Friday evening

Happy weekend everyone!

it's been a while

Sorry about that, everyone. Every so often, life gets too busy for this sort of leisurely pursuit! And, as always, I only have a minute before I have to run. Sometime soon I'll get around to blogging about the books I've read recently, and the two Broadway shows I've seen. For now I'll just say that life is good, although BUSY. Work is good, although REALLY busy. Thanksgiving was great, with my sister visiting as well as a surprise guest from Oregon. There is enough food still in my fridge to feed an army!
We're rapidly approaching the end of the year and there is still so much I want to accomplish. I need to remind myself that I've still got a month, and that's really plenty of time.
Well. Time to go meet a friend for a jaunt through the holiday market. I'll be back sometime this week. Happy December!

dreams

A couple dreams last night. First I dreamed that a bunch of people including me, my sister, and my parents were on some sort of spaceship that crash-landed on an alien planet, and we were trying to figure out how to survive. Scavenging for food and for debris from the crash, dressed in rags, that sort of thing. This older guy tried to get me to sleep with him but I ran off, and found a fridge mostly full of food from the spaceship, which everyone was really excited about. Then something weird happened and I was really briefly beamed home where my younger sister still was. I was in the house, and went into her room where she was going to bed, and there was a man there named Mr. Chebb who was staying with her to make sure she was okay (he had bug-eyes and these weird conical things coming out of his head). I sat down on the bed and we both cried and cried because she missed all of us and I couldn't stay. That dream made me really sad, when I woke up from it.
The second dream started with me just wandering the streets of some large city (London, maybe?). Then I went into a house that I somehow knew was my house even though I'd been gone for years and years. There was a teenage boy in the shower and I knew he was my twin brother, even though I was a good decade older than him, so I called out that I was home and he knew it was me but told me to fix myself, or something. So I left and did something to turn myself into a teen again, and my brother was very excited when I came back the correct age but was still in the shower. So he told me to go into the back room and check the reflection in the mirror. Which, of course, I didn't do. I went to the front room, it was a bedroom with a little closet of a bathroom attached. It was dim in there, and I sprinkled some sort of powder into the water in the toilet bowl and had a vision of flames. THEN I went to the back room and looked at the tarnished mirror on the wall (the whole place was very lovely with a slightly Eastern feel, but sort of decayed and tarnished). I realized that I could trigger the room's memories, so I did and the memory showed this pull-cord coming down from the ceiling so I asked the room to let it down now and it did. I pulled the left-hand tab attached to the bottom of the cord. And down from the ceiling dropped a lantry, which is apparently a teacher spirit capable of some shape-shifting. It ran outside on all fours, had an excited back and forth with a dog out there, and told me what it was when I asked. Then it ran around the side of the house.
I wish I could remember more of both of those dreams. I feel like there was more to both of them. Maybe it was all really the same dream and I've just forgotten some of the transitional material? I don't know.
Anyway. Time to get home and get to the freelancing. Have a good night!

another friday

I can't believe it's November already! This year has gone by so fast!
I had lunch with a friend today whose book is out on submission with a bunch of publishers. I'm really excited for her! And talking to her about it really just brought home how much I want to get Nor out there. I need to make time to work up a query letter, and a synopsis, so I can get an agent. Soon, soon. I've got a lot of freelancing on my plate because of complicatedness at work, but overall I am really working on balancing my time better. I feel like I'm getting somewhere, slowly but surely!
Neil Gaiman blogged about Argleton, a town that mysteriously seems to exist only online. How intriguing, don't you think? That's just begging for some speculative fiction!
Recently I went to the Spectrum exhibit at The Society of Illustrators here in NYC. I love good fantasy art, and this was two rooms full of really amazing work. Some artists I really like contributed, like John Jude Palencar, Kinuko Craft, and Michael Whelan, as well as a ton I'd never heard of before. I wish I could copy and paste some of the art in, but that's a no-go, so you'll just have to go here instead.
I think that's going to have to be it for now, sadly. It's time to head home and get back to freelancing. The sooner I knock out some work tonight, the sooner I can work on that query letter. . . Have a good night, my sweets!

Happy Samhain

Happy Samhain, everyone! This is the pagan New Year, and we'll be celebrating in style with a nice dinner and a quiet ritual at my partner-in-crime's apartment.
Samhain is also the time of the year when the veil between the worlds is thinnest, so the dead can visit the living. We'll be saying some words for a couple loved ones who departed this year, and may well set places for them at our meal as well. This is the final harvest festival before we really dive into winter, so dinner will be seasonally appropriate food, along with some wine and/or mead. Milk and honey offerings for the fey folk, and carved pumpkins outside to frighten evil spirits away. Samhain is one of my favorite sabbats.
Blessed Be, everyone!

dreamscape

Twice recently I have dreamed of Neil Gaiman. The first time, I was leaving a reading he gave. I loitered around the door until I caught him coming out, and said something harmless like "I love your work," and he said thanks. I loitered a bit more and then approached him again. I can't recall what I actually said the second time (something about sushi, perhaps, since he has a fondness for it, or maybe just something brilliantly insightful about writing) but he told me to hang around the gift kiosk and pick a few things out. I could have them for free, and then when he was done speaking to people we would go have dinner. So I wandered the kiosk. I picked out a stuffed bear based on one of his books, and several graphic novels that don't exist in this world that he wrote. (I wish I could remember their titles, that would've been fun.)
The second time, I can't recall exactly. But I know it was about him again. Clearly, he's been on my mind. I'm reading The Graveyard Book by him right now, and it is so good! He really has this way with language. I just love it. I think I need to reread some of his other books soon.
Other things I've dreamed about lately: Books (specifically YA, shelves of them, the only two I can recall were called Under Brooklyn and Styx). A weird male teacher having an inappropriate relationship with four of his students (two boys, two girls). Don't think I'm too weird, please; the kids in my dream were into it. Last night in my dream my partner-in-crime was sleeping with one of my coworkers. My work spouse shows up semi-regularly, as does what-if boy. I dream often about looking for someone/thing, and sometimes about runnign from someone. I also dream about houses a lot. Really a lot.
I'll try to remember that other Gaiman dream. Any thoughts from anyone else on how brilliant he is? Or, if you have other opinions, please share those!

Yes!!

This afternoon, I finished my novel!! It's done!! PHEW!!! This book was a good two years of my life. Hundreds of hours. Four drafts. I feel really good about it. And now I can start planning my next project.
But first, on to the query letter. . . .