First off, I did 2.5k on my WIP yesterday, bringing my NaNo total up to 8127. Snoopy dance a go-go.
8127 / 60,000
It’s going pretty well. I still totally love my heroine, and think she could happily stand alongside the likes of Veronica Mars, LaDonna Batiste-Williams, Gemma Teller Morrow, and Gloria Pritchett. Her love interest… eh. I think he’s taking me a little while to warm up to. Which is okay. After all, I wasn’t even thinking about Poe at this point in Secret Society Girl.
Though I’m not doing a four-book series this time. Hmmmm…
I think it’s his name. I’m having the most terrible problems with his name!
Also, while shopping this morning, accidentally stumbled across a killer Halloween costume (for $6.99), and since I’ve been lobbying Sailor Boy pretty hardcore to let me throw a Halloween party this year, I knew it had to be mine. It called to me from across a crowded thrift shop.
Oh, frocks.
And speaking of surprises, look what came in the mail yesterday:
These are the Simplified Chinese Secret Society Girl & Under the Rose I sold back in the summer of 2007. Two. Thousand. Seven. When I was a simple single gal and Queenie was just a sparkle in Sailor Boy’s eye and Rio was just a sparkle in the eye some Toller in Canada. When there was no such things as killer unicorns and I lived in a one-room apartment and almost no one had a smartphone.
Publishing is a strange, strange business. Anyway, here they are, and man, are they gorgeous!
These are the headings. I don’t know if it says “Under the Rose” or “Diana Peterfreund”. But whatever it says, it does so with thorns!
These are the little widgets on every page. The one on the bottom is Secret Society Girl, and I like how it kind of looks like a tattoo — you know, to match their tattoos. The one on the top is Under the Rose. Note the little high-heeled ankle boots. I guess that’s to denote it’s chick lit? So adorable!
I love them. I hug them. I wish I read Chinese, or that I knew someone who did.
These are my first foreign editions to utilize different covers from their U.S. counterpart. What do you think? The black makes ‘em kind of badass, huh?
Welcome, August, with your hot, muggy weather and zero holidays and hopefully lots and lots of work. Where am I on my goals?
Writing: Was supposed to finish a short story (check) and start a new proposal (checkity check). This month: Campnanowrimo. And copyedits on For Darkness Shows the Stars.
Home:
finish cleaning out my closet (I have two big boxes to donate/trash but I bet I can get another one)
get rid of the furniture we don’t use anymore, (including two dressers)
finish babyproofing as Q grows more mobile by the day (she’s crawling with her belly up now, and pulling herself up on anything she can reach) Made some headway on this, but are you ever really “finished”?
put in the rocks around the AC units near the patio
clean out the flower garden and replant
create an herb garden I’ve decided this isn’t happening this year.
Do something about the vines/weeds taking over our yard.
No new goals here this month.
Blog: I blogged eleven times in July. This seems to be an ongoing average for me, looking back over the months. I would like to bump it up a bit, but it probably won’t be this month, given all the work I have to do.
Quality Time with SB: Alas. More evening sofa sitting. We’re so dull. (Otherwise known as: we have an infant.) Seriously, the one time we attempted to go out and have an adventure, the place was closed and we ended up at the mall. Where we bought some new clothes, but still. This month, our poison of choice was Treme, which I loved.
On the flip side, it’s more like the nature of our quality time has changed. We spend a lot of time as a family now — hanging out on the floor watching Q cruise around and learn to play with things and make noises that could almost be mistaken for words is really entertaining. Also, Q is great at restaurants. There was a time there, around 6 months, when she wasn’t old enough to sit in a high chair and eat real food, but wasn’t young enough to sleep through the whole thing in her sling — and that made restaurants tough. But now she’s back in the swing of things charming every waiter in town.
Rio: Poor Rio. We’ve had some outlandish heatwaves in DC this summer, which means that long walks for Rio are definitely out of the question. She’s gotten in some good swimming time and a few longer hikes when weather permits, but mostly it’s quick runs to the park with her tennis ball so she doesn’t pass out from this heat.
Garden: Drowning in tomatoes. Basil doing great. Have some peppers sprouting. Mint hanging on. I got one squash before the heat killed my squashes.
Wow, half way through the year already! Here’s my last update, from the beginning of June.
Writing: I was supposed to write a short story and start a new proposal. I wrote (most of) a short story. This month I’m definitely starting a new proposal (and I can’t wait! This will be my first new book in almost two years).
Home: The only thing I accomplished on my last month’s goal list was starting work on the Ent. I cut down all the vines I could reach, but they are still surviving (and choking) my beautiful 100-year old maple. I’m not sure what to do except keep going up (though I may need pro help) and hope for the best. Other goals for this month include:
finish cleaning out my closet (I have two big boxes to donate/trash but I bet I can get another one)
get rid of the furniture we don’t use anymore, (including two dressers)
finish babyproofing as Q grows more mobile by the day (she’s crawling with her belly up now, and pulling herself up on anything she can reach)
put in the rocks around the AC units near the patio
clean out the flower garden and replant
create an herb garden
Do something about the vines/weeds taking over our yard.
Blog: I blogged 11 times in June. Not bad. I’ve already blogged 4 times in July. I need to keep it up. But I’ve been a bit seduced lately, by Twitter and Pinterest (especially the latter, as I get interested in homey stuff).
Quality Time with SB: Quality time with SB devolved into a lot of sitting on the couch and watching Modern Family. We should work to make our time more “quality” — not that I don’t love Modern Family. I’m thinking of trying to plan a mini-break somewhere we can all — the four of us — go. Beach house, mountain cabin — someplace fun. Any ideas?
Rio: She’s better! Yay! We changed her food and she cleared right up. Except, her teeth are still chipping and I’m not sure what’s she’s chewing on, as I’ve removed all her bones and hard things from her toy box. Does she just have really soft teeth? We’re also continuing with our evening walks, and she goes to the park a few times a week.
Garden:Ahem. But obviously, the rest of my yard needs massive work.
And, the big list:
Revise/finish my contracted novel.
Write short story #1
Write short story #2
Write short story #3
Write short story #4
Write essay #1
Write new proposal #1
Write new proposal/book #2
Go to one writing-related conference.
Walk my dog.
Plant a garden.
Make sure I spend quality time with Sailor Boy.
Do at least two home improvement projects.
Cut our budget.
Notice there’s a new item on this list? That’s right, I signed up for another project this month. Yay!
A few years back, I participated at an event with Justine Larbalestier, Cassie Clare, Scott Westerfeld, David Levithan, Alaya Dawn Johnson, and Libba Bray where we all shared some of our most laugh-worthy juvenilia. Today, I have the pleasure (::snerk::) of sharing some more:
(click to embiggen)
Though the piece is not dated, I have good reason to believe I wrote it in fourth grade. I don’t know if I finished it, though I have a vague recollection that it was about the synchronized skating exploits of a group of quadruplets. At the time, I’m pretty sure “Holly” is supposed to be the hero of the piece, though now, looking back at it, I think “Mary” draws a better heart and “Patty” is totally the one I want to go out drinking with. (She thinks outside the box!) Whereas “Holly” seems a bit like a joyless conformist to me.
And no, it has not escaped me that I included a “spelling contest” in a story where I can’t even spell my own name correctly. But hey, clearly I’d just learned how to use the tab function on my mother’s typewriter.
Yes, I said typewriter. I can’t remember the last time I even SAW a typewriter.
Sadly, the rest of the story is long ago lost in the mists of time. However, looking at this now is very curious. I guess I was always drawn to unusual textual elements like drawings and lists. I’ve recently been made aware that some readers don’t like this sort of thing in their book — they want straight ahead, untricky narrative, not to be interrupted with lists, letters, text messages, footnotes, drawings, or other items that remind them they are reading.
To each their own, I suppose. Me, I love that stuff, which is why I’ve put it in 62% of my novels.
But no more drawings, because I cannot draw to save my life, as evinced by Holly’s supposedly “superior” efforts show.
I’ve gotten better at writing in the last 22 years. I have not, however, gotten better at drawing.
One of the things about Netflix Watch it Now is that I keep coming across old movies from my childhood and watching them while making dinner/folding laundry/cleaning bottles and pump parts. The other day, I came across the Don Bluth cartoon, The Secret of NIMH.
I don’t know anyone from my generation who, confronted with a long list of government health agencies, couldn’t pull NIMH out of the line up due to this movie, or the Newberry award-winning children’s book it was based on (Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH). I’ve never read the book, but those Newberry folks usually know what they’re talking about, so I’m sure it’s great.
(In passing, though I knew the book title had the main characters’ name in it and specifically referenced the rats, rather than the “secret”, I didn’t know until just now that the movie had changed the character’s name from Mrs. Frisby to Mrs. Brisby. I’m guessing because of Frisbees.)
It’s very weird to view beloved old children’s movies from the other side. I actually shouted “no way!” at the screen when I saw in the credits that two of the Brisby children are voiced by Shannen Doherty and Wil Wheaton. I was also a little confused on how “intelligence-boosting” injections made Nicodemus capable of crafting magic crystal balls that can show Mrs. Brisby dramatic re-enactments of what happened to them and Jonathan capable of crafting magic amulets that convey upon the wearer all the powers of Yoda.
(Seriously, the climactic scene with the cinder block is pretty much Yoda and the X-wing in the swamps of Dagoba. The story went from Flowers for Algernon to Star Wars.)
Which is not to say I didn’t love it. Despite how little I remembered about the plot, I was surprised how many imagines I recalled, how many lines I knew by heart. What should that space in my brain be doing instead of remembering all the lines in The Secret of NIMH? I shudder to think.
Also, I might as well let y’all know right now. There’s a character in For Darkness Shows the Stars named Nicodemus. I named him that because of this film.
It seems like every morning around the time I’m dropping Q off at the baby sitter’s, one of the local radio stations is playing “Escape.” What’s “Escape?” You probably know it as “The Pina Colada Song.” It sounds like this:
When I was a teenager, I thought this song was, like, soooooo romantic. Oh, a couple rediscovering the romance in their relationship through a case of mistaken identity.
This morning, as I was listening to the lyrics, I was horrified.
“I didn’t think about my lady, I know that sounds kinda mean.”
YOU THINK? Your wife is SLEEPING IN BED NEXT TO YOU, and you’re planning your tryst with some stranger who’s out trolling for tail in the personal ads?
But the wife doesn’t get off scot-free, either. After all, she’s the one who PLACED the ad. Lady, how do you sleep at night, in bed next to your husband, knowing that you wrote and placed a personal ad for another man?
“It was my own lovely lady, and she said ‘Oh, it’s you.’”
Does she sound excited here, or disappointed? Sorry, Mr. Narrator, but I think she might be bummed to find out that her “exciting new lover” is actually you. Though if I were her, I’d be like “Oh, S***, he found my personal ad.” I wouldn’t think he’d ANSWERED it.
So the lesson we’re supposed to take from all of this is that if they both are sneaking around, then they belong together? Hmph.
And all set to a boppy summer beat. I switched stations and found Cee-lo’s “F*** You,” in its radio-friendly “Forget You” iteration. And then Katy Perry’s “Fireworks” which is my favorite of the current crop of gay anthem pop songs.
Y’all, I’m kind of into Katy Perry. I feel like Katy Perry is doing what Lady Gaga keeps shoving down our throats that she’s doing, i.e., fun pop music as a backdrop to a weird pop art experiment. I mean, bizarre costumes? Check. Awesome music videos? Check (If you follow my Twitter feed, you know that I asked my publisher if my next cover could look like a Katy Perry video). Gay anthems? Checkity check. And, on the whole, I like her music better.
Of course, this is all based on radio play. I hear that Gaga is an incredible live performer and does amazing acoustic renditions of her songs, but they don’t play those on the radio, and I haven’t been to a live show of any variety since the last time Phish broke up.
Q, we’ve learned, is a big fan of pop music. She loves Madonna, Beyonce, and Kanye. She also likes They Might Be Giants, but I think every baby of geek parents must. Her favorite piece of classical music is The William Tell Overture, but only if she’s on our knees or her rocking horse. She also likes all songs that have her name in them, and so we’ve retrofitted quite a few so that they do.
Rio’s favorite band is Duran Duran, natch.
I didn’t have a playlist for For Darkness Shows the Stars, like I did for Rampant. But there are a lot of songs that make me think of the book, most recently Adele’s “Rolling in the Deep”, and, last year, Kelly Clarkson’s “Already Gone.”
How weird is it that my contemporary novels have playlists of obscure recordings of visionary music written by medieval nuns, andmy post-apocalyptic book has a playlist of radio-ready pop songs?
It’s been a crazy busy month Chez Diana. I’ve had book festivals and conferences, revisions due, and tons of houseguests. Q has been growing like the weeds in my garden — I guess they really start packing on teh pounds when they go from just milk to solid foods — and she’s also started getting really fun. This is my favorite baby stage so far. She sits on her own, plays with toys, and is taking her first tentative “steps” toward crawling (she inches backwards, mostly, and just rolls to get where she needs to go). Her favorite activities include: sticking things in her mouth, pulling out Rio’s and my hair, sticking things in her mouth, smiling and laughing, sticking things in her mouth, rolling, sticking things in her mouth, and banging on stuff. Oh, and Sailor Boy started a new job.
Biz-ee.
So forgive the lateness of my goal check in. Where were we?
Writing: Finished my revisions. Yay! My goal this month is to write my latest short story for an awesome Random House antho and fix a few little bits of clean up for my book so it can go into copyedits.
Home: Major progress on this one this month! We cleaned out the basement and turned it into Sailor Boy’s new home office, and finally unpacked all the boxes of books and put them in my new ginormous bookshelves. Seriously, I have my cookbooks (my darling Bittman!) back at last. My favorite improvement, however, is our new, child-friendly piece of furniture:
Previously, we kept our liquor and glassware in an IKEA Billy bookcase, which, as you might imagine, is not friendly to exploratory kidlets like Q. But there’s no way she can get these doors open with her chubby little baby fingers. She won’t even be able to reach them until she’s old enough to know better, and then, when she’s old enough to know even BETTER (i.e., get into our liquor) we’ll revisit the issue. Also, it was an awesome Craigslist find we scored for 80% off retail. And it has custom touch lighting installed. I can’t tell you how much I love this thing.
Blog: I blogged 12 times in April and this is only my third blog for May. Must get on that.
Quality time with SB: We haven’t had another date night (see aforementioned business trips) but we have spent a lot of time together in the evening after the baby has gone to sleep, and we’ve also had a lot of lovely quality family time (like the big family hike we took last weekend). Also, having him working from home also is Ah-maze-ing.
Rio: Poor Rio has been to the vet TWICE this month (with ear and bladder infections). My poor baby girl. Sailor Boy has been doing most of the walking of her, lately.
Garden: Coming along. My mint is surviving, the strawberries are mostly rabbit food, the herbs are doing well, I picked up some flowers (citronella that’s already planted, coxcomb and marigolds that need to be), and I’m putting the tomatoes in today. I also have a few tomatoes coming up from last year. Yay. I think I may also do a squash and a zucchini, but only one of each this year. Not sure what else I want to do. I’m open to suggestions, though.
As I mentioned in my previous post, Sailor Boy and I just gained a large art piece for our living room. The canvas came without any hanging hardware, so of course, I took to the internet to figure out how to install some in order to hang the art on our wall.
This is what I found:
There are several of these that have been uploaded, each funnier than the last. I honestly don’t know what to make of them. Are they skits from some sort of Kiwi Saturday Night Live-type show? This might be my favorite (skip to 2:45 to get to the truly funny bit):
But don’t worry. He fixes it:
Okay, I think it’s a joke, but the art school is serious?
It’s so hard to tell these days. Earnestness has gone so far one way and satire so far the other that they’ve circled back around and met in the middle. Reminds me of when I was posting joke covers for Rampant, and got calls from friends and family thinking I was serious about some of them.
(Though no one thought I was serious about this one.)
The sun is out, the birds are singing, and my baby slept for seven hours twice in a row this weekend. Things are great.
And I managed to make some headway on some of my big yearly goals.
In the realm of “home improvement”, we made some big changes to our living, room — some gorgeous wall art, and a beautiful new, baby-friendly china cabinet (we had been keeping our glassware in a Billy bookcase, which… well. Not so great for my soon-to-be-mobile kidlet’s exploratory tendencies).
And in the realm of gardening, I got some plants in the ground today! Yay! I’ve expanded my garden somewhat this year, and so I’ve used some of the extra space for a strawberry patch and yet another attempt at chocolate mint. In the herb garden I’ve already got going, I added some parsley and cilantro. And I’ve got a bunch of seeds to get in the ground sometime this week as well.
But hey, it’s progress! And now, back to revisioning.
Back in December I posted a list of my goals for 2011, and said I’d check in once a month to keep myself honest. How did I do in January?
Writing: I wrote one of the short stories I have due this year and worked on my book. Pretty good.
Home: Not a lot of movement here until the last week (though that’s officially February). Sure, I’ll count it: I cleaned out and re-organized my pantry, am in the process of doing same to the rest of my kitchen and picked out paint colors for the kitchen.
Rio: I walked Rio only semi-regularly this month. The weather was very cold and very icy, which kept us indoors a lot. I’m hoping to get into a better schedule once it gets warmer. I suspect she’s in for another bad month, though. Poor dog. I’ve been falling down on my duties with Rio, which makes me feel terrible.
Blogging: Yikes! I blogged only 4 times last month. I need to get better about that, too. I have some ideas on how to make that happen.
Are you guys still keeping to your New Year’s Resolutions? It’s nto to late to get back on the bandwagon. Let’s cheer each other on!
