swamp and the city

in another life

2012-02-14T01:50:00.000-08:00

I'm totally exhausted, but I'm in my secret writing hideaway (which I will divulge the whereabouts of to loyal readers who make it to the end of this post). And I was v. productive today, even if productive includes packing and getting ready for my trip. I had a guest post up at a romance review blog today (see where through the 'press' section of zee romance blog, since I try not to link directly to them from here), so I had to deal with comments on that (of which there were several, which was nice). And I had to print out the latest version of my manuscript, pack copious quantities of pens, inks, markers, highlighters, sticky notes in a variety of shapes and colors, and all sorts of research and grammar/usage books so that I can start editing in earnest tomorrow. I also packed some clothes, and hopefully I brought the right ones -- but since I intend to spend all my time either in the hideaway, or at nearby coffee shops/beaches (hint #1!), I suppose it doesn't matter.

Anyway, I finally left San Francisco around 1:30, which was later than I anticipated, but earlier than totally necessary. I sped down to Palo Alto and had a late lunch at Sprout, which was v. satisfying since I've been low on my salad intake, and I got some work done there. Then I went to my old place of work and had coffee with Katrina to make up for our aborted dinner from last night; she's leaving for New Zealand this week, so we got all caught up before her trip. I left Katrina sometime after five and went to the Starbucks down the street, where I worked like mad for forty-five minutes before dinner.

Dinner was awesome -- I met up with the Heathers (Heather aka dear respected madam + another Heather we used to work with/I used to manage) and their spouses (Salim, who needs no introduction, and Eric, who married the other Heather last fall) at Fiesta del Mar, where I confused the waiter by sticking to diet coke instead of getting a margarita (which he always upgrades to top shelf 'cause he loves me). We spent some extreme quality time together, which was v. entertaining. And the Heathers are organizing a talk/interview for me at our former employer, which should be hysterically awesome/embarrassing, particularly since apparently the big boss and Alan, who's now a VP, will be interviewing me. Ha.

I finally parted ways with them, went to the bank and got some gas, and then drove to my secret hideaway....which is a studio cottage in Santa Cruz, a block or two from the beach. The place is a little strange (isn't everything I do a little strange?) but totally lovely, with a gorgeous outdoor patio that I can use, and some very quirky/charming furniture. I settled in easily and quickly, and then spent the past three hours writing two more guest blog posts and reformatting my manuscript so that I could share it more easily. And now that I'm done with all the most pressing tasks for the night, I'm going to go to bed, get up, go to a cafe for breakfast, and read straight through the book tomorrow to start making notes on what I need to fix/change/delete/etc. I'm going to try to stay away from the internet as much as possible while I'm here, so yell at me if you see me doing stuff online. Goodnight!

i feel my heart start beating to my favorite song

2012-02-12T23:46:00.000-08:00

I didn't finish the book today - damn. However, I did make some good progress, and I also worked through some of the plot lines that are either unresolved at the end, or not sufficiently planted at the beginning, and figured out where I'll likely need to make changes to ensure that it all comes off smoothly. So, I think I'm almost prepared for my mad writing endeavor this week - of course, I haven't packed yet, but otherwise the writing is going well.

However, I didn't get as much done overall as I intended today - chalk it up to a combination of procrastination, doing laundry/dishes/cleaning tasks, and too many research rabbit holes on Wikipedia. So, I'm ending this blog without anything interesting, since I was a hermit. Actually, I take that back - I did leave the house to grab a late burger at Roam, since my dinner plans fell through (sad - I wanted soft tofu soup, but the logistics ended up being too much of a debacle to follow through on). And while at Roam, the only patrons there were me and this couple (a typical Marina douchebag and a Snooki lookalike) who were sitting right in the big window facing the street, making out with each other rather explicitly (to the point that she was straddling him, and they were grinding into each other) It was all rather awkward and weird, but I guess it takes all kinds, and I suppose someone has to be a vector for hepatitis and I think I found them. Yay.

And now that I've been prudish and judgmental, I need to go to bed so I can write a hot make-up sex scene in the morning, then go to my secret location for the week. Goodnight!

i know you can save me and make me feel alive

2012-02-12T01:14:00.000-08:00

Today was long, and I'm exhausted; romance meetings take a lot out of me, probably because I revert to my inner introvert and need some alone time after getting up earlier than I do any other day of the month and spending five or six hours being 'on' with people in the industry. But, the meeting went well, and I got my first rose for publishing my first book (they give out fake roses of publishing books -- white for the first book, red for subsequent ones). I suppose I could take as many roses as I wanted, since I now keep the rose box between meetings, but I'm being good, so it was exciting to get my rose. And, while I was in the meeting, I checked my email and got my first bona fide fan email from someone I don't know, which was super exciting! So yay for that.

After the meeting, I had to coordinate some more stuff, then have lunch with the chapter people who stuck around, which always takes way longer than it should since service is kind of ridiculously slow. I ended up not making it home until three, and I was pretty useless after that; I took a nap, did some desultory procrastinating on the internet, took a bath, wrote for a bit, made some notes on the final 2-3 scenes I need to write, and then spent the past four or five hours researching libel/slander, Gothic romances, Romanticism, etc., etc. It's all stuff I needed to look into, but it doesn't make me feel any better about not writing twenty pages tonight. Oh, well, there's always tomorrow. And now I must go to bed so that tomorrow's productivity can start in earnest -- goodnight!

what if your words could be judged like a crime

2012-02-10T22:52:00.000-08:00

No writing happened today, but I kind of expected that. I did have an epiphany about what was bothering me with Malcolm's character arc, which was wonderful, so hopefully I can fix that and finish the clean up on the ending and have something I can start copyediting next week. I'm going to a secret getaway Monday night and staying out of town until Friday, and I intend to edit and polish until my fingers bleed (not so far off, since they're already desiccated), so hopefully I'll be done in a jiffy.

Anyway, today was good and productive despite the lack of writing. I got up and had breakfast and took care of tings before driving down to Palo Alto to train with Alyssa. She was rather brutal with me today, and I hope I can lift my arms tomorrow -- I would make a joke about John McCain and the Hanoi Hilton, but it may still be too soon. Post workout, I showered, made myself moderately presentable for the rest of the day's activities, and then had a quick lunch with John at the place where I used to work (verdict: food is still as good and as ridiculous as always, even if No Name Cafe now has a name). He had a two o'clock and I needed to get back to the city, so we parted ways quickly, I grabbed gasoline and coffee, and came home.

I had intended to go to a cafe and write when I got back to the city, but my need for an afternoon nap struck again, so I came home and slept for forty minutes. Then I figured out the plot hole re: Malcolm and started revamping the formatting of the manuscript (things like adding chapter numbers takes a surprising amount of time). But I had to leave again at 5:15 to go pick up someone and take her to the romance chapter board dinner in Emeryville. Getting on/over the bridge was just as bad as expected, so it's good we met early, but it gave us some quality time to get to know each other (she's visiting from the San Diego chapter, and is hanging out because she's friends with the speaker, so we let her come to dinner).

Dinner ended up being super fun and totally delicious; I had scallops with mashed potatoes and green beans, and got to spend some quality time talking to the former president, whom I love. We all eventually parted ways at 8:30, I dropped off the San Diego person at her hotel, and then came home and messed around on the internet for a bit before having a 20-minute call with the current president of the romance chapter to discuss some stuff for tomorrow that we didn't get a chance to cover at dinner.

And now, I really should go to bed -- the meeting is tomorrow, which I have to be at (obvi), and then I need to write all weekend and pack for my secret getaway. It's probably stupid if I take my printer with me, right? So that means I need to write everything that needs written pre-printout so that I don't have a need for a printer. It's doable, if only barely, so wish me luck. Goodnight!

you don't know me, but i'm your [censored]

2012-02-09T22:24:00.000-08:00

It's only ten p.m., but I'm going to bed as soon as I post this. If I post tomorrow saying that I lied and stayed up and read a book until four a.m., please punch me in the face. Today was good, but I hit the wall and can't think anymore, and since my building's water is getting shut off from 9-10am tomorrow (precisely the only hour I intended to spend awake in my apartment), I need to get up before that if I want to use the facilities and make breakfast before the water goes bye-bye. Yeah, I just wrote that sentence. All my word-making synapses are dead.

Anyway, I got up, showered, and made it to the airport in time to pick up that agent who was flying in. She came into SF, but the hotel's in Emeryville, so I had to take her over the Bay Bridge and get her checked in. Then she asked if I could drop her off in San Francisco on my way home, since she has friends here. I wasn't coming home, and instead planned to go to Stanford, but I came back through SF instead of down the east side of the bay and across the Dumbarton so that I could drop her off -- which didn't add all that much time, but still. Then I sped down to Palo Alto, had a salad at Joanie's (the bright spot of the day), went to Stanford library, and attempted to slog. I was trying to drink more water and less caffeine, so I only took a bottle of water into the library -- which promptly proved to be a mistake, since I took a 45-minute nap in a chair in the Bender Room. Afternoons are really the worst for me; I need to stop pretending I can accomplish anything worthwhile most afternoons and use it to take care of nonsense instead.

So I roused myself, went outside to the Coupa trailer, got some coffee, snuck it back in, and slogged until 7:30. Properly caffeinated, the slog went well; I wrapped up another brand new scene with some sewn-in remnants from the previous version of the book, and next up is Malcolm and Amelia's final showdown. It's all coming together, and I got ten pages today, so yay. I left the library to get a smoothie for supper, but I decided that rather than forcing myself to go back and be less-than-maximally productive, it made sense to come home, zone out a bit, and get nine or ten hours of sleep to make up for the deficit I'm running so I can accomplish stuff tomorrow. We'll see how this plan works out, but given how excited I am to sleep, I think it'll be good.

In Heiress news, my book has mysteriously shot back up (down) in the rankings -- when I checked just now, it's right at #100 in the Nook Top 100, #32 in romance, #8 in historical, and #6 in Regency. Holla! If this just happened because all y'all are buying another copy of my book every day, I'm still flattered (albeit slightly sad that I'm selling hundreds of copies to a handful of people, rather than single copies to hundreds). But I think it means that I have an awesome cover, a great back cover blurb, and some good reviews building up, which is all v. exciting. And it also means that people are talking it up to their friends -- so if you're one of the people doing that, double thank you. I'll give you your choice of a shot of Fernet, a Diet Coke, or a cup of tea the next time I see you.

Speaking of giveaways, those romance trading cards / bookmarks that I rush ordered last weekend were sitting outside my door when I got home tonight, which was even rushier than I anticipated. They're totally awesome, so if you want any, let me know. And now I must go to bed before I break my promise to myself to sleep for many hours tonight -- goodnight!

but you will come to a place where the only thing you feel are loaded guns in your face

2012-02-09T01:29:00.000-08:00

I really must go to bed immediately; tomorrow is a rinse-and-repeat of today, with the added wrench of needing to pick up an agent who's speaking to my romance chapter this weekend at the San Francisco airport and deposit her at her hotel in Emeryville. Boo. But I was quite productive today, if I do say so myself; I woke up just in time for a 9-10am Twitter chat with some fellow historical romance writers, then spent the rest of the morning taking care of some small tasks and writing another guest blog post that should be up somewhere online sometime in the next week or two (this promo business boggles the mind). I also had to [censored] for [censored], which I was happy to do, if only because [censored].

By the time I crossed everything off my to-do list, it was almost three. Perhaps I should have just stayed home then, but I've come to the sad, embarrassing realization that I get more work done if I drive an hour each way to sit in the Stanford library than I do in the comfort and drive-less wonder of my own house. So I drove south, stopped at Philz and worked for an hour or so over coffee, grabbed an early dinner at Chipotle while doing an online chat with another group of writers, and then went to Stanford library and worked from seven to a little after eleven. And I got 15+ pages out of it, so it was worth it, I suppose.

The end is still in sight, and I even managed to salvage half a scene -- shocker. At the rate I'm going, I should be finished with this draft by the weekend. But I hope to have an absolutely brutal, overwhelmingly productive slog tomorrow -- the agent lands at eleven, which means I could be down to Stanford by one or two p.m., which means ten hours of madness. And I'm serious about the madness -- things in my head are heating up when it comes to this book, and they aren't pretty. It's kind of wearing me out, but I fueled myself tonight with rage; someone online (whom I kind of despise anyway) said something that made me absolutely incandescent with anger, which was a little awkward since I was sitting at Chipotle and kept inadvertently glaring at children while I tried to calm down. Oops. Still, haters are gonna hate, right? And it wasn't a review or anything, so it really wasn't a big deal.

Speaking of reviews, Heiress is still doing really well from a review standpoint on the Nook, but its ranking is starting to slide (down to ~900 in the overall B&N store, and #13 in Regency instead of #3). But, it's all a weird game -- I can't tell what drove the sales I got, and I can't tell why it's slipping either. I think a big part of it is that all the new releases for this week came out yesterday and there were some big ones, which means anyone who preordered them got them fulfilled yesterday, which pushed everyone else down. C'est la vie, though; it could still come back, and even if it doesn't, it will hopefully get a bump again when I release Scotsmen. But that won't happen unless I go to bed and hit it hard tomorrow -- goodnight!

drive until you lose the road or break with the ones who followed

2012-02-08T01:15:00.000-08:00

My eyes are rolling back in my head and my back feels like it's been hunched over a desk for half an eternity, so I think it's time for bed. I managed to drag myself down to Palo Alto to train with Alyssa, who tortured me in such a good-natured way that I can't really resent her. Then I did some work in the gym cafe while eating a salad; then I did some work while getting a coffee at Philz; then I went to Stanford library, where I stayed until eleven p.m. and wrote approximately 15 pages. The end is still in sight, but perhaps it's one of those desert mirages where the cool mountains always seem to be within a day's journey, until the day you break down and shoot your friend so you have something to eat. Yum.

Uh, not yum - sorry. I really should sleep. I took a break to grab supper, and v. stupidly had pasta since it was the only thing appealing on campus (since I knew that if I left I would have no desire to go back), and now everything is vaguely itchy and my stomach hurts. Stupid. When I finally left campus, I realized I needed to get gas, but my usual go-to station was inexplicably closed. So I got off at the Menlo Park exit, which should be safe enough, and pulled into a station with three other cars at it, which should be even safer -- only to end up in the middle of a marital (?) dispute in which the woman came over to ask me for gas money (I refused), and then they started screaming at each other. Needless to say, I only got enough gas to get me home before leaving, which appeared to be the game plan of everyone else at the station, who were all looking at each other nervously before leaving at the same time (since I don't think anyone wanted to be the last man there).

sssanyway, I made it home alive, and then spent the last half hour looking at places to go for a last-minute extreme hermitville hideaway next week so that I can finish this damn book in a slew of fourteen-hour days. I feel kind of ridiculous that I have to go away to finish the book, since I'm funemployed and could theoretically do it here -- but going away has proven hugely useful in the past, so perhaps it's worth it. We shall see, we shall see. Now though, I must sleep -- goodnight!

my body needs a hero, come and save me

2012-02-07T00:17:00.000-08:00

I've got nothing nice to say about Malcolm and Amelia at the moment, so I won't say anything at all -- other than to say that while the end is in sight, they're dragging me over the coals on every single step. It's getting there, though, but the less said the better, or else I might jinx it and they'll make me start all over again.

Today was a lot of blood and tears (sans literal blood and tears), but I crossed a lot of stuff off the to-do list and made some progress on zee book, so whatever. I didn't leave the house, though, which may be why I'm thoroughly surly -- going to the gym tomorrow will be good for me, even if I resent the time it will take. When Terry got home, I threw in the towel and watched "The Voice", followed by the premiere of "Smash" -- you can tell I'm desperately eager to procrastinate when I watch a musical show, but it was actually quite good, and I'll likely keep watching both of them.

And now, I'm going to sleep so that I can get up and try to force Malcolm and Amelia into submission. Goodnight!

settle for a world neither up or down

2012-02-05T22:51:00.000-08:00

I'm so, so achingly stupid sometimes. I tried to go to bed at midnight last night, but when I didn't fall asleep within three minutes, I picked up my nook, thinking I would read a chapter of a romance novel I'd recently purchased...and ended up staying awake until 4:30am. Stupid, stupid. At least I forced myself to go to bed rather than finishing it, right? And I really should be reading a lot more than I do so that I can keep up on the industry, so I can't totally regret it. But given that I'd intended to go down to Stanford library today and write all day/night, and instead I woke up after five hours of sleep and wandered around in a haze all day, perhaps regret is part of it.

Anyway, I woke up at 9:30 (slightly hungover, but since I lived through the descent into a hangover while reading in the middle of the night, it wasn't all that bad), took care of some promo stuff (giving the last bit of feedback on the romance trading cards I ordered, which, I have to say, look totally awesome), and then had breakfast out with Terry. Yesterday I went out for breakfast with lovely hair and a cute maxidress; today I went out with my hair pulled back, no makeup, and an old top and jeans; tomorrow, I'll either be in sweats or a glam dress, depending on the constantly-shifting state of my overly hyper/depressed writer brain. Anyway, we had a lovely breakfast, and then I came home and spent two hours working on a guest blog post for tomorrow (which I think turned out well - I'm over at the Dashing Duchesses, which is a real site; I won't link to it here in cases it creates a pingback that reveals this blog to the romance world, but if you want to read it, click through from the press area of my Sara Ramsey site).

After finishing all that, I took a bath/nap, which was as lovely as it sounds. Then I talked to my mother for awhile, who was in fine form, particularly since her beloved Cyclones are doing so well. Then I worked for a bit, then I made chili (yum), then I watched the end of the Super Bowl in an utterly desultory and surly manner. My father called at some point, so I caught up with him; then I returned to the couch and basically did very little, despite all the pressing tasks mounting, mounting, mounting around me. Terry and I watched a bit of a documentary on Jesse James, which was v. interesting, before switching over and watching the season premiere of "The Voice". And I wrote another guest blog post for a different blog, which should be up sometime this week. And I brainstormed more guest blogs, which makes me want to cry, since there's a big difference between coming up with witty, succinct, interesting content for strangers and just vomiting onto the screen for you guys every night.

So now I'm going to go to bed and hopefully get ten hours of sleep so that I can wake up and hit Malcolm and Amelia hard (very hard, preferably with a bat or stick or blunt instrument of some sort) in the morning. Goodnight!

i serve my head up on a plate

2012-02-04T23:54:00.000-08:00

I drank far more wine tonight than I intended to drink...don't tell Alyssa. I prefer to believe that I can barely type because I didn't eat anything, rather than that I drank too much. However, given that my father (hi dad!) asked me last week what Lindsey Lohan and Sara Ramsey had in common, and then hinted that perhaps my public persona was becoming too alcohol-saturated, perhaps I should at least feign sobriety. And since I'm not in any kind of legal trouble at all, nor am I under contract to play a porn star, nor do I have a crazy mom whom my favorite gossip blog calls White Oprah, I think his comparison was beside the point.

sssanyway. I actually did write today, whether you choose to believe that or not. I slept later than I intended, but I did get up eventually, and I took care of some promo stuff before showering and going out for a late breakfast. My only fun plan for the weekend was to go to Lauren's house for a small, intimate housewarming, and when I texted asking what she wanted me to bring, she replied with cheese -- which was the only excuse I needed to finally check out the specialty cheese shop on Union Street a couple of blocks from my house. As it turns out, that cheese shop is dangerously wonderful. I asked the dude for recommendations, and he guided me toward a triple creme brie-like soft cheese, a double creme gouda that was out of this world amazing, and a truffled goat cheese that made me happier than anything (other than the other two cheeses, which were even better). I'm going to have to go back all the time, since all of those cheeses were fantastic. And yes, I'm such a snob. I know. Sorry.

After getting my cheese on, I came home, painted my toenails, wrote on the roof deck for awhile, and then came downstairs and kept writing until it was time to change to go to Lauren's. Terry and I went over together, and I suckered her into driving, which is how this wine debacle in my bloodstream happened. Lauren and Nathan just moved in to their new place today; it's been undergoing renovations for ages, but it's finally done enough that they can live in it, and it's totally wonderful. They only had over a handful of people, since obviously it's not done done, but they wanted to warm it up in style, and I'd say they were quite successful. It was lovely to see them both, and I love their friends (particularly Jesse and Danielle, whom I find quite entertaining), so it was a great break from this weekend's endless writing extravaganza. I lobbied subtly (not subtly at all) for purple bridesmaids dresses, since I look great in purple, but we'll see what happens.

Terry and I eventually left and came home, and then watched a lot of tv while I progressively, inexplicably, got drunker. Odd. And now I should go to bed -- I either intend to write here all day tomorrow, or go down to the Stanford library to force even more productivity, but either way there will be no more fun until this book is done. Goodnight!

pucker up for heaven's sake, there's never been so much at stake

2012-02-04T01:53:00.000-08:00

I need to write another 2000 words, but screw it, I'm going to bed. I've been working nonstop all day (well, I suppose I stopped when I drove, and I stopped when I had coffee with Gyre, but that's fairly negligible from a time standpoint), and I need to do it again tomorrow, and the next day, and the day after that, so sleepy time it is.

So I was supposed to go down to train with Alyssa today, and was even in my gym clothes...but I got an email this morning saying that the designer could do the bookmark/trading cards that I wanted to order for the conferences I'm going to this spring, but if I wanted them in time for the event I'm going to in Long Beach at the end of the month, we must do them *right now* so they can go to the printer on Monday. I forget that getting things printed takes time, since I'm used to all e all the time (that means electronic, not ecstasy, my hyper mood notwithstanding). Since she was doing me a favor by saying her team could do it this weekend, I didn't want to delay -- so I canceled Alyssa and spent an hour figuring out what to put on a prospective bookmark. Fun.

I had to send her the bookmark and leave the trading card questionnaire for tonight, since I had a lunch meeting with my CPA that I didn't want to cancel. It was lovely to see her, as usual, and we discussed my writing situation and whether I should set up an LLC (which I will likely do -- yay for incorporating). Oddly, the lunch meeting then turned into a discussion about whether I should/could get involved in this startup she's involved in, which came completely out of left field since I didn't go into the meeting expecting to discuss job opportunities. But it's totally right up my alley and is writing related, so we'll see (in a way that doesn't take focus away from Malcolm and Amelia, since I must. finish. them. immediately.).

Anyway, after that, I went directly to my former place of employment and had coffee with Gyre, since we haven't gotten together in awhile and he's headed to Dublin next week. We caught up for an hour, which was v. nice. Then, I went to Stanford library and worked from four to nine, with a break for supper (an aight cobb salad from Coupa). I still managed to obsess over Heiress's rankings (holding steady ~#120), but I also wrote fifteen pages. Not the twenty pages that I promised to write yesterday, so I guess you'll have to shoot me, but given that I spent so much time on the bookmarks/trading cards, I'll take it. Then I came home, talked to Terry for a bit, came upstairs, and spent the past three hours finishing the trading card stuff. Yes, my life is amazing.

And now, I must sleep -- Malcolm and Amelia await tomorrow, salivating for yet another attempt to kill me, and I must not let them win. Goodnight!

make me come alive, come on and turn me on

2012-02-03T00:59:00.000-08:00

There's no point in talking about Malcolm and Amelia - they're not done, which is all that matters, and so what if I want to kill both of them? Beyond that, today was fine. I took care of a variety of other things beyond them, and I went for a walk along the water, and I had a delicious Blue Bottle latte at the cafe I found in Fort Mason last week, and I eked out a few words, so it's all good. I'm just getting distracted by promo stuff, from the guest blogs I'm writing to the pressing need to design and/or order printed promo materials, etc. And I'm still slightly distracted by Heiress's rankings, although since they've held remarkably steady (#117 on the bn.com site / #3 in Regency / #8 in Historical right now), I'm getting slightly less obsessed.

Anyway, I threw in the towel tonight to have dinner with Tom and Rat at Flybar, which was really quite delicious, and it was great to see them. I also successfully limited myself to one glass of wine -- I know, I'm so classy and restrained. Then I got home, messed around with possible bookmark options, and finally threw in the towel and contacted the woman who designed my book covers to see what her turnaround times are like right now so that I can possibly hire her to design the stuff. Terry got home sometime after that, so we talked for awhile, and then I came upstairs and investigated stationery/address stamps until now (partially because I love stationery, obvi, but partially since I'll be sending out book giveaways/more correspondence in the coming months and want to look professional).

But all of that, even though it's all necessary, is ultimately procrastination from Malcolm and Amelia, which needs to stop -- so I'm training tomorrow, seeing my CPA, and then holing up at Stanford library until it closes. If I don't get twenty pages tomorrow, shoot me. Goodnight!

i used to be love drunk, but now i'm hungover

2012-02-01T23:53:00.000-08:00

I need to go to bed; I've spent the past three hours reading about the differences of British vs. English vs. Scottish peerages and what those differences mean in terms of who was allowed to sit in the House of Lords, and while that research was necessary at this point in the book, it was still a lot of time to spend doing something other than writing. But I learned a lot about stuff that I'm sure none of you care about, so I'll refrain from geeking out here.

The rest of my day was good; I had to go downtown in the early afternoon to get my bangs trimmed and my brows waxed, which I've now decided to do on the same schedule since a brow wax is v. necessary whenever my bangs are trimmed enough to reveal them. Then I had a late lunch at Jillian's, which was pretty terrible -- the salad was utterly subpar, which was annoying since I'd chosen it over my beloved Samovar in the same complex, but I guess it was better than spending $30 on a bowl of rice. Then I bought groceries, came home, and worked (with a few breaks to keep pounding caffeine) until Terry got off work. We went down the street and had dinner at Perry's, which was a nice break, before I came back here and read about the House of Lords until now.

And now, sadly, I must sleep, and then incorporate all this fascinating research in Malcolm and Amelia's book tomorrow. Malcolm may have just earned himself another title; he's already an earl, and the title has been in his family for centuries, which means it's Scottish, which means he isn't necessarily guaranteed a seat in the House of Lords. So I either need to get him elected as one of the handful of Scottish peers allowed into the Lords, or I need to give him a second title that was created in England or the UK. The second option seems easier, and so hey presto, Malcolm's now Earl of Carnach, Viscount [something]. Sweet. If only I could get a title that easily!

And now that I've gone back on my promise and failed to spare you from the boring details, it's time for bed. Goodnight!

want you to make me feel like i'm the only girl in the world

2012-01-31T23:20:00.000-08:00

I'm going to shut off the internet and write until I fall asleep (which may be sooner rather than later), but I don't want to leave you without a blog post, since I know I'm sooooo interesting. I got a lot done today, which was v. necessary, although some of it was more administrative than actual writing -- keeping on top of everything that's going on is a struggle, but hey, I love me a struggle. And it gives me an excuse to overcaffeinate (not like I need one).

Anyway, I'm rambling. Today was good, with lots of productivity, even if I subsisted on scrambled eggs, coffee, and trail mix, and didn't shower or get dressed until almost five p.m. I probably wouldn't have showered at all, but I'd agreed to do family time dinner with Priyanka/Adit/Katrina in celebration of the end of Priyanka's latest awful two-month nonstop residency rotation and the launch of my beloved book. So I went over to Adit and Priyanka's around seven, drank a few sips of wine (contrary to Alyssa's wishes, but then again, she probably wishes I would live on coffee and trail mix either), and then we all walked to Eiji Sushi for dinner. The food was fantastic; I'd been craving sushi, but the Marina isn't a hotbed of fine sushi dining, so this was exactly what I wanted. Katrina and I split a lot of fish goodness, while Adit and Priyanka confined themselves to the few vegetarian things on the menu, and we generally had a delightful time.

When we were done with dinner, I declined the offer of more wine, drove Katrina home, and then came back here and watched some "Big Bang Theory" with Terry. Then I wasted the last hour trying to gear myself up to write and instead taking care of email and obsessively checking out my Barnes and Noble rankings, because I can't stop checking them. While Heiress is not quite as low as it had gotten on Saturday (currently 214; the lowest I saw it reach was 94), it's still doing remarkably well, and I'm relieved that it's sticking around at the top of the historical/regency lists. Tuesday is traditionally the day when all the new releases hit, which means any preorders for new books are fulfilled today, which means it's natural that my book would take a hit as new books show up. But, fingers crossed that we'll weather this wave and keep doing well for another week or two...and then the fun starts all over again when I need to do some promo pushing to launch it successfully onto the Kindle and in paperback.

But that's all a fight for another day...and while that day is coming quickly, the day when I need to finish Malcolm and Amelia is much sooner. I'm just praying that I've actually made it better and haven't utterly ruined it, but we'll see. And on that utterly non-cheery note, goodnight!

the angel from my nightmare

2012-01-30T23:24:00.000-08:00

It's still relatively early for me, but I'm going to go to bed v. soon -- I'm too tired to write, but as that's all I should be doing right now, I'm going to sleep and hit it hard tomorrow. The end is in sight with Malcolm and Amelia, and I'm trying desperately to get to the end (or at least the first version of it) by the weekend...so no fun for me this week.

I made it down to train with Alyssa this morning, although I was late because traffic was inexplicably backed up (boo). After training, I had a salad at the gym, took care of some email/promo stuff, and then went to Philz to work for a couple of hours over some delicious, v. caffeinated coffee. Then I adjourned to Starbucks and worked some more, with the intention of meeting up for dinner with some friends at 5:30, but both the friends canceled. That unfortunately left me stuck in the south bay at rush hour, and so I grabbed food at Chipotle and then went to Stanford library and wrote until 8:15ish. Once traffic subsided, I came home, but as I accomplished v. little upon arrival, perhaps I should have stayed at the library. Oops.

Anyway, that's all I have to report; Heiress continues to do v. well, but that's beginning to sound like a broken record, so I shall spare you my excitement (even though I'm really v. excited). Perhaps tomorrow will be more interesting for you -- but given my hermit ways, I doubt it. Goodnight!

there's a side to you that i never knew, never knew

2012-01-30T00:17:00.000-08:00

My contacts are adhering to my eyes and I'm having trouble typing, but this time it has nothing to do with alcohol and everything to do with the fact that I've worked almost nonstop for the past twelve hours. I would probably keep going if I didn't have to go down to Palo Alto tomorrow morning -- stupid Palo Alto. But I need to sleep if I'm going to survive the morning, so sleep it is.

I will admit that I was not in peak physical condition this morning; I was surly and sullen, as I usually am the morning after an evening that ends in shots, and it took awhile to un-surly myself. A bubble bath helped, and then I fortified myself further by going out for huevos rancheros, which set me right as rain. When I got home, I wrote all afternoon/evening, with a break to call my parents; they were in fine form, even if we're all equally obsessed with checking my Barnes and Noble rankings (which I'm getting slightly less obsessed about -- I was able to work a whole hour at a time without checking, which is nothing short of miraculous). I took another hour off sometime around 7:30 to eat some non-Alyssa-approved gluten free pizza with Terry, since neither of us felt like cooking and I was sick of the leftover stirfry in the fridge. Then I came upstairs, answered a lot of email, plowed through a lot of stuff on my to-do list, and wrote a guest blog post for a blog I'm appearing on on Tuesday. Good times all around, right?

And now, alas, it's bedtime. Goodnight!

set fire to the rain

2012-01-29T02:07:00.000-08:00

I'll own up right now to the fact that I'm intoxicated, so that you don't have to wait until the very end of the post to find out what I got up to tonight. I know, I spoil you. You can thank me later.

Anyway, I had a lovely day -- not enough writing got done, but as it's currently impossible to get enough writing done no matter how much I do, perhaps I should forgive myself. I did make myself some delicious eggs for breakfast, and I cleaned the kitchen and my room, and I took care of some email stuff, and I did a little bit of writing. Then I spent an inordinate amount of time getting ready for dinner, since I basically spent the entire last week in my sweats -- any chance I get to dress up these days is one I embrace with open arms, so I pulled out a cute top and slathered on the makeup even though it was almost certainly wasted on the friends I was going out with, since I've known them longer than I've known anyone except my family/hometown peeps.

But before dinner, I went to Four Barrel Coffee at 14th and Valencia; I decided to go to that neighborhood and hour early and write, since I was worried I would have cab troubles, and the plan was a solid one. Four Barrel was still a hipster scene even at six p.m., but it was less of a scene than usual, and I was able to get a latte with no line and a table without a wait, so it was a totally amazing experience. Then I strolled up the block to Mission Beach Cafe, where Chris, Connie, Adit and I had a reservation for dinner. Mission Beach Cafe is awesome for brunch, but it is a complete and utter scene then, with a 1-2hr wait; at dinner, it's still a scene, but it's a more mellow scene since they take reservations and there isn't a crush of people outside waiting to get in. It's definitely on the nicer side of where I usually go, but the food and ambience are amazing. Boyd and I are both on the no-gluten train, so he got a porkchop and I got steak; I loved my steak, but I tasted his chop and have to admit that he won the meat sweepstakes tonight. Adit and Connie both got a goat cheese ravioli, which I didn't try, and a mushroom soup that was outstanding. And we split two bottles of wine, which left us feeling warm and happy.

Unwilling for the fun to end, we walked up the street to 14th and Market (where Adit and I used to live) and had another drink at a bar there -- I once again made my classic mistake of picking based on name, and so I drank a cocktail called RIDING WITH DEATH, which involved tequila, which is all you need to know. It was better than I deserved, but still added a rough edge to my wine buzz. After we finished there, Chris and Connie went back to the glorious south bay, and I walked with Adit in the direction of a house party. I didn't intend to go in, but once I got there I couldn't say no, and so I went up with him. As it turns out, the house party was hosted by the boyfriend of my college friend Pavithra, who was on staff with me/Allie/Walter in an auxiliary/non-RA role, and whom I don't think I've seen since graduation. So that was surreal, and we spent some quality time catching up. The night ended the way all my nights with Adit end -- we did a completely unnecessary shot, this time of Fernet, before he helped me find a cab home. He was continuing on to another party, but since it was already 1:30am and I need to sober up if I'm going to write tomorrow, it was time to call it a night.

So now I must go to sleep, so that I can write tomorrow -- demand for the second book should be decent if people liked the first book, and I must must must finish it. Heiress is still doing amazingly well...it's up to #28 in all romance / #7 in historical romance / #4 in Regency, and it's #69 in the Nook Top 100 (across all genres), so that's absolutely incredible. I really can't believe it's doing so well -- I had faith in it, but this has exceeded all my hopes and expectations, so thank you to those of you who've bought it/recommended it to friends/not sabotaged me. You're the best!

And now I must sleep so that I can wake up and write a book. Goodnight!

and the games you play...you would always win, always win

2012-01-28T00:09:00.000-08:00

Heiress is still holding steady at #6 in Regency/#12 in Historical/#50 in all romance, which is awesome and unexpected; if anything, it's doing better today than it was yesterday, although I don't know for sure since I don't have the actual number of copies sold (but its overall ranking dropped from 350 to 250 over the course of the day). It's all a little surreal -- while I certainly had high hopes, I had schooled myself to expect that this book would probably go nowhere and would end up selling the bulk of its copies months/years from now as future books started to take off. So obviously, I'm super psyched, but I keep waiting for the ratings to taper off like they're supposed to. On the other hand, I have more promo planned for the next few weeks than I did this week, and B&N is supposed to do more stuff as well, so...well, we'll see what happens! But thanks to all of you who have told your romance reading friends and family about it -- every little bit helps in terms of getting it to the point in the rankings where strangers can discover it, so all of you who've facebooked/google+'d/emailed, etc., are very much appreciated!

sssanyway, today was good; I was slightly late to train with Alyssa, but my workout was v. good and I'd had a good week of obeying her dictums overall, so it was all very pleasant. Then I took an absurdly quick shower, grabbed a smoothie from the gym cafe, and got a massage. I'd prepaid for a set of three massages sometime last summer (when they had a deal to prepay for 50mins and get 80mins), and had somehow never used them, so I decided to celebrate my book's success with a massage. Sadly, while the masseuse got a lot of the tension out of my back, I'm pretty sure she bruised me in the process, so hopefully it all feels better tomorrow.

Post-massage, I went to Philz and worked for a couple of hours -- partly promo (which basically means wasting time on Twitter, although I must say that my time-wasting on Twitter seems to be paying off), and partly writing several pages of Malcolm and Amelia's story. I was also distracted by an odd chick who insisted on putting out a lot of 'free origami' on the game/book shelves that were six inches behind my seat, which required her to rearrange a lot of stuff so that her origami had room to be displayed, and it was all extremely awkward. Then I grabbed dinner at Chipotle (not entirely Alyssa approved...shh) and went to Stanford library, where I wrote another few pages before coming home. Since I'm in extreme crunch mode and could neither afford to take tonight off nor be hungover and useless tomorrow, I skipped a friend's birthday party -- bad Sara. But hopefully I'll finish this damn book next week and can then play as much as I want to.

And now I must go to bed, so I can do everything (sans workout/massage/bruising) again tomorrow. Goodnight!

smoke on the water

2012-01-27T00:23:00.000-08:00

Today was lovely. Heiress stayed steady in the rankings all day, which was great because the ranking is good, but bad because I wasted a lot of time refreshing the Barnes and Noble page whenever I thought about it (which was probably more often than a dude thinks of sex), only to find that nothing had really changed. It's still #6 in Regency / #13 in Historical, which is epically satisfying, particularly since the only books ahead of it are either by super famous authors or are priced at <$1.99 (or both). I don't know how long this will last, and even at rankings that good I'm not selling enough copies to retire (retire from retirement? didn't know that was possible), but it's pretty awesome while it lasts.

Beyond that, I tried to stop obsessing long enough to write, and I managed to eke out eight pages, which I will totally take. I'm getting closer to the end, but this weekend needs to be massive. I went back to my tried and true tactic of writing longhand, which was even more useful today because it meant I couldn't just break my train of thought every three minutes to check Barnes and Noble. And rather than carrying around a giant, daunting notebook full of blank pages, I made a special notebook with ~15 pages in it so that I could feel like I was making obvious progress with every page I filled. The tactic was successful, and I wrote a scorcher of a scene, so yay for me. I also discovered my new favorite place to work -- it's called Readers Cafe, it's in Fort Mason, it serves Blue Bottle Coffee, and it's attached to (and the proceeds go to) the used bookstore run by the Friends of San Francisco Public Library. It's like it was made for me! And it wasn't crowded, given that it's in the middle of Fort Mason and not heavily advertised/obvious. And it was nice to walk down there and back and clear my head. And I was able to stop at Safeway on the way home and buy some shrimp, which I threw into a stirfry and devoured when I got home. So yay to all of that.

Boo to my social life, though, which is suffering as a result of my art (which sounds better than suffering as a result of my procrastination, which has thrown me into a crunch time)...it sounded like Priyanka wanted to hang out this afternoon and I couldn't, and I barely talked to Terry today even though she worked from home and was here all night. But hopefully I'll finish Malcolm/Amelia soon so that I never have to read them again and can focus on other things, like friends and Ellie/Nick and the gargoyles (remember the gargoyles? it would be awesome if I could ever finish them...). And now I shall go to bed, since I have to drive down to Palo Alto and train with Alyssa tomorrow before hitting the book hard in the afternoon. Goodnight!

hike up your skirt a little more and show the world to me

2012-01-25T22:54:00.000-08:00

So I'm still obsessing over numbers to the detriment of finishing Malcolm and Amelia, which needs to stop immediately because they're theoretically coming out in March (not theoretically -- definitely, since I'm putting it in all the promo I'm doing for Madeleine/Ferguson and I don't want to look like a flaky unprofessional loser), which means I should probably be done in the next ten days so that they can get formatted and proofread, etc., etc. Shoot me. But before you shoot me, the awesome thing about being obsessed with the numbers today was that the numbers were great. As of right now, HEIRESS is #65 in the Nook store for all romance, #14 for historical romance, and #6 for Regency romance!

I don't actually know how many books I sold to get those numbers -- it's clearly based on velocity of sales, not just number, and so maybe I sold five books while everyone else sold nothing and that catapulted me up in the charts. But either way, this is awesome, since it means my book is very easy to find for people browsing the top romances in my categories. And hopefully a few of them will love the book and want to read the next one, but we shall see.

So I took care of a variety of promo stuff this morning, talked to my dad, and obsessed over the numbers, before finally going out and having breakfast at a cafe since I was clearly too excited to cook oatmeal for myself. I had huevos rancheros at the cafe down the street (yum), then went to Sephora and used my aunt's giftcard (thanks aunt b!) to buy some high-powered hand cream for my desiccated typing hands. Then I came home, did some more stuff for my publicist, obsessed over the numbers, tried to write, didn't write as much as I should have, talked to Katie, obsessed, talked to my mom, obsessed some more, wrote a bit, obsessed, and finally decided to cook supper. The leftover steak from last night was the highlight of my dinner, but I made a stirfry with broccoli/red pepper/onion/green beans/coconut oil that wasn't bad, just boring. Then I tried to write again, but instead updated my romance website with a bit about where I'm going to visit this year and where I've got guest blog posts coming up. Fun, right?

Tomorrow I think I'm going to leave my computer at home and go someplace to write in my notebook, since clearly I can accomplish nothing when the internet lets me check my ranking all the time. After all, it's all well and good if this book does really well, but it ain't exactly "To Kill a Mockingbird", so it's important that I publish more than one book in my life. And on that note I'm going to bed -- goodnight!

[edited on 1/26 at 11:48am PST to add...]

Here's where you can see the book on Barnes and Noble's rankings by category:

Regency romance: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/s?CAT=666294&sort=sa&view=grid&store=ebook

Historical romance: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/s?CAT=914217&sort=sa&view=grid&store=ebook

All romance (typically on the third page right now, if you're looking at 30/page): http://www.barnesandnoble.com/s?dref=2565&srt=sa&store=ebook&sze=10&view=grid

pick up the receiver i'll make you a believer

2012-01-25T01:31:00.000-08:00

I should have gone to bed ages ago, but I procrastinated after getting home from the glorious south bay, and I had a bit of promo-related stuff that had to be done tonight. Today was, on the whole, quite nice. I woke up this morning and was disappointed to see that my book's sales ranking hadn't improved significantly yesterday, even though yesterday was the official launch, and so I drove south in a slightly surly mood. But, training with Alyssa was good (even if she did work out my upper body to the point that everything now aches as though I'm getting the flu), and I showered after and went to Joanie's Cafe for a celebratory Cobb salad. I then spent the afternoon working in a variety of cafes, with marginal success; I tried going to Stanford library but couldn't find parking, so I took part in the cafe scene instead, which was somewhat annoying today.

I would have just come home after working out, but I had dinner plans in Palo Alto. It was my semi-regular Friendship Renewal dinner with Tolu, Joann, and Jane, and we went to Reposado, which was as tasty and classy as it was overpriced. But my skirt steak really was absolute perfection, and the tamale I split with Tolu was great even though my stomach seems to be indicating that there was some gluten somewhere in my meal. So we all caught up for a couple of hours, and they gave me a little mini chocolate gluten-free cake thingie with a little congratulations sign, which was super cute.

When I got home, I messed around on the internet, answered email, took care of some giveaway stuff, and brainstormed a blog post for a guest blog that I'm doing on Thursday. I kept refreshing the stats on B&N even though I didn't expect anything to change -- and at first I thought it was a typo when I noticed that my ranking was in the 800s rather than the 32000s. It must not be, though, since my book is now #12 in Regency romance and #38 in historical romance!! This is exactly the kind of progress I want to be making -- it's really key to get into the top rankings in your category, since readers browsing for new books are much more likely to stumble across it, which then becomes a virtuous cycle that should keep your book selling for awhile. We'll see tomorrow -- it could all just be a fluke, but I hope not.

I probably won't keep sharing numbers here in the long term; you can expect me to go back to my regularly scheduled drivel soon. But since this is all publicly available on B&N, and since I'm too damned excited to shut up about it, you'll have to bear with me this week. You've borne with worse drivel than this and kept coming back, so I live in hope that you'll forgive me for this too. Goodnight!

it's so romantic on the borderline tonight

2012-01-24T01:59:00.000-08:00

Today went about as well as I could have hoped for it to go -- I don't have any sales numbers for today, but at least I had fun, right? I was extremely active on Twitter, which seems to be paying off, since I've got over seven hundred followers now, which seems absurd given that I just tweet about nothing. But everyone that I've gotten to know in the romance community was v. congratulatory, which was sweet. And I got a four-star review from Romantic Times, which is the industry magazine that has reviews of all the major debuts every month, so that was totally awesome.

I spent the whole day being crazy in the same sweats I've been wearing for several days, but I eventually showered and retinseled my hair in an effort to look sane (yes, I know, tinsel in hair isn't an obvious indicator of sanity, but c'est la vie). Chandlord had sent out an email last week saying that we should get together tonight to celebrate my debut, which was totally awesome of her. It ended up being a book club after dark/after hours/between the sheets (we didn't settle on a specific name), since the only people able to get together were Chandlord/Katrina/Terry/Subz (aka Lauren), and Adit showed up when we went to a bar. Chandlord made the book club after dark a couple of cocktails each (except for Terry, who had to leave for NYC straight after the party), which were all strong and delicious, and then we met Adit at Olive (after walking past a pack of cigarettes lying in a puddle of blood, which is par for the course in the Tenderloin), where I had another drink and a half. Lauren had to leave relatively early since she's training with Alyssa at seven (I have four extra hours to recover, yay), and Katrina and Adit left at the same time. Chandlord and I went back to the Chandlord condo and watched some "Mr. and Mrs. Smith" on tv, but when Chandlord fell asleep at midnight, I left her and walked home. I watched the rest of the movie, though, which I have a strange, guilty affinity for -- don't judge. And now, it's time for bed -- goodnight!

look how they shine for you

2012-01-22T23:27:00.000-08:00

My book is technically already out, and has been for a week, but I still feel nervous and giddy about tomorrow, like it's the first day of school, graduation, and my wedding all wrapped into one. It's the culmination of so many things, the peak after years of effort -- but it's also the start of everything, the first step toward what I hope is a lifetime of writing success. I don't know what it will hold; my goal for the first year is to produce enough books and sell enough of them to be able to keep doing this full-time, and it's theoretically possible even though it will be a lot of hard work. Still, I'm excited, and if nothing else, it's great that my family and friends have been so supportive. So yay to all of you!

Today was the calm before the storm. I succeeded in writing a few pages of Malcolm and Amelia's book, even though I kept getting distracted by checking stats. I talked to my parents for an hour, [censored] for half an hour, and my aunt for a few minutes (in response to the comment she left on last night's post), and they were all good. I also spent too much time looking at my 23andMe information, which I just got back this week; I had bought the test a year ago and never took it, but I finally sent it in just before it expired, and I got the results back this week. [censored] and I compared results, and it turns out we are related (phew). Some of my results amused me -- for instance, it says that I'm a 'likely sprinter' (although that's based on muscle recovery, not on height/ability to walk without stumbling). It also said that I'm in the 83rd percentile for Neanderthal DNA, whatever that means. But generally, there was nothing either surprising or worrisome (and the only worrisome thing is also unsurprising, given how many of my relatives have had dementia), although I've got some cleft lip genes that my kids will have to watch out for. [censored] and I both have slightly higher than normal odds of living to be 100, so hopefully we will be antagonizing each other for many years to come.

As for the rest of the day, I have little to report. I worked on the manuscript off and on, alternating with a variety of promo stuff. I watched bits and pieces of the 49ers game, although Terry was in no state to tolerate my 'humor' by the end of it. I also made chicken pad thai for the first time ever, using the recipe from the gluten-free cookbook my parents gave me, and it turned out both extremely tasty and surprisingly quick to make. Alyssa would want me to have more vegetables, and I'll have to do a vegetable dish to go along with it next time, but for a first effort it was really good.

And now, my friends, it is time to sleep. Goodnight!

you'd better run, better run, outrun my gun

2012-01-21T23:47:00.000-08:00

So much for getting up early; I slept for almost eleven hours instead, which I guess I needed. I wasn't as productive today as I intended to be, since I'm still in the midst of a mild panic attack over Malcolm and Amelia, but I think I'm getting over it, and I wrote several pages tonight as a result. My day was v. hermity, though; I did some email business, I made some delicious scrambled eggs with zucchini and onions, I ate some berries, I ate some soup, and Terry and I chanced ordering a gluten-free pizza from Patxi's (verdict: pretty tasty, even if I probably would have thought cardboard was tasty after two months without pizza). I also watched some tv with Terry (last week's Once Upon a Time; last week's Project Runway; and the hundredth episode of "Big Bang Theory"), which was bad for productivity and good for my soul.

And now, I'm going to sign off abruptly and leave you without any other interesting content -- not because I'm holding back, but because there is none. Goodnight!

raining in baltimore

2012-01-20T22:44:00.000-08:00

I know, 10:30 is ridiculously early to go to bed, particularly when there were two parties I should have gone to. But I had a long day, and I just sketched out a plan for extreme productivity over the next week, so bedtime it is. I only slept five hours last night; I woke up at 7:30, made the mistake of checking my email rather than going back to bed for another hour, and ended up wide awake and working until ten. Then I had to speed down to the south bay to train with Alyssa, who was good as usual. While I worked out, we discussed my plans for the coming year, and we ended up deciding to cut back and only train twice a week and see how that works out. I like training with her three times a week, but I hate the drive, and spending six hours in my car every week for three hours in the gym makes me really surly. So we're going to try twice a week for now, and then experiment as we go to see whether she can program workouts for me to do on my own, or maybe find a trainer friend of hers in the city who I can alternate with to cut down on my drive time. We'll see what happens; I think twice a week feels more reasonable than three times, so hopefully that's a good start.

After training, I got a smoothie and came immediately back to the city with the intention of getting groceries, then working all afternoon. Instead, by the time I got home I was in desperate need of a nap, and by the time I napped and then took care of some stuff online, it was after four p.m. So I went to the grocery store, came home, worked for a bit, and made supper -- vegetable beef soup, which is quite appropriate for the rain lashing at the windows. It turned out really well, even if it was a bigger batch than I expected, which meant I had to dump everything into a different pot halfway through. It's not exactly my mom's recipe, but it seemed pretty close, even if this recipe required V8 instead of tomato juice, and even if I threw in a leftover zucchini (a vegetable that I don't know if I've ever seen my family cook).

I did some desultory work this evening, but Malcolm and Amelia really aren't going well and it's making me really frustrated and slightly depressed. So I wrote in my journal and figured out that a lot of it is a reaction to the fact that it didn't sell, and I took that feedback too much to heart (even though there wasn't much specific to work off of -- I just second-guessed myself), and while the changes I've made are good ones that I'm happy with, they were so major that it just became a bigger and bigger endeavor. And lurking underneath it is this insidious belief that everything I write must be better than the last, which means Amelia and Malcolm must be better than Ferguson/Madeleine, which is hard to see/believe in when I'm comparing rough material to something I polished and haven't lived/bled with for the last couple of months.

So I'm going to try to calm down and just finish the end that I'm struggling with, and then go back and take a more objective view of it. But that means I need to write all weekend, do not pass go, do not collect two hundred dollars, so that I can feel accomplished enough to take some time and savor the official book launch on Monday. Luckily I have about five gallons of vegetable beef soup and a lot of caffeinated beverages in the fridge, so I can hole up and write like there's no tomorrow. Goodnight!

paperback writer

2012-01-20T01:44:00.000-08:00

Nothing happened today that can top what I did tonight, so I'll ignore all the rest -- I just spent the day holed up in my apartment working, which isn't exciting at all. However, the exciting thing is that my wonderful Madeleine and Ferguson are now out and available on Barnes and Noble! While the official launch day is Monday, January 23, HEIRESS WITHOUT A CAUSE is actually available now. It went up a couple of days ago, but I kept it pretty quiet so that we had time to test it out and make sure there weren't any issues with the file, tags, reporting, etc. It all looks great, though, and I'm too excited to keep it to myself a moment longer.

So I sent out an email to my friends and family list twenty minutes ago saying that it was up (if you didn't get the email and want to subscribe, go here: http://eepurl.com/ifZTQ). The email included my ridiculous definitions for Regency vocab words, if you're curious. And it included as many links to the book as I could sneak into the email and still feel moderately classy (although I probably failed at that).

If you have a Nook and want to read my book, you can buy it now. If you don't have a Nook and don't want to wait for another format, you can download a Nook app for Android/iPhone/iPad/Mac/PC and then buy my book. Or, you can wait until February 23, when it will come out on Kindle, all other major e-formats, and in paperback.

And now, as excited and hyper and overcaffeinated as I am, I must get to sleep if I'm going to make it down to Palo Alto to see Alyssa tomorrow (which will not be fun -- it's raining for the first time in weeks, which means the freeway will be a treacherous morass of accidents). Thank you for putting up with my shameless self-promoting -- I'll get back to my vaguely boring posts soon, I promise. Goodnight!

we'd keep all our promises, be us against the world

2012-01-19T00:00:00.000-08:00

Everything feels like the calm before the storm right now...the first book is ready to go, I'm attempting to work on the second one, and I'm lining up all my eggs/ducks/whatever for promo for the next few weeks. But right now it's all heady promises and dreams of success -- until Monday, I can believe anything I want to about my chances for success, and so I'm trying to enjoy the feeling while it lasts without getting myself too excited.

So I drove down to Palo Alto and trained with Alyssa, who forgave me for being to hungover to see her on Monday, which was awfully kind of her. Then I ate a smoothie while sitting in the lobby and playing on my ipad; then I went to Philz and drank a coffee while figuring out my promo schedule for the next few weeks; then I went to Printers Ink and answered email while drinking a strawberry soda. Basically I just move around Palo Alto looking for new places to sit every couple of hours, which is always fun. I stuck around there because I had dinner plans with Heather (aka dear respected madam) at 5:30 so that we could catch up on all the things we couldn't discuss during Sunday's dinner party (namely romance novels), so it was great to see her again. I had intended to go to Stanford library after, but by the time we finished it was eight p.m., and so I decided to come home, take care of some desultory business, and throw in the towel.

Sorry this is extremely boring -- my brain is totally done for the day. Goodnight!

sudoku ain't gonna do itself

2012-01-18T01:45:00.000-08:00

This morning kicked off with an early surprise, when I got a call at nine a.m. for a package delivery -- turns out that Aunt B and the scandalous uncle had sent me a bottle of champagne to celebrate my upcoming book release, which was totally lovely of them. I must hide it so that I don't accidentally open it at the end of a drunken binge, thus wasting it at the end of a night rather than savoring it at the beginning of one. Picking up the package was the only time I left the house today; I spent the rest of it chained to my desk, alternating between writing Malcolm/Amelia and obsessing over Ferguson/Madeleine's launch (you can guess which of those got more of my attention vs. which I should have spent more time on). I did take a break in the middle of the day to make lunch, which was simple and delish -- scrambled eggs with zucchini, onions, basil and thyme. Yum.

By seven, though, I couldn't stare at my computer any longer, so I decided to take a break and start a book while eating supper (leftover boeuf bourguignon). And I knew in my heart of hearts that I would finish the whole book, but I did it anyway -- I devoured Kresley Cole's latest release, LOTHAIRE, which I'd been looking forward to for years (months since the last release, but years since it became clear he was going to have his own book). I wanted to read it before my next encounter with Heather so that we could debrief together, since she's reading it right now too, and since it came out almost a week ago, my forbearance has been astonishing. And really, I loved it; there were bits that I didn't love, and for once I almost thought a book was too long, but all in all I thought it was possibly her strongest book in ages, and definitely worth the wait.

And now that I've answered email and obsessed some more, I should go to bed; I have to go down to Palo Alto in the morning, and since I don't have a hangover to stop me, I should probably get some sleep. Goodnight!

missouri loves company

2012-01-16T23:37:00.000-08:00

Yeah, so this morning was just as rough as I deserved. I skipped my training session with Alyssa, since I was in no shape to either drive to Palo Alto or work out when I got there. Instead, I laid in bed for awhile and enjoyed the spins. I had to get up, though, because Durand had left his phone here last night, and when I got in touch with him via email to arrange its safe return, he invited me over for brunch. Clever of him, since that meant I had to drive to Diamond Heights, but since the food was great and his place is amazing, it wasn't really a sacrifice. He was feeling just as beat as I was; that bottle of Bombay Sapphire that I mentioned polishing off in last night's post was only split between me, Durand, and Salim, although Durand and I also played our part toward the five bottles of wine and the final, epically stupid bottle of champagne. But he made some delicious scrambled eggs, bacon, ramekins with raspberries, and gorgeous little salads with greens, heirloom tomato, and avocado -- while I cooking gigantic vats of food and serve it all up family style, he goes for a modern, minimalist, plated approach, and it was all wonderful. It also fits his apartment; while he's waiting for all the furniture he ordered and so we had to sit on the floor, you can tell that the space is going to be fantastic. It's up in one of the highest neighborhoods in the city, and he has a gorgeous panoramic view of San Francisco in a space that feels oddly like a modern ski chalet/loft. So it was cool to see that, and the eggs went a long way toward restoring my vitality.

After leaving Durand, I came home, parked my car, and went for a walk (since Alyssa ordered me to get some exercise to make up for skipping training). I walked around Fort Mason, etc., for an hour, which was totally gorgeous even if it was pretty brisk today. While walking, I talked to my parents, who were in good spirits even though they both had colds. Then I came home, meant to get some writing done, and basically spent all afternoon/evening obsessing over the book that's coming out, the visitor stats on my website, and other silly things that I need to just ignore. I also cleaned up the kitchen and dining room from last night's debacle, which wasn't all that hard. I exchanged texts with Drewbaby, since I completely forgot that yesterday was the 15th and so forgot to wish him a happy birthday (happy birthday, Drewbaby!). I talked to my aunt, since I thought she'd gotten some personalized corkscrews someplace and I'm trying to come up with possible giveaway/prize/swag stuff, but I was mistaken (although she did have a great idea to do some personalized tea canisters). And, [censored] called me tonight to say that he had [censored], which amused and touched me.

I spent the remainder of the night making a list of Regency-era words that I'm going to send out the (ridiculous) definitions for when I announce my book release to my friends and family mailing list, which should be fun. If you'd like to subscribe to the friends and family list, click here -- you'll get an occasional email when I have a book coming out, and I will try to make them entertaining. But now, I really need to sleep -- my hangover almost, almost disappeared, and then suddenly shifted into a massive headache, so I think I need to sleep. Goodnight!

what's up with bitches and henna

2012-01-16T00:44:00.000-08:00

I can barely see straight, which is not an auspicious start to Monday. Today was extremely hectic, since I was trying to prepare for an ultimate dinner party -- but it all came together swimmingly, and really, what matters to everyone is the company and the alcohol, and I had both of those in spades.

I spent the morning/afternoon grocery shopping/cooking/working on romance novel stuff, and it all came together just as Heather/Salim/Durand arrived around five p.m. So they hung out while I finished preparing dinner; luckily, they brought alcohol with them, so entertaining was no problem. Jenni showed up around six, which was the stated time; Lauren (my old manager, who gave me a review on a plane trip to India, if that helps you to place her) showed up at 6:45, just as I was starting to mash the potatoes.

And I can't possibly replicate what happened over the next few hours, unless we all want to get arrested/fired, but I think we all laughed harder than we have in ages, and it was truly a magical experience. We all spent months/years in India, which meant we had tons in common even if we didn't overlap, and we're all friends anyway, so it was a truly hysterical night. If you care about metrics, we also went through four bottles of wine, a bottle of Bombay Sapphire, and a bottle of champagne, which, spread across six people, is a fucking shitload. So, the chances of me making it down to Palo Alto to train with Alyssa tomorrow morning (who probably doesn't know that Bombay Sapphire = gin, bless her soul) are slim to none.

Most of my friend left between eleven p.m. and midnight, although one friend (who shall remain nameless to protect the innocent) is passed out downstairs. And now I shall go to sleep, and hopefully dream of repeating this all again someday, even if I do have to go through the hoops of making boeuf bourguignon and creme brulee (which turned out amazingly, btw). Goodnight!

you better run for the hills before they burn

2012-01-15T00:39:00.000-08:00

Too much work, not enough time...but today was lovely, even if I am way underwater on everything. I woke up at seven and dragged myself to the dirty east bay for a board meeting for the San Francisco romance chapter before the main meeting; luckily we don't have to have a board meeting every time, although since I'm organizing the speakers I'll probably have to show up more than five minutes before the meetings start. Anyway, the meeting went really well; no thanks to me since I didn't book the speaker, but I did get to intro him and then try to pump people up for the next couple of months, since attendance today was a new record compared to every meeting I've been to in the past two years. Obviously people are super keen to hear about CreateSpace/Amazon and everything they can do for authors, so the place was packed. After, I had lunch with Tina, Grace, Bella, Carolyn, and people farther down the table whom I didn't get a chance to talk to. So that was all v. nice, even if it meant that I didn't get home until 2:30.

Upon getting home, I promptly fell into bed and took a nap. When I woke up, I did some stuff online, then threw my sheets in the wash so I wouldn't be tempted to crawl back into bed. Then, I spent the next several hours cleaning the kitchen and dining room and figuring out what I'm going to make tomorrow. I'm having friends over for dinner (aka supper), and since they haven't seen the place before, I wanted it to look nice. So I made some chili, and while that was cooking, I got myself organized. I also spent some quality time outside, sitting on the edge of the courtyard fountain; my next door neighbors had people over for dinner, and they burned something so badly that it set off the fire alarms in the entire complex, and the fire alarms continued to go off until the fire department came. The fire department was there within 5-7 minutes, though, so that's a good thing. And better the neighbors than me -- I made sure to throw them under the bus early and often to everyone who asked if I knew where the fire was, since I didn't want them to think that I had anything to do with it.

So everything is clean that needs to be clean, and I have a meal plan for tomorrow, so I think everything will be good. And now I'm going to go to sleep; I should stay up and finish this interview (written/online) that I'm doing for a friend's historical romance blog, but I'm going to sleep and hope that I'm wittier/funnier/better tomorrow morning. Goodnight!

east bay = beast bay

2012-01-13T23:15:00.000-08:00

Today was long, somewhat productive, and ultimately utterly ridiculous. I dragged myself out of bed at 9:30, which wasn't really early enough to gather myself into some semblance of order and stumble out the door, but I made it in time for my training session with Alyssa. She didn't torture me too badly, although that's all relative; also, compared to all the people training around me, I felt like I was being handfed grapes while being fanned by a bunch of young/dumb/hung men -- my training schedule seems to overlap with the time when a bunch of the trainers take their breaks and do their own workouts, which means that while I'm doing my measly lunges and stretches and squats, they're performing superhuman feats of strength without batting an eyelash. Sigh.

sssanyway, after working out, I showered and took a bit more time than usual with my appearance, since I was meeting with some romance business people tonight and didn't want to look crazed/slovenly like I have been the past couple of weeks. This may have been a mistake, as we shall see. Then, I went to Joanie's and had some eggs while catching up on email, and then I drove to the dirty, dirty east bay so that I could beat rush hour/holiday weekend traffic, since my dinner tonight was in Emeryville. I went to Target first and stocked up on some necessary items (including emergency glowsticks (in case of emergency, not in case of emergency rave)), and then I hung out in Emeryville. First up was Williams Sonoma, where I got some butane for my fancy new creme brulee torch. Second stop was a bookstore/coffee shop, where I intended to write for a couple of hours before dinner.

I wrote about four pages, but it might have been twice that had I not accidentally befriended the security guard. In yet another odd occurrence that only seems to happen to me, I was friendly to the guy initially because he helped me find a table (the first coffee shop I've ever been to where they have a seating expediter), and my initial friendliness, combined with making too much eye contact because I tend to look around a lot while writing and so kept inadvertently looking at him, ended up making us fast friends. Or something. It was all fine at first, and then I found out that he was a painter in addition to being a security guard, which was interesting. However, I never would have ever gone on a date with him; I was just being friendly, since I figured he doesn't get a lot of friendly people. But it all took a strange left turn when he came back from somewhere with a tin foil packet containing two eggroll-like things and insisted that I eat one of them. He wouldn't take no for an answer since it's rude in his culture for someone to refuse food, and so I ate it because (as we all know) I tend to just go with it when things get awkward (see: friends hooking up in the bed I'm sleeping in, double breast massages in India, etc., etc.). This led to him telling me that he loves kissing more than anyone else in the world, that I'm very beautiful, etc., and asking when we could go out.

I ultimately fled, leaving for dinner half an hour earlier than necessary and sitting in my car instead, since I was done making excuses but also didn't want to be too rude. But yeah, that was my first truly bizarre experience of 2012, and I'm sure it won't be the last!

So the dinner I was going to was with tomorrow's speaker at my romance chapter's monthly meeting; it was just me, the speaker, and the chapter president, and we ended up having a truly fabulous time. The dude works for Amazon, but he ended up being younger than I thought he would be (my age), which I guess shouldn't surprise me, since in tech everyone that level is probably younger (as opposed to traditional publishing, where you're still making coffee for people until you're forty). It was the most fun I've had in ages (well, days -- but it was new fun, since I'd just met him and don't hang out with the president that often), and it was great to get to know him before tomorrow's meeting. Then I sped home, took care of some stuff on zee computer, and now desperately need to sleep -- I need to go back to the dirty east bay tomorrow morning (and be there by 8:15, ugh), so I must sign off. Goodnight!

like a madman laughing at the rain

2012-01-13T00:35:00.000-08:00

Man, I need to go to bed. Today was v. long, filled with all sorts of writerly delights. I stumbled out of bed, threw on some gym clothes, packed my gym bag, and ate some breakfast before leaving -- and in my pre-caffeinated disaster mode, I had yet another run-in with that failed pie crust from last weekend, which managed to piss me off a final time. When I tried to make it, I'd split it into two batches and put both in the fridge, as instructed. I took out the first batch and later tossed it when it failed to turn into anything other than a big pile of loose flour, but I had left the second batch in the fridge. And when I reached into the fridge to grab something this morning, I knocked the second batch out -- and rather than being a blob of dough wrapped in saran wrap, it was a pile of flour wrapped in saran wrap, which promptly came undone and spilled it all over the floor. Ugh. So I cleaned it up as best I could, but it was a rather inauspicious, unpleasant start to the day. Not as unpleasant as the day had by the people who had an accident on the freeway about two minutes ahead of me -- when I drove by it, the cops weren't there yet, traffic was barely backed up, but a taxi looked to be missing its entire front bumper, and there were people milling about on cellphones surveying the damage. In comparison, a bit of flour on the floor is nothing.

So I made it down to the gym and trained with Alyssa, which went well. Then I showered, ate a salad, and went to Stanford library, where I wrote ten pages, then checked out some books on the economic history of the Highlands (fascinating, I know). I left the library around six p.m., grabbed dinner at Chipotle, and then went to the monthly meeting of my historical fiction writing group. Five of us were there, which was a nice size, and we had a good discussion of the two pieces that were up. After the writing group, my friend Chris asked if I could take her home, which I was happy to do -- and when our conversation was clearly nowhere close to over by the time we got there (since it was a five minute drive), we readjourned to Starbucks and talked until 10:30ish. I'm glad I'm getting to know other writers -- while I wouldn't trade (most of) my friends for anything, it's nice to talk to people who are going through the same gutwrenching, nervewracking process of trying to get one's stories published and out into the world.

Needless to say, though, by the time I got home, it was almost 11:30pm, and I still needed to take care of some emails, fold a load of laundry, prep for tomorrow, etc. And so now I really must go to bed. Tomorrow is another hectic, v. writerly day, so hopefully I have the stamina to survive it. Goodnight!

he took her out to high class places, he made a promise in the dark

2012-01-11T22:31:00.000-08:00

You have no reason to believe that I will follow through on this intention, but I think I'm going to go to bed. I know, it's only 10:21pm -- but I haven't been sleeping as much as I usually do, I had an utterly frustrating day, and the rest of my week is looking rough enough that I'm sure a lot of sleep would be beneficial.

The frustrating thing is not that I got nothing done...I basically worked all day without a break. The frustrating thing is that almost none of that was writing; I wrote three pages, which is fine, but not awesome. I spent an absolutely absurd amount of time (1.5hrs) booking travel for someone as part of my role as VP of programs for my local romance chapter (the person wanted to search for flights while I was on the phone with her, which, as you can imagine, was nonideal). I spent two hours prepping for a conference call about the awards ceremony I'm planning, and then an hour on the call itself. I had all sorts of emails and tings to take care of. And I baked a crustless quiche to use some of the ingredients I had left over from this weekend; I substituted milk for the cream to make it more Alyssa-approved, and added bacon since I didn't have any damned dirty vegetarians around to eat it, and it was utterly delicious.

After I got done with all the annoying stuff, it was 7:30pm. I then proceeded to mess around and not be super productive, which is when I realized I should just go to sleep rather than trying to keep forcing it. And so that is what I shall do -- goodnight!

a glorious existence

2012-01-11T01:03:00.000-08:00

I was extremely productive today, which I suppose was necessary, even if my spine is crying for relief and I should probably take my contacts out before they permanently adhere to my eyeballs (does that qualify as cheap lasik?). I didn't intend to start being productive quite so early, but my phone rang at the ungodly hour of seven a.m. I didn't answer, since I don't encourage such foolishness -- but as it turns out, the person who called didn't expect me to answer, but hoped that it would wake me up so I would check my email. Their nefarious plan succeeded, and my email told me that the business school rec I was writing (due today) was actually due at 9am, not at some civilized 11:59pm hour like I blithely assumed. Oops. So I'm glad the person in question woke me up, since I would have felt horrible if I scotched his/her chances at b-school through procrastination.

I finished the rec by around eight, which wasn't hard since I'd written one already and could reuse some of it. Then I went back to sleep and slept until 10:30. Then I woke up, messed around, made some breakfast/lunch (oatmeal and bacon), took care of some administrative tasks for my various romance volunteering activities, and finally hied myself downtown to get my hair cut. I saw Susie, as usual, and she was good, as usual; we discussed the trials and travails of dating (to which I didn't have much to add other than that I'm not bothering right now, even though theoretically I should probably put some effort to meeting people whom I've known for less than a decade, right?), and then I told her all about my books. She was super psyched, and I may have gotten her to choose it for her book club, which would be awesome. Then, I got my eyebrows waxed, since they were too unsightly for words now that my bangs are shorter and don't cover them up. Then I went to Samovar and wrote for a couple of hours while getting myself super hyped up on chai. Yum.

When I got home, I thought about writing some more, but I decided to knock out the rest of the b-school recs for this person so that I wouldn't risk getting woken up again sometime in the next couple of weeks. That took some serious quality time, since I still had four left to do, but I successfully knocked them all out. I also cooked a steak, which I ate basically by itself since I was too lazy to do anything else. And then I answered email for a couple of hours, and then I set up an AdWords account for my new book (which was entertaining; I did quality assurance for ads for multiple years, and yet I still tried to create an ad with too much capitalization. Ha.) And now, my friends, I must sleep -- goodnight!

she is touring the facility and picking up slack

2012-01-10T00:54:00.000-08:00

Remind me never to agree to train with Alyssa at nine a.m. again. Traffic looked fine on my phone when I left the house at 8am, but the traffic site is useless for projecting traffic within the city -- and it took me fifty minutes to go the fifteen miles from my apartment to SFO airport. Since Palo Alto is significantly further south than the airport, you can guess from that stat that I was half an hour late for my hour-long training session. Boo. So we had an abbreviated workout, and then I did cardio for half an hour (double boo) before showering and getting on with my day.

I had a salad at the gym, then cafe hopped throughout the afternoon; I spent three quality hours at Philz Coffee before moving to Starbucks to keep writing for a bit longer. I grabbed an early supper at Chipotle, then went to Stanford library and slogged until after 9pm. All told, I wrote about fifteen pages, which was wonderful and v. necessary. Then I drove home, crawled into my toasty bed, and answered email for the past two hours. I know, you're so jealous of my life.

I hope that more writing awaits me tomorrow, in addition to overcaffeination and an unsatisfactory amount of sleep -- it's like I'm back at work again, only I'm not getting paid. Cheerful, right? Goodnight!

this river is wild

2012-01-08T23:28:00.000-08:00

I'm going to bed before 11:30pm (I swear), since I got less than six hours of sleep last night and need to wake up at seven to make it down to Palo Alto to train with Alyssa. She asked if I could train two hours earlier than usual, which I acquiesced to at the moment and am now thoroughly regretting. But, theoretically that means that I can start writing earlier in the day, which is a good and v. necessary thing; in reality, it probably means that I'll be surly all afternoon and may need to take a nap.

Anyway, this morning got off to a slightly sour note. In my continued quest to adapt to a gluten-free life (which I have flung myself into wholeheartedly, particularly now that I've noticed a correlation between the hives that I had three or four times a week and gluten -- who knew that not having hives was so normal and wonderful?), I've been eager to explore the world of gluten-free baking, and so I rather rashly and madly decided to make two baked goods for brunch rather than sticking to my tried and true recipes. First on the list was quiche; I love quiche, and wanted to experiment with pie crust. However, the pie crust never came together -- it basically stayed the consistency of flour, and while I could sort of mash it all together into something resembling a crust, it would fall back into the flours from which it came as soon as I tried to move it. I eventually grew so disgusted that I dumped it in the trash as a lost cause and made a crustless quiche instead, which is more en vogue anyway.

As it turns out, the crustless quiche was amazingly delicious, and I wished I'd made two just so I would have leftovers this week. You can get the recipe for the filling here - I cut the mushrooms and added a leek, since Terry doesn't like mushrooms, and I also cut the goat cheese and doubled the gruyere, since Katrina can't eat goat cheese. So basically, I think you could really add/do anything you want with this, within reason; I think it would be awesome with some ham or proscuitto in it, or even salmon, which I may have to try sometime soon since I can no longer eat my beloved quiche at Samovar. I can't vouch for the crust on this recipe, since I didn't try to make it, but if you do make the crust, may you have better fortune than I did with the gluten-free recipe I tried.

After popping the quiche in the oven, I took a v. abbreviated shower, then mixed up a batch of blueberry muffins. These were a substantially better experiment; I used fresh blueberries, and they came out pretty awesomely, if I do say so myself. As I was mixing, my guests started to arrive, but luckily I was able to get the muffins in the oven so that we could eat the quiche while the muffins cooked. They seemed to like the food, even though it was a far less bountiful spread than what I put out last weekend -- I think they'll survive, though.

So we ate brunch and discussed SWAMPLANDIA!, which yielded one of the better discussions we've had, albeit a much more depressing one since it turns out that the book, while v. well-written and wry and funny, etc., wasn't exactly a feel-good story. That's what I get for choosing books based solely because they sound like my name. Seriously, though, it showed up on a lot of best-of lists for 2011, and I can see why; the writing was gorgeous, even if the story was sometimes much bleaker than one would expect given the surface humor. So I would recommend it, with reservations, given that several of us admitted that we probably would have stopped reading at some point in the middle if we hadn't had to finish it for book club.

After we were done, Subz and Terry both left, and Katrina, Chandlord and I sat around the living room drinking coffee and being utterly lazy. Then we all piled into Chandlord's car and went to Cost Plus and Trader Joe's, where I bought a lunch bag and little lunch containers (in which to carry food and snacks to Palo Alto for my long slogs at the library), and zucchini and corn tortillas, before coming home and parting ways with my friends. Then I called my parents, who caught me up on all the goings-on at the caucuses this past week, which I wish I could have attended. Post parents, I cleaned up the kitchen from this morning, made myself some steak tacos (yum), watched a bit of "Modern Family" while eating, and then came upstairs and read another book.

I should be writing, but at least I recognized that I couldn't write with SWAMPLANDIA! still flooding through my system, and so I avoided using the internet as anaesthetic and read a book instead. Tonight's pick was SOLSTICE WOOD by Patricia A. McKillip, and I of course went through it in one go, falling deeply and effortlessly into it without really wanting or needing to pull myself out. It was lovely, straightforward, and exactly what I needed as a palate cleanser, even though it continued the themes I've been reading recently (and am always drawn to) of people trapped between two worlds -- a theme that I shall not dwell upon now. Instead, I must sleep so that I can go to the gym tomorrow -- goodnight!

out here the good girls die

2012-01-08T03:01:00.001-08:00

I'm flipping exhausted, and since I have to get up in less than six hours, I need to go to sleep immediately. Today was a weird sort of wash; I worked all afternoon, although my wordcount doesn't show it (damned wordcount), with a break for breakfast/lunch (oatmeal and bacon), a couple of snacks (but not the bag of chips I would have preferred -- hating my characters makes me ravenous), and some homemade steak tacos for dinner that were tasty if I do say so myself. After dinner, I watched the first episode of "Project Runway: All Stars" with Terry, which was entertaining even if I'm not completely in love with the season yet. Then I made a grocery list, went to the grocery store, came home, and finished reading SWAMPLANDIA! (note: the exclamation point is part of the title). I must say that it was not at all what I expected, although I enjoyed it in an awful, desperate sort of way.

But now, sleep is v. necessary -- goodnight!

i realize that nothing's as it seems

2012-01-07T00:21:00.000-08:00

I've got nothing particularly interesting to report, although today was mostly wonderful because I kept getting emails from the friends and family in response to the shameless self promotion that I sent out about my upcoming book release. Writing is a mostly solitary, lonely endeavor that requires slogging onward even in the weeks/months/years where there is no validation at all, so to be reminded that my friends like me (even if they don't yet know whether my book is any good or not) was quite wonderful.

I got less than six hours of sleep, though, so the pleasure was felt through a grey and misty fog. I woke up in time to eat some breakfast and throw my sheets in the washing machine before driving down to Palo Alto to train with Alyssa -- and it was amazing, but I actually made it there fifteen whole minutes early because I'd promised to meet Jess there and set her up with a week-long trial membership. She's starting work next week at a place near the gym, so I gave her the tour, and she worked out while I trained with Alyssa. As it turns out, Alyssa and I didn't do any workout at all; today was our every-so-often reassessment, and so we did all the measurements and everything before spending the rest of the time talking about my short-term and long-term goals, food and gluten and mealplans, etc., etc. I'm happy with what I accomplished last year, since my muscle mass has increased significantly and my general health and happiness is way better (particularly since I figured out the gluten thing, which could be a gamechanger), but now it's time to put all the pieces together and break through the current plateau.

Of course, it's challenging to think about plateaus and be vigilant about eating my veggies when I just want to sit at my desk and eat trail mix while screaming at Malcolm and Amelia to get their fucking shit together and just let me finish the damn book already. But I digress.

After the gym, Jess and I had lunch at Joanie's -- they must be surprised that I ate with someone else twice in the same week, when usually I go weeks letting them believe that I'm a weird loner without any friends or coworkers willing to spend an hour with me. Then, I checked my mail, got some coffee to wake me up, and sped back to the evil city, where I bought some groceries before coming home with the intention of working. To be honest, I didn't get much done; I should have just slept and/or read a book, but instead I messed around on twitter, remade my bed, and was generally useless. I finally took a break to cook supper, which was half delicious, half disappointing; I made some roasted carrots which turned out deliciously, and also sauteed some onions and mushrooms, and also plated some raw plain spinach (okay, maybe not so awesome), but I failed in the cooking of my steak and ended up with a piece that was too seared on the outside and too rare on the inside. I'm ashamed of myself, but I shall try again tomorrow.

Just as I was about to work again, Terry came home with one of her coworkers, so I spent an hour hanging out with them. Then I came upstairs and intended to write, but instead I started reading "Swamplandia!", which is my pick for the next book club. I like it, but I also couldn't keep reading it right now, because even though it's about a family running an alligator park in the Everglades, it strangely felt way too close to home for me. So I'll have to pick it up again tomorrow -- but right now, it's time for bed. Goodnight!

i want to kiss you on the mouth and tell you i'm your biggest fan

2012-01-06T02:00:00.000-08:00

I'm super exhausted -- I've been on my laptop for about sixteen hours, with a break to see Tammy (who rarely qualifies as a break, amirite?), so it's no wonder my eyes are crossing and my neck feels like it's about to snap. But, I was quite productive as a result of my self-abuse. I had two conference calls this morning, which is obviously unusual -- now that the holidays are over, I need to get busy planning the awards ceremony for this summer's romance writers convention, and so I had a call with the emcee (Victoria Alexander, a famous romance writer, so yay to that) and another call with the assistant chair so that we could solidify the plan and agenda for next week's committee meeting. I think the ceremony will go well, but there's a lot to do between now and then, so don't be surprised if I go insane (shut your mouth about how insane I already am).

After I finished the calls, sent some emails related to the ceremony, and took care of some other romance business, it was two p.m. So, I cleared out of the apartment and went downtown to Samovar, where I wrote for an hour before meeting up with Tammy (aka Tammmehhhhhhh). We'd seen each other at the same restaurant -- nay, the same table -- on Tuesday, but that was with Claude, and we talked more about oliphants than anything related to real life. So we caught up for another couple of hours, leaving me extremely overcaffeinated and jittery (just the way I like it).

When I got home, I sat down on the couch and basically stayed there for eight hours, with a brief break to talk to Terry (without leaving my position) and another brief break to heat up and eat an Amy's enchilada (fuel of the gods). I should have written, but I also need to be thinking about promo for the book that is launching in two and a half weeks (omg), and so I spent several hours updating my romance website and letting my friends know that they should sign up for my mailing list since I intend to never spam them again. If you didn't get an email from me and you'd like to sign up for the mailing list yourself, you can do so here. Exciting, right?

And now, I must must must go to bed; I have to be in Palo Alto tomorrow morning to train with Alyssa, which should be interesting if I can't turn my head. Goodnight!

the way she moves in the logic of all my dreams

2012-01-05T01:08:00.000-08:00

Must...go...to...bed. I stayed up way way too late last night, and meant to go to bed an hour ago, but started rereading the book that I set aside months ago (Nick and Ellie's story) and read through everything I'd written. It has so much potential, and yet I'm stuck slogging through the quicksand of Malcolm and Amelia's rewrite well beyond the point where I wish to be done. Ugh.

Anyway, I woke up this morning and dragged myself to the gym after about five and a half hours of sleep, which wasn't nearly enough. It was good to see Alyssa, even if the first workout back always seems to be quite difficult -- but I survive to be tortured another day, so that's good. I then showered hastily and spent some quality time in the lobby, eating a smoothie and using their wireless to finish a business school rec for someone and upload it to the appropriate school website with an hour to spare. After that, I intended to go to Stanford library and work for hours and hours, but I realized I was simply too tired. So I grabbed a coffee at Philz, came home, and took a nap. Then, when Terry got home, I spent several hours watching tv with her, with a break to make a wholly unappetizing-looking but utterly delicious dish from some leftover chicken/peppers/onions and some eggs/sour cream/salsa.

Eventually, though, I did buckle down and finally finish the scene I've been loathing and dreading and hating and all sorts of other negative verbs. That doesn't stop me from loathing and hating the rest of it, but at least that bit is over. And so now I shall sleep, and hopefully magically love it all again in the morning. Goodnight!

all of the lights

2012-01-04T02:34:00.000-08:00

I must go to bed immediately (or, rather, two hours ago, but that appears to be an impossibility) -- I worked from 9:00 until now, which was good for, y'know, productivity, and bad for my beauty sleep. When I awaken looking like a black-eyed hag, you shall know why.

I wasn't as productive this morning as I intended to be -- probably because I shut off my alarm and promptly slept until 10:30. I eventually woke up, puttered around, showered, etc., and was putting on my makeup when my agent called. So, my foundation ended up caking since I answered mid-application, and my bangs dried ridiculously, but business trumps beauty (right?). There's nothing of import to share there other than that the final final version of Madeleine/Ferguson's book is back from the formatter, and so she wanted to discuss strategy for getting it out to potential reviewers.

After that was all done, I finished getting dressed, did the dishes downstairs, ate some leftover egg/spinach/goat cheese frittata-casserole, and then brought a leftover scone back up to my room to eat while contemplating my manuscript. The scone was great; the writing wasn't; somehow, the balance was okay even though clearly my manuscript is more important than a little brick of gluten-free deliciousness slathered in butter and jam. (on a completely unrelated note, Alyssa is going to hate me tomorrow).

But I did get some writing done before leaving the house and meeting Claudia and Tammy at Samovar in Yerba Buena. They went to the SFMoMA, which I had no desire to visit, but we all met up for some delightful tea and snacky-snacks. I couldn't have my old favorite, since I can't eat the gluten in the quiche anymore (depressing), but I had some coconut rice pudding that tasted quite good with my masala chai. I also split a Kenyan white tea with Claude, which was good too. And Tammy and Claudia were both in fine form -- we didn't even drive any patrons away, so I consider it a success.

After we finished there, we met up with Tammy's boyfriend for dinner at Osha Thai. The food was delicious, although I suspect I ate a bit of gluten -- not enough to kill me, but enough to notice. I also had a green tea mojito (another strike against me in Alyssa's book), but I consider that necessary to wipe away the memory that we came up with a game called 'fuck, marry, oliphant' (don't ask). Once we'd had all the fun we could have, I dropped Claude off at the Caltrain station (after subjecting her to an unnecessarily long, awkward hug in the 5th and Mission parking garage elevator) -- she's going back to Yale (Jail) tomorrow, and I won't see her again for ages and ages, which makes me sad. I'll likely see Tammy later this week, which also makes me sad, but you can't have everything.

That last sentence was a jhoke, of course. When I got home, I said a quick hello to Terry's friends, who were eating dinner at our dining room table, before coming upstairs and working. And I got all sorts of things done -- I sent a lot of emails that I needed to send, paid a bunch of bills, registered the copyright for Madeleine/Ferguson (so if you steal it/pirate it, I'm protected legally, even though the heartbreak of having one of my friends steal my book might be the death of me), worked on a business school rec for a friend/fellow employee, and generally worked like mad. And now I really, really need to sleep -- I have to be in Palo Alto at eleven, and up well before then to finish this rec so I don't ruin some poor kid's chances of getting out of here. Goodnight!

that was one lonely night

2012-01-03T00:18:00.000-08:00

Sigh. Today started off good, almost ended wonderfully, and instead ended on a sad note. I woke up and worked for a couple of hours, fueled by some strong, smoky Russian tea, before proceeding to Palo Alto to have a late lunch with my friend Mahin at my beloved Joanie's Cafe. She and I worked at my former employer together, and now she's living in LA and pursuing film school + still working part time for our employer, but she was back up here for winter break. She seemed to be in fine form, and it was great to catch up and 'talk shop', as it were, about the creative life and what's been going on with our respective artistic endeavors.

Post-Mahin, the rest of my afternoon was sort of a fail; the errands that I intended to run all fell through, due to some miscommunications/government holidays/insane crowds at Target. So I got home around 4:30 a little surly and attempted to write for an hour, which made me surlier because I'm struggling with a scene I'm stuck on and couldn't unstick myself.

And then it was time to watch the Fiesta Bowl. Terry made chili and I made us two Hemingway daiquiris, which was all quite wonderful. The game was great, too; I kept saying that I just wanted it to be a good game, but I guess I should have specified that I also wanted Stanford to win. Unfortunately, it came down to my nightmare scenario, which is when a game is lost on a kick (or two, in this case, even worse) -- I hate when one kid walks off the field feeling absolutely certain that he could have made all the difference and instead cost his team everything. Ugh. However, it really was a fantastic game and hopefully shut up all the haters who thought Andrew Luck was a mediocre quarterback who had been overhyped, so at least there was that.

After the game was over, I spent an hour mourning and exchanging post-game commentary with family and friends on a variety of social media outlets -- including [censored], who went to grad school at Oklahoma State (I probably should have censored [censored]'s alma mater as well, but that would just be too confusing). Then I crawled into bed with the new pencils that [censored] gave me for Christmas and finally, finally figured out what was wrong with this stupid scene and how to fix it. Now that I have a roadmap, I anticipate that tomorrow morning's writing will go much more smoothly.

And so now I'm going to bed; I must write for hours tomorrow, and so my teapot is set up to brew me some more strong, dark, dangerous-tasting Russian tea so that I'm encouraged to get my ass out of bed before it gets cold. Goodnight!

all is quiet on new year's day

2012-01-02T00:04:00.000-08:00

Hello, 2012, you sexy beast. This must surely be the best year ever -- my first books will come out, there will be a glorious Olympic Games in London, and everyone will spend the entire year looking forward to the Mayan apocalypse. Really, if ever a year was designed just for me, this may be it.

This is also the start of my ninth year of blogging; I will ominously warn you that the blog may not last forever, since I hope to become an increasingly public figure in the writing sphere, and so this blog will either have to go on lockdown, or I will have to change the focus and stop blogging about what I do every day in case I get a stalker who could easily use my blog to track my movement patterns. I don't want to lock it down or stop it, but if I decide I have to, I'll give you plenty of warning so we can all mourn together.

sssanyway, today was a lovely start to the new year. It was also a v. spinny start to the new year; I woke up with hangover-induced spins, which really didn't go away all morning, which was unfortunate since I was cooking brunch for seven. I got out of bed around 8:30, showered, hung out with Claudia (aka Santy Claude, aka Claud the Fraud) and Terry, and then started cooking. Claude helped me tremendously, essentially acting as sous chef; she set the table and cut up the potatoes/peppers/onions for homefries, which saved my trembly hands from causing a catastrophic kitchen emergency. She also discovered that every cocktail she made for us last night was inadvertently a double since I guessed wrong on how much alcohol the jigger held, which explains why I was blind drunk off two and a half champagne cocktails and some extra champagne on top of it.

I made an awesome (if I do say so myself) egg casserole/frittata with spinach, leeks, cottage cheese, and goat cheese, as well as home fries, bacon, ambrosia, and chocolate chip scones (gluten free, natch). The ambrosia and scones were done last night, and today's tasks weren't particularly difficult -- a good thing, since whisking fourteen eggs made me feel dizzy because the whisk was rotating at a different speed than the room. Ugh. But I was able to put on a good front for my guests; I was in a great mood, despite my hangover, and so once I was sitting down and somewhat stable, it was easy to be enthusiastic rather than wretched.

Terry and Claude were already here, obvi, but Chandlord, Katrina, John, and Jess all came over too, and we enjoyed a delightful couple of hours together. Many jokes were told and many stories were shared, all of which warmed my heart and reminded me how much I like my friends, even if they did call out the accent that I apparently always come back with after spending time in Iowa (it's apparently subtle, and it disappears within a few days, but if it does exist, I'm sure it's in full force right now since I've spent four of the last six weeks at home). Of course, all good things come to an end, and so when everyone else was gone, Claude helped me clean up and load the dishwasher before Terry and I dropped her off at the BART station. I then spent the rest of the afternoon hanging out, calling my parents, contemplating my book, talking to Terry, etc.

And that's really how the rest of the day went as well. When it was suppertime, I cooked up another package of bacon and some chicken breasts, and Terry and I made a Cobb salad, which wasn't quite as good as Joanie's but was decent enough to satisfy. Then we watched some tv, including this show called "Leverage" that I've never seen but would probably love, and then I came upstairs and wrote in my journal (which is one of my 2012 goals). And now I really must sleep; I have to go down to Palo Alto tomorrow, and I want to write before I go, so wish me luck. Goodnight, and happy new year!

four horsemen

2012-01-01T02:03:00.001-08:00

Happy 2012, everyone! I am having trouble typing, so this will be brief. I woke up at ten a.m. (a perfectly reasonable hour), and spent some quality time helping Terry to clean the apartment. I eventually showered, then sat down at my computer and wrote several pages of Malcolm and Amelia's story. I threw in the towel around 4:30pm and went to the grocery store, which was an utter riot, and then came home and worked on preparations for tomorrow's brunch. I made ambrosia (which is a surprisingly time consuming effort -- it took almost an hour), and then made the flour mix I need for my gluten free baking...

And then it was time to pick up Claudia (aka Santy Claude, aka Claude the Fraude), which is when the fun began. She and I were on the same page about our desire to go out into the evil city, and so we stayed home and got drunk quite safely and quietly. First we went to Safeway to get more citrus; then we came home so that I could make gluten-free scones. And then we had champagne cocktails -- first, elderflower liqueur and champagne, then gin and champagne. We took a break at midnight to go upstairs and celebrate on the deck, but when we came downstairs, Terry went to bed and Claude and I watched a National Geographic documentary about the apocalypse.

Since I have now confessed our dorkiness + apocalyptic natures, it's time to sleep. Goodnight@

shadows

2011-12-31T02:28:00.000-08:00

I didn't intend to stay up this late, but I started to read a book, and you know how that goes. I slept quite late this morning, finally waking up around ten or eleven so that I could accomplish something with my day. After I showered, I grabbed lunch at a cafe down the street since I had no food in the house, and then came back and unpacked and did three loads of laundry. My affairs thus in order, I wrote for an hour or two, with a brief interruption from my writer friend Grace, who wanted to talk shop about some business stuff.

I threw in the towel on the writing so that I could go to the grocery store; in a bit of fun or madness, I invited some people over for New Year's Day brunch, and I wanted to shop for food today so that I wouldn't have to deal with crowds tomorrow. So I went to Whole Foods and bought all the weird flours required to make gluten free baking flour (brown rice, sorghum, potato, among others), as well as a variety of produce, fruits, and cheeses. Then I stopped at BevMo and bought three bottles of champagne and some gin, which is a good recipe for a party.

When I got home, I cleaned out the fridge, put away my groceries, and attempt to work some more, but it wasn't going well, and so I was happy to take a break and have supper with Terry and her friend Amy at Perry's. I was intent on trying the writing again, though, so I didn't hang out with them when we got home; instead, I came upstairs and toyed with my manuscript awhile longer. But when I hit the point where I was spending more time checking twitter than writing words, I decided to do what I've vowed to do more of -- stop wasting time on the internet and read one of the hundreds of books on my to-read list instead.

Tonight's book was OMBRIA IN SHADOW by Patricia A. McKillip; I've been slowly making my way through her backlist, for reasons that I can't even explain. Her plots are difficult to follow, so obfuscated by lush descriptions that you begin to wonder whether there is really a plot at all; the most powerful protagonists and antagonists are rarely described, never what they seem, and unsatisfactorily wrapped up at the end; and there's a quality of sameness to all her books that is both comforting and unsettling. However, there is magic in her books, too -- I simply can't stop reading once I've started, and it feels like I've fallen headlong into a different world, one where every word is a spell and every image is an enchantment.

So, needless to say, I read the entire thing, and now my brain is dazzled and I desperately need to sleep (and dream whatever strange and mysterious dreams will undoubtedly come). And so, goodnight; when I blog again, it will be 2012!

scar tissue that i wish you saw

2011-12-30T00:08:00.000-08:00

I'm back in California, curled up in my own bed, listening to the foghorns in the distance. I wasn't precisely ready to leave Iowa, but I'm excited to be back for all sorts of fun times this weekend, as well as as much writing as I can squeeze in. But first, I must sleep a lot; I got less than six hours last night, which made this morning a rough and brutal slog so that I could catch my plane on time.

But I did catch my plane; my parents took me to the airport and helped me take in my bags (which I had to redistribute some weight in; the first bag was over by 2lbs, so I had to move a couple of books to the other bag, bringing them both in at 49lbs). Then we said goodbye, and I went to my gate to board my flight to Denver. All in all, my trip was uneventful -- there was a lot of turbulence in and out of Denver, and there was a screaming child on my Denver/San Francisco flight, but I still managed to write nearly ten pages (yay).

When I got to San Francisco, my old friend Claudia picked me up at the airport. Careful readers will remember that Claude doesn't live here and hasn't for nigh on half a decade, but she's in town for the holiday to see her mom and brother (who live in San Jose), and so she picked me up on her way to have dinner with Adit and Priyanka. It was super nice of her to do so, particularly since we then had to drag my suitcases up to Adit's apartment so they wouldn't get stolen from her car while she parked, and then had to drag them back down when we left, and then had to drag them up to my apartment when we got here. She's a trooper.

So we met Adit and Priyanka, who were leaving tonight for DC, and had a quick, lovely dinner at Little Chihuahua in Noe Valley. It's a clean, modernized version of a taqueria, and it was really tasty. It was also good to have some family time with Claude, an original family member, particularly since I won't see Adit and Priyanka for awhile longer. After dinner, Adit and Priyanka left for the airport and Claude brought me home. We spent another couple of hours hanging out while drinking bai mudan (a white tea that tasted vaguely of mint, since I'd made mint tea in my teamaker earlier), and it was great to catch up. Terry showed up sometime with one of her friends in tow, so we all hung out for awhile before Claude went back to San Jose and I realized I'm flipping exhausted.

And so, it's time for bed. Tomorrow holds laundry, grocery shopping, and a shitload of writing -- goodnight!

i feel my heart start beating to my favorite song

2011-12-28T23:29:00.000-08:00

It's my last night in Iowa for the immediate future; I leave for San Francisco tomorrow, and while my vacation should be over as soon as I get on the plane, I anticipate that I'll have some socializing over the next few days to reconnect to all the people I've barely seen since before Thanksgiving. Today was all about getting ready to go, though. I woke up late, showered, went upstairs, did the dishes (which likely surprised my mother, since she does the dishes herself all the time), and then used one of the skillets (my ulterior motive for doing the dishes) to makes myself some utterly awesome scrambled eggs with leftover ham, green peppers, onions, and black olives.

Thus sustained, I spent a couple of hours packing everything up. This took longer than my last packing job, since I won't be back for awhile and so needed to make sure I got everything that needed to be brought back to California. Once I was finished packing, I strolled outside and took some pictures of my father's miniature cows (which may not look small to you city slickers, but are definitely smaller than average). Then I spent the rest of the afternoon/evening writing Christmas cards, since I didn't want to have to pack the cards and take them back to California. I didn't write as many as I did last year, so apologies if you fell off the list -- you'll be back on the list next year, but I ran out of time and stamina to keep going.

Somewhere in there, I took a break for supper. My mother made ham and bean soup, which [censored] hates, but I was quite happy with it. I also watched some "Criminal Minds" and "CSI" while writing cards, which was both distracting and upsetting (I don't love "Criminal Minds", since it gets dark real fast). And yes, I know this post is boring as hell, but when you spend the whole day packing and writing Christmas cards, there just isn't much to say.

And now I suppose I should go to bed. I had a wonderful Christmas, and a wonderful Thanksgiving before that, but it's time to buckle down -- my first book comes out on Barnes and Noble's Nook in less than four weeks, and I have a million things to do before then! Goodnight!

ambush from ten sides

2011-12-28T00:14:00.000-08:00

Today was mostly a wash; I hate to say that about visiting family, but let's face it...five hours in a truck to spend an hour an a half eating subpar Mexican food in Missouri is not my idea of a great time, particularly since I need to write a book (remember that book I'm trying to finish?). I woke up a little after eight, showered, made myself pretty (but not too pretty, in case any Missourians were looking for brides), brewed some coffee, blended a smoothie, and was ready to go when we finally rolled out the door around 9:30. We were twenty minutes late to our rendezvous with my mom's sister in Moberly, Missouri, but since she was forty minutes late, I suppose we were early?

When she came, it turns out that two of our three cousins had bailed, which neither [censored] nor I realized was an option. However, it was nice to see my aunt and my other cousin, even if it was a very short visit. When we were done, we turned around and came home, and I slept most of the way back, so I have nothing of interest to report from that part of the journey. When we got home, I went with [censored] to [censored] to feed some [censored]. Then, we went to [censored], where he showed me the progress he's made on [censored], with a warning not to [censored] because there might be [censored]. We took the new truck that my dad's business bought last week, which doesn't have running boards installed yet, so getting into it was possibly the most challenging thing I've done in weeks.

After finishing that errand, we came home and I messed around on the internet until suppertime; we have a veritable cornucopia of leftovers, and while leftovers usually aren't the best meal of the week, this ranked right up there -- leftover prime rib, sweet potatoes, baked beans, and five cup salad, plus new boiled/fried potatoes, made for a v. tasty supper. Then, I watched a bit of "NCIS", followed by the Kennedy Center Honors, which is one of my favorite things to watch over the holidays (ranking above even my joy at seeing stupid people stab each other over cheap toys at Walmart). Post-television, I spent several hours catching up on email and other minor online tasks, since I hate email and have been avoiding it for the past two weeks. The time has come to stop avoiding, though; vacation is almost over, and I need to focus if 2012 is a year that will make me proud before our dread Mayan overlord descends from the sky and incinerates us all. Goodnight!

where they go hardcore and there's glitter on the floor

2011-12-26T22:51:00.000-08:00

I should have gone to bed ages ago. I have to get up early tomorrow to venture into the wilds of Missouri (pronounced Missura, of course) to meet up with my mom's sister and kids, which would be fun if I didn't feel the crushing weight of all the things I need to do (write a book; write my Christmas cards, which are looking less likely; take care of a million things related to promo). Also, it's Missouri, which I enjoy looking down upon since the counties directly south of us might possibly be even more backwoods than ours. Sounds impossible, I know, but it's true.

We had a lovely family day today, though -- it was Wampler Rail Baron Day (tm), and so I rolled out of bed before ten a.m. so that I could shower and prepare for the festivities. Uncle Mark, Aunt Kathy, and Drewbaby came down, and they brought Drewbaby's girlfriend Stephanie along (he must feel v. secure in his relationship if he's willing to let her socialize with us, let alone let her see a star football player like himself play Rail Baron for an entire day). It was Aunt Kathy's birthday, and she sacrificed day-after-Christmas sales to play, so you can see how important such a tradition is to us. So we basically played and snacked all day; I snacked less than I could have, due to the gluten-free status and to the fact that I'm traditionally the banker, which means I'm basically chained to the game for its duration. I don't actually mind, though, and at least this time I did well enough to not feel like I totally wasted my time.

We started playing around 12:30, but we took a break at 4pm (shortly after the last railroad sold, which is when shit gets real) and scattered -- [censored]/Drewbaby/Steffi went to feed the feral cats that still show up at my grandma's backdoor expecting handouts; Mom and Aunt Kathy went into town to run an errand; Uncle Mark went to pick up my grandmother and bring her out to our place; and Dad and I drove around some fields looking for tiling inputs and outputs for the invoices he was trying to finish before the end of the year. Driving through the fields almost made me seasick -- I won't even call it carsick, since his pickup bouncing over the ruts felt like we were being tossed around on the sea in a small rowboat. Looking for the inputs was almost like a scavenger hunt, though; they were orange pillar-like objects scattered across the field, visible from some angles and hidden from others depending on the height/depth of the ruts between you and the inputs. But he thinks we found them all, and I didn't puke in his truck, so it seemed to be a success. It's slightly crazy to me that this is all farmland when my father says that there were 'city' roads that used to cross one of those farms way back in the day -- but even fifty years ago, our town was already shrinking, and it's continuing its long, slow retreat.

sssanyway, we came home and found everyone else was back, so we made supper (ham sandwiches for everyone else, ham quesadillas on corn tortillas for me) and got back into Rail Baron. Around seven, people started making concerned noises about whether the game was ever going to end, since no one had a lot of money, and so we set a timer for 30 minutes and said we'd stop and declare the winner based on highest asset value at the end of the round when the timer went off. That really sped things up, since some of us had massive incentive to keep the game moving fast to collect more money, but we still called a halt at the end of 30mins -- and my brother won, with me in second and Uncle Mark in third. Then, they all left, I took Gram back to her apartment, and then picked [censored] up in Humeston after he dropped off a truck up there. I made it home without hitting any deer, and mostly did nothing since then, but I suppose I should sleep.

Did I mention that [censored] gave me a copy of Rail Baron for Christmas? So if any of you want to play someday, we can! All you need is a full day and a lot of snacks, and maybe some alcohol for good measure (although I've played it sober for years and have yet to kill anyone).

Okay, really, sleep is imperative. Only a couple more days in Iowa -- goodnight!

silence will fall

2011-12-25T23:13:00.000-08:00

Merry Christmas! It's already over in Iowa, of course, but it will live on in our hearts forever (or at least for another hour, if you're in California). I had an absolutely lovely day -- thankfully, there are no small children in this house, and so we got up at the utterly wretched but still civilized hour of eight a.m. to open presents (in truth, my parents were awake sometime around five, and I woke up at 6:30 from a rather intensely vivid nightmare, but I went back to bed until the appointed hour). We took our time opening our packages, and everyone seemed to enjoy what they received.

As usual, no one would have traded their stash for another person's pile, since our interests are so varied; oddly enough, this year I probably would have taken my dad's stash if I was forced at gunpoint to switch, since he got a lot of cast iron cookware that I'm jealous of, but I'm quite happy with what I got. Several books, of course, including Haruki Murakami's massive "1Q84"; another gluten-free cookbook (which looks amazeballs); a bottle of absurdly expensive but completely luscious fountain pen ink (for the book that still refuses to write itself); several kitchen implements, including a creme brulee torch and eight creme brulee ramekins; and a copy of Rail Baron from [censored], who managed to find a brand-new still-in-box copy of a game we've had for nearly thirty years (a game which did not achieve the immortal fame that would guarantee massive reprints, like Monopoly or Candy Land). So, as usual, I anticipate a lot of post-Christmas cooking and reading in my future.

After opening presents, we all slowly meandered around the house, showering, etc. My mom went into town and retrieved my grandmother, who came out for brunch and stayed most of the afternoon. For once in my Iowa life, brunch was the way I usually have it in California -- after noon, with champagne. My dad made his always-awesome fried potatoes, scrambled eggs w/mushrooms/peppers/onions, bacon, and ambrosia, and my mom made blueberry muffins (which I resisted), and we all ended up in what would have been food comas if my grandmother had stopped asking me questions about when I'm going back to work long enough that I could have fallen asleep. On round three or four of her questions about whether I'm working, at which point I reminded her that I'd left my job over a year ago, she actually called me a 'rich old maid' -- which I might have cut her for if I didn't know that she would forget that she had called me that by the time I came back with my shank. Sigh.

sssanyway, it really was nice, despite the circular conversations. My grandmother went back to her apartment sometime after four (closer to five), and then we prepared for another round of eating. We watched "60 Minutes" first, which had some v. interesting bits about the Vatican library and about an island of Orthodox monasteries in Greece. Then we had prime rib, baked potatoes, and five cup salad -- I don't think any of us were particularly hungry, but it was our only chance to do it, and the prime rib was some of the best I've ever had. Mmm. Post-rib, [censored] and I [censored] the final three [censored], and now I'm all caught up until [censored] returns sometime late next year. I may go back and catch the first few seasons that we skipped, but we shall see -- theoretically I have a book or five to write in the next year, so television time needs to be reduced.

And now, I shall sleep; we're playing games tomorrow, sans reindeer, and I need to be in peak physical condition if I'm going to run the Rail Baron bank for eight hours. Goodnight!

pa rum pa pum pum

2011-12-24T23:36:00.000-08:00

Merry Christmas Eve, everyone! It's already Christmas Day in ye olde Iowa, and I must go to sleep immediately so that I may awaken at some ungodly hour for our traditional package opening activities. We celebrated Christmas Eve today, though; my sister and her family came over, so we exchanged gifts and ate foodstuffs with them. My mother made a delicious Christmas Eve dinner (aka lunch), with ham, baked beans, cheesy potatoes, five cup salad (ten cup salad this time, since she doubled the recipe), sweet potatoes, etc. Then, even though we all wanted to take naps, we persevered and opened presents. I got two gluten-free cookbooks from my sister, both of which look really good, so I'm looking forward to trying them when I get back to California, land of alternative flours. And my nieces and nephew seemed to like what they got, as did my grand-niece (great-niece?) -- [censored] and I gave her a purple sock monkey, among other things, and her mother (my niece; try to keep up) said that she already had one. I was disappointed, but then she said that the other sock monkey is red and my grand-niece is scared of it because she thinks it's trying to eat her. She seemed to view the purple sock monkey as a friend, so I think that's a good thing?

After they all left, I took a little bit of a nap, but it wasn't really enough. Then, [censored] and I [censored] another six [censored], with a break in between to eat a variety of leftovers for supper. We also broke so that we could finish wrapping presents for tomorrow, which didn't take long. We only have three [censored] left, which we should get through easily before I go back to California -- yay. And now, I really must sleep -- Christmas comes early! Goodnight!

the pandorica opens

2011-12-23T23:23:00.000-08:00

I didn't even attempt to work today. Instead, I woke up at eleven, took a shower, ate some chili, and spent the rest of the day [censored] nine [censored] with [censored]. We took a break around 4pm so that I could run into town and buy a last-minute gift for a family member; I also bought a bottle of Templeton Rye, since the liquor store in town happened to have a batch and it's an approved hipster liquor for the making of fancy cocktails when I get back to San Francisco. Then I came home, [censored] two [censored], and took a break for supper.

My mom has been trying quite hard to translate our old favorites into gluten-free delights, and she scored big on two levels today. The first was a peanut butter cookie sans flour (which annoyed [censored], since she called downstairs to tell us that she had made me cookies, which he thought wasn't inclusive enough). The second was a tenderloin, which in Iowa vernacular is a piece of pork pounded/flattened, dipped in egg and crushed saltines, and fried. I can't eat the saltines, but she tried crushed corn chex for me, and it was splendid. Granted, I couldn't eat the bun, which was unfortunate, but the tenderloin was delightful.

After supper, I wrapped a couple of gifts, then [censored] three [censored] before [censored]'s bedtime. And now I should really go to sleep myself -- we're doing Christmas with my sister tomorrow (I suppose it is Christmas Eve, which feels odd), and then I have to wrap the rest of my parents' presents and let visions of sugarplums dance through my head. Goodnight!

you could be the one that i adore

2011-12-22T23:40:00.000-08:00

Hello, dear readers. I'm going to go to bed v. shortly, so this must be brief (and then I must actually go to bed, rather than staying up another hour like I did last night). I slept until noon today (reminder: set an alarm for tomorrow), then spent the afternoon taking care of a variety of tasks that didn't net any new words on zee romance novel. But, I trimmed my bangs, showered, cleaned my room, put on the duvet that had been sitting patiently and awaiting my tender loving care, paid some bills (which necessitated a walk to the mailbox, which was a chore since I was freezing), wrapped [censored]'s Christmas presents (since he was out of the house), etc., so that was all good.

I threw in the towel earlier than usual, though, because I had plans to meet my friend Hannah in town for supper. She was one of my best friends in high school, and while we don't talk often (as is true with me and anyone who doesn't live in San Francisco), we try to get together when I'm in town. Also, we're something like fourth or fifth cousins, if that matters to you people, but since she's cousins with approximately half the town, this isn't really surprising. She was kind enough to drive over here (she lives in the town that my mom and I went shopping in yesterday), and we spent three and a half hours catching up, which was totally lovely. Neither of us had much gossip to share with each other, but we got reasonably caught up on each other's lives, and it was great to see her again.

I got home around 9:30, and then watched the last of "The Mentalist" and had a brief political argument with my dad (such arguments are both happening more often and getting briefer, as always happens during primary season -- and since they're now getting multiple robocalls/night from various candidates, in addition to seeing multiple political ads/commercial block, there are lots of opportunities to get into a discussion). And then I came downstairs, watched the trailer for "The Hobbit", and wrote several pages of Malcolm and Amelia's story. And now I shall go to bed and attempt to write a bit more in the morning before proceeding with the plans I have with [censored] tomorrow -- he wants me to [censored] [censored] all day, and I agreed to it so that he would stop [censored], so it should be fun. Goodnight!

to dungeons deep and caverns old

2011-12-21T23:18:00.000-08:00

I've got nothing to report today...I woke up around ten (shocking, I know), showered, ate some chili, and went with my mother to Centerville to finish Christmas shopping and buy groceries. Centerville has stoplights, so that was pretty exciting.

After we bought groceries, we came home, and I thought about writing, but I took a nap instead. Then we ate supper (fajitas, and my mom bought corn tortillas in a nod to my gluten-free-ness -- she's tried quite hard, which has been v. lovely of her), I watched some "Criminal Minds", and then I came downstairs and alternated between plotting out the next few scenes of zee romance novel and reading up on the latest "Hobbit" gossip until now. And even though it's super early (1:15am), I'm going to go to bed and hope for better writing vibes tomorrow. Goodnight!

[and also, happy birthday to Jessica! Yay for being old!]

there and back again

2011-12-21T00:13:00.000-08:00

OMG THERE'S A TRAILER FOR THE HOBBIT MOVIE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0k3kHtyoqc

that is all.

Okay, maybe that's not all, although really, that's the most exciting thing that happened today. I woke up late, as expected, took a shower, and then drank a smoothie while making my favorite black bean chili so that I'll have something non-gluteny to eat for lunch the next few days. Then, I spent the rest of the day working; I didn't write, but I completed a questionnaire for the publicist I'm hiring (that she'll use to determine publicity angles and to fashion into FAQs, author pages, etc.) that turned into eighteen pages of freeform answers to all her questions. It was quite exhausting, and I'm glad I'm done with it, since it had been hanging over my head.

Of course, I didn't work nonstop; I took a break to have supper (hamburgers with hamburger gravy), and I wasn't maximally productive after supper because I was working while watching NCIS, NCIS:LA, and Unforgettable in the background (yay CBS). And I discovered the new Hobbit trailer, which I've been quite restrained about, since I've only watched it a couple of times. But now I really need to go to bed; I'm going to Centerville with my mom to finish my Christmas shopping tomorrow, and that means I should probably wake up before noon -- I'm aiming for ten a.m. Goodnight!

in december drinking horchata

2011-12-20T01:40:00.000-08:00

No horchata here, unless Diet Mountain Dew is a new horchata flavor. I accomplished quite a bit today, despite myself; I woke up at eleven, showered, did some work, ate a late lunch (salami and cheese and a banana, since I was scrounging for sans-gluten foodstuffs and it was the best I could do without cooking anything), watched some Nate Berkus, then proofread, then wrapped presents until suppertime. My mother made a bunch of deliciousness (pepper steak, which is steak roasted with green peppers, tomatoes, and onions; baked potatoes; corn; and the last of the jello salad from Saturday), and then [censored] and I watched an episode of Doctor Who.

My familial obligations thus fulfilled, I spent the last few hours finishing the proofreading, since I promised my agent I would have it back to her in the morning. I also started working on a questionnaire for my publicist, but since I'm super wordy, it's slow going. So, I think I shall go to bed and work on it in the morning (or, more likely, afternoon, since it's almost four a.m. here, which means I will sleep until noon). Goodnight!

burning out his fuse up here alone

2011-12-19T00:13:00.000-08:00

First off, I hope that my mother and Chandlord both had utterly lovely birthdays! While I'm sad that I can't celebrate with both of them, celebrating with my mother is better protection for my liver and my vocal chords than any party at a gay piano bar, so I suppose it's a good thing I'm in Iowa instead of San Francisco tonight.

Today was quite lowkey; my father made brunch for us, consisting of scrambled eggs with sausage/peppers/onions, fried potatoes, and ambrosia (all yummy). Then, my mother opened her birthday presents, then got what she really wanted, which was a couple of uninterrupted hours to watch her beloved Iowa State Cyclones play basketball. While she did that, I proofread HEIRESS for awhile, and then spent an inordinate amount of time exploring possible Christmas gifts. I'm almost done shopping, which is a good thing, even if I spent hours on it today that I really didn't have to sacrifice.

I did manage to catch "60 Minutes", which included a piece on a pristine coral reef off the coast of Cuba and a great interview with Meryl Streep. We ate supper (leftover turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy, etc., which was just as tasty today as it was yesterday), then watched the finale of "Survivor", which managed to break my heart even though I didn't watch all season. Then I did some more Christmas stuff, did some Wikipedia research, and proofread until now. Hopefully I can finish proofreading tomorrow so I can get back to SCOTSMEN before Malcolm and Amelia commit mutiny and run away to star in some other, faster author's story.

And now, I shall sleep -- goodnight!

red solo cup

2011-12-17T23:34:00.000-08:00

I'm way too tired to still be awake, but I've been thinking about Christmas presents (always a challenge) and marketing strategies (related to my writing, not to convincing my family that they want whatever I've bought for them, although perhaps I should explore that too). Today was lovely, though -- we celebrated Christmas with the Wamplers, which really should be a movie. You'd pay to see it, right?

The fam showed up around ten, which was an ungodly early hour for me and rather late for all of them. And we hung out all day; my mother made a delicious holiday feast (turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy, stuffing, green bean casserole, spinach salad, cranberry sauce, jello ribbon salad), and we were all quite merry. Later in the afternoon, we opened gifts -- the giftgiving has slowed down since my brother and I are well into our twenties (er, thirty for me) and there are no longer any children on that side of the family, but it was still fun. Our cousin Drewbaby is a senior in high school, and so we all got various versions of his senior pictures. In return, my brother and I gave him various accoutrements that he will need in college (a deck of cards, ping pong balls, red solo cups, a funnel, some plastic pipe, etc.; what he decides to do with all of that is completely up to him, and I trust that he will be a thoughtful and responsible young man). I also got a v. cool leather bound journal/book thing from Aunt Becky and Scandalous Uncle Brian, which is so pretty that I might have to use it as decoration rather than as a repository for my thoughts.

Becky and Brian left sometime around fiveish and took Gram back to her apartment on the way, but Mark/Kathy/Drewbaby stuck around for another hour or two before heading north. After they left, I hung out in the kitchen with the parents for awhile, ate some leftovers, watched some "48 Hours Mystery" on CBS (of course), and eventually came downstairs, where I worked on marketing for awhile, messed around on YouTube (which was directly related to my marketing thoughts), and then explored Christmas ideas. And now I must go to bed -- tomorrow is my mother's birthday, which will be celebrated with brunch and Cyclones basketball, which is v. different from the birthday celebrating that Chandlord will be doing at a gay piano bar (although I shall be there in spirit). Goodnight!

plum plum plum plum...

2011-12-16T23:50:00.000-08:00

I was supremely unproductive today, and it makes me sad. Of course, I slept late, which is to be expected. Then I spent a couple of hours messing around with my computer and my nook; I got back the formatted epub version of HEIRESS today, which I need to proofread in the next couple of days. It was super exciting to see it on my nook, I must say. The cover showed up in the library, just like all the other books, and the initial peek I took at it showed that the formatting looks great and v. professional. So, once I proofread it, it's done, and the fun and trauma of publicizing and getting ready for the launch can begin in earnest.

Sometime in the middle of the afternoon, I decided to brave the wild winds (not really; "brave the wild winds" is the title of the first romance novel I ever read) and go for a walk. However, I only made it as far as the yard. My dad was standing by his fence watching his miniature cattle, which are quite charming, I must say. So I examined them with him while he told me all about them, which was a lovely interlude even if it required no physical effort beyond holding myself upright. Then I returned to the house, had a snack, and eventually realized that I needed to shower immediately, since we needed to leave to go to my niece and nephew's school Christmas program.

We left home shortly after five p.m. and went to the next big town over for supper before the concert. In a nod to my gluten sorrows, we skipped Pizza Ranch and instead had Chinese buffet; it was actually pretty tasty, although it was obviously never going to give Hong Kong Flower Lounge a run for its money. There wasn't a single bean curd in sight, nor were there any chopsticks, but I was satisfied with the rest of it. We also ran into my second-grade teacher, which was nice. Then we went to the small town where my sister lives and sat through an hour of Christmas music. Zane and Allie are in the high school choir (he's a senior; she's a sophomore), and I thought the choir was quite good. The sixth grade band led things off and they were cutely, laughably terrible, as is usually true with sixth grade bands. The high school band was significantly better; I was expecting good things, since that school district usually did well against ours in the marching band competition we always went to (although we win virtually every year, and have since I was in high school). And they were good, although their strength was in their percussion section, which was really quite excellent.

And now that I feel bad for critiquing children, I should go to bed. After the concert, we came home, helped mom get ready for tomrrow's Wampler family Christmas, and then [censored] and I wrapped presents and watched YouTube videos. I must sleep now if I'm going to get up in time to enjoy lunch at a time that will feel like breakfast. Yay. Goodnight!

leave tonight or live and die this way

2011-12-15T23:40:00.000-08:00

As expected, I'm utterly exhausted -- but on the whole, today was as smooth as I could possibly ask for. I woke up on time and was ready exactly when the car service showed up to take me to the airport. The driver was v. pleasant and gave me his card to arrange cars on the side with him (and he also told me I didn't look thirty, which is always welcome). Check-in was a breeze and I had time to grab a latte and some yogurt before getting on my flight. Both my flights were totally on time, my luggage made it home, and I had no issues anywhere. And, I plotted a possible novella tie-in to SCOTSMEN (because what I really need to be doing right now is plotting a secondary story -- but I had this idea years ago to write a novella related to Malcolm's ancestor, the first earl, and his kidnapped bride (medieval, obvi), and I want to see where it goes).

Upon reaching Des Moines, the family picked me up and we went out for an oddly-timed meal at four p.m., which was totally welcome given that my eating schedule was already way off from having a burrito bowl at the equivalent of ten a.m. my time. After 'dinner', we went to Target and did some Christmas/other shopping, then went to Menards/Home Depot to look for another item before finally coming home. Once we got here, I watched "The Mentalist", then came downstairs and unpacked fully so that I can focus on writing tomorrow.

I also cleaned off my desk, and while sorting through papers in my paper organizer, I stumbled across some truly embarrassing shit. Stuff like photos of me in a cloak and dress at a Mormon Trail reenactment. Or the photo of me wearing a men's tshirt as a nightgown, a big floppy hat, huge rhinestone earrings, and gloves while reading "The Secret Garden". I also found a bunch of programs from various activities I did in high school (and I made myself toss the duplicates -- do I really need three programs from the one-act play I was in freshman year?). And, there were cards that I sent to my grandmothers over the years; they saved them, apparently, and all the things I sent them have worked their way back into my hands as we've sorted through their stuff. It made me feel slightly nostalgic; there were a few letters that I wrote just for the hell of it without any holiday attached, and I felt a twinge of guilt because I haven't done that for anyone in ages. I kind of miss letter-writing -- if I'm industrious, maybe I'll get my fill by writing some Christmas cards over the next few days.

The papers on the desk were the tip of the memory iceberg, of course; I have a full file cabinet and ten+ boxes in my closet, and I'm debating cleaning out the file cabinet while I'm home. But it probably shouldn't be a priority, unlike SCOTSMEN, which I desperately need to finish. Now, though, I should sleep if I want to get up and work tomorrow -- goodnight!

take your fast car and keep on driving

2011-12-14T22:49:00.000-08:00

I need to get up in six hours, so I'll keep this brief. Surprisingly, I got through everything I was supposed to do today (except for finishing my book, but hey, you knew that was coming). I drove down to Palo Alto and trained with Alyssa, who was appropriately demanding in honor of my departure; we said our goodbyes at the end, since I won't see her for three weeks (she's leaving for Hawaii right before I get back). Then, I took the fastest shower I've ever taken there (the Kiehl's products encourage me to linger), left the gym, and went to Joanie's for lunch. It was also the quickest Joanie's lunch I've ever had -- the server brought me a diet coke before I asked for one, and it seemed like they made my Cobb salad when they saw me walking up the sidewalk, because I only waited about three minutes for it. Ah, the joys of being a regular. The server noticed my gluten allergy because I've declined bread the past couple of times, so we commiserated over that, and I generally left feeling quite happy about my last salad-eating experience of 2011.

I drove home immediately (well, with a stop to grab coffee at Philz, since I needed caffeine to get me through the rest of the day), and spent some quality time on the phone (NTSB recommendations be damned, although it was via a manufacturer-installed hands free device) with [censored] so that we could discuss our plan of attack for Christmas gift giving. We made remarkable progress today, although there's still a lot of shopping (and even more wrapping) to be done. I spent far more time than I intended this afternoon thinking about, looking at, conversing about, and ordering Christmas gifts, but I suppose that's time I won't have to spend later.

I spent the rest of the evening packing, with an hour and a half break to have dinner with Terry and her aunt, who is visiting for a conference. We went to Perry's, our old standby down the street, where we ate far too many potato skins with cheese/bacon/sour cream. I also had a small bowl of chili (delicious) and half a crab (also delicious), which made for the weirdest combination of foods I've had in awhile, but it was the best I could do sans gluten at a place where I usually get sandwiches. It was all really tasty, though, so I have no regrets. Then we came home, I did my dishes and finished packing, and now I must go to sleep. My flight leaves at seven a.m., which is earlier than I like to wake up, let alone earlier than I like to be showered, dressed, and through security. Goodnight!

you may case the grounds from the cascades to puget sound

2011-12-13T23:47:00.000-08:00

I'm flipping exhausted, which is perhaps to be expected considering that I traveled for seven hours today to get back to my apartment. I woke up at 4:45, took a quick shower, grabbed my backpack, drove to the airport, parked in the international terminal, and went to security to check in. Then I grabbed a coffee and some fruit and walked toward my gate -- only to discover that gate 91 is not after gate 90, but rather is in the international terminal instead of the domestic terminal. Blame my sleep-deprived pre-caffeine brain. So I walked back across the entire length of terminal three, through the connector, and into the international terminal (which, observant readers will note, is where I started when I parked my car). I made it just as my flight was starting to board, so it all worked out.

Then I sat on the plane for two hours and wrote several pages, which was great. When I got to my destination (Seattle, which I feel exceedingly guilty about since I have several friends in Seattle whom I've never visited, but I simply didn't have time to take a trip right now, and so doing this round-trip-while-working thing was the only way to get miles), I sat in an airport restaurant and ate a subpar omelet while listening to a woman and her adult son get v. drunk (they were asking for triple shots at 9:30am, which the restaurant wouldn't do), then yell at each other over whether the son had stolen money from her when she couldn't find the cash she thought she had. Bad news bears for them. Then, I got on another plane and came straight back to San Francisco, drove home, and have worked ever since.

I'll admit I wasn't as productive as I could have been this afternoon because I was so tired, but I accomplished a ton today, so that's all good news. And now, I really must sleep; I'm training with Alyssa tomorrow, and then I have to pack and keep writing before going to Iowa on Thursday. Goodnight!

all your mental armor drags me down

2011-12-12T22:56:00.001-08:00

I must go to sleep immediately; I'm getting up super early (i.e. 4:45am) in what amounts to a dry run for Thursday's flight home. As mentioned v. briefly last week, I'm doing a roundtrip tomorrow solely to accrue enough miles to keep premier status on United; I'll be back in San Francisco in the afternoon, and I'm using my quality time on the plane to keep forging ahead on Malcolm and Amelia. I know, I'm totally ridiculous.

Today was fine, but I shan't discuss it in detail because I desperately need to sleep. Suffice it to say that I trained with Alyssa, ran a whole bunch of v. necessary errands, quickly said hello to Gyre (since our every-three-weeks lunches happened to fall on Thanksgiving and on my flight home this week, which means it would have been 9+ weeks between lunches if I waited to see him until after the holidays), came home, worked, hung a bunch of picture frames, had a v. quick fly-by dinner with Chandlord at some Moroccan place, and then watched last night's "Once Upon a Time" with Terry. I was v. saddened by tonight's episode, mostly because I guessed what the outcome would be and was proven right when I really hoped to be wrong. Sigh.

And now, to bed -- hopefully I'll have a safe and pleasant journey to San Francisco tomorrow! Goodnight!

may your days be merry and bright

2011-12-12T00:09:00.001-08:00

Ah, sweet elixir coursing through my veins. I didn't intend to be lying in bed weaving slowly and cheerfully through the fumes of a whisky/rum cloud that will eventually turn into a hangover, but c'est la vie (or c'est ma vie? I don't know French, but this is definitely my life, if not the life). When I awoke this morning, I took a shower and went to Morning Due to have breakfast and write for awhile -- and I was successful, too, writing several pages over eggs and coffee. On my way home, I stopped at Safeway for eggs and cream, then stopped at BevMo (Beverages and More, for the uninitiated) and bought rum, bourbon, cointreau, maraschino liqueur, and two bottles of wine. The cointreau was for Terry; the maraschino liqueur was for my future attempts to recreate the Hemingway daiquiri; and the rum and bourbon were for the egg nog that I wished to experiment with tonight.

When I got home, Terry was in the midst of major holiday preparations -- she had been baking cookies and shopping for ornaments, but right when I got home, she and her sister went down the street and bought a Christmas tree to decorate. So, I spent the late afternoon decorating; she took care of the tree, but I did other things I'd been meaning to do, like reorganizing the living room bookshelves, changing the lightbulbs in the kitchen, and starting to hang the picture frames we've been intending to hang for ages. Katrina came over around 6:30, and we went to Roam to pick up burgers (which were utterly delicious, and may have convinced Katrina that there are benefits to living in the Marina, since they had turkey burgers sans buns, which was right up her alley).

Then, I made the egg nog, and the night devolved from there. By the time Terry had a cup of it (which was not a full glass -- I was serving them in my Irish coffee glasses, which are more like 8oz, and they weren't full), she was too drunk to even think of driving her sister home. Katrina was smart and went the Hemingway daiquiri route, which meant she was eventually able to bike home; I was not smart, and had three glasses of nog, and so was quite pleasantly drunk while Terry and I watched all of "White Christmas" with Bing Crosby. I'd never seen it before, so Terry was drunkenly adamant that we had to watch it -- and I must say that I totally enjoyed it, hammered or not.

And now, I must sleep. If you would like to make your own egg nog, the recipe is here: http://256.com/gray/recipes/eggnog/. The ingredients are 4 eggs, 1/2 cup sugar, 1 cup white rum, 1 cup bourbon, 1 1/2 cup milk, and 1 cup whipping cream, which should explain why we got so thoroughly soused. It tasted nothing like the uber thick, cloyingly sweet nonalcoholic carton egg nogs of my youth, and everything like a whisky shot with just enough of something else (uh, rum?) added to keep me from throwing up in disgust. Yum. Now that I've sold you on it (really, it was delicious), enjoy. Goodnight!

good girls don't but i do

2011-12-10T23:21:00.001-08:00

It's either write some more or go to bed, so I'm choosing bed -- while I've written diligently tonight, it wasn't coming easily or quickly, and I'm too tired to gird my loins for a continued slog through the blown-out detritus of Malcolm and Amelia's story in my ongoing effort to superglue it all back together. However, today was generally good. I woke up at 8:15am (shocking, I know) and went to Berkeley for my romance writing chapter's Christmas party. It was really just our usual meeting, although it included lunch and involved a few inspirational speeches from within the chapter rather than a guest speaker. They had asked me to be one of the four speakers, and I must say that it went really well -- I got several nice comments afterwards, and I think that I struck a chord with some people, which is always nice. I'd like to do more speaking in the future at romance/publishing events, so this was a good baby step in terms of practice, and it was also fun since I really do enjoy this chapter way more than my averse-to-groups self originally anticipated when I first joined last year.

After the speeches were over, I had lunch with the people at my table (including two phenoms in the self-publishing world -- my friend Tina and another woman whose publishing name is either Bella or Lucy, depending on what she's writing, although her real first name is something else entirely). Then, I drove back to the evil city and spent some quality time hanging out with Terry. She may not have thought it was quality time, since we ended up watching the last half hour of "King Arthur" when she flipped through the channels and landed there -- yet another half hour of my life lost to the shame and crawling misery of knowing that I so eagerly anticipated that movie and was so bitterly disappointed, to the detriment of ever getting anyone to go to another movie with me again. Sigh. We eventually went to Starbucks and got coffee, and then we came home and I locked myself in my room the rest of the night (with a brief excursion downstairs to get a Diet Mountain Dew out of the fridge).

The writing is going okay, but I certainly didn't write nonstop for the past six hours, much to my chagrin. I did finally figure out what was blocking me, though, and once I figured that out, I made progress pretty quickly. I pray that tomorrow will continue along that line (the line where I progressed quickly, not the line in which I was blocked), but surely sleep will help. Goodnight!

i can't tell you what it really is, i can only tell you what it feels like

2011-12-09T23:57:00.001-08:00

If I weren't supposed to be writing a book, today would have been unequivocally lovely. I woke up early but not too early (is nine a.m. early? possibly not), drove down to Palo Alto, and worked out with Alyssa. My workout went amazingly badly, since I kept feeling nauseous and lightheaded -- probably because I had trail mix for breakfast on the way down rather than fueling up properly because I wasted too much time prepping a box to send back to Barnes and Noble (which I then left on the kitchen table, alas), but it was still good to see Alyssa. After that I showered and got the smoothie she told me to have, which made me feel better, and I felt fine the rest of the day, so yay to that.

I had to be back at my old place of employment at three p.m. to see Heather (aka dear respected madam), and I needed a place to work until then, so I texted John to see if he was working at a cafe this afternoon. He was, although I ended up not getting a ton of work done; we had lunch, then coffee, then worked for a bit, but I only wrote a few paragraphs of Malcolm and Amelia's story. He had to go to a meeting just as dear respected madam came over to hang out, so she took the chair he vacated, and she and I proceeded to talk for two and a half hours. It was lovely to see her, particularly since I hadn't seen her alone in ages, so we caught up as fully as we could.

Then I looked at my phone and realized that I was ten minutes late for my next plan, which was margaritas and Mexican food with Terry and Lauren (aka Subz). So I sped over there and hung out with them for two hours, which was fantastic; Lauren was in good form, as always, and we compared notes on what we've heard about each other from Alyssa this week, so that was entertaining. Then we all parted ways and drove back to the evil city in our own conveyances. When I got home, Terry and I watched the most recent "Bones", followed by a couple of episodes of "Say Yes to the Dress", which was either the best or the worst possible way to end a Friday night.

And now, my dears, I really must go to bed; I have to be in Berkeley early tomorrow for the monthly romance writers meeting, and so I should sleep immediately. Goodnight!

nathaniel and superfly

2011-12-08T23:44:00.001-08:00

I didn't make as much progress as I intended to make with the sequence of the book that I'm working on right now, but today was still lovely. It started earlier than I planned, which threw off my energy for the day; I was still asleep at 9:30 when our housekeeper knocked on my bedroom door. She had apparently been downstairs, and while I thought I heard something, I hadn't bothered to wake up and check. She comes every other week and usually comes in the afternoons, so I had planned to vacate before she showed up, but that plan failed. So I spend some time checking my email, etc., while she cleaned up, and then after she left, I made myself a late breakfast/early lunch, showered, got dressed (with my cute new boots, despite the fact that my plans involved some walking), and drove over to the northwest point of the city to visit the Legion of Honor.

The Legion of Honor is an arts museum, housed in a building originally intended to honor California's WWI casualties. The setting couldn't be more gorgeous -- it's on a cliff overlooking the cold depths of the Pacific, surrounded by trees and hills. I can't believe I have never been there before, given how long I've lived out here; I will hit up every museum I run across when I'm traveling, but I haven't been to any of the museums in San Francisco except for the SFMoMA (ironic, since I am not really into modern art, and yet I've been there many times). I wouldn't have gone today, but I had to go; I've been waiting for a year and a half to see a traveling exhibit that was coming here, and while it started in August, I'd never gotten around to going. It ends on the 31st, so if I didn't see it now, it wouldn't happen.

I'm so glad I went. The exhibit was 'The Mourners: Tomb Sculptures From the Court of Burgundy' -- and from the fact that it's tomb sculptures, you should bet your money on this being a research trip for the gargoyle book, not anything related to Malcolm and Amelia. The first two dukes of Burgundy had these fantastically elaborate tombs constructed within a Carthusian monastery they sponsored solely for the purpose of holding their tombs (if I were to die in my sleep tonight, I can guess where I would be buried, but even though I know the approximate location of the plot, it's a far cry from a tomb that would take twenty years to carve within a sprawling monastic community built to pray for my soul). Under the tomb of each duke (father and son, btw, with their wives), there are dozens of intricately carved alabaster figures, all in mourning for the bodies lying above them.

While the mourners usually live in Dijon, home of the former Burgundian court (but not in their original location, thanks to the damned French peasants who destroyed tons of stuff back in the 1790s), that museum is currently being renovated, and so the mourners went on tour in the US. It was actually way cooler to see them here than it would be to see them in the tomb itself -- in the San Francisco exhibit space, each of them were displayed apart from each other with enough room to get up close, see them from all angles, and appreciate the artistry of each piece rather than seeing it all in aggregate. If you want to see what I'm talking about, the mourners site is here.

Anyway, I got tons of good ideas, and I bought the exhibit book so that I can refresh my memory later. I wrote some notes in the museum cafe, then wandered around a bit more and spent half an hour in the porcelain gallery, where I was basically undisturbed since no one seems to care about porcelain even though this was one of the most amazing collections of late 1700s English and French porcelain I've ever seen. Yeah, I'm that much of a dork.

Post-porcelain, I came home, knowing that I couldn't do the rest of the museum justice in the time I had left, so I'll have to return someday. Once home, I did some writing, although not as much (or, more importantly, as well) as I would have liked -- so when Terry came home, I was super eager for a distraction, and so watched tv the rest of the night. And now I'm going to go to bed at the insanely early hour of midnight so that I can get up and write before meeting with Alyssa. Goodnight!

the bad boys are standing in the shadows

2011-12-08T01:01:00.001-08:00

I don't really want to talk about today. My panic and despair over the book are about to consume me, and so I spent the day avoiding the panic and despair by avoiding most conscious thought -- sounds like a good plan, right? I think I needed a break so that I can hit it hard tomorrow, so I'm not beating myself up over today, but I need to get in gear tomorrow, lest I end up needing to beat myself up in my next blog post.

I did a bit of work this morning/afternoon, but I had to stop around 1:45 and go downtown to the mall. Yes, I had to. I had made an appointment at the spa to use my monthly credit on a facial, and I couldn't reschedule it because there are v. few days of the month left in which I will be here, so it had to be done. I went slightly early and returned a pair of shoes to Bloomingdales, then chatted with John for a few minutes (since our ye olde blood of Lincoln dinners are a bygone memory now that I've moved to the evil city) before going into the spa. My facial was good, but at the end of it, I actually succeeded in canceling my membership. Or I think I succeeded -- while the spa is awesome, half their yelp reviews are one-star reviews over how difficult it was to cancel, so we'll see whether I was successful when I check my credit card early next month. Since I've been saying for a year that I was going to cancel, and then getting seduced into staying, I was quite proud of my fortitude. I promptly squandered my fortitude by buying a pair of boots at Nordstrom, but they were less than the shoes I'd just returned, so in my head, all the math today worked out in my favor.

When I got home, Terry was here, and we watched this week's "How I Met Your Mother" (devastating) and some YouTube before I came upstairs and worked. The manuscript wasn't going well at all, though, and I ended up pulling out my Nintendo DS, which I rarely play, just to shut down my mind for a bit. It worked, but now I must go to sleep so that I can get up tomorrow and try, try again. Goodnight!

my kingdom for a fitted tunic

2011-12-07T01:56:00.001-08:00

Today was the kind of day I probably needed to have, although I can't help but regret that I didn't write anything substantive for Malcolm and Amelia's book. Instead, today was all about catching up on all the things that had been piling up on my to-do list (or rather, lists) over the past few weeks as I've ignored everything to make progress on the stupid book. Yes, I'm calling it a stupid book; I'm feeling rather wistful and forlorn about how much I've ended up rewriting it, and Terry saw the wild desperation in my eyes when she got home -- she's being v. cautious around me these days, which is probably for the best.

sssanyway, I spent the whole day and night engaged in busy work, but I'm feeling much more caught up on my other responsibilities (volunteer activities, Christmas lists, my three main email accounts, etc.), so hopefully I can write tomorrow without feeling like I'm dangerously close to missing majorly important deadlines. I did take a wee break with Terry tonight; we picked up salads at Blue Barn and watched the latest episode of "Once Upon a Time", which I *adored* (adored adored adored). Since my brain is turning to mush and I was much punchier than usual, I think I amused Terry with my commentary (I don't always commentate, but this episode deserved it) -- or, see above about how she's being cautious with me. Perhaps she didn't want to risk getting shanked with a fountain pen, and so pretended that she thought I was hilarious. But the episode was great and I am having some serious fangirl lust for Prince Charming; if any of you know where I can find a dude like him, sans the stupid poncho he was wearing for three minutes of the episode, I would be most grateful.

After that, I came upstairs and worked until now. And now I really must, must go to sleep, before my precarious mental state tips me over the edge into outright insanity. I rather like most of my garments and don't want to start rending them, nor do I wish to tear out my hair, and I'm too attached the clean floors to cover myself in ashes -- so any mourning over the death and rebirth of Malcolm and Amelia will have to be done quietly and with minimal gnashing of teeth. Goodnight!

all the good girls are home with broken hearts

2011-12-06T02:02:00.001-08:00

I should have gone to bed as soon as I got home -- since I got home at 12:30, that wouldn't have been an early bedtime by any means. I went down to Palo Alto today, and while I wasn't particularly productive in the early afternoon, I managed to kick it into high gear and write seventeen pages before abandoning the library around 11:30pm.

While I feel good about what I've written and the changes I've made, I am also verging on panic over how much I have left to do. The problem is that the rewrite that started as a minor attempt to fix plot and continuity issues turned into a major rewrite to fix pacing and development issues, which turned into a wholesale rewrite of every scene, scrapping at least half of them entirely. For instance, I rewrote the wedding scene today -- and really, all I kept was the location, what Amelia was wearing, and a few snippets of dialogue over the course of ten pages. It's no wonder this book is killing me. But, I suppose the good news is that if I pull this off, I've proven to myself that I can write a book in approximately two months -- which isn't entirely accurate, since the hardest bits around getting to know the characters and exploring a variety of options with the plot/structure was already done, but it makes writing a book every 3-4 months seem more realistic than it used to.

Now, though, I really must sleep -- I need to repeat (or double, or triple) this feat tomorrow. Goodnight!

don't you leave him, samwise gamgee

2011-12-05T00:25:00.001-08:00

What shall I say about today? What can I say that will keep you from skimming this, looking for your own name before moving on to other internet pursuits? Probably nothing, I realize, so I'll just write what I normally write, and you can go about your merry way. Today was lovely in a quiet sort of way; I woke up close to noon, after my time out and about last night, and discovered that I'm probably getting sick -- the vague sore throat, the early stages of a cough, and the sinus problems gave it away. I didn't mope around feeling sorry for myself, though; I took a quick shower, and then Terry and I went to Morning Due and ate/worked for a couple of hours. I wrote four pages of a v. intense post-coital scene with Malcolm and Amelia, which I felt v. good about. Then I came home and talked to my parents for awhile; nothing's changed since I was home four days ago, although my father now has a herd of cattle, so I suppose that's a change worth noting (miniature cattle, which is even more worth noting).

Post parental call, I sat around for a bit and got annoyed over the BCS championship, since I would have liked to have seen Oklahoma St play LSU (and felt slightly bad for OSU that the game that kept them out of the championship was their loss to Iowa State, but c'est la vie). However, the Stanford/Oklahoma St matchup in the Fiesta Bowl should be a great game, particularly since [censored] went to Oklahoma St for grad school, and this is one of those rare times when our college teams will play each other. I v. nearly succumbed to temptation and got tickets for the Fiesta Bowl, since Chris Boyd is going and we had discussed it last night; however, upon further reflection, I would rather spend several hundred dollars on airfare to London/Paris (or, equally likely, alcohol) than on a two-day trip to Arizona. I may regret this if we never go to a bowl again in my lifetime, but I live in hope.

I was supposed to have family dinner with Chandlord and Katrina at 7:30, but at 6:15 (just as I was about to write for an hour, I swear), Chandlord called and asked if I wanted to have a drink with her first. That was a temptation I couldn't resist, so I picked her up and we went to Nopa, a bar/restaurant conveniently close to Katrina's place. Katrina joined us there v. shortly thereafter, and we all enjoyed a nice hipster cocktail (I had a Hemingway daiquiri to replace the one that I spilled at Adit's Christmas party several weeks ago; Chandlord had a cocktail involving amontillado (not an entire cask of it, just a shot) sherry and champagne; and Katrina had a v. lovely hot toddy). I must say that pretentious hipster cocktails are right up my alley. This bar even had a bottle of Templeton Rye prominently displayed, which will mean nothing to anyone who lives outside of Iowa or isn't a rye fanatic, but nearly made me abandon my hatred of whisky long enough to have a drink made out of it. I would like to get really good at making hipster cocktails, but living in a city like San Francisco, it's easier to just go out and get one or five whenever you feel like it.

After our drink, we nearly had another drink, but instead made a prudent decision to continue on to dinner at Enjoy Vegetarian in the Inner Sunset. They are, as you guessed, vegetarian, although they perform some sort of weird alchemy on things like seitan and tofu to make them taste like meat. In fact, I was a little weirded/grossed out by how much the fake stuff actually tasted like sea bass in the "eggplant sea bass" dish -- half the things on their menu look like meat dishes because they're called things like "sea bass" and "beef" (those sound like meat, right? am I crazy?), but they're actually weird soy/gluten products. However, everything was really tasty, and I did enjoy it. We also ran into Adit and Priyanka, who were there with Adit's brother-in-law and the BIL's brother, although we all pretended that we didn't know each other, which was the highlight of my evening.

We all decided after dinner that another drink was foolish, so I dropped them both off and came home. Then I proceeded to forget my decision of twenty minutes earlier and had a drink with Terry, although I didn't have to leave my house for it, since she made us cosmos so that we could drink while watching some tv. She went to bed, and I should have written, but instead I booked a round-trip-in-a-day flight to a secret location in a few days -- you'll have to read the blog to see where I go. I checked my United status and realized that I hadn't hit premier with my last trip -- I thought I would, and so I used miles to book my ticket home for Christmas rather than buying the ticket. But I'm 450 miles short, so I found a $100 roundtrip ticket for next Tuesday, leaving here at 7am and getting back around 2pm. If I had more time and wasn't trying to write a book, I would have gone overnight and seen Walter or Lizzie or someone else in the general vicinity, but time is of the essence, so instead of going to a cafe and writing next Tuesday, I'll just do my writing on an airplane. It feels a little ridic to do this, but given that $100 covers the cost of my bag check fees for two trips home next year that would be waived if I had premier status, I think it's worth it, particularly since I usually go home 3-4 times and also intend to go to London/Paris, New York, and possibly Dallas/Chicago/New Orleans (romance conferences - tbd).

But now, I really need to sleep; I have to train tomorrow, and I hope my illness doesn't take over before then. Goodnight!

show up and throw up

2011-12-04T02:12:00.001-08:00

I'm still not done with SCOTSMEN, thanks for asking. I did make progress today, though, so that's good news. I woke up around eleven, showered, and was debating whether to make something for lunch, go out in the city for lunch, or drive to Palo Alto and have lunch when Terry asked whether I wanted to grab food. So we finally tried a breakfast/brunch cafe on Union Street that we've been meaning to try, and it turns out that the food was awesome. I had huevos rancheros, which are perfect for my gluten-free life since there are corn tortillas that make me feel like I'm getting some form of carb without loading up on wheat. And it turns out the huevos rancheros were actually really good; a lot of times they're a weird side addition to the menu that does not go well, but I would definitely eat these again.

So Terry and I lingered over brunch and caught up some more, since we haven't really seen each other in the last couple of weeks. Then, I came home, called Barnes and Noble about my defective Nook (they're sending a replacement, yay), took care of a couple of tings, and packed my bag to go down to Stanford and work. I wouldn't have gone down, but I needed to be there tonight for a party, so I decided to go a few hours early and write. That meant packing a backpack full of writing supplies and another bag with makeup and high heels to change into before heading to the party, but it all worked out quite well. I spent three hours at Stanford library and wrote a v. hot sex scene (Malcolm and Amelia don't love each other yet, but they sure want each other) while students around me studied for finals. Yes, it's weird, but it all worked out well.

Around 7:30, I left the library, went to my car and grabbed my makeup, and refreshed myself before heading over the Chris and Connie's for their Christmas/Chris's birthday party. His birthday isn't until the 20th, but they were celebrating early, and I had a lovely time. I stopped on the way to buy a bottle of wine, and I'm glad that he opened it while I was still there, since it was my favorite wine of the night (and his too, I believe; I purposefully bought the same wine he brought to my birthday dinner a couple of months ago, assuming that he loves it, which he does). Connie made all sorts of awesome hors d'oeuvres, and I'm sure I'll feel ill in the morning since I had way too much gluten (my stomach hurts right now). I hadn't had dinner and didn't have time to stop since I lost track of time and was already running late, so I ended up eating too many pigs in a blanket, which was a delicious mistake.

But the party was fun; obviously Chris and Connie were there, but I also got to see Chris and Kristen, Peder (aka Timmy) and Suzy, Adit, and Scott and Catherine, all of whom were in good form. There were some other people there whom I didn't know and didn't really meet, since even in a small party like that, our clique tends to isolate itself. Or perhaps I tend to isolate myself but always have someone to isolate myself with. Either way, Chris, Folkie, Kristen, Adit, Timmy, Suzy and I ended up out on the patio under the heat lamp, drinking wine and reminiscing until everyone else left and it was too cold to sit outside. So we rejoined Connie inside and continued to chat until sometime after midnight. I was the last one to leave, awkwardly, since everyone else left while I was in the bathroom, and I got home around 1:45. You needed to know that detail, right?

And now, my friends, I must sleep. You know what awaits me tomorrow, but if you can't put words to my fate, I'll say it for you: Malcolm and Amelia are going to try to bludgeon me to death, and I'm going to do my level best to write fast enough to avoid dying. Goodnight!

once i rose above the noise and confusion just to get a glimpse beyond this illusion

2011-12-03T00:23:00.001-08:00

Hello, weekend. You feel remarkably similar to all my other days, except Terry is home, which hasn't been true for awhile. And while other people use you to get in the holiday spirit, attend parties, connect with loved ones, and eat copious amounts of gluten, I shall do none of those things, because SCOTSMEN has me by the throat and I'm going to die if I don't finish it. [well, perhaps I will go to a party, but don't tell SCOTSMEN]

I was moderately productive today, but it wasn't enough. I drove down to the glorious south bay to train with Alyssa, who forgave me for not walking a lot while I was at home when I told her about my walk in the 37-degree weather over gravel and past aggressive dogs to a cemetery that was preferable to the route that would have taken me over a dirt road past a rumored bobcat dwelling. She was in good form and I got through my entire planned workout despite being dehydrated and tight, so success! After I showered, I ate a salad at the gym cafe, and then made a snap decision to go to Stanford library and work rather than coming home. This was a difficult decision because I tend to get a lot done at the library, but going on a Friday afternoon means committing until evening, since I wouldn't want to deal with Friday traffic anytime after two or three p.m.

Thus committed, I went to the library, read an article on Martin Scorsese and the creative life, felt v. inspired, and realized that writing is the only thing in my life that I wouldn't want to retire from; I could see myself writing until my death, no matter how much money I make or how comfortable I am. Thus inspired, I promptly squandered my inspiration and only wrote six pages. Bleh. I left around six in search of food, but nothing on campus met the appropriate combo of gluten-free and tasty, so I left campus and intended to go to Chipotle. However, Chipotle's line was out the door, so I went in search of the even tastier fare at Palo Alto Sol. There, I had some delicious enchiladas (with corn tortillas, yay gluten free) and a tasty margarita while writing another page or so, and then repaired to the Starbucks across the street to write for another half an hour until they closed. I finally felt confident enough to brave the traffic, which was only bad for a few miles around the airport, and made it home around nine.

I intended to write some more, but my new Nook showed up on my doorstep this afternoon, and I wanted to play with it. Unfortunately, it appears to be defective, which is super annoying; the bottom half of the screen is black and remains black no matter what I do. I even went through the painstaking guess and check process of registering the device (using the keyboard that was present beneath the blackness - good thing I know my keyboards so well that I could figure out how to enter my info), then figuring out how to reset the device (also on a menu that was blacked out), but to no avail. Sadness. It makes me want to get a Kobo instead, but we'll see whether B&N will replace it when I call them tomorrow.

Terry got home sometime around 10:30 or 11, so we chatted for awhile, and then she went to bed and I played with my Nook some more. And now I must sleep too; Malcolm and Amelia await me in the morning, likely with cudgels and maces and flails and other medieval weapons that have no place in their story, but since they won't freaking do what they're told, it wouldn't surprise me if they suddenly switched time periods. Goodnight!

the sound of settling

2011-12-01T23:59:00.001-08:00

I was much lazier than I intended to be today. I woke up around ten, showered, ate breakfast, etc., and then decided to go down to Palo Alto with an eye toward working at the library and taking care of a variety of errands. The errands were duly accomplished, and I had a delicious lunch at Joanie's Cafe (my secret true reason for wanting to go down), but with the unpleasant winds and a realization that I didn't want to stay at Stanford until after rush hour, I came home instead. Then I took a nap, because that's what one needs to do after doing nothing. Then I spent some time brainstorming the manuscript, thinking about alternatives, etc., etc.

I settled in to write for real around eight p.m., but then I got lost in Wikipedia and didn't emerge until 10:30. Most of that had nothing to do with SCOTSMEN, alas -- but it had a lot to do with the gargoyles, which I am desperate to return to since I think they could be totally wonderful. So I spent an hour writing some notes of plot/character developments that I've been thinking of for them, which was absolutely not what I needed to be doing, but I didn't want to lose those ideas just to spend another hour banging my head on my desk over SCOTSMEN.

Tomorrow is another day, though, and I can feel myself emerging from the current block -- hopefully it's the only one remaining, since I don't have time to be blocked. And now I shall sleep so that I can write tomorrow; goodnight!

i dreamed a dream

2011-12-01T02:30:00.001-08:00

I am back in California, after an utterly uneventful trip. I bid my parents goodbye at home this time, since my brother took me to the airport by himself; he dropped me off on time, and I was able to get a soda and hang out for a few minutes before boarding the flight to Denver. I then sat in Denver for a couple of hours and ate a burrito bowl (sans tortilla in a nod to my gluten problems) and drank a margarita, which made me intensely sleepy for most of the flight from Denver to San Francisco. Needless to say, I didn't get much writing done; I'm mulling over an issue with the middle of the book, and I think I've untangled it, but I didn't want to jinx it by forcing the writing too soon.

On my way home from the airport, I stopped at the grocery store to stock up on writerly snacks, then came home and cleaned the kitchen so that I could put my groceries away and rest easy knowing that I can wake up tomorrow and cook in said kitchen. I also unpacked fully (not hard, since I came back with a carry on and left a bunch of stuff in Iowa), switched the comforter on my bed to my heavier winter version (it's v. windy tonight), messed around on the internet, and then made the mistake of picking up a book.

Of course I read the whole thing straight through; it was ALPHABET OF THORN by Patricia A. McKillip, which was far enough away from the Regency romance genre to be bearable in this, my darkest hour, but also beautiful enough to seduce and interesting enough to enchant. I've read a couple of her other books (THE BELL AT SEALEY HEAD; THE BARDS OF BONE PLAIN), and her style is v. clearly her own; lots of gorgeous language, weird half-explained (or not explained at all) magic, people with strange names, whispers of ancient magic and/or evil weaving through multiple storylines in the 'modern' world. And it always makes me want to write ye olde high fantasy, although it's going to have to wait for the other eighteen books I've already got planned (the remaining 2.5 in the Muses series; seven in a different Regency or possibly Georgian series; four in a Victorian or late-Regency series; four or five in my gargoyles series, not to mention the Olympics idea I was toying with briefly the other night). My imagination encompasses entire worlds -- the trick is sitting down in this one long enough to write them down.

But now I really, really must sleep. I have errands to run tomorrow, and then I must fling myself headlong into SCOTSMEN and finish the damned thing so that I can move on to other stories. Goodnight!

the bleeding love, the silent escape

2011-11-29T22:18:00.001-08:00

I meant to go to bed twenty minutes ago, but as it's only 12:17am (three hours earlier than I've been going to bed), I'll probably still get enough sleep before I have to get up and go to the airport tomorrow. I was extremely lazy today, alas. I woke up at eleven, read my email, and was so annoyed by one of them (about the ceremony that I'm planning next year) that I pulled the covers back over my head and went to sleep again. So by the time I woke up, calmed down and composed a response, showered, etc., it was two p.m. I went upstairs and ate a snack while watching the Nate Berkus show, then eventually wandered back downstairs to pack. The packing done, I messed around on the internet for awhile, ate supper with the family (steak, baked potatoes, salad), watched some fine CBS programming (Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, NCIS, and the Victoria's Secret fashion show), bid my parents goodnight, came downstairs, repacked (since I'm traveling with only a carry-on and keep changing my mind on what to leave here and what to take back to California), and took care of some email.

Sorry, that's all boring. Hopefully I get a ton of writing done on my plane trips + my two hour layover, and then I'm going straight into hermit mode for the next few days, with the goal of having a clean enough draft of the whole book that I can share it with my beta readers by Sunday. That requires a bit of luck and a shitload of work, so don't be surprised if I go just a little bit crazy here over the next few days. Goodnight!

slow down my bleeding heart

2011-11-28T23:46:00.001-08:00

I have nothing to say about today and almost didn't blog at all, but I can't break my streak just because I feel apathetic. The writing did. not. go. well. Which, really, is all I need to say, right? I woke up at noon, since I failed to set an alarm (thinking that I would wake up automatically at ten or eleven), then got dressed, made lunch (scrambled eggs with ham and cheese, which were delicious), and proceeded to bang my head against my desk for a couple of hours. Around four p.m., I thought perhaps I should leave the house and get one of those ridiculously awful convenience store cappuccinos, but instead I decided to go for a walk. It was 37 degrees and the gravel road was slightly squishy since it rained a few days ago and the ground hasn't frozen yet, so I was quite cold despite wearing sweats over a pair of running tights from high school and my ancient hot pink bomber jacket with fur trim. But I walked to the cemetery, which is approximately a mile away by road, and didn't get mauled by a bobcat, so I consider it a success. My dad drove by and found me, then showed me his tiling operation in the field once owned by my great-grandfather (hint: tiling has nothing to do with decorative tile, and everything to do with drainage).

After we got home, I banged my head on my desk for another hour or two, and then ate supper with the family (roast beef, roast potatoes, roast carrots, gravy, leftover apricot salad). Then I refused [censored]'s offer to watch [censored] and tried to write some more, with limited success. I reread my entire journal instead, which isn't a huge feat since I rarely write in it because I'm usually either writing a manuscript or writing the blog, but it was a worthwhile exercise to see how my thinking has progressed over the past eighteen months. I also started sketching out a possible research trip to England and France in the spring, which is the last thing I need to be spending time on right now (which of course makes it the most appealing thing to think about).

So now I'm going to go to bed and set my alarm so that I get up earlier than noon (but not by much, since it's 3am here) -- I really must write tomorrow, and I also must pack since I go back to California on Wednesday. Goodnight!

it's a thousand pages, give or take a few

2011-11-28T00:18:00.001-08:00

I can barely remember the first half of the day because it was utterly consumed by the flames of the second half. I shall try to reconstruct it for you, though, like a shoddy arson investigator reconstructing a house fire and getting a dude executed for something that likely wasn't arson (see: Texas, several years ago).

I woke up around 10:15, which was actually early compared to when I have been waking up, although that fact didn't seem to be appreciated by my family. So I showered, got dressed, made my bed, etc., and went upstairs to find the entire Wampler clan gathered in the kitchen. I suppose my aunt's scandalous husband isn't a Wampler, but you can tell he wishes that he were (or maybe he wishes he were anywhere else -- it's a little unclear). sssanyway, Uncle Mark, Aunt Kathy, Drewbaby, Aunt Becky, Scandalous Uncle Brian, and Gram were all here, as were my parents and [censored], to belated celebrate Thanksgiving, so we all hung out for a few hours. My mother made another midwestern feast: hamballs (ground ham, ground pork, breadcrumbs, etc); sweet potatoes (with brown sugar but sans marshmallows - we're not savages); cheesy potatoes (self explanatory); pickled beets (ugh); apricot salad (canned apricots, orange jello, cheese - much more delicious than that incomplete description makes it sound); relish tray (carrots good, radishes bad); and rolls (gluten-filled). Aunt Kathy brought cranberry salad (cranberries, celery, cherry jello); Aunt Becky brought a lemon cake that looked amazing but that I didn't eat due to my gluten avoidance. We didn't play Rail Baron or anything else because everyone wanted to leave before dark, when the deer descend on the roads and make every journey a miniature version of Frodo and Sam toiling towards Mordor, where the orcs are replaced by unarmed but suicidal deer who thwart you at every turn.

So it was good to see them all. It's so hard to believe that Drewbaby is a senior (as is my nephew Zane), so I'm planning to come back in May for their graduations. I will see them all again when I'm back here in a couple of weeks, though, so I don't think anyone felt a lot of pressure to hang out. After they left, I basically worked straight through until now, with some breaks here and there to snack, watch bits and pieces of TV, catch up on bits and pieces of the internet, etc. I slogged through another 15ish pages -- good, but still never enough. I'm going to work like crazy this week, so even though I get back to California on Wednesday, expect hermity posts through the weekend.

And now I must sleep before the language processing centers of my brain utterly shut down; that last Mordor reference nearly blew them out. Goodnight!

you smash it, we'll build around it

2011-11-26T23:33:00.001-08:00

I was quite productive today, which may have been detrimental for family relations. Since the rest of the Wampler clan is descending tomorrow, I needed to be productive in advance. While I'm ashamed to admit that I didn't write any entire book today, I wrote/edited the equivalent of 20+ pages and typed up all those edits (no quick task), so that's good progress. Unfortunately I still have half the book left to finish, but the majority of those scenes are edits of previous scenes, not new scenes, and those tend to go faster. Hopefully I'll keep up the momentum that I've had the last few days; since my deadline is rapidly approaching, I don't have much choice.

However, I did take a couple of breaks; I ate lunch (leftover chili) while chatting with my parents for a bit, and I ate dinner with the family (leftover turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy, etc.) before watching three episodes of [censored] with [censored]. I'd refused to watch quite bluntly last night, since the book isn't writing itself, but I couldn't evade it again tonight; I said I'd watch two episodes, but the second one turned out to be a cliffhanger, so we had to watch the third. It involved these super creepy angel statues that behave similarly to the Boo Diddley ghosts in Super Mario 3 - if you're facing them, they can't move, but if you turn away, they attack. It doesn't sound creepy, but it is, particularly for someone who prefers to read romance and avoid all types of horror (that would be me, if you're obtuse; and that would be 'dense' if you don't know what 'obtuse' means).

sssanyway, I bailed on further episodes since I wanted to watch the last half of the Stanford/Notre Dame game, and so [censored] retreated to his room while I switched to ABC. Unfortunately, we're far enough away from the ABC tower to render reception dicey, and I watched the entire second half with the picture cutting in and out every 2-3 seconds. I have a massive headache now, likely because I was on the verge of a seizure, but I'm glad I saw the seniors' final game at home. We should go to a decent bowl, although I'm betting the BCS will find some way to screw us -- we shall see.

After the game, I wrote for the past three hours, fueled by Mountain Dew and a deep, abiding fear of the dark. I can't stay awake any longer, though, particularly since my family is showing up tomorrow and I can't sleep until noon. So I shall go to sleep and hopefully dream of Scottish earls rather than weeping angels. Goodnight!

our passion rises up from the ashes

2011-11-25T23:35:00.001-08:00

So much for getting up early, but also so much for vacation. When my alarm went off this morning, I shut it off, and promptly slept until noon -- oops. But then I woke up, took a shower, ate some lunch, and proceeded to work most of the afternoon/evening/night. I was working at the kitchen counter for most of it, which was not maximally productive since I had the LSU/Arkansas game on mute for much of the afternoon, and also kept talking to my family members as they wandered in and out during their various chores and errands. I also took a break for supper (for which I made the brined porkchops that I've been making in California, to go with some awesome potatoes my mom made and the leftover layered lettuce from yesterday's Thanksgiving dinner), and I lost an hour and a half or so reading up on British peerage/titles/forms of address (and another hour and a half just now after falling into a rabbit hole about extinct languages on Wikipedia).

So since it's 2:45am here, I must go to bed immediately. But luckily, I wrote approximately fourteen pages today -- not enough to finish the book, but I'm making progress. So hopefully I'll get some sleep tonight, write another 14+ pages tomorrow, and keep feeling like finishing this book is possible (hahahahahahaha). Goodnight!

i'm gonna rock you like a baby when the cities fall

2011-11-24T21:12:00.001-08:00

Happy Thanksgiving, loved ones and cyberstalkers! Although if you've been reading faithfully for years and have not yet showed up to my house with a big bottle of lotion and a carving knife, then I consider you a loved one at this point.

sssanyway, I had a lovely day; I was quite lazy this morning, getting up late and eating one of my high-falutin' almond milk and whey protein smoothies while hanging out in the kitchen with my mother and watching a bit of "The Young and the Restless" (which surely won't survive much longer, given the demise of so many other soaps). I eventually came downstairs and showered/made myself up, just in time to have Thanksgiving dinner (aka lunch) with my parents, [censored], sister, brother-in-law, nieces x2, nephew, grand-niece, and grandma. Dinner was delicious -- my mom made turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy, green bean casserole, cranberry sauce, layered lettuce, and some stuffing that I thought was quite awesome. My sister made gluten free rolls for me, which was a v. nice gesture that was utterly lost when I proceeded to load up on stuffing and green bean casserole and pumpkin pie in a blatant attempt to pretend that I had no problems with gluten. And then my stomach hurt and I had a headache the rest of the day, so I think my gluten allergy may be the real deal.

Or maybe children give me a headache, which is a possibility that I'm not willing to test again for awhile. But my nieces and nephew are old enough to have conversations with (19, 17, and 15 are old, right?), and my grand-niece is adorable (and can sing bit of Selena Gomez's "I Love You Like a Love Song", which was hysterical), so that was all fine. Anyway, it was good to see the family, and they eventually left around 4:30 for other, more interesting pursuits. I took a nap in the living room, then helped my mother with the dishes, then had a snacky snack while watching "Big Bang Theory" with [censored]. I categorically refused to watch "Doctor Who" with him tonight because I needed a break from noise (which made my mother observe that I'm turning into her, and [censored] attempted to get me to rebel against my inevitable decline into old age by watching tv, which was an odd rebellion that I refused to participate in). So I've spent the last few hours hiding in my room, which has been less than delightful, mostly because my head hurt too much to do more than write a few paragraphs of the scene I'm currently working on.

But that's okay -- my headache should improve by morning, hopefully, and so I'm going to go to sleep and set my alarm so that I can get up and write. Tomorrow needs to involve less gluten and more writing -- wish me luck. Goodnight!

step step you're too slow...speed it up

2011-11-23T22:32:00.001-08:00

I didn't go straight to bed last night, since I decided to read an excerpt from an upcoming Kresley Cole book (LOTHAIRE, which I've been waiting for not-so-patiently for ages). But when I did go to bed at midnight, I was apparently so tired that I slept for twelve hours with no problems, and so I didn't get out of bed until after noon. Hopefully this means I'll be less tired for the next few days, but we shall see.

When I did get out of bed, I was still feeling lazy, and so I messed around online, got dressed, and spent some quality time watching tv in the kitchen while my mother prepared the advance portions of tomorrow's Thanksgiving feast. It turns out I really like the Nate Berkus show (although I just lost more time than I care to admit to reading about the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, since he lost his partner in Sri Lanka when they were both swept out of their hotel); he's an Oprah protege who does design, cooking, and fashion segments, all of which were entertaining. I eventually came downstairs and thought about working, although I didn't get much done. Then we all ate supper (teriyaki), and then my [censored] convinced me to watch three episodes of "Dr. Who", which I've never watched. Katie will be devastated to learn that I really enjoyed them, but hopefully she's come to accept that I like sci-fi/fantasy stuff and will still love me.

After running away from the television, I did do about an hour of work; it wasn't writing, but it was plotting out my publication schedule for the next year or so. I'll have a better idea of what's possible once I finish Malcolm/Amelia's book and write Ellie/Nick's book, but I'm hoping to write a book every 4ish months. It's doable but not easy, so we'll see. I also need to decide whether to focus solely on Regency or take some time to finish my gargoyles book; I want to write the gargoyles (even though they have nothing to do with gargoyles), but sales are typically better if you're releasing frequently in the same/related series, so we'll see.

And now I must go to bed so that I don't sleep through Thanksgiving dinner -- goodnight!

this ain't a scene, it's an arms race

2011-11-22T20:07:00.001-08:00

I was brutally tired all day, which is why I'm considering going to sleep at ten p.m. (also known as eight p.m. in my usual time zone). I slept eight hours last night, but I still barely made it out of bed in time for my ten a.m. call with the publicist I'm hiring. I got up just in time to put on some clothes (so I didn't feel utterly slovenly) and grab some tea, and then we chatted for an hour about where I should focus on my publicity and marketing efforts and how we should move forward. I thought she was great, so hopefully she'll be able to help me get my book sales going when the book is released.

And the first book will be released on January 23; we're likely going to release the second one at the end of February, and the third one at the end of April. My agent gathered all the necessary data and sent the first book off to an ebook formatter today, so yay for that. More details to come, but it's all quite exciting, even if I'm too tired to sound particularly excited about it right now.

I spent some quality time this afternoon hanging out upstairs with my mother. We had a rather unplanned chili cookoff; her chili is good, but it has a much bigger quantity of tomato juice than the chilis of California (which is true of the other chilis I've had in Iowa; the ones at church suppers and school lunches had a lot of tomato juice). Since it's so juicy, it tends to be best with a lot of crushed saltines or a grilled cheese sandwich, neither of which work with my gluten experiment. I had bought ingredients for my black bean chili yesterday, so decided to make it in addition to hers. That chili has no juice at all, and the 'liquid' comes solely from a puree of diced tomatoes and black beans, so it's substantially thicker than what the family was used to. They all made fun of it when they saw it, as per usual (see: my attempt to introduce them to risotto), but they also all finished their helpings and mom went back for seconds, so I'll consider it a success. Or perhaps not a success, since I intended to eat it as leftovers for the next few days and may not have a ton left.

After dinner, I came downstairs and lost myself in a wikipedia hole until now. I'm too tired to write, and while I have a book (or fifty) that I'd like to read, I think I'll go to bed and attempt to regain my energy levels so that I can write like mad tomorrow before Thursday's Thanksgiving festivities. Goodnight!

the grand facade so soon will burn

2011-11-21T22:42:00.001-08:00

You get virtually nothing from me tonight because I'm beyond exhausted. Five hours of sleep last night wasn't nearly enough, particularly since I had to work on the plane rides. I made it to the airport without any problems, grabbed a latte in an attempt to wake myself up (which just gave me the caffeine shakes), and then worked on my author note/acknowledgments/bio/etc. for Madeleine and Ferguson's book so that I can get it formatted properly in preparation for the launch. The good news is that I've pushed the deadline on Amelia/Malcolm back to December 19th -- which is still v. v. soon, but is so far beyond December 5th that it feels like a miracle. So yay to that, since it means I might actually see my family occasionally this week.

In Denver I attempted to be good and follow Alyssa's directives, but the Wolfgang Puck salad was perhaps the saddest, most awful thing I've eaten in a month, so I didn't eat much of it (but I did finish a whole glass of wine, since I was sitting at the bar, which made me tipsy on an empty stomach). I tried to rectify by getting a Jamba Juice, but I'm not sure I was successful. Then I flew to Des Moines, working on my marketing plan the entire way, and rendezvoused with my parents. They were quite kind to take me to the grocery store on the way home (the one an hour north of us, which is the nearest big-time grocery store -- it's no wonder I stockpile stuff). They were also quite kind not to roll their eyes too badly while I bought almond milk, whey protein, cumin, and a variety of other Alyssa-approved but not Iowa-bred foodstuffs. Luckily (?) it was nearly freezing outside, so dumping perishables in the back of the truck for the drive home was like leaving it all in a vast cooler -- and now I'm stocked up with gluten-free delights.

When we got home, I reveled in the anticipation of sleeping in the queen-sized bed they finally put in my room, which is pretty much the highlight of my year after too many vacations spent sleeping on the twin bed that they bought when we got back from Ukraine and that had slowly transformed itself into a slab of concrete over the past eighteen years. Then, we went out for supper, where I pursued my gluten-free agenda by having a ribeye and a baked potato -- really, it's not a hardship, although turning down my brother's breaded mushrooms was difficult. When we got home, I came downstairs immediately to work, but ended up unpacking first, then watching the last half of "Hawaii 5-O" with my brother (after being lured to it by a v. hot scene of Alex O'Loughlin escaping a North Korean prison). I finally started working around 10:30, and spent the last two hours finishing up some stuff for my agent and writing the rest of my marketing plan in preparation for a call with a publicist tomorrow.

And now that you've gotten way more than I intended to give you, I really must sleep. Goodnight!

same same

2011-11-20T23:00:00.001-08:00

I went hardcore with the socializing today in an effort to see my San Francisco tribe before going back to Iowa tomorrow. Or perhaps I went hardcore with the socializing because it was more appealing than packing and editing. In any event, I'm exhausted and must go to bed asap, since I need to wake up in five hours to go to the airport (after sleeping five hours last night too).

But I won't leave you hanging without a brief recap. I woke up, showered, trimmed my bangs, turned them into a mild disaster, and left them a mild disaster because I didn't have time to fix them (since any further cutting could be fatal, and I needed a break to refocus my efforts so that I don't butcher them on my next attempt). Then I sped over to Katrina's for book club. It was technically Lauren's turn to host, but her house is still being renovated, so Katrina hosted for her -- and via a miscommunication, they both made food, which turned into a delightful and delicious mistake for the rest of us. Chandlord was too sick to come, but Terry was a trooper and came for an hour on the way to the airport (with her sister, who was taking her to the airport and so was an informal and uninitiated guest for the proceedings). The book, as you know from last night, was THE NIGHT CIRCUS, and the conversation was interesting and entertaining, as per usual. Terry and Kasey left, but Katrina, Lauren and I sat around and drank champagne until two p.m., which was a lovely way to start the day.

After book club, I came home and furiously attacked my to do list. I got everything packed up, cleaned my room, emptied my part of the fridge so that rotting veggies aren't taking up space for Terry's Thanksgiving feast, etc., etc. I also talked to my parents, as per usual, although there wasn't much to say since it was my father's birthday yesterday (happy birthday daddy!) and so I talked to him then, and will see them both tomorrow.

I wasn't planning on doing anything other than working tonight, but Shedletsky invited me to dinner with Tammy, Tammy's boyfriend Daniel, Can Sar, and Shedletsky's girlfriend Christina. I don't see those kids very often, and this was my only chance to see Tammy while she was in town, so I drove to Belmont to hang out with them for an hour. I spent more time in the car than I did in their house, but it was worth it; I enjoyed the chicken tacos, and the conversation was as entertaining as it always is.

Sadly, I had to leave them to come back to the evil city for second dinner, this time with Adit, Priyanka, Katrina and Chandlord for Sunday night family dinner at My Tofu House. We don't get together every Sunday, but it's lovely to have some family time [side note: I got a hit on my blog a couple of weeks ago from someone who seemed to be one of my mother's cousins, who clicked on the tag 'family time' and must have been v. confused]. It was particularly lovely since I won't see those fools, or eat soft tofu, or any other soy product really, for a couple of weeks. So we hung out and ate and were merry (sans drinking, thank goodness) before I abandoned ship to come home and take care of the last little details before my trip.

And now, after blogging for longer than I intended, I really must sleep - 4am is going to come all too soon. Goodnight!

we are such stuff as dreams are made on

2011-11-20T03:36:00.001-08:00

I am nearly hallucinating from exhaustion; as I brushed my teeth with my eyes closed, I felt surrounded by any of the dozen bathrooms I've had over the past decade, and the starbursts on the edges of my vision may be some cause for concern. If they were tasty strawberry or lemon starbursts, perhaps I would delight in their chewiness, but they are exploding pinpoints of light on my retinas, which is much less enjoyable.

I woke up moderately early today and spent several hours preparing my room for my departure; there's more stuff on my to-do list than I can possibly do, which is how I roll, so c'est la vie. However, I had to leave my house at 1:30 to drive to Manteca, which is ridiculously far away, for a board meeting of the San Francisco romance writers chapter that I'm part of. I got elected to a vice president of programs role, which is both cool and more than I should have committed to, but it should be fun. The chapter president lives in Manteca, which is so far along the route to Yosemite that it actually says Yosemite on signs around there. The meeting was good, though, even if there are characters that I would like to describe to you and cannot (both from circumspection and because there are no words).

After leaving Manteca, it took two hours to get home, but forty minutes of that was spent in a standstill on the approach to the Bay Bridge (damn rain). When I got home, Terry and I watched Big Game, and I was supremely thankful that we beat Cal (sssssss). We took a break at halftime to get burgers, and then I proceeded to watch the rest of the game even though I had way too much to do. The game ended at 10:30, I came upstairs at 11, and then rather than going to sleep like a smart person, I started reading the book for tomorrow's book club....

...and of course I finished the whole thing, even though I vowed to put it aside halfway through and accept that I would have to go to book club without having read it all. The book is THE NIGHT CIRCUS, and I am torn between thinking it was great and really hating it, so perhaps some sleep will clarify my opinions. But now, I really must sleep; I have to pack, put together a bunch of stuff for my agent, run some errands, etc., etc., and manage not to be so tired that I miss my flight on Monday morning. Yay. Goodnight!

all you want is a beauty queen, not a superstar, but everybody's dream machine

2011-11-18T23:23:00.001-08:00

It's Friday night, which must mean that it's time for one of those posts that combines "I didn't do enough" with "I drank too much." But first -- a public service announcement! For those of you who read this via Buzz, or who are sooooo tired of the effort required to type in a URL, you now have the option to subscribe to my posts via email. See the sidebar for "get my drivel in your email", and if you enter your email address, it will deliver my posts to your email inbox. Pretty slick, right?

sssanyway, I woke up this morning, did a bit of non-writing work (the social media side of my job), and then drove down to Palo Alto to train with Alyssa. Right when I got there, I got some potentially good news in my inbox, but I'm going to hold out and not tell you what it is until it's set in stone. No, my request to become a cyborg did not come through, so don't get your hopes up too high. So I made Alyssa cool her heels while I sent a couple of emails, and then we worked out, which was still strenuous despite missing the first ten minutes of our program. After working out, I showered, dolled myself up (rather ridiculously; my love affair with leggings may be my downfall), then ate a salad at the gym. I then proceeded to Target, where I stocked up on cleaning products, etc., and then I rewarded myself with a peppermint mocha, which may or may not have given me a headache since it was the first sugar I've had all week.

I drove home after that, but I hit the beginning of rush hour and sat in traffic on the approach to the city; while the mocha may have given me a headache, the combo of the mocha and some DJ Tiesto on my ipod was all that kept me from a case of extreme road rage. When I got home, I procrastinated for a bit (again, no writing) before Terry came home surprisingly early. So we talked for awhile, and then she went to get her brows waxed while I answered emails that have piled up over the last 4-6 weeks. Upon her glorious return, she opened a v. nice bottle of wine, which we proceeded to drink most of while watching last week's "Next Iron Chef" and two episodes of "Once Upon A Time". Yes, we're dorks, but I defy you to find a funner evening (or more fun, depending on what level you made it to in grammar nazi training).

Sadly, we didn't watch the OSU/ISU game; I didn't want to watch it, but I'm stunned and thrilled that Iowa State beat Oklahoma State. It just makes Stanford's loss that week that much more depressing, since we would be in the national title hunt for sure if we'd won, but c'est la vie. Still, I feel for Oklahoma State since they lost two coaches from the women's basketball program in an airplane crash today -- what a rough thing to have to play through. But way to go, Cyclones -- tragedy or not, it's amazing that they kept playing, didn't give up, and ultimately gutted it out.

And now, I must sleep; I need to write in the morning, and then I have to go to the wilds of Stockton (or thereabouts) for a romance meeting in the afternoon. Goodnight!

from underneath the rubble sing a rebel song

2011-11-17T23:57:00.001-08:00

I'm in serious trouble. Half of today was bleak, rotten, miserable, the kind of misery that eats away like acid at one's heart and mind, until all one's faith and hope are burnt to ash. The other half was awesome, perfect, transcendent, where all the words come in just the right order and every character lives and breathes and feels so powerfully that they etch themselves on the page.

From that you might guess that I'm in serious trouble because I'm bipolar, but no (or rather, who knows, but that's not the problem). I'm in serious trouble because I have four days until my self-selected deadline for finishing this draft, and I have more than four days' worth of work left to do (particularly since I've got plans every day of those four days, including flying to Iowa). If the deadline slips by a day or two, the consequence is that I have less time for my beta readers to read it and give me feedback before my ultimate deadline, which is currently two and a half weeks away. And I care too much about writing the perfect book to be happy with whatever I can knock out in the next four days, even though my honors thesis experience would argue that I'm certainly capable of finishing in time.

Anyway, today was extremely hermity. I only left the house for three minutes (to stock up on diet mountain dew from the corner shop), and I spent the rest of the time locked in my room, either working or procrastinating (mostly procrastinating in the morning, almost entirely working from 3:30ish until midnight, with a break for dinner). When I'm in procrastinating/stress/work mode, I tend to cook more than I otherwise would, and so my late breakfast/lunch was some applewood smoked bacon and some scrambled eggs with peppers, onions, and cheese, and my supper was the last of my leftover risotto with a freshly-cooked porkchop (which I wasn't entirely in the mood for, but it had to be cooked tonight, and it turned out deliciously enough that I didn't mind it). I also drank some truly excellent coffee from my French press, in addition to two bottles of diet mountain dew, and yet I feel confident that I'll be able to sleep tonight.

Somewhere along the way, I wrote ten pages from scratch (2200 words) and revised several scenes (which involved writing lots of snippets from scratch, but I didn't count up those words), so I'm making forward progress. And all I can say is onward -- it will happen, and all I can do is make it happen as fast as possible. Now I shall sleep, so that I can go see Alyssa in the morning before continuing to work like the devil is gnawing on my heels. Actually, that wouldn't be particularly motivating, but you get the drift. Goodnight!

they smashed my heart into smithereens

2011-11-16T23:28:00.001-08:00

I need to start using lotion on my hands more frequently. I just stretched them over my head before beginning to type, and in the dim half-light of my bed, obscured by my blindness as I looked at them over my eyeglass frames, they looked like hideous, grotesque dinosaur claws wrapped in human skin and painted, macabrely, with Affair in Red Square nail polish. In other words, I saw what they may look like when I age, and it wasn't a pleasing thought. The ravages of time are coming for me, but I shall not go gently into that good night. So, lotion it is, or at least remembering not to flex my hands so that I see the tendons shadowed by my bedside lamp.

That was a bizarre opening to the blog, but I'll let it be. My usual refrain of not getting as much done as I wanted to is starting to wear thin. Today I woke up around ten, and thus was two hours later than I had intended to be for an informal writing date with my friends Grace and Tina, but they were kind enough to forgive my nightowl nature. When I got there, Tina had made sushi for lunch, and so we chatted for an hour before getting to work. The first work was't for me, but it was a fun brainstorming session with Tina about her next series, so it was a good mental exercise. Then, I worked for a bit and wrote four pages in an hour, which was pleasing, before talking to Tina and Grace again. It still counts as work, since Tina is massively successful as a self-published author (300,000 copies sold in the past 12-16 months) and there's a lot I can learn from her as a result. And, whether I could learn anything or not, they're quite entertaining, so I'm glad I went over.

I left around four, came home, spent a bit more time working on zee manuscript, and then made supper -- reheated risotto and a freshly-cooked pork chop. The risotto was slightly less thrilling than last night, probably because it was leftover, but the pork chop was possibly perfect. It had brined for an extra two hours last night before I pulled it out of the solution and wrapped it up for later cooking, and I didn't make the timing mistakes that I made yesterday, so it was piping hot and juicy when it was time to eat it. Yummy yummy. I know this confession is sacrilege, but I may have almost preferred it to a steak. You can revoke my Iowa birth certificate now (although, in my defense, Iowa raises a lot of hogs).

After supper, I went out with Jenni and Marci, my old coworkers from oh so many years ago. Jenni and I have been friends for years, and I spent a lot of time with Marci (including a summit trip to India) before she went to Boston for work. She moved back quite some time ago, but since I no longer work at our mutual employer, I don't see her much. So, we got together at a wine bar (The Pour House at Polk and Bush) and caught up for an hour or so. They did the wine flights, but I confined myself to a single glass of excellent pinot noir (truly excellent -- one of the best glasses of wine I've had in awhile). They were both in good form, and I'm glad that we actually got together before the holidays. After we parted ways, I went to the airport to pick up Terry, and then she and I caught up at home for an hour or so before her bedtime.

And now I, too, must sleep; I'm going into lockdown hermit mode tomorrow, with no plans to see anyone, and I intend to keep it that way. Goodnight!

a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma, clutching a hand grenade

2011-11-16T00:50:00.001-08:00

I wasn't as productive today as I intended, but since that's always, always true, I should probably stop saying it. Remember my birthday goal of being nicer to myself this year? It's working out real swell, tanks for asking.

So I woke up this morning and worked throughout the morning/early afternoon, with a trip out of the house to grab lunch at Morning Due since I had nothing worth eating in the kitchen. However, when my parking ran out, I needed to vacate, and my errands on the way home took longer than I expected. I made an impromptu, utterly unplanned stop at Flax, my favorite paper store ever (except for Mai-Do, but Mai-Do is more Japanese paper and cutesy stationery in a tiny shop at the mall, while Flax is a gigantic art supply store sprawling across a warehouse-size space). I make my own notebooks these days, and while I have enough plastic covers and rings and paper options to outfit a small army of writers, I was out of pretty paper to use for the interior covers. More detail about my obsessiveness than you wanted, I know. But I bought some utterly awesome paper that will keep me in covers for awhile, and also a small mat and a rotary cutter so that I could cut the covers for my smaller notebooks (since I no longer work for my former employer and so don't have access to their industrial strength paper cutters inexplicably on every single floor even though most people don't have anything to do with paper during their day to day work). And I resisted buying an awesome red fountain pen, so I consider it all a victory.

I then stopped at the grocery store to buy stuff for dinner, came home, put my pork chops in the fridge to brine, and did a bit more work. However, at that point I was running out of steam, and I hit a wall with a scene in which I realized the motivations made no sense and the whole book could be resolved if Malcolm and Amelia just had a sensible conversation over tea instead of arguing excessively. Damn damn damn. So my storytelling side needed a break to work my way out of this dilemma, and I took that break by making an elaborate dinner, violating my personal rule about not drinking alone, and watching the first four episodes of this season of NCIS: Los Angeles. Dinner was a repeat of last week's elaborate dinner (pork chop + risotto), but I bought better, thicker pork chops this time, and it turned out quite delicious (if a bit undercooked, although that made it tasty; if I die of trichinosis, I brought it upon myself). Since I had to open a bottle of wine for the risotto, I proceeded to drink two glasses of it, which I rarely do by myself since there seems to be such a slippery slope from frustrated writer to alcoholic writer -- and the level of pleasure I got out of self-medicating tonight is precisely why I very rarely indulge (alone; last weekend was all the proof you need that I'm quite capable of indulging with others).

Of course, NCIS: Los Angeles was self-medicating too, but it was fantastic; I really like that show a lot, and the backstory that is slowly being doled out about Callen and Hetty is super intriguing. I may have to pound the remaining episodes before I go back to Iowa so that I'm caught up for whatever I might see there (CBS programming and all that) -- but since I have a fucking book to finish in the next six days, perhaps I don't have time. Sigh. So I really should go to bed, get up, and get to work. At least I forced myself to take a break between episodes to fold clothes, clean the kitchen, do the dishes, etc; without that busy-work to distract me, hopefully I can get a lot done. And I think I figured out how to resolve my plot dilemma, so forward progress shall be made. Goodnight!

you couldn't be that man i adored

2011-11-15T00:50:00.001-08:00

It's hermit week, and so I have nothing of interest to say. I went to Palo Alto this morning to train with Alyssa (who was rather brutal to me since I'm canceling Wednesday's session in honor of my hermitage), then showered and ate a salad at the gym before going off in search of someplace to work. I started at Philz Coffee, and one of the highlights of my day was trying a different coffee than I usually get; today I tried Jacob's Wunderbar, and it was quite wunderbar (as zee Germans say when something is wonderful). So I worked there for a couple of hours, debated going home, and instead went to Stanford library and did another couple of hours of work. After eating dinner at the CoHo, I made it home around 7:30 or 8, and I've worked ever since.

Boring, right? The last couple of hours weren't super productive, since it involved a lot of printing -- I'm printing out a fresh copy of my manuscript since a lot of the edits I have would go must better if I were working on a hard copy. But I should be ready to get productive tomorrow morning; I canceled the plan I had made for tomorrow, so I have the whole day to focus.

I also have the whole day to come up with more exciting things than I had to share in tonight's blog post, but you shouldn't hold your breath that tomorrow's post will be any more interesting. Goodnight!

took my love and i took it down, climbed a mountain and i turned around

2011-11-13T21:09:00.001-08:00

I'm blogging early tonight so that I can abandon the laptop, crawl into bed with my notebook, and write until I fall asleep. But first, I must say that I'm incredibly impressed (if I do say so myself) with how coherent last night's blog post was; it's almost like I wrote it without having had eight drinks beforehand. Whether it's good or bad, I don't know, but I've retained my ability to go big when the situation warrants and still seem at least moderately sober/coherent. Yay for me, right?

Still, this morning wasn't totally pleasant; waking up six hours after last night's fun times would have been brutal whether I had been drinking or not. A v. long shower helped me to recover, and I slipped into the best purchase I've made in months -- a pair of leggings that look and feel like a comfy sweater, making them a dressier version of sweatpants. Then, I took Terry to the airport and bid her a fond farewell before driving back to the evil city and having breakfast with Priyanka and Adit. Priyanka had wanted me to stay over last night, which made no sense since I was closer to my place than theirs, but since I went over for breakfast it was like I had all the benefits of a sleepover (morning family time) without having to sleep in my clothes and wake up looking like a mascara-smeared train wreck. Priyanka made me a delicious omelette while Adit played tennis in the park, and we continued to hang out when Adit and his tennis partner returned. The eggs helped me to feel more human, which was a v. good thing.

When I left their place, I came home and talked to my mother earlier than usual; she wanted to discuss bedding options for my room at home, and we talked about bedding for nigh on an hour (so for those of you who wonder where I get my bedding addiction and my obsessive planning, I present Exhibit A). We hung up around two p.m., and I had approximately ten minutes to take care of business before Katrina showed up. We had a prearranged date to go to Sephora to take advantage of my 20% off everything coupon. For me, this involved an indecent amount of money stocking up on moisturizer, mascara, and the other staples of my cosmetics wardrobe (since 20% off only happens once a year and is a great deal). For Katrina, who doesn't wear makeup, this was an opportunity to get a couple of key items so that she can dip her toes in the wonderful ocean of makeup.

She may not see it as the wonderful ocean that I see, but it was quite entertaining, even if the combo of our discussion before Sephora and our trip to Sephora took three hours. She bought me a coffee on the way home, which was much appreciated, and then we parted ways so that I could call my parents for our usual Sunday conversation. After talking to the parents, I tried to unwind a bit, ate the last of my leftover chili, and finally sat down to work on the manuscript -- and am not feeling it, since I still have a headache. So I tinseled my hair (so useful, right?), which helped me to unwind a bit more after an entire weekend spent in the company of others. I need some hermit time over the next couple of days, and I intend to take it.

And now, my friends, I shall retire to my bed with my notebook and see where it takes me. Goodnight!

i'm a freak, a star, i'm everything you are

2011-11-13T02:23:00.001-08:00

Mmm mojitos. I shall regret this in the morning, particularly since I must awaken at 8:45am so that I may take Terry to the airport. But mojitos, particularly those made by hipster bartenders in lovely, ironic flannel, are worth the pain that I shall suffer.

But as usual, we must begin at the beginning, even though the beginning is rarely as interesting than the ending (as was discovered by all the people at the party tonight who knew that I'd gotten a manicure (per the beginning of last night's post) but missed the spilling of half a bottle of red nail polish all over my couch (per the end of last night's post, which they apparently missed)). My beginning was rather early today, but I made it to Berkeley by 9:15am for the monthly meeting of the San Francisco romance writers group. My friend Vivi (not her real name) joined us, which was great, and the program today was a 'man panel' (a California Highway Patrol cop, a train engineer, a wilderness expert who happened to be female, and two firemen). Obviously, that was both entertaining and insightful. Also, I was elected VP of Programs for next year, which means I get to plan the agendas; this would be more of an accomplishment had I not run unopposed. C'est la vie; a political career must start somewhere, and mine is headed for the stratosphere, right?

After the meeting, we all stuck around for lunch, and I had a variety of wonderful conversations about writing/publishing, and also made tentative plans to have high tea in Sebastopol (which is not in Russia, its Russian name notwithstanding). Then Vivi and I hung out at the brewery for another couple of hours and pretended to work, but failed. Then I drove home and watched the Stanford/Oregon game, which was pretty much the most depressing thing that I've watched this year, so I shan't recount it.

I managed to regroup after the game, and Terry and I went over to Adit and Priyanka's (extremely) early Christmas party. They rented out an entire bar in SoMa, and it was fairly epic; it peaked quickly, resulting in an unnecessarily difficult to navigate crowd, but it was still quite fun. Clearly it was fun for me; I had five mojitos, half of a Hemingway daiquiri (my favorite drink of the night; too bad I spilled it while reaching for a slice of Domino's pizza that Lily ordered), half a glass of wine, and a shot of whisky. Really, I should be dead. Or rather, thank you to my liver for saving me from my self so often. Anyway, all the key players showed up - Adit and Priyanka (natch), Chandlord, Katrina, John and Jess, Folk-e-man, Peder (aka Timmy Timer), etc., etc. Many people left over the course of the evening, but I was part of the last ten who closed out the bar at two a.m., a dubious feat that I will disclaim all memory of in the morning.

And now, after taking a taxi home, I really must go to bed; 8:45 is going to come all too soon. Goodnight!

what if i avenge, what if eye for an eye

2011-11-11T22:43:00.001-08:00

I didn't write a single word today, other than a couple of emails and this blog post (which is still in progress as I type this, obviously, and could turn out to be complete crap - which seems likely, given how I've started it). I woke up around 8:30 and worked on publishing related stuff until it was time to leave for my gym session with Alyssa. I was a few minutes late due to the rain, but it was good to see her. The gym was super crowded today because the 1%-ers who train there had the bank holiday for Veterans' Day -- while I was getting dressed after showering, I was listening in on a delightful conversation in which one woman was gleefully telling another woman how she'd gotten invited to some dude's house in LA for Thanksgiving, and he has a butler and everything, etc. Great. Still, Alyssa was good, and I'm glad I saw her.

After I made myself cute (and Alyssa saw me after I was cute, which is rare since she usually has a client after me; she seemed startled at my showered, made up appearance), I went to Joanie's and had some eggs while thinking about what I need to accomplish over the next couple of weeks. Then I promptly threw the list out the window and went across the street to get a manicure. I picked a bold red (Affair in Red Square), since I have a ridiculously early in the season Christmas party tomorrow night, but it turned out to be a tragic choice for reasons which I shall enumerate shortly. Still, eight of my nails look great, so I suppose I'll take it.

After the manicure, I sat around and wasted a bit of time, and then met up for coffee with a Palo Alto author (Meg Waite Clayton, who wrote THE WEDNESDAY SISTERS and THE FOUR MRS. BRADWELLS). Alan, my old old boss (i.e. before the big boss) had been trying to get me to meet with her for ages, and I'd kept politely declining out of a combination of shyness and knowledge that we write very different stuff. But, he finally convinced me, and I'm so glad he did. She was quite lovely, and we talked for over an hour about what worked for her and what didn't in terms of publicity, interacting with readers, etc. It's always great to meet other writers, and it was a wonderful way to spend a rainy Friday afternoon.

When Meg and I parted ways, I checked my phone and discovered that tonight's dinner was suddenly at 5:30, so I sped over to Vive Sol and met up with Heather, Salim and Durand. They were all in fine form, and we generally reminisced and entertained each other over margaritas and a variety of Mexican delights. I got home around nine, and Terry and I watched this week's episode of "Bones"; I still haven't caught up on the last couple of seasons, which means every episode carries with it the chance that I'll find out who died at the end of last season, but I was v. pleased to see that one of my top three guesses (the prosecutor) wasn't the person who bit it.

However, in the middle of the episode, tragedy struck. While having coffee with Meg, I was fiddling with the lid of my tea and accidentally cut grooves into the paint on my thumbs, which was dry enough not to smudge but not dry enough to withstand cutting. Since I have my own bottle of that exact shade (Affair in Red Square, which I will repeat so that you grasp the impending horror), I decided to patch it tonight. I'd put on a coat, then let it set for a bit, when I reached for the bottle to give it a second coat. However, I hadn't screwed the cap back into place (which is rare, since I usually seal things like that), and so when I picked up the bottle, I accidentally flung it across the table and dropped it on the floor, where it rolled under the couch. Disaster, right? There were streaks of polish on the arm of the couch, down the side of both the couch and the end table, and on the carpet (luckily on my rug, not the condo carpet). Terry ran for the towels, and luckily my fingernail polish remover was gentle enough that we were able to wipe up the polish before it set in. So the couch and the table are fine, and it wasn't as awful as it could have been -- but I hope it warms up tomorrow so we can open a window and air out the fumes.

And now, I must go to bed; I have a romance writers' meeting early tomorrow morning, I intend to come home and watch the Stanford/Oregon game, and then I have to go to this Christmas party (ridiculous). Goodnight!

difficult difficult lemon difficult

2011-11-10T23:28:00.001-08:00

Today was one of those rare days that I spent entirely in the city; had I not gone to Chandlord's nearby slum for dinner, I wouldn't have left my neighborhood at all. I woke up at eight, accidentally fell asleep, and woke up again at 9:15. Then, I worked for a couple of hours before taking a shower, which seems to be my norm when left to my own devices. My agent had sent me an email requesting some information from me, and I also got an email from a publicist I contacted a couple of days ago about the potential of working together, so I spent some time dealing with both of those emails. Marketing feels like something I could theoretically do myself, given my background, but I also want to get this launch right, and this publicist was a publicity director at a variety of publishers for 20+ years before forming her own company. So I'm excited to work with her, and hopefully it will get my books some good exposure.

After dealing with all of that (and eating the last of my leftover risotto for breakfast -- I'm sad to see it go), I finally showered, got dressed, etc. I took a break around one to make chili for a late lunch, and the chili was just as awesome as it was the last time I made it. Then, I spent the afternoon alternating between writing notes/plotting out scenes for Malcolm and Amelia's book and despairing about my prospects. The despair lifted by the time I threw in the towel at 6:45pm, though -- I went on a salvage mission through the original manuscript and pulled out a whole ton of scenes that I can use/reuse/recycle and put them in the appropriate places in the new manuscript, and discovered that there are now only 10-12 scenes that I need to write from scratch. The rest can all be cobbled together, hopefully without any Frankenstein's monster scars, from the best bits of what I already had. If I'm diligent, I might actually meet my deadline of having a draft of something to share with my betas before I go home for Thanksgiving next Monday (fingers crossed).

I eventually had to stop for the night so that I could fulfill my promise to have dinner with Chandlord. I met her at her place, and then we walked through the fringes of the Tenderloin to eat at some Burmese place at Larkin and Turk (somewhat insalubrious, but I only made Chandlord cross the street to avoid upcoming crackheads once, so that feels like a victory). The restaurant itself was decent, particularly with the first salad that we ate, and we ordered way too much food because it was all cheap (which meant we then proceeded to spend too much). After dinner, we went to the bar that replaced Lush Lounge; it opened three weeks ago, and Vidya wanted to check it out since she had loved Lush, but it was mostly disappointing. The bartender was eager to please but couldn't pronounce curacao or grenadine, which made him seem somewhat questionable. Also, I ordered a mai tai, which he made completely differently from the ingredients printed on the menu -- which isn't to say that his was worse, just that going off the menu for one of the only drinks on the menu seemed odd. However, the bouncer went to the convenience store across the street and brought back pretzels and M&Ms for the bar, so that was nice, right?

Since neither of us were feeling the bar, Chandlord and I went back to her place, retrieved her DVD of "In the Loop" and my car, and returned to the generally dull safety of the Marina. Lauren (aka Subz) was here, having a similarly lowkey night with Terry, and so we hung out with them for a bit before Subz had to go home (since she trains with Alyssa tomorrow at seven -- sucker). I put the movie in, but Terry started falling asleep almost immediately, and Chandlord fell asleep a bit later even though it was her idea to watch it. So I rousted her from the couch and took her home so that I could go to bed myself. And now I shall do that, so that I may go to Palo Alto in the morning -- goodnight!

watching the throne

2011-11-09T23:28:00.000-08:00

I'm super sleepy, so this is gonna be quick. I was supposed to go down to Palo Alto this morning to train with Alyssa, but I canceled on her at the last minute; I woke up with a headache and didn't particularly feel like driving down, so I skipped it and got a whole bunch of work done instead. I still ended up going to Palo Alto later, but I was glad that I was productive (even if my headache never did go away).

I left home around 2:30 and went south, where I spent an hour-plus running an annoying errand (buying rubber bands/binder clips, then picking up a printout of HEIRESS from Kinko's, then going to the post office and mailing it while listening to a toddler have a fifteen-minute tantrum and ignoring his mother's ineffectual but loud threats to cancel the play date he was supposed to be going to after the post office). The errand was necessary, since I was sending a copy of the manuscript to get a possible review from Romantic Times (the magazine that I know you all wish you were subscribed to) and it needs to be there early next week. Then, I went to Starbucks, where I worked for another couple of hours and also randomly ran into an old coworker who ended up sharing my table.

The real reason I went to Palo Alto was to have a friendship renewal dinner with, Tolu, Joann and Jane; I didn't feel like driving down, as I mentioned before, but I didn't want to miss out on dinner with them since we might not get together again before the holidays. We went to Coconuts, a Jamaican restaurant that I was last at a couple of years ago (April 14, 2009, to be exact) during an earlier friendship renewal dinner. The drive was worth it to see them, and we had a v. lovely time discussing our respective lives for a couple of hours.

Now, though, I should really sleep; I have no plans to go anywhere tomorrow, which is so exciting, so hopefully I'll get some serious writing done. Goodnight!

you gotta crawl 'fore you walk

2011-11-08T23:37:00.000-08:00

I was pretty productive today, although I could have been even more productive had I not made what turned out to be an unnecessary drive to the glorious south bay. I woke up relatively early, did some work, showered, etc., and eventually made my way around my block to my polling place so that I could vote. My civic duty thus accomplished, I came home, did some more work, and then decided that a change of scene was in order. Since I was supposed to go to my writing group tonight, I drove down to Stanford and hoped that the library would revitalize me. However, after sitting for a couple of hours, I decided that my headache and cough were still too much to bear, and so I canceled on the writing group and drove home. I felt guilty, but since I can feel guilty over just about anything, I decided to forgive myself.

As I was getting home, Katie called, and we caught up for a lovely hour or so. And then I proceeded to work the rest of the night; my headache may well be stress-induced, and I'm trying to make great strides this week so that I can go into the week before Thanksgiving with a better sense of my manuscript. I spent some quality time tonight reevaluating where I'm going with the rewrite in an effort to make sure I'm not throwing out the baby with the bathwater, and discovered that I may be able to rescue at least a few limbs even if I can't save the entire thing. So, that's good news. And now, after a v. boring blog post, I shall go to bed and hit it hard again tomorrow -- goodnight!

i put my hands up in the air sometimes

2011-11-07T23:03:00.000-08:00

Mmm...today was lovely. I woke up in time to get some work done this morning, and I even wrote a page of Malcolm and Amelia's story before venturing down to the south bay for my training session with Alyssa. As I suspected, Alyssa tried to kill me after my week away, and my phlegm-filled lungs tried to assist her, but I survived. I'm actually feeling a lot better, even though my voice is still rough and I occasionally start coughing uncontrollably, so at least there's that. And my workout made my twisted ankle feel tired, but hopefully that will encourage it to return to its usual untwisted state sometime soon. Alyssa was in fine form and it was great to see her, so I'm glad that I went down despite my cold.

After the gym, I went to Joanie's and ate some delicious eggs (the waiter was v. surprised when I asked for eggs instead of a cobb salad, but it was just cold enough outside that I wanted something warm). Then, I adjourned to Starbucks and wrote for a couple of hours; I need to look at my notebook and determine how many pages I actually wrote, but I finished the scene I was working on and had a major revelation about one of the characters (which I may or may not keep - it's a big risk), so it was all good. I eventually abandoned the south bay and drove back to the evil city just in time to beat traffic, then went to the grocery store and bought a few ingredients to make something tasty for supper.

Terry is quite pleased that "Next Iron Chef" and "Top Chef" are both in the DVR rotation -- watching cooking shows always makes me want to cook, and I was seriously in the mood tonight. So when I got home, I read a few recipes from Bruce Aidell's "Complete Book of Pork" cookbook and put the porkchops I'd bought in a brine to enhance their flavor before cooking them. Then, I did some work for an hour before cooking supper, but the supper was relatively easy (albeit stir-heavy, so I spent half an hour over the stove), so it was quite nice. I made the risotto al barolo out of Mario Batali's cookbook; when I've made it for friends, they've loved it, but my parents were quite bemused by it when I made it several years ago. I didn't have any barolo wine, but the pinot noir I picked up at Safeway did the trick (so much so that I used a cup for the risotto, and then Terry and I polished off the bottle tonight). When the risotto was nearly done, I pan fried the porkchops, and it all came together at approximately the same time. I didn't do the recommended pan sauce after the porkchops since I didn't want to bother with it, but perhaps I'll try it next time.

The verdict was that the risotto was great, and the porkchops were quite tasty but perhaps overcooked by a minute (or they could have been brined longer; the cookbook recommended four hours and I brined them for two). Still, it was a lovely supper and I felt v. please with my accomplishments. Terry ate the risotto too, which was a score for me since she then volunteered to do the dishes afterward, and we sat around the dining room table and drank our wine and discussed life. Then we watched tonight's "How I Met Your Mother", and now I'm going to go to bed so that I can get up tomorrow and write (supposedly). Goodnight!

let's delay our misery

2011-11-06T23:05:00.000-08:00

The morning was lovely, but my energy has crashed along with my caffeine levels, so I shall keep this brief. It was rather a godsend that the time changed last night, since I'm not sure I would have survived going to brunch if it hadn't. While I certainly didn't drink as much last night as I did on Halloween, I still felt like crap, and dragging myself out of bed and into the shower required a Herculean effort. However, I left the apartment on time and sped over to my old neighborhood for brunch with Dontae, one of my former employees who wanted to ask me some questions about business/life. We were going to go to Mission Beach Cafe, but after I spent twenty minutes looking for parking and finally made it over to meet him, we were still well over an hour away from getting a table. So we promptly abandoned it as a lost cause and went to Chow, where we were immediately seated on the patio and enjoyed a delicious breakfast (and three cups of coffee, which started my rapid ascent and even more rapid crash).

After Chow, we went to Four Barrel for coffee, and the latte certainly didn't help my caffeinated state -- I was utterly twitchy by the end. But we enjoyed catching up on life while watching the unbelievable hipster scene happening around us, and it was all quite fun. We spent approximately five minutes talking about what he wanted to ask me and three hours talking about a wide-ranging variety of other topics, which was a lovely way to recover from my hangover. When we parted ways, I came home, took care of a couple of things, and led Terry to the observation that drunk Sara and overcaffeinated Sara aren't too dissimilar -- I'm still remarkably coherent in both states, but there must be some sort of wild look in my eyes that gives me away. The caffeine crash was abrupt and awful, and so I took a nap before calling my parents. Eating some leftover chili for supper helped to stabilize me, but I was still pretty useless and only managed to write a couple of pages tonight -- c'est la vie.

I did, however, enjoy some fine television programming with Terry. We watched last week's "Once Upon a Time", which is quickly becoming one of my favorite shows, and I can't wait to see tonight's episode. We also watched the Halloween episode of Craig Ferguson, which featured Zooey Deschanel (just a day or two before her separation from the "Death Cab for Cutie" lead singer was announced -- and there were markedly no questions about her personal life) and Neil Gaiman (who is my idol when it comes to being a superstar writer). We wrapped it up by watching "Next Iron Chef", which is absolutely astounding to me -- it's truly nailbiter television, to the point that Terry was curled up in a ball on the couch refusing to visually watch the end while I sat in openmouthed horror with my hands covering my mouth as the finale went down. They've picked ten amazing chefs (tonight got it down to eight) who are culinary gods in the kitchen, and the difference between victory and defeat can come down to a sauce being just a bit too thick. It's fantastic viewing for anyone who likes cooking shows, and I highly recommend. In fact, I think that after the new year (I would start now, but I just don't have time), I'm going to challenge myself to make one new, interesting recipe a week, since I love to cook and don't do nearly enough of it, and have also fallen into a rut when it comes to what I make when entertaining. I'm excited for it, and I think Terry's equally excited (as should all of you who want to eat the fruits of my labor).

And now, I must sleep; I have to go to Palo Alto tomorrow as per usual, and then write a million pages. Goodnight!