Guest blogs!

Hey, guys, just a quick little bit of pimpage: I’m guest-blogging over at the Lyrical Press blog today, talking about author fatigue and how to write past it.

Good lord, I’m a wordy bugger.

Also: not too long ago one of my authors, Jason Beymer (author of the upcoming humorous fantasy ROGUE’S CURSE), did a great post on character development and how he finds inspiration for his characters. You should go check it out. (And be nice to him. He’s funny.)

Watch this space for some other guest blogs soon, as I cajole my authors and my fellow Lyrical editors into speaking up. (Cynthia, I’m lookin’ at you.)

I keep meaning to update with photos of my nifty new Sony Reader Touch Edition and faff on about how awesome it is, but every time I talk about the thing I sound like a product shill. Bleargh. Well, here, a couple of blurry photos snapped off on my G1 phone, with the thing on my messy, disorganized coffee table:

Man, do we need to vacuum.

That’s the Pixie skin from DecalGirl.com*, crap about my student loans underneath the reader, and Elizabeth Darvill’s BOUND BY BLOOD on the reader’s screen. Liz and Jason have been great sports about not killing me yet despite the volumes of edit notes I’ve dropped on them. Ashley has yet to find out what she’s in for, but she will. [insert innocent smile here]

What else, what else…OH! One other thing: The latest book in Diane Duane’s YOUNG WIZARDS series, A WIZARD OF MARS, released this week. It wasn’t due out until early April, so imagine my surprise when my preorder showed up on my doorstep on the 23rd.

If you love Diane Duane as much as I do, get the damn book. Seriously. YOUNG WIZARDS has always held a firm position as my favorite YA series of all time, and A WIZARD OF MARS is a great addition to the collection.

……

…oi, that’s a lot of tags on this post.

 

 
*Random aside: DecalGirl has the best customer service. My original order was shipped incorrectly; they sent me a skin for the Pocket reader, rather than the Touch edition. I e-mailed asking how to do an exchange, and they apologized and shipped a priority mail replacement the same day. It’s sad that it’s rare to see good, polite customer service, but it’s always nice when you run across it.

Just a little bit.

Right now, my Lean Cuisine microwave macaroni and cheese feels like the last meal before that long, slow walk down Death Row. I have about ten minutes before I have to go shower, tie my (now fabulous, thanks to Mohammed at Yehia hair salon) hair back, and wiggle into that penguin suit. Naturally, I’m spending that last ten minutes stalling and pretending it isn’t happening. So, you get to listen to me ramble about story crap.

Last night I barely got two hours of sleep, because someone needs to start using his Breathe-Right nasal strips again. (I kid – I’d have tossed and turned even without your snoring, love.) While I laid awake, I ended up browsing Amazon – and I found out that there’s a ninth book coming out in Diane Duane’s Young Wizards series. You have no idea how happy this makes me; the eighth book seemed to be leading towards some final conflict, although the plot description of the ninth doesn’t seem to indicate that it’ll be the last. I never preorder books, but I preordered A Wizard of Mars. I love this series; it trends more towards middle grade than young adult (by today’s standards, as opposed to when it was first published) but it’s one of the smartest young readers’ series I’ve ever read. It’s intelligently written and tackles complex concepts and problems while still retaining its innocence, wonder, and simplicity.

Speaking of YA, though…I tried reading Cassandra Clare’s City of Bones while sitting in the stylist chair letting Mohammed nearly yank my bloody scalp off. The setup is interesting, and the writing is pretty good in a rather lyrical way that reads more like impassioned, poetic fanfic than anything else…and it left the same cloying feeling in my mouth as fanfic. Imagine my surprise when I made that comment on Livejournal and someone told me that Cassandra Clare is a well-known fanfic writer who was embroiled in some huge scandals a few years back. Who’d have thought, eh? I don’t really do fandom at all, but I can tell fanfic-style writing. Makes sense, I suppose.

I may push aside my early prejudices and give it another try.

I do need to focus more on my own work, though. Last night Ken’s story wouldn’t leave me alone; I ended up working out some things focused around a new character in the series, and lingering on some things I had planned for Roman – working out the logistics, and expanding the concepts so they involve more primary characters than just him. As I plan things out, I’m seeing the storyline growing darker as Ken gets older, but we’ll see how that works out. Also, I’m scrapping the beginning I wrote before. It’s just…so overdone to start the first chapter with a dream sequence. I can keep the sequence and maybe work it in later, but I think I’m going to start the first chapter off differently. I have a few ideas, just no time to write them. Maybe this weekend, once I really get some bloody sleep. I just need to get through tonight and get through one more day of – ~shudders~ – work (it’s been getting bad again lately), and then I can relax.

Well, except for our tickets to see Aisha Tyler Friday night, but that’s definitely relaxing. I love the Improv comedy club.

…and their raspberry lemon drop martinis.

My time’s up, so I’d better go get ready. Bah. Well, I stalled as long as I dared. Wish me luck.

…and no. No pictures. I’ve gained weight since I moved due to compulsive stress eating, and I’d rather not have any of you seeing me looking like an orca trying to pretend to be a penguin.