we’ll have the leftovers on Saturday when we get home from Phoenix. Convenient, that.

Then I bribed Ken to take Eostre to the vet for her follow-up check on her lip (had to take her in for some granuloma last week), which meant I didn’t have to get in the un-air conditioned car again. (I’ve been borrowing Morgana and Brian’s second car while Ken had mine in AR, and up ‘til now the lack of air conditioning hasn’t been a huge issue…). In return for him taking her in, I said I’d make dinner and do all the dishes. Which I probably would’ve ended up doing anyway (or I would’ve cooked and he would’ve done most of the dishes, more likely). So I see this as a Win on my part! LOL

---

Currently Reading: Morrigan’s Cross, Nora Roberts
Lately Listened To: Styx & REO Speedwagon, “Can’t Stop Rockin’” single
Recently Watched: Dollhouse

Updated

Bigger sigh. The Saab dealer in Scottsdale couldn’t fix the car w/in a week—I’m not clear on whether it’s because they were booked up or because the car is in that bad shape… I suspect the former, really, because Saabs don’t break down like that. They go and go and go until they get old and one day the decide they’re done and just stop.

So Ken rented a U-Haul and car trailer (which necessitated going to two different U-Haul places), returned the bike trailer, bought 2x4s, put the bike in the U-Haul, put all the stuff from the car into the U-Haul, attached the car to the U-Haul, and then he and his dad started the trek back to California. Last I heard, they should make it to dad’s by midnight, and Ken will crash there. In the morning, he’ll drop the car at my Fabulous Swedish Car Guy’s shop, and then we’ll sort out returning the U-Haul.

And then we’ll figure out how to get to Phoenix on Thursday, and Fresno on Sunday…

Meanwhile, I had my annual exam today, and am going back in a few weeks for an ultrasound, and then another test, and then probably an ablation. Since I went off the Pill, my periods have been insane. This solution is way better than the monthly 3-day migraines I was getting on the Pill....

I also updated my website—check it out!

Now I have a headache, so I’m going to take some drugs, sip some wine, watch a little TV, maybe answer e-mail, and wait for Ken to call and say they’ve arrived safely, so I can go to bed!

Home? Not so much.

So, Ken was supposed to be home today. (There was even a slim chance he’d be home last night, but his dad isn’t as big on long haul driving.) Then I got the call yesterday afternoon.

They broke my car.

Not sure what’s up; there was oil everywhere and it was beyond their ability to fix at the side of the road (keeping in mind that Ken’s an engineer and Dad’s a former auto mechanic). Long story short, they got a tow into Flagstaff, and then a tow into Phoenix (Scottsdale, specifically, where there’s a Saab dealership) tonight.

The irony, of course, is that we’re due to drive to Phoenix on Thursday for the Styx show on Friday. Depending on how long it takes my car to get fixed, this could involve some interesting machinations*.

Sigh. This sucks.

Meanwhile, I’ve spent the past two days finishing up my first Custom Erotica Source commission. It was an interesting experience… I’m given to understand it was an unusually detailed request, so I’m even more curious to see what the next job will bring.

Teresa and I had another confab about PUM and I got some work done on my scenes tonight as well. I’ll hammer on those tomorrow (and possibly into Tuesday; I have some errands and appointments tomorrow, too) and get them sent off. Then I have a few short stories to write and send, and some nonfiction proposals to suss out.

Other than that, there’s sewing night at Morgana’s on Tuesday, and lunch with another friend on Wednesday (suuuuushi!), and then it’s off to Phoenix and Styx, baybee!

*C’mon, isn’t that a great word?!

---

Currently Reading: er, various things I can't put my hands on right now
Lately Listened To: the purring of contented cats
Recently Watched: Thriller, a rather odd series from the 1970s that I saw as a child and which completely freaked me out. Thanks a lot, Mom.

Not to mention the disco version

[In falsetto, everybody!]

What you doin' on the 'net, ahh

What you doin' on the 'net, ahh

You should be writing, yeah,

Writing, yea-eh-ah!

(Damn you, Bee Gees!)

Filk, to the tune of "Guerilla Soldier" (Gowan)

In another thousand words
Will it all be over
And another thousand words
Is the story done?
In another thousand words
Will it all make history
And another thousand words
Will the book be done...?

(It's kind of a curse, really...)

The jury's still out

I got, like, four inches cut off my hair today.

This is what I get for going to my Fabulous Gay Hairdresser while stressed, grumpy, and way too hot. (In other words, get the hair off my neck. Now.)

I think I like it. Really, I think I do. Or my brain may be faking me out into believing I like it so I don’t have a freaking nervous breakdown and lock myself in my admittedly enormous closet (it has a window!) for the rest of the year.

The gods of travel, they are capricious

I’m headed home from Arkansas. The trip out there was a bit of an adventure: the LAX-DFW flight left 2.5 hours late due to weather at DFW (and we sat on the plane at the gate for about 2 of those hours), then the DFW-LIT flight was also delayed due to weather, and then the flight itself detoured to go around the storm. Instead of arriving at 8 p.m., I got in at 1:30 p.m., and then we had to get to Hot Springs Village in the thunderstorm. But the bottom line was, I made it!

Ken was in the middle of a 24-hour rally, so the next morning his dad and I went to the historic Arlington Hotel in Hot Springs to meet up with him. We (rally people) had a private room and indulged in the amazing Sunday buffet (caviar! Seafood Newburg! cheese plate! nomnomnom), and then we got to celebrate because Ken won! Yay! *\o/*

After that we headed up to Little Rock for his grandmother’s 95th birthday party. She was so delighted while I was there, and I spent most of the party at her side, helping her out (getting her punch, reading her cards to her and telling her about her presents as I opened them, etc.). She can barely see, and her hearing’s not great, but she’s sharp as a tack. Meanwhile, the blue dye in the cake frosting turned everyone’s tongues and lips bright blue.

Ken and I slept hard last night….

Today’s travel has thus far been smooth, thank the gods. We got to LIT comfortably early and Ken had an early lunch with me (I had lemon-and-herb grilled chicken with brie and caramelized onions on a ciabatta roll, nom!). I had just enough time in DFW to switch terminals, have a brisk walk to my new gate, and hit a bathroom before it was time to board.

Ken may be home this weekend, or he may head straight to Oregon to do some work. I have a bit of a busy work week because I have to catch up on some things, plus we’re off to Phoenix and Fresno the weekend after this one for Styx shows.

~ ~ ~

Made it home, safe and sound. The travel gods made up for Saturday by smiling upon me today. Traffic on the 405 backed up just at the point where I peeled off to the 10. As I hit Pacific Coast Highway, the radio played Styx. There was little traffic up the coast, the air was cool, the sun was bright, the ocean was dazzling.

It's the lusty month of May!

Blessed Beltaine!

Went out for high tea with Morgana and Brian today to celebrate May Day. We tried out Tranquility Tea Room in Thousand Oaks. I found it online recently (although I can’t for the life of me remember how). It was a bit pricy, but overall quite good. I tried Lover’s Leap tea from Sri Lanka, and although it’s a black tea, it wasn’t very dark and it didn’t have any discernible flavor. It was worth the experiment, though! They had fun hats, but I’d brought my own. We all took them off before tea even arrived, however, because it was a wee bit too warm.

After we returned home, I grabbed novel subs to mail and jumped in the car (I’m borrowing Morgana and Brian’s second car since mine is in Arkansas). Alas, although my phone showed I had three minutes to spare, the PO was closing. I went off to the chiropractor to pick up some supplements, and when I got out of the car, I heard a nasty accident on the main street. (The building blocked my view.) It occurred to me that if I’d left earlier and made it to the PO, I might’ve been done at the chiropractor’s and turning onto that very street at that very moment. So I’m quite okay with everything getting mailed on Tuesday…

Now, though, I’m tired, and I still have much to do: writing, packing, cat box scooping… The Oak Leaf just isn’t going to get done before I leave. Nobody will suggest topics for the history of the Shire column (even though people requested the articles be run), and I didn’t come up with an idea for this issue until late yesterday. Sigh.

On and off

I’m soon off to Arkansas on Saturday for a madcap 3-day trip to attend Ken’s grandmother’s 95th birthday party. (Go Grandma!) Ken is already on his way there, in my car, no less. We have a bunch of stuff to bring home—Ken and his dad moved Grandma into a home last month (her choice, and she’s really happy there, yay!), and we’re acquiring some silver, crystal, china tea cups (yeah, like we need more tea cups…but it’ll be so cool to mix hers with my grandmother’s, you know?), that sort of thing. The original plan had been for Ken and I to drove out together, but because Grimoire needs subcutaneous fluids on a regular basis (every day is recommended, but skipping a day or two is okay), I couldn’t take the time.  :-(  Would've been fun.

On top of that, there’s a rally in Arkansas this weekend, so Ken’s bike is actually on a trailer that he and his dad are pulling behind my car. I get to attend the awards banquet with Ken on Sunday morning. Fingers crossed that he wins!

Meanwhile, Part II of Being an Adult Sucks: Our friend Donna was in town, and we so wanted to see her, but there was no way we could pull it off on Monday because on Tuesday, we had to deliver my car to Ken’s dad’s—2 hours away. (I would drive the car, Ken would ride the bike, and we’d ride the bike home together, after which he would head back out to his dad’s, running some errands along the way.) I couldn’t take Monday evening off if I was going to lose 4–5 work hours on Tuesday.

Sigh. As it turned out, it was a good call, because we were gone pretty much all day Tuesday. We hit traffic on the way out, so much so that all the errands Ken had to run wouldn’t be possible in the order he’d planned. So he had to run them in the opposite direction; i.e., on the way home. On the plus side, I had a yummy gyro for lunch and Ken picked up Baja Fresh for dinner, and I got to have dinner with him. On the negative side, he left soon after dinner.

I’m still bummed I didn’t get to see Donna (and Gillian, and Jen, and everyone else…).

Meanwhile…I don’t know. Just trying to keep up with everything. Morgana and I are walking, I’m hitting the gym, The Oak Leaf May issue is in progress, and story sales and rejections continue apace. I’d like to finish the OOTFP subs before I leave, too. We shall see.

Onwards!

Sale the second!

I heard about Peep Show last night, and then today got another acceptance!

My vampire story "Devouring Heart" will be published in The Sweetest Kiss: Ravishing Vampire Erotica on October 1, 2009, also by Cleis Press and edited by D.L. King (also edited Where the Girls Are... It's all one big pyjama party, really!).

I wrote "Devouring Heart" five years ago, so I'm especially chuffed it found such a wonderful home!

And Teresa's got a story in this one, too!

The TOC:

Midnight at Sheremetyevo by Remittance Girl
Wait Until Dark, Montresor by Thomas S. Roche
The Temptation of Mlle. Marielle Doucette by Anna Black
Kiss and Make Up by Lisette Ashton
The Student by Sommer Marsden
Red By Any Other Name by Kathleen Bradean
Enlightenment by Amber Hipple
Blood and Bootleg by Teresa Noelle Roberts
Fair Play by G. B. Kensington
Advantage by Ciara Finn
The Communion of Blood and Semen by Maxim Jakubowski
Nightlife by Madeleine Oh
Takeout or Delivery? by Evan Mora
Devouring Heart by Andrea Dale
Wicked Kisses by Michelle Belanger
Fourth World by Lisabet Sarai
Turn by Nikki Magennis
Cutter by Kristina Wright
Once An Addict... by A.D.R. Forte

Sale the first!

A new sale! My story "Now You See Her" will appear in Peep Show: Tales of Voyeurs and Exhibitionists, coming in November 2009 from Cleis Press, edited by the yummy Rachel Kramer Bussel!

"Now You See Her" is a companion story to "Come to My Window" in Where the Girls Are, due out July 1, 2009, also from Cleis Press. I hadn't planned on writing a related story when I wrote "Come to My Window," but the theme of Peep Show spoke to a related, very cool idea...

Anyway. Peep Show is available on amazon for pre-order already, and here's the full table of contents!

Introduction: Hungry Eyes and Sensual Show-Offs
Showtime by Susan St. Aubin
Clean and Pretty by Donna George Storey
Superior by Monica Shores
People in Glass Hotels by Jennifer Peters
Indecent by Lolita Lopez
Ownership by Craig J. Sorensen
Audience Participation by Elizabeth Coldwell
Now You See Her by Andrea Dale
Watcher in the Shadows by Cheyenne Blue
Glass by Nobilis Reed
Sleeping Beauty by Malcolm Ross
The Theory of Orchids by L. A. Mistral
Missing Michael by M. March
Busted by Kissa Starling
Satisfaction Guaranteed by Sommer Marsden
Rosse Buurt by Geneva King
I’ve Only Got Eyes for You by Rachel Kramer Bussel
Calendar Girl by Angela Caperton

Nice review!

A terrific mention of Teresa's and my story in The Pagan Anthology of Short Fiction:

"'Under a Double Rainbow' by Sophie Mouette: Iris, the goddess of the rainbow, shows up at a women’s spirituality festival. Love, healing, and a healthy dose of sex ensue. A lovely tale with just the right amount of mild erotica, and a great weaving together of several subplots."

From Pagan Book Reviews. The full review is here.

Yay Ken!

Self-righteously, I did get a lot of work done yesterday, and today I smoothed over two chapters and some notes and got them all sent off to Teresa. I also ran some errands and went to the gym, and came home and showered, and joined Twitter (as cyvarwydd—feel free to follow me, even though I currently haven't a clue what I'm supposed to be doing with it).

And then things went a wee bit pear-shaped. Due to some health issues, I went all wibbly. I was all set to work on my first CES assignment when…no. No brain, no energy, no nothin’. I did take Afalwen with me as I sat on the sofa and watched reruns of NCIS (which I recorded so I could still blast through commercials), but our Internet access gets wonky in the evenings, so I only got a limited amount of useful stuff done. In between lying down on the sofa….

Then I got the call: Ken won the rally! And he was going to try and make it home tonight! I called him a bit later to request In-n-Out (because I needed red meat in a bad way), and it turned out he had a flat tire. He was unable to get hold of his mom or brother in Orange County, so he ended up calling AAA, and getting home around 1:30 a.m. But he’s home! And he won!

Now I shall wibble my wibbly self off to bed…

The truth is...

I’d like to be all self-righteous and say I didn’t go to the Queensrÿche show with Ken tonight because I had work to do. But I can’t. The truth is, I didn’t go because I have defective eyeballs.

See, there’s a rally in San Diego tomorrow morning, and it made no sense for us to drive to Hollywood, drive home, and then have Ken need to turn around and leave four hours later. The only other option was to take two vehicles, and have him head south after the show while I came back home.

Except I can’t drive at night.

I mean, I can. Nobody’s told me I can’t. But I know just how poor my vision is at night (and at twilight, when it’s almost worse), how lights cause huge halos and half-blind me. It’s not just a case of not being able to read street signs. It’s a case of not being able to see if someone walked in front of the car. Coming home from the show Wednesday night, I couldn’t see the cement barrier in the middle of the freeway due to the oncoming headlights. (Oh, I knew it was there, and I could drive without hitting it, but still.)

So, I did the mature, adult thing and stayed home. Ken managed to sell my ticket, so at least we didn’t eat that cost.

But I hate doing the mature, adult thing. It sucks. Don’t wanna. ::stamps feet::

Now I should get some more work done, because then I can at least pretend to be a little self-righteous...

Want me to write you a story...?

I mentioned a while back that I’d signed a contract for a freelance gig, and I just got my first assignment as well as confirmation that I can advertise the site and my involvement.

I’m writing for Custom Erotica Source, which supplies customized erotica stories for clients. In other words, you send in the type of story you want, the characters (you’re the star, generally), and any specifics you want mentioned, and one of the writers writes you a story It can be romantic or steamy, short or long, etc. CES binds the stories into pretty handmade booklets.

I’ll be writing under the name Kendra Wayne, to keep these stories separate from my other erotica/erotic romance work. Yes, another pen name! (One can never have too many, you know.) So if you ever want to order a story, ask for me!

A conversation with my husband

I was making Pad Thai; he was doing dishes.

Ken (out of the blue): You should write a murder mystery…

Me (mentally): Um. Where can this be going?

Ken: …about an actor who looks like he commited suicide with a starter pistol.

Me: Um. Sadly, something like that actually happened…

Ken: Yeah. It was some lame 80s show—

Me: Hey! I liked that show! The female lead was hot. [brief pause] I can’t remember the name of the show, though. Or her name.

[Thirty second later]

Me: But his name was Jon-Erik Hexum.

Ken (fondly): You really are special, aren’t you?

(It was Cover Up, and the female lead was Jennifer O’Neill. But I had to look that up. Honest.)

'Night!

Screw it. I’m tired. I’m going to bed. I don’t care if it’s not even 11 p.m. yet.

Sorry ‘bout those pigs that just flew by your window….

Photos update

For some reason, the photos aren't leading to my Flickr site, so here are the links to the two sets:

Birthday Parts I and II

Meerkats!

Birthday, Part III

Sunday

Meerkat day! Meerkat day! Squee!

My present that morning was another in the Audubon birds of prey series: a California condor! (Actually, it’s a special edition bird, not part of the birds of prey series. Details…)

Morgana and Brian arrived and we all poured our underslept bodies into the car and headed east into the desert. We had lunch at a Ruby’s Diner because it was close and reasonable, not because of any great desire to eat at a Ruby’s Diner. My bleu cheese burger had some icky bits in it, I’m sad to say, but the fries I stole off Morgana’s plate were yummy. Then we killed a few minutes at Hadley Orchards where, it turns out, Morgana and Brian had their first date. (They had date shakes.)

On the way to the meerkat sanctuary, Morgana and I practiced our inner squees, as we assumed it would bad to vocalize them and startle the meerkats. Essentially, we did some out-loud squees to try and get them out of our system.


And then we were there! We were met by Pam Bennett-Wallberg, Director of Fellow Earthings Wildlife Center, who immediately said I looked like Stockard Channing, which I took as a huge compliment. She proceeded to tell us a funny story about Stockard, who’s the new narrator of Meerkat Manor and who’d come to the sanctuary to meet the meerkats and managed to get her rented Porsche stuck… Heh.

Now, you have to realize, I’d been waiting for this for a year. The deal is, you donate $100 to the center, and as a perk of membership, you and up to three other people get to spend 2 hours with the meerkats. What I didn’t realize when I tried to schedule this for my birthday last year was that there was a 6–12 month waiting list. So I scheduled it for this year’s birthday. I tried not to jitter and show too much impatience as Pam showed us around the facility, made us signed release forms, etc. :-)

There were three enclosures, two with two meerkats and one with three. Meerkats can be very territorial, apparently. To pick them up, all you had to do was offer them food…in the form of live, wriggling mealworms. Thank gods we didn’t have to handle live bugs! Morgana and I wouldn’t have been able to do it.

Pam also praised Morgana and I for not shrieking in high-pitched voices over the meerkats, which means our practice ahead of time had been a wise thing. She also was impressed that Morgana didn’t leap and scream when a couple of the meerkats “fought” for worms in her lap. Morgana laughed and pointed out that she had experience with crazed cats. A couple of little meerkats snarling adorable little meerkat snarls wasn’t going to bother her!


Anyway, Pam thought we were the coolest people ever, which was fun. She wanted to know all about the SCA and costuming and history, and my writing, and the fact that Ken and I had been to Africa, and the other animals we’d made a point of seeing (cheetahs, birds of prey, wolves, etc.), and kept commenting on how interesting we all were. She had us talking so much, we really didn’t get to hear all of her stories about Africa. She did talk about a book she’d written and a documentary she’d considered doing.

The meerkats, though. Head. Asplode. With Cuteness. They were…I’m going to do a crap job of describing it because they were just so freaking adorable. First up were Remi (F) and Suri (M) (no related to TomKat’s daughter). One of them wasn’t much for being held, but the other was. None of them specifically came over to be held or picked up, per se, but most of them were fine with being scooped up while they snorfled your other hand for tasty wriggly mealworms. We sat on low benches with our legs out, and held our hands by our ankles, and the one who liked to come up would run up our legs as we drew our hands up.


Next up was Kendi (F) and Rafiki (M). One of them wanted your hand flat (good for photo ops), whereas for the other, you fisted your hand and he or she would pry at your fingers to get to those yummy wriggling treats you were hiding.

Pam said that because these meerkats don’t have to deal with a lot of the problems live ones do (foraging for food, dodging predators, etc.), they can get bored—so they love having visitors. Plus they were smart, and knew exactly what it meant when we walked towards their enclosures—food! Between eating, they’d run around, scrabble in the dirt (they didn’t go into any full-on burrowing, probably because they knew they might miss out on food if they went too far), sit up on their little comfy chairs and look so cute you couldn’t stand it, scramble across our legs, cuddle with each other…


Our final stop was to meet Jengo (M), Nalo (M), and Bara (F). I swiftly twigged that Bara had clearer markings (not quite spots, but not quite stripes, either) than the other two. Turns out most people don’t even notice that! Go me! She’s from a different part of Africa. So she’s the only one of all of them that I can ID in the pictures. The rest of them have subtle stripes, whereas her colors are more pronounced.


I’m pretty sure it was Nalo who, after he’d eaten his fill, took up residence in the corner of the enclosure next to me. He was sitting up, looking around, checking things out, looking adorable. And I couldn’t help myself. I couldn’t have stopped myself if I wanted to. Very, very slowly and carefully, I stuck out my forefinger. And he booped the end of my finger with his dirty little nose. (They all had dirty little noses! Squee!) So I reached out again, very, very slowly and carefully, and just barely brushed against the hairs on his little belly.

He was fine with that, so I did it again, with a little scritching. And again, and again, my brain dissolving into so much mush as I gave a meerkat belly scritches. He also let me scritch under his chin twice. I nearly died from the adorableness of it. I’m getting all squee-y again just typing this!

I managed to get one picture of myself doing this, and Ken got videos. In my picture his nictating membranes are over his eyes, so he looks like a little zombie meerkat. (Zombie meerkats! Squee!)


Eventually we had to go, after petting the dogs and the cat and thanking Pam profusely. What an amazing experience. Totally worth the wait! I’m so glad that I try to do something for my birthday when I can.

We stopped at The Old Spaghetti Factory on the way home, because nothing was going to make my birthday complete better than angel hair pasta with mizithra cheese and browned butter. (Well. There are a couple of other things. But Styx didn’t actually have a show this weekend.)

And then we came home, and slept for a long, long time.

Monday

Pretty much all I remember of Monday is finding a copy of Charles de Lint’s Tapping the Dream Tree as my next present. Oh, and when we ordered pizza that night, because it was my actual birthday, I got a stuffed-crust pepperoni-lover’s with onions and extra cheese. Urp.

Now, back to our regularly scheduled journal. At least 'til I get my write-up of the Ren Faire finished...

Birthday, Part II

Saturday

This morning’s present was a DVD of Grosse Point Blank, one of my favorite movies. I can’t believe I didn’t own it already!

We had a quick breakfast, then did the Queen Mary’s Ghosts and Legends Tour, the tickets for which were part of our package deal. (We also got tickets to the Aquarium of the Pacific, the LA Zoo, the San Diego Wild Animal Park, and an LA Galaxy soccer game, plus a coffee table book about the Queen Mary, a 50% off coupon to a Best Western in San Diego, and a signed photo of a Radio Disney DJ. Sweet deal!) The tour was a production with special effects rather than an actual tour of the haunted areas of the ship, so it was expectedly cheesy, but it was still fun. Since most of it was low-lit and I have abysmal night vision, I probably missed a few things.

At one point, they told us about a crewman who was playing chicken back and forth between an automatic door and got cut in half. I turned to Ken and, sotto voce, asked, “Does that mean he haunts two rooms at the same time?” Hee.

After that, we went across the way to the Aquarium of the Pacific, because, you know, they have otters! They have moon jellies and crystal jellies and weedy sea dragons and leafy sea dragons and otters! We managed to hit the otter feeding time and I just about asploded from the cuteness. (I want to do their behind-the-scenes otter experience next year, which includes feeding the otters.)




Lots and lots of squee, but I also got tired (stupid cold) and had to sit for a bit. The Aquarium of the Pacific has astonishingly uncomfortable benches that don’t seem to have been constructed for human beings. If you try to lean back, you pretty much sliiiiide right off them. Since it was a Saturday, the place was swarming, although we were highly amused by the barely walking toddler wearing an AC/DC t-shirt.

Full of oceanic goodness, we made our way back to Manhattan Beach (with me being geeky and taking pictures of the Goodyear blimp on the way) and met up with a bunch of our Styxfan peeps for a birthday dinner of sorts: Nanci, Lenny, Monk, Cindi, Sheri, Karin, Fran, and Thom. Nanci, Lenny, and Monk brought me presents even though they weren’t supposed to, and others brought cards, and I was just happy to spend time with my friends.

I’d randomly picked a restaurant using the powers of the GPS on my iPhone, and although the deli was small, the portions were big and mouthwatering. I had a roast beef and brie panini (nomnomnom), Ken had a big salad (he let me steal his goat cheese), and we split some seasoned fries with a cajun mayo type dipping sauce. Then the waitress brought me birthday dessert! Some kind of cookie/brownie thing drizzled with chocolate and caramel sauces and topped with whipped cream. I forced everybody to eat some, because I was already stuffed. But it was goooood.

Then it was back down the street for another night at Pancho’s, where we met Louis and Angela. Tyla and her mom and brother showed up for a short time as did Tani and Johnny, and Maria joined us, too. Ken and I split up and sat at different tables for different views, which confused Taylor (who ended up sitting at Ken’s table). Between the second and third sets, Ken brought in ginormous cupcakes from Costco, which I attempted to foist off on all my friends, and then on any drunk person I could make eye contact with. When they asked what the occasion was and I said my birthday, many strangers felt it was then appropriate to wish me a happy birthday and hug me. I’d had several glasses of wine, so I had no problem with that.

(Sheri got a great photo of me and cupcakes, but I can't figure out how to link to it on her Facebook page. Grr.)

The band once again rocked, and Taylor’s guest vocals on two songs were gorgeous, and Jimmy, the lead singer, announced it was my and another patron’s birthday, although almost nobody heard him. Ken got his timpani mallets signed, which was very cool.

At one point late in the evening, I’d turned to say something to Nanci, and suddenly there was a Todd drumstick wedged in the crook of my elbow. Apparently it had slipped out of his hand, because others saw him turn and look at Koko and laugh. All I knew was that I’d gotten a birthday drumstick! Whee!


We headed home after that, arriving at 3 a.m., and got about four hours’ sleep because we had to get up bright and early the next day for…

Birthday, Part I

So, my birthday weekend. A quick note before I start: Click on any of the pictures in these entries and you’ll be taken to the full set on my Flickr site.

Now, on to the festivities!

Friday

Since we were spreading my birthday over several days, Ken spread my presents over several days. Friday morning I awoke to a promo photo of Lawrence circa 1985 (Strange Animal era)—rock that mullet!

We went down the coast (gorgeous, with the sun sparkling on the water, but no dolphins—did they not get the memo that it was my birthday weekend?) to Santa Monica. I’d had a light tea at The Tudor House before, and I’m happy to say that their full afternoon tea was also excellent: finger sandwiches (natch), salad, scones with proper Devon cream (heaven!) and jam, and petit fours. We opted for a Yorkshire tea blend that was just lovely.


We took a picture in front of the British mailbox in the store, but you can’t see it…


We also browsed in the store, but didn’t buy anything—I like to patronize our local British shop in Ventura whenever I can.

After that, we strolled around Santa Monica hand-in-hand in the sunshine. We needed new cover screens for our iPhones, so we went to the Apple store, where the Most! Enthusiastic! Employee! Ever! checked us out. (He high-fived me when I said it was my birthday weekend.)


We hit some traffic heading further south, but got to the Queen Mary with no problem. I’d been on her once before, about four and a half years ago, for a cocktail party, so I hadn’t really seen much of her. Our room was surprisingly spacious, and they did a great job upgrading while keeping most of the Art Deco décor. Can’t say I was impressed by the obviously modern bedspread and curtains, though—not only were they completely and utterly wrong, they clashed with each other.



For example, they kept the original bathtub knobs, which include options for hot and cold sea water. Sadly, they no longer work. Why would someone want to bathe in hot sea water? Wouldn’t one just then be sticky?


After a shower and fluff-and-buff, we were back on the road to Pancho’s, where Styx’s drummer Todd Sucherman would be playing with local band Day After Daze. We met up with Sheri, Karin, Nanci, Lenny, Monk (Nanci and Lenny’s child, a little stuffed monkey), Cindi, Todd, and Angie, and later Fran and Thom. (I’m terrified that I’m forgetting someone…) We ate yummy Mexican food in the bar (I had a shrimp and crab quesadilla) while waiting (and waiting, and waiting…) for the band. (We got there early to get tables up front, but the band didn’t go on ‘til 10 p.m.)


Between sets I had the chance to say hello to Taylor Mills, Todd’s wife, and get her CD signed. Alas, although I took a picture of her and Sheri with Sheri’s camera, I didn’t get a picture of Taylor and myself! Next time…. She’s a sweetheart and we had a great time chatting.


Amusingly, when I popped on to Facebook to update my status, I saw that my newest “friend” was The Fabulous Koko Powell, Day After Daze’s bassist! I told him that later and he high-fived me. (It was a high-five kind of weekend.)

The band finished up around 2 a.m. and we scooted back to the Queen Mary and crashed hard, because we had a busy day ahead of us…

Renaissance Faire 2009

The pin on my shoulder is my birthday present from Morgana and Brian.  :-)

Heh. Oops.

I really was loopy on Friday, because I posted my good/bad entry w/o finishing it, and my Spells jar paragraph made no sense because I have one! I’ve updated the entry, so you can read the whole thing now…

Later I will update about Ren Faire (some fun pictures, too!) and the Forever Vinyl show, but that should happen after I finish my birthday update, which should happen after I get some work done today. So. Off with me.

The bad vs. the good

Things that are making me grumpy:

Stupid cold. It hasn’t gotten really bad, but it’s annoying. Can’t breathe through my nose w/o nasal spray. Can’t do much for an extended period of time w/o feeling exhausted. Etc. My productivity this week has been abysmal.

Writing. It’s going soooo slowly and I have soooo much to do. See above re: “Stupid cold” for the reason. Writing with a sloggy brain is just sloggy. And kind of oogy.

My lovely long and picture-filled journal entry about my weekend. Again, see above. It’s…half written, maybe?

Exercise. See above, yet again. Grrr…

Things that are making me happy:

I’ve been getting the proposals for Possessed, Undressed, and in a Mess in the mail. It’s a lot of work, because I have to research each editor and customize the letter to her. Some editors have recently bought work similar to PUM, or have said they’re looking for similar things in recent interviews. Others, not so much. But I’m still getting a few out each day—plus I got two more Out of the Frying Pan proposals in the mail. (I’ll be going through the old ones after PUM is done and re-querying a bunch.)

My Spells jar! For years now, I’ve been looking for a ceramic jar that says “Spells” on it. I saw one…I have no idea how long ago, or where, or when, but I remember that they existed, but when I started looking for one, pfft. Well, a few months ago I somehow ended up looking at someone’s Flickr photos from a Ren faire, and saw a booth of jars. So I e-mailed my friend Sara, who’s big in the faire in Phoenix, and asked her to keep an eye out for one for me. (This was before I knew we were going to faire this year.) She found a ceramic merchant who had jars, but not a Spells jar, and asked him, and he offered to make one! And it arrived today, and it is perfect! It’s black but has purple-y sparkles on it, and I’m dying to know if she told the merchant that purple is my favorite color or whether it was just sheer fate. Anyway, I’ll take a picture soon. Perfect Spells jar, for the win!

Faire! I haven’t been to a Ren faire in years and years, largely because I do SCA, so why got to faire? We were supposed to go to Northern Faire last year with Morgana and Brian and Laurel and John, but a Styx concert and Ken’s work intervened. I didn’t even think I had anything to wear (and Brian didn’t want to do pirate, so Morgana said she wasn’t going to do pirate), but I found a green bodice in my garb closet that miraculously fits me, and I have my purple chemise and green and purple skirts and fun Celtic-y jewelry and pins that say “Everyone is watching you look at my chest” and “Careful, men have suffocated between these,” and I’m really looking forward to this tomorrow! (My cold notwithstanding. Reminder to self: Walk slowly, and sit down a lot.)

Our slow cooker. I hate to cook, and Ken and I are the types to suddenly look up from our work, announce hunger, and then realize we haven’t prepped anything. Cooking just takes too damn long, you know? But with the slow cooker, if we actually get up in time and put stuff in it, it’s like magic! Come supper time, there is food ready to eat! It’s like…like…like going to a restaurant, except we don’t have to put pants on! Tonight it’s a salsa chicken to shred for tacos (dayum, it was good!), and Sunday we’ll use the leftovers to make soup (in the slow cooker). Sing the nomnom song with me!

The hot tub. Ahhhh…

Nyquil. Say no more.

As usual, the good outweighs the bad, and now I’m off to sleep the drug-filled, dream-weird sleep of the Nyquil damned!

The good vs the morning

The good news is that I didn’t have to report to jury duty on my birthday.

The bad news is that I have to be there at 8-effing-o’clock in the morning tomorrow. Argh.

But I’ll take Afalwen and get some work done!

Speaking of work, must get back to it… I got some PUM proposals in the mail today, and now I have to get a short story back in circulation, then finish another short story.

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Currently Reading: Dogs and Goddesses, Jennifer Crusie, Anne Stuart, and Lani Diane Rich
Lately Listened To: Hm. Be interesting to see what I choose…
Recently Watched: Supernatural (I suspect it’s very, very wrong that I’m thinking certain thoughts about Castiel…)

My birthday weekend, in one picture

The plan is to get all the pictures uploaded to Flickr today and do a full write-up of my Most Incredible Birthday Weekend, but for now, here's a teaser:

But who's typing?

So, I’ve got a freelance writing blog in my RSS feed on Google Reader, and every Monday it lists all the freelance writing and editing gigs it culls from other places—all the Craigslists, for example.

Today, there’s one that says “Ghost Blog Writer Needed.” And when you’ve got a brain like mine, that goes in sharply sideways into a potentially really interesting idea. (OTOH, can ghosts type? Wouldn’t a ghost be looking for a live person to put together the ghost’s blog? Which, incidentally, is a throwaway line in my Ghosted manuscript …)

I want to have intimate relations with Joss Whedon's brain

Well, we were going to go to King’s Hunt today, even though Ken got home at 5 p.m. last night. By late last night, though, he realized he was coming down with a cold… So we’ve spent most of today curled up in front of the TV. (We’re now caught up on Dollhouse, which has had some jaw-dropping twists and turns, plus a couple of the funniest lines I’ve heard in a long time. I ::heart:: Joss Whedon so very much!)

Now, though, I’m off to the grocery store for the fixings for chicken soup/stew, pesto pizza, and ice cream, among other things. Joy.

And now that our Internet access seems to be working again, I’ve got to get all those PUM proposals mailed!

Reunited...and it feels so good

Ken’s home! Yay! He arrived at about 5 p.m., after getting a new front tire yesterday in El Paso and a new back tire this morning in Phoenix. (Sara, he would’ve crashed at your place, but he didn’t actually have A Plan until pretty late and didn’t want to bother you.)

So I made salad, pesto tortellini, from TJ’s and sauce for dinner, and we watched How I Met Your Mother and two eps of Castle. We have sooo much on the DVR right now, including the final two eps of Battlestar Galactica. I’ve been doing my best to avoid any Internet or TV Guide spoilers. The fact that our Internet connection has been effed up for the past two days has aided in that.

But I have so much to do! I may spend my regular Sunday afternoon writing fest with fellow writers at CB&TL answering e-mail and sending PUM submissions than actually writing.

Purring under stress. Good lesson to learn.

Yesterday, I learned how to give subcutaneous fluids to a cat. Not something I ever wanted to learn, believe me. Today, with Morgana’s help, I gave Grimoire a full dose. Bless his furry little heart, he took it like a trooper. In fact, he purred, complaining only briefly once or twice. (Morgana is magical about calming cats, which helped wonders.) Just a few more days of that, to flush out the extra calcium in his system that’s been messing him up. (He spent Tuesday night and most of Wednesday at the ER vet.) Still no news on scheduling surgery for him; more on that when I have info. Really. Honest.

Meanwhile, I’m working on a Harlequin Nocturne Briefs novella, since they’re having a pitch contest, and Teresa and I had a good confab on Possessed, Undressed, and in a Mess. Proposals will be blanketing New York soon, provided my Internet connection stops freaking out. We also have the next few scenes sussed out. Onwards!

Ken should be home tomorrow. He got a new front tire this morning, but thought his back tire would survive the rest of the trip. Er, not so much. He’s in Phoenix, and tomorrow morning he’ll replace the back tire and come home to me.

Anyway, I’ll post this whenever I have a reliable connection again. Which means, in the magic of time, it will already have happened by the time you read this. Or something like that.

Resurfacing, briefly

Nine short stories in the mail today, plus follow-up queries on two others. Whew. Now, on to blanketing New York with Possessed, Undressed, and in a Mess! (And then re-sending Out of the Frying Pan, and then whatever novel is next on my list…)

New record: Story e-mailed 12:46 p.m., rejection received 6:19 p.m.

In other news, Ken will probably be home Thursday (he’s staying with his brother in Texas tonight and leaving tomorrow morning), Grimoire is spending the night at the ER vet, my herbs are not yet dead and I’ve absconded with a bunch of rose geranium clippings (my “payment” for hacking back Morgana’s rose geranium hedge o’doom) that are now soaking in preparation for planting, and Valerian now gives me heart palpitations instead of helping me sleep.