i used to sail the deep and tranquil sea

Gosh, it's been a month again. Sorry about that. I've been busy, but work is finally starting to become more manageable, so that's good. The flip side of that is that I've taken on a bunch of freelancing again, so my evenings are more full than they were. The writing has taken a bit of a backseat, although I did recently pound through a project that will get its own post sometime soon.
Today, I want to talk about two books I read, and then two writers who I admire.
15) An Artificial Night by Seanan McGuire. I love this series, the October Daye series. Love love love. Toby is an empathetic character. I love how the fey and the human worlds interact. The writing is great. And this one in particular was terrifying and beautiful and overwhelming all at once. Blind Michael, the bad guy, really creeped me out, and I am constantly in awe of how far and how hard Toby pushes herself to take care of those she loves. I need the rest of the series ASAP so I can find out what happens.
16) The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman. Yes, it came out a week ago. Yes, I've already read it. And loved it. Deliciously creepy, this one, with many, many brilliant moments in it. I won't say anything at all about characters or plot, in case any of you darling people reading this haven't gotten your paws on it yet. I adore this book, like all of Neil's work, but I don't think it'll be my favorite. For as much as I loved it, I don't think I was in the right place for it. Which is a failing not of the book, but of mine.
And the authors: First up is Erin Morgenstern. I have rambled before about how great she is, and I really think that she is one of the best new authors I've read in the last several years. Her debut novel, The Night Circus, blew me away. I enjoy her blog on a regular basis. Last week I watched her interview Neil Gaiman at Symphony Space and she was charming and engaging. (And has great taste in boots!) Please, everyone, if you haven't done so yet, please pick up her novel. I promise you won't be disappointed.
Second up is Kat Howard, who hasn't even had a novel published yet. Five years ago she attended Clarion, a writing workshop. Since then she has sold several short stories, some of which she has links to on her blog, and I believe she has a novel under contract. I love finding authors this early. I love watching them grow. I love their excitement as their career takes off. It's so uplifting and heartening, and I love reading about Kat's journey in particular (she blogs here) because she's so honest and upfront about things.
I would love, in my heart of hearts, to take both of these women out for tea sometime and just ask them questions about their writing habits, about what books they love and why, about how they grew into the writers they are today. And maybe (fingers crossed!) someday, I too will be a writer new on the scene, so vibrantly excited about things and alive, just as they are now.

i wanna hear what you want

Lately I've had a difficult time with the blogging. I get here and I'm not sure what to say so I just natter on about unimportant things. To-do lists and weather and etc. Or I get here, I stare at the blank space on the screen, and then I leave again because I just don't have it in me that day. I want this blog to be a space I spend regular time. I want to talk about my writing, and what I read, and weird dreams I have. Maybe it'll pick up for me after this weekend. I'll have more free time again, I think. Is there something more or different I can do to facilitate more comments and discussion here? I know there are a few of you lurking out there reading my entries. Longer book reviews? More about my writing? Fewer weird dreams? Let me know. I like to think that a blog can be a good place to foster community and interesting discussion, if we want it to be.
A book: 14) Bloodangel by Justine Musk. I thought this book was great; it really got under my skin. It's paranormal fiction, dark and edgy and a little bloody. It's not your typical vampires and werewolves and etc. It's about a young painter with strange dreams, and a teenage orphan, and a washed-up guitarist, and how their lives intersect. The language is great, and it's well-balanced between action and introspection and exposition. I'd recommend this one to anybody who likes paranormal fiction; I enjoyed it enough that I looked around for other books by her.
Time to get back to work. I'll be back next week to talk about what I want to do in June. Blessed Be!

you're the prayer here inside me

Another two weeks of me being silent. Sigh. Well. Even though it's not obvious here in blogland, progress is being made. I finished the first draft of the short I want to use for my application to Viable Paradise. It's off being read by a few people right now so I can get some feedback. Work has slowed down some. Still busy, though. Summer is rapidly approaching, for which I am thankful. Mostly because of summer Fridays. While at the new job I get half-day Fridays instead of every other, it'll still be nice to have lengthier weekends. I'm really trying to keep the freelancing to a minimum, and still working away at my non-freelance to-do list. I want very few commitments this summer other than to write and make music.
Anyway, two books:
12) The Clockwork Princess by Cassandra Clare. This is such a good ending to the Infernal Devices trilogy. Everyone suffered, some expected things happened, some unexpected, and in the end I'm happy with how things worked out for Will and Jem and Tessa.
13) The Poison Eaters by Holly Black. This is a collection of short stories by one of my favorite writers. Holly knows how to craft a good story and interesting characters. That said, I felt like the collection was a bit uneven. None of the stories were bad, but I found some of them much more interesting than others. But it was a good read and a keeper.
And now back to work. It's taken me half a day to peck this out around work things. Blessed be, everyone!

drive another nail in

Remember me asking the universe to take it easy on me? Well. I came down with a sinus infection RIGHT after that. Really, April has not been my month. 2013 hasn't been my year. But I'm determined to not get bogged down in negativity. To keep trying to make things better.
The new job is still good. I'm moving into a slightly bigger office tomorrow, so that's exciting. I'm working on some fun books. I still think everybody's nice.
As far as the April to-do list goes, I have done some brainstorming on the next novel. I don't have it all figured out yet, but I have a start. There's more I need to suss out before I can actually start writing it, but that's fine because I've got another draft of the ghost/witch project to get through first. I've worked on the short story and the synopsis, but not the query letter. Maybe I can get to that this weekend. The first draft of the short story isn't done, but all I really need is a day or two with some solid time on it and I'll have a draft. Still proofreading, so that copyedit will wait until May. And I've made a lot of progress on the spring purging, but not so much on the cleaning. I've sorted/organized pretty much everything in my office. One or two more evenings on that, and then I'm moving on to the bathroom cupboard. Very exciting!
A book for you: 9) The Clockwork Prince by Cassandra Clare. This is book two of the Infernal Devices trilogy, and I don't want to get spoilery for those of you who are intending to read these eventually, so I'll just say I feel bad for Will, and am cheering for Jem, and am frustrated with Tessa. Good books, if you like YA and/or urban fantasy, you really need to check out Cassie Clare's work.
I need to get back to work. Things to do, and I need to get organized for switching offices tomorrow. Happy Monday, everyone!

am i drinking this bottle?

I feel like a broken record this year. Still busy, still stressed. Done with band until the fall. Done with my second draft. This month:

• brainstorm about new novel
• work on one short, and query letter and synopsis
• proofread a book
• dig in to a copyediting project
• spring cleaning/purging

I think that's enough. Don't you?
Two books:
7) Beautiful Creatures by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl. I really enjoyed this one. First book in a YA paranormal trilogy, but the narrator's a boy, and he's normal. There was a lot to enjoy about this one. Some really fun characters, Civil War history, and a different take on witches. It was also refreshing that there were no vampires or werewolves. I'm looking forward to reading the rest of the trilogy.
8) The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters by Gordon Dahlquist. This book . . . I can't honestly tell you whether I liked it or not. I'm not sure. I really enjoyed some of the snappy writing. But sometimes I felt like it was winking at the reader. A look-how-clever-I-am sort of feeling. I liked the main characters. I liked the sumptuous feeling of the book. But I was a bit confused occasionally (which perhaps is due to my lack of consistent reading time) and don't really feel compelled to seek out the other books in this series.
As most of you probably already know by now, my purse was stolen on Sunday while I was playing my pool match. I've mostly taken care of things at this point; I really just need to replace my driver's license still. But I lost two writing notebooks when my purse got taken, and that really angers me. It's been two days now, and I still have a lot of emotion about this. Not to be dramatic, but I feel violated. Some asshole felt like he had the right to take my things and do what he wanted with them. Some asshole took off not just with my money, cell phone, and driver's license, but with two notebooks containing ideas, bits of poetry, friends' email addresses, autumn leaves, titles of books I want to read, etc. And I'm sure those notebooks (not to mention the purse) just ended up in a trash can somewhere. Which infuriates me. (I'm not even going to delve into what a mess I was yesterday between dealing with replacing stolen things and watching the coverage of the bombing at the Boston Marathon. Some days human society just completely disgusts me.) And it'll take me a while to feel comfortable at that bar again, which sucks because it's not their fault and because I'm there regularly for pool.
Hey, Universe, you think you could take it easy on me for the rest of 2013? This whole year so far has been pretty stressful, and I'd like it to ease off a bit.
Back to work for me, it's a busy day. I'll write again soon.

i've been a bad, bad girl

I just realized it's been a month since I last posted here. A month. I didn't mean to let the blog slide for so long, but things have been hectic. There's been freelancing, and extra band rehearsals, and pool nights, and long hours at the day job, and my birthday. So, in a nutshell, here's how I'm doing:

• Band: Two long days left, then I'll be done with this until autumn
• Freelancing: Still struggling to get things done, but I don't have nearly as much of this going on as I did in January/February, so that's progress
• Day job: Still enjoying the new job quite a bit. Good books, good people.
• Writing: Inching toward finishing this draft. I've gotten some great feedback so far. I have two chapters to finish revising, then I'll likely let this sit for a month or so while I think about how to approach my next revision.

So that's that. Progress, but still busy. In the next two weeks I want to finish a copyedit, finish my second draft, critique a friend's book proposal, and get my taxes done. If I manage more than that, great. But those are the goals.
Books. I've read a couple. Here's what:
4) Hammered by Elizabeth Bear. As always with Bear's books, I loved it. Great, gritty near-future sci fi. More, please! I need to get the other Jenny Casey books so I can devour them.
5) Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh. This is also a great read. It's different for me; it was originally published in 1945, and I tend to read more contemporary books. But I quite enjoyed this; the language is great, and watching the Marchmain family slowly fall apart was fascinating, if a bit depressing at times. I know that might not be the best sell, but really, I encourage all of you to give it a try. It's a good book.
6) The Tellers (draft) by John Hague. Since this is unpublished I won't talk about the story itself; I'll just say that I think the edits are going in the right direction, and I enjoyed reading this quite a bit.
On that note, I've got to get back to work. I'll be back soon, after my band season is over. Blessed Be!

before the day is done

(WARNING: This post contains discussion of sexual violence.)
I'm going to be honest. I've been struggling so far this year. Some of it is internal: stress and new job and too many deadlines and a lot of emotional commitments and just AGH. Some of it is external: new job (yes, that counts both ways!) and old job and freelancing and what's been in the news lately. Today really got me; I was catching up on Kat Howard's blog, and hit on this post, which led me to Amanda Palmer's blog, and then on to news articles about Steubenville. And then I got really, really angry.
How can people treat other people like that, like they have a right to do whatever they want? And the bystanders . . . people were taking photos. Videos. People were uploading photos to the Internet as the abuse was happening, but nobody HELPED her. What is wrong with America that we raise our children to stand back and document the wrongdoing but not do anything to stop it? And that reminded me of that poor man who was pushed onto the subway tracks in front of the train in December. People took pictures. Nobody tried to help him.
I could go on and on about this sort of thing, about how I often feel like women are in an abusive relationship with America due to the prevalent rape culture in our country, about how so many of us have been abused but that doesn't make it right or okay or acceptable. But I think that my earlier anger short-circuited my brain a bit. All I am now is sad. Sad that a teenage girl can't be safe at a party with her friends. Sad that so many of us have to endure bullshit like that. And I don't want to be sad. I want to do something about it. But what? Does anyone out there have any ideas? How do we combat this sort of behavior? What do we do?