just another sunday

I actually slept in today, for once. I know that sounds silly, but I tend to set the alarm for a reasonable hour, even on weekends. There are twenty-four usable hours in every day, you know!
Anyway. I had a nice lazy morning. Big breakfast, coffee, and a good book. (Okay, plus a little editing on my novel.) Speaking of, I've got several books to share:
57) The Magicians by Lev Grossman. I really enjoyed this book! Grossman starts with making fun of some contemporary YA fantasy concepts (think Harry Potter and Narnia), then goes on to turn those concepts on their ears. Completely entertaining. Both the story and the writing are good. I do have some small dissatisfactions with the ending, which I'm hoping will be adequately addressed in the sequel next year. But overall, I think this is a good book. Definitely a keeper. And I'll absolutely be checking out whatever else Grossman comes up with!
58) The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon. I'm surprised it took me so long to get around to reading this book. It is, on one level, a book about a book, which I always enjoy. More than that, it's a story about stories, and a very well-crafted one. The intertwined storylines are equally gripping, most of the characters are easy to empathize with (except for the bookstore employee, to me; he just irritated me most of the time), and the writing is lovely. This book is definitely a keeper, and I would definitely recommend it.
59) Kiss Me Deadly, an anthology of paranormal love stories. This was a fun read. Some authors I really enjoy---Maggie Steifvater, Melissa Marr, Diana Peterfreund, to name a couple---contributed to this collection, which is partially why I picked it up. I will say that I felt the writing in the collection was uneven, but not terribly so (I only skipped one story). For anyone who enoys paranormal stories or love stories or both, consider this one. It's a keeper for me.
60) Runaways #2 continues the story begun in the first book, about a group of teenagers on the run after they discover their parents are actually supervillains. In this one they encounter robbers, vampires, and good guys hired to chase them down! This is a fun series about superheroes and supervillains. Check it out; it's worth it.
61) Give Up the Ghost by Megan Crewe. This is a fun paranormal YA book about a girl who starts seeing ghosts after her older sister dies, and how she finally starts to spend time with the living instead of the dead. I was skeptical when I picked it up, but the characters quickly won me over. No one was perfect; they were all regular people dealing with regular problems. The high school characters were believably written; they weren't too extreme on the good kid or bad kid end of things. This isn't a keeper for me, simply because I don't know that I would pick it up for a reread, but I am sending it to my oldest goddaughter for her to read. I would definitely recommend this for YA readers.
62) Shake the Devil Off by Ethan Brown. This is true crime, which is a genre I don't tend to enjoy. However, this book was well researched and well executed, and was very careful to not portray the people involved in the crime as monsters. This is the story of Zach and Addie, a couple who, between the two of them, weathered time in the military, sexual abuse, teenage parenthood, alcoholism, and Hurricane Katrina, and didn't make it out the other side. Beyond the crime, Brown discusses a lot of research that has been done on PTSD, the willingness of military people to seek out help for things like PTSD, and the similarities between Iraq war vets and Katrina vets. This book really delved into the "why" of things, not just the "who" and "how." I may not be a true crime reader, but I'll certainly recommend this to anyone who is interested in any of the topics addressed within this story.
63) Little Red Riding Hood Uncloaked by Catherine Orenstein. This book delves deep into the many versions of "Little Red Riding Hood" out there and discusses the cultural underpinnings and representations of those versions. For someone interested in the study of fairy tale and folklore like me, this is a great, focused study on one of the best-known fairy tales out there. Orenstein deals with several widely varied versions of the tale, from the Grimm brothers to Perrault to Anne Sexton to porn to the movie Freeway. Definitely a keeper!
And now, I should get back to my to-do list for today. I've got to add several more pages to one of my radio play episodes today, do more packing for Thanksgiving, do a little freelancing, and hit a book release party in Brooklyn at 6:30 p.m. I'll try to get back here again before I fly away to Vegas early Wednesday morning, but don't hold it against me if I don't.
Happy Sunday!

if i seem to be confused

Last weekend didn't turn out quite as expected; I spent a fair portion of Saturday feeling miserable from some sort of twenty-four-hour bug, and Sunday recovering. While I did do some of the things I wanted to get done, it wasn't the relaxing two days at home I'd anticipated. Oh, well. Now my partner-in-crime's sick, and his is definitely more than twenty-four-hour bug. 'Tis the season, I suppose.
Tonight is a kid lit trivia night, which promises to be entertaining even if I'm not helpful to my team. Tomorrow night, a birthday party, and Saturday night, maybe a play. Social butterfly, that's me. One of these weeks I really am just going to stay home (except for the day job, of course) and write. I'm making good progress on editing the Superheroes novel, but I'd like to make faster progress. I'll get it done sooner or later, I know. I'd love to get it done before I go away for Thanksgiving. We'll see if I can knock it out by then.
On my lunch break today I bought a pair of Frye high heels. They're beautiful!
Tomorrow or Friday, I promise an update on books I've read lately, but for now, I've got to get out of here for trivia. Have a good night, everybody!

whenever i'm alone with you

This is me on the weekend with no freelancing to do. Thank goodness! The last couple of weeks were a disaster due to one project taking substantially longer than I'd estimated, and another coming in earlier than anticipated. Ah, well. The important part is that I got it all done. And I am determined to make this weekend lovely. Some good work time on Emmelina, on the Superheroes novel, and on the radio play. Some down time hanging out with my partner-in-crime. A birthday party to hit tonight, and then maybe a friend over tomorrow for a while. Sure, somewhere in there I need to do things like laundry and grocery shopping, but still, it's going to be a nice weekend. With no work!
I'm still torn on what to write next. I know, I know, I shouldn't get ahead of myself, but my brain always starts considering the next book at this point in the process. I've been talking about the witch/ghost series for a while, and I do really want to do that, but I haven't sorted out the overarching storyline for it, which I need to have firmly in mind before I can do much writing. And meanwhile, in the underside of my mind, a sort of Gothic noir urban fantasy is taking shape, all angular, rain-wrapped city buildings and gritty, narrow streets. Two of the characters are stalking me at odd moments. Here's the thing, though: I don't know if I'm a good enough writer yet to tackle that one. Maybe I just need to keep scribbling out notes on that one for now while I tackle the witch series.
Anyway, time for a quick breakfast and then a walk in the park with LG. Happy weekend, everybody!

Happy Samhain!

Happy Samhain, everyone! Tonight I will lift a glass of wine in honor of my friends, my family, and those who have passed on. I will set out a place at dinner for the spirits of my loved ones, and invite them in to join us at our table. I'll do a long ritual with candles, incense, and herbs, where I give thanks for the good harvest this year, speak with the dead, do divinations for the coming year, and cast out what bad habits and weaknesses I can.
Samhain is one of the two times of the year when the veil between the worlds is thinnest, which is why it is for communing with the dead and divining the future. In the myth cycle of the god and the goddess, this is when the god dies and the goddess mourns for him, but knows he will be reborn again at Yule. so it's a serious holiday, but not too serious. There will be pumpkin pie, and wine, and good conversation. And I can't wait.
Blessed be!

my honey bear is half full

Strangely, I have a cough. I don't feel ill in any other way. The cough has been present for three days or so, now, and I am already tired of it. Yes, before you ask, I am drinking loads of tea with honey in it, and taking my vitamin C.
Anyway. Slowly making progress on editing my novel and sending it out to readers for some outside input. I took on some freelance again recently, after doing the mother of all copyediting projects in September, so there's that. More money is good. And one of the projects is something I've been excitedly waiting for.
Samhain is right around the corner, all of a sudden! I need to sit down and have a good think about how I'd like to celebrate it this year. (I don't know if you all remember, but last year, my partner-in-crime and I fell asleep on the couch for several hours just after dinner, which sort of knocked out any ritual we were going to manage that evening!)
One book, quickly: 56) Kraken by China Mieville. Quirky, British, sort-of-surreal urban fantasy. But distinctly not what you think when you hear the phrase "urban fantasy." I don't want to say any more, for fear of spoilers when I may be giving this to someone as a holiday gift, so I'll just say that it's wildly different and interesting, and definitely worth reading.
There are other books percolating in the back of my brain. I managed to ignore them while writing the first draft of my YA superhero novel, but now they're creeping up into my forebrain again, whispering to me their stories. Can't I just take a few months off to go live in a remote location and write them all? Sigh. Soon enough, I suppose.
And now, back to the work, as there is far too much of it for me to shirk any more this afternoon.

more, more, more

That's the way life feels right now. There's just more, more, more of everything than I'd like there to be. I really just want to hide at home and at coffee shops fro a few days and zing through editing my novel. Oh, well.
Anyway. Lots to cover, not a lot of time.
On Sunday October 3rd I did in fact go to see Neil Gaiman in conversation with Dana Goodyear. He was brilliant, all humble and droll and creative, in a lovely British accent. He spoke about how some of his books originated, and some of what he saw when road-tripping around America to research American Gods, and writing a Doctor Who episode, and screened his eight-and-a-half-minute silent film for the audience, which has never been seen in America (outside a few illegal posts on Youtube, that is). I felt absolutely inspired by the end of it, both to seriously get down to business with my writing and to go on a road trip!
Two days later I went to a New York Review of Science Fiction reading to see Catherynne Valente and Seanan Mcguire. This was also amazing. Cat and Seanan felt like two sides of a coin, to me, two opposite approaches to life that somehow mesh and meld into a beautiful camaraderie between them. They're both good readers, with good sense of humor, and I really need to read more of their books.
This last weekend, October 9 and 10, I went to New York Comic Con. NYCC is surreal and overwhelming and just loads of fun. Two whole days of comic books and video games and too many Poison Ivys and lots of storm troopers and books and steampunk jewelry and inside jokes and costumes. Pretty great. I bought some comics, got some free comics, and bought some art, but mostly I spent my money on perfume. That's right. Perfume. Because, for the first time ever, I was at an event that Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab was also at. I was in heaven! I've adored their perfume for a while now, but it's so hit-or-miss to order from the website based on description. Here, I could smell anything I wanted to! I overloaded. I sniffed perfume for a good hour. It was fabulous. If you're curious, I bought Door for me, and Sunbird for my sister. And got loads of free samples for spending my hard-earned pennies on their wares. Seriously, I think that made my month!
Nearly time to head home, so I'd best get to the books . . .
53) Palimpsest by Catherynne M. Valente. Beautiful, lush, imaginative. Her writing just blows me away. I wish I could be half the writer she is. I need the rest of her novels. All of you, if you have ANY appreciation at all for a good fantasy novel, run to the nearest bookstore and pick this up. It's brilliant. Great characters, intricate world-building, and the language is some of the most interesting I've seen for some time.
54) Duff by Kody Keplinger. I'll be honest: I didn't have high expectations for this book. Young debut author, high-school material. It's not my usual thing, really. Which is why I was pleasantly surprised to find myself voraciously sucking this one down. It's a lot of fun! The characters are believable. The author, young though she may be, has a good sense of who she's writing about and who she's writing for. If you like YA stuff, this is definitely recommended.
55) The Prince of Mist by Carlos Ruiz Zafon. Having not read any of his books for adults (I know, I know!) I didn't have an opinion at all going into Zafon's first YA book. I enjoyed this. Good structure, good characters, good level of creepiness. I would recommend it to YA readers. But for me, I don't think it's a keeper. Mostly because I don't think I'll reread it. But it's a fun read!
And with that, it's time for my weekend to officially begin. Happy autumn, everybody!

Friday restlessness

I don't know about you all, but autumn makes me restless. It's just starting to set in; the warm weather staved it off for a while, but it's starting to undeniably get cooler out. Leaves are changing, storms are blowing through the city, there's a different feel to the air. It just makes me feel . . . well, I'm not even sure how to explain it. Like I don't belong anywhere, but I belong everywhere at once. Like there's a brilliant adventure waiting somewhere if I hop on a train and just go. Like there's too much and too little time all at once.
Anyway. One book to share, really quickly. 52) Rosemary and Rue by Seanan McGuire. I loved this gritty urban fantasy. If that's your scene, check it out! Apparently there are two more books out about the main character, October Daye. I need to get them. She's easy to empathize with, and believable. And I will admit, I totally didn't guess who the bad guy was until shortly before the big reveal. But you know, sometimes I don't want to guess. I'd rather be surprised. Anyway, great book. Definitely a keeper!
A couple strange dreams lately. One was several nights ago: I was staying in a huge swanky hotel, and I was some sort of investigator. I was prowling around through other people's rooms, looking through their stuff. In one room I found the dead body of a man in a business suit, only to realize that it was made of wax. Then I decided I needed to figure out why the death of this guy was faked, and by who, and who he was, etc. So I kept poking around. (I feel like there was something in here about a cat following me around. At some point there was also something about a huge staircase leading up tot he floors of rooms from the lobby.) Then I was outside, leaving I think, and this horse-drawn open cart pulled up, with two gypsy/circus folk in it, a man and a woman. She could tell the future, but didn't want to. I think she used a bowl of clear water or a mirror to do it. Maybe cards, as well? Hmm. Last night, I dreamed I was living in a big house that had a bunch of ghosts living in it. They were my family, who were all dead. Sibling spats, etc., like you expect when an extended family lives together. Anyway, these other ghosts showed up to try to press my family into servitude. I was hiding from them but trying not to leave or starve or anything. They saw me at the last, but I managed to lock them outside of the house so they couldn't get me. (I think there was a bit with a pb&j sandwich, and a particular sibling fight, under the spruce tree outside the front door. . . .)
This weekend is looking a little busy, but in a good way. After work today, going shopping with my friend K, then heading home to tidy up my radio play episodes and send them to the grand poobah of that project. Tomorrow morning is at-home stuff, then yoga at 10 am, then writing. Then grocery shopping, and then a new friend is coming over for the evening, hurray! Sunday I'm going to see Neil Gaiman speak at the New Yorker Festival, and I am so excited for that. It's going to be great. I may stand in line for him to sign something for me, for the first time ever. After that there's a Stone Brewery event.
And with that, it's time to get ready to jet. Have a good weekend, everyone!