Mar 28, 2013

doctor. who?

You guys.

I have found a new love.

And its name is Doctor Who.

Seriously though. How long have I been out of the loop? I've been hearing bits and snatches about this British television series for years. (Though none of it really made sense. A flying police box? A Dalek? A sonic screwdriver?) I'll be the first to admit that I learned most of my basic Doctor Who knowledge from Troy and Abed's description of "Inspector Spacetime" in Community.

I'll also admit that I wasn't blown away by the first few episodes. But there are so many awesome Whovians in the YA community, that I decided to keep going. And I'm so glad I did.

Doctor Who is a storyteller's ultimate dream. You can choose any time and any setting. (Though I must say those aliens attack London an awful lot.) You can feature characters of any personality or race. Even the doctor changes personalities at times. Every single episode really does get your imagination going!

And, it's heartbreaking. But in a good, aching way. If that makes sense.

So if you haven't watched it--do. It's on Netflix Instant, so you have no excuse.

My puppy is--well-- not a puppy anymore. At least in body. Raiden is now a 55 lb adolescent. All beast and tooth and claw. His adult coat is coming in, which is wonderfully glossy and smooth. It's pretty cool to see how fast he's growing.

He's so happy after eviscerating his chew toy cow.

The home improvements have been few, but colorful. A new pillow here, a new curtain there. We actually bought our first laundry machine (I feel like such a real adult). It wouldn't fit all the way in our closet space, so we had to yank out the door to make it fit. I feel like the curtain adds a little more pizzaz anyway.



And now it is past my bedtime, so I bid you all a very good night.

Mar 13, 2013

ALL THAT GLOWS release date.

I have a release date. I HAVE A RELEASE DATE!

ALL THAT GLOWS will be on bookstore shelves on February 11th, 2014. Just in time for Valentine's Day.

So only 322 more days to go. Not that I'm, you know, counting or anything...


Mar 4, 2013

the puppy who wouldn't stop growing.

We now interrupt your blogroll for this post of cuteness.

(I know, 2 posts in a day, I might jinx myself).

I was looking over my (scant) recent posts and realized that I haven't posted many pictures of Raiden recently. He's an even bigger, fiercer ball of fluff than he was two weeks ago, when I last posted.

Have a look:


Raiden loves to sit under my chair while I'm writing, but I'm afraid those days are becoming rather numbered.


Here he is, all elbows and knees.


This is actually his brother, who we recently got together with for a puppy playdate. I'm amazed at how different they look. Diesel (his brother) has an almost entirely red overcoat!


Raiden is also good for snuggling and watching Dr. Who with me on the couch. It's a good thing he's so cute and cuddly, because this is what happened when we tried to start seedlings for a garden:


Can't you just see my eye twitching?

milestones.

Yes. I've been bad at blogging.

Scratch that. Abysmal at blogging.

How do you cure something like blog burnout? I don't really know. Mostly I feel like I don't have much to say right now. It's been a strange time, this wait between novel sale and novel publication. I mean, a lot of things have happened, but they aren't really things I can talk about on my blog.

However, one big thing did just happen that I can talk about.

I finished writing the rough draft of ALL THAT GLOWS 2.

YAY!!!

I started writing July 23rd (there was a two month break in there to work on a different project, as well as some time for the great house move).

5 months. 116,000 words.

Not bad. Only now I have to go back in and turn those words into something legible. (HA).

Writing this sequel has been a strange process. There were times when it felt like I would never actually get it all written down. My average pace is about 1,000 words a day (basically 4 pages or a page per hour of writing time).

Okay, I'm going to go celebrate my rough draft victory now.