Boo!

Happy Halloween! Don't forget to share the good candy!

Blerg*

Fighting off a cold I can't let sideline me, not with Halloween plans for tomorrow with the wee munchkins, and wedding stuff this weekend. Still, I'm allowing myself to skip the gym tonight, and head home to watch some tv and go to sleep early.

Besides Halls Defense, with their handy blend of zinc, echinacea, and various vitamins, what are your time-testing solutions for battling a cold?

*For more on this very onomatopoetic word, read this.

A random quote from Cicero

Not to know what happened before you were born is to remain a child.

Although, I think I can love history, and still remain childlike!

Weekend Adventuring

Spent several happy hours over the course of the weekend adventuring in Middle-Earth with my hobbit burglar Tirra, human captain Tirawyn, and elven hunter Tiranor. Tiranor, who just hit 17, is the lowest level and is reserved exclusively for times when Doyce and I are on together. Tirra and Tirawyn (level 19 and 20, respectively) are both good for soloing, although they too have level mates among Doyce's stable of alts. I'm subverting the completionist part of my personality a bit, not doing everything on everyone, but rather picking and choosing the quests that are most entertaining, or which I know move the story along, and skipping some of the random "kill 20 bears" stuff. Nothing against bears! I have one on my hat!

What I like about LOTRO, compared only against CoH, is that there is a Epic thread which is the driving storyline. If you do nothing else, completing the epic quests will, presumably, get you to the end game. (I guess, if only because I'm only up to Book 1, Chapter 11, and there's something like 11 Books so far.) You can use the other quests to fill in the time between chapters -- for instance, when the epic quests jump from level 13 to level 19, and you need to do SOMETHING to raise your level. I'm struggling a bit with feeling overwhelmed with the sheer number of quests you can have -- 40's the cap -- but find that breaking them down into specific areas helps immensely. So, that's fun!

I also adventured out into the wilds of Forest Hills to attend a Halloween Party with the roomie and his gal pal, both dressed as pirates. Also in attendance at the soiree: Buster Keaton, one of his anonymous starlet costars, Bjork, a shadow ninja, some completely normal guy named Brian, a couple of Hogwarts students, a child molester, and the designer of the RPG we're playing on Thursday. That last one's for real, not a costume. I don't want to give away my costume yet, since I'm pulling it out again on Wednesday to head out to New Jersey and go trick-or-treating with my niece and nephew. Pictures to follow!

Is it just me...

...Or do almost all my posts lately begin with me apologizing for not posting more regularly? Sorry about that!

Maybe I'll just skip it, and get right to the good stuff.

I had a wonderful time last weekend at the Eden Writers Conference, and really enjoyed meeting the other speakers and the coordinators. In terms of picking up clients, I saw a few possibilities, but overall felt the conference (in its first year) had attracted a large percentage of very new writers who weren't quite ready to be faced with an agent. Still, I answered a lot of questions that I hope will set them on the right path for their future careers.

And that's what's mostly on my mind right now -- the future. Not just wedding stuff, but the whole shebang: moving, career, children, lifestyle, redecorating, packing, etc. Lots of stuff crowding my head right now, and I'm eager to get some of it out there in the big wide world.

Still, I'm practicing patience. Well... a little of it. I have plans, and I'm looking forward to implementing them, but there's a timeline I'm trying to stick to, though there are times I wish I could fast-forward. In the meantime, my sister C's wedding is a week from tomorrow, and I get to see Doyce in a tux! Woot! We're also hoping to get some pictures of both of us in our formal wear for a possible Christmas card/save the date announcement. Stay tuned!

Here is a sentence I may never have cause to type again

"Congratulations again on the well-deserved Nobel Peace Prize."

Then again, you never know...

Buzz off!

While off at my conference this weekend (more on that later), I got an email from Weddingbee that while they appreciated my application to be a bee (one of their bloggers), they didn't think I was the right fit for their site. Afterwards, I talked to Doyce about the decision, putting into words my reaction.

Basically? Though I hate rejection of all kinds, especially on my writing, in the last few weeks I've been rethinking my commitment to wedding blogging. I mean, it can be fun sharing little details of things my friends and family will get to see revealed on The Big Day, but I don't want to spend ages writing up vendor reviews, and detailing every last decision about a florist, or a cake. I mentioned that part of this new laissez-faire attitude may have to do with my sister getting married (in less than two weeks), but it's not about feeling bored with planning, or with the idea of getting married.

On the contrary. I've recognized that it's not about the flowers, or the dress, or the font on the invitations matching the programs. It's about celebrating together, a big party to start off a whole new life as a couple. We're not going to be a bride and groom forever, we'll be a husband and wife.

There was a lot of talk on the blogosphere about the NYC lawyer bride who sued her Upper East Side florist for $400,000 for the wrong color flowers at her reception, arranged in dirty vases only half full of water. What I took from the story? She was so concerned about getting the details right, she's missing the big picture.

I don't want to be that bride.

So while I'll continue to enjoy reading Weddingbee, and paging through my Modern Bride magazines, I don't have any drive to do more than that. I enjoy the fact that our wedding planning is mostly done, and if I can arrange the final details from afar, while already enjoying some of the post-wedding life, all the better!

America's pretty! (Part Deux)

On the road from Eden, near Snowbasin.

Working weekend, and a question

Heading out shortly to a writers conference in Utah, with a stopover in Colorado to pick up my sweetie. I'm looking forward to hopefully meeting some great new writers, getting to spend time with some colleagues, and of course, being with my bear. We've got an extra day to ourselves which we're hoping to take advantage of with some hiking.

But on to the question: I've been streamlining my office recently, and packing up some knickknacks for the eventual move to Denver, and recognizing that I do, in fact, have an AWFUL lot of knickknacks. Is it time to prune them down? And if so, what do I do with them? Throw them out, pass them to others, sell 'em on ebay? I'm keeping lots of things, but then there's stuff like this: What do I do with that?

Quote

Just found this quote in a comment on another blog.

Sure it's simple, writing for kids. Just as simple as bringing them up.

All you do is take all the sex out, and use short little words, and dumb little ideas, and don't be too scary, and make sure there's a happy ending. Right? Nothing to it.

If you do all that, you might even write Jonathan Livingston Seagull and make 20 billion dollars and have every adult in America reading your book.

But you won't have every kid in America reading your book. Kids will devour vast amounts of garbage (and it is good for them), but they are not like adults: they have not yet learned to eat plastic.

-- Ursula Le Guin, circa 1973

I like it. ***Dave, maybe for WIST?

This makes me feel much better about my library

Or rather, our proposed expanded library...

So, downstairs we're putting general fiction (alphabetized by author), then general nonfiction. Doyce has a separate section for game stuff, and we've agreed to reserve an entire shelf for Buffy and/or Angel books and collectibles. In my home office, I'm putting all my YA and middle grade novels, and adding my children's picture books to Kaylee's bookshelves in her room. I want to put travel books (guides and travelogues, as well as photo books and maybe photo albums) upstairs, perhaps in the living room, once we furnish that, cookbooks and entertaining and bar guides in the kitchen, and possibly journals and naughty books in the bedroom.

I always do what they tell me to do...

So, apparently, word on the internets is that we're supposed to post on our blogs today about the environment.  Which many folks have already done in much more cogent posts than I will likely write, so I will instead offer this tiny little way to help the environment I walk through every day -- the New York City Subway. 

 

Fellow straphangers - see all that trash on the tracks?  You know how sometimes trains are delayed because of refuse on the tracks, and we're all late to work (or getting home) while someone goes down there to clean it up?  You know what would keep this problem from occurring?  If instead of just DROPPING trash on the subway platform, or on the tracks themselves, we all actually used the garbage receptacles on the platforms.  Yes, I know -- sometimes those trash cans are dozens of steps away from you.  It's so FAR.

 

Suck it up, people.  Throw out trash in bins, or keep plastic wrappers and other stuff you'd otherwise toss on the ground in your pocket until you get home, or until you pass a more convenient garbage can. 

 

Or one of these days, I will follow through on my urge to pick up someone's dropped trash and give it back to them.

Report on Frankfurt

Grabbed from Justine Larbalestier's blog, this dishy report from The Guardian on the Frankfurt Book Fair, which delves rather deeply into the whole PFD mess in England. Chaos and woe! Unless you're a smaller or independent agent, in which case you might happily wait for the furor to die down, and calmly continue to go about your business. To close, a quote from one of Britain's top agents:

'No writer should ever go to Frankfurt. It's soul-destroying. You see writers being traded like pork bellies.'

EDIT: Another article on the fair, this one from The New York Times, which echoes the quote about writers. In this case:

In a brief moment between appointments Ms. Stein acknowledged that most writers would be horrified by the way their work was negotiated. "The last thing you want is for an author to see this," she said. "It's just so vulgar."

As I've said before, it's just not that kind of a fair. Hopefully, as I concentrate in children's books, Bologna will be different!

ZOO!

Someone told me it's all happening at the zoo, and after a trip up the Bronx Zoo today with Blooooooom, I do believe it's true! Highlights (given that I was with the Monkey Queen), were the Congo Exhibit (gorillas!), the monkey house (marmosets!), and Jungle World (bearcats!). Behold, pictorial proof.

First, a sleeping polar bear.

A red panda, also called a firefox.

Giraffe! There was a baby in the pen, too, about a year old. Not sure if this is it, or its mom.

Gorillas. We stayed and watched these guys for ages. Well worth the additional price of admissions.

A bearcat!

And finally, a little monkey guy. Can't remember his name, but I liked his trick with his foot. That would be SO USEFUL for doing my own toenails.

Huh

This has been a rather sucktastic week for blogging, huh? Let's see what happened...

Monday I was lazy, slept in, went to work, futzed around, came home, had geekfest. Turned into a tiger, ate horrible rats, or something. Also undead. Did not get to level 9.

Tuesday I was lazy, slept in, went to work, futzed around, had a nice lunch with some editors, went to the gym, but our Nia instructor couldn't make it, and the usual sub has a conflicting class on Tuesdays now, so NYSC gave us a dance teacher who knew nothing about Nia. I can't follow hip-hop moves, but gave it ye olde college try for 15 minutes before heading home early to watch Monday's Heroes and Chuck.

Wednesday I was lazy, slept in, went to work, futzed around, went to the Met Opera to meet a woman in the costume shop there who's going to alter my dress for C's wedding, found it it will be hella more expensive than I thought it would be, went to the gym, went home, played LOTRO.

Thursday I was lazy, slept in, went to work, futzed around, went to the library and had lunch with a friend, got SOAKED in a monsoon (but cold. A cold monsoon) on the way home, wrung myself out, watched My Name is Earl and 30 Rock with the roomie and his girlfriend, played LOTRO.

Friday I TRIED to be lazy, but someone woke me up early (8:45am -- I know, I get no sympathy), went to work, futzed around, went to lunch with a client, and am down counting down the hours until the end of the day.

What will I do tonight? Who can tell? Will the excitement around here EVER end?

Geekspasm!!

And now for something completely different. And awesome!

This is flat-out ridiculous

Utterly and total bullshite.

A Bonners Ferry woman says she was humiliated when security guards at the federal courthouse in Coeur d'Alene told her she'd have to remove her underwire bra to get inside.

Lori Plato said she was going into the courthouse for a court hearing Sept. 20 when the metal detector went off as she passed through security.

"When I walked through, the gentleman said, "'Do you have an underwire bra on?'." Plato said. "I said, 'Yeah.' He said, 'You have to remove it.' "

But there was nowhere private to remove her bra, she said. The guards suggested she go out to her car to do it.

Someone tell me who I have to write you to protest this ridiculous policy, and where I can call for the head of the idiot Marshall who does such a piss-poor job of explaining the policy.

Morons. We've got morons on our team.

Via ***Dave

Bugs!

I am not a fan of bugs. I'll just say it, peoples. I'm not going to beat around the bush here. Despite my early childhood adventures poking at roly-poly bugs, this is not something that still delights and intrigues the adult ktbuffy.

My least favorite Indiana Jones movie? The Temple of Doom. Why? Bugs!

But you know what I do like? Vampires.

So there I am, picking up an old Scott Westerfeld title, looking for a lovely book about vampire teenagers in NYC, hunting down other vampires, and what do I find?

Bugs!!

Worst than just bugs, PARASITES. That's right, bugs that live inside people!!

*Shudder* I tell you, after finishing that on Thursday night, I was looking forward to a bug-free Friday. I was very productive around the office, and came home to fun company and a planned night of watching movies.

Except, you know how we sometimes like to watch bad movies? Like, deliberately bad? Heinously bad? So bad they weren't so much released as escaped? Well...

We picked "Isolation." And there were bug-like creatures (you might even call them parasites!) that were hatched in genetically modified cows on the world's most disgusting farm.

So, I'm never ever ever eating anything rare again. Or going to an Irish farm.

Or, you know, looking at a bug.

Gah!

A good question

I try not to watch too many commercials, saving most of my tv-viewing until after the show I want to watch has originally aired by at least 20 minutes, so I can fast forward through all the ads. But sometimes, when the DVR gets stuck, I have to let some commercials play, and I caught this one line on a KFC ad:

So, what was the best thing that happened to you today?

I actually think this is a great conversation starter for a family dinner, and for a blog thread!

So, readers, what was the best thing that happened to you today?

I had a conversation with one of my authors that was incredibly gratifying -- I'll say more later when I can. Besides that, I had an amazing lasagna at lunch at Osteria del Circo. Delicious!!

Garden of the Gods

As promised, pictures!

This is just some of the beautiful scenery in the Garden of the Gods. I don't know how I thought it was made, but I was really interested to learn (by eavesdropping on a tourguide) that the Garden, and Red Rocks closer to Denver, were made when a big flood came along and lifted the natural ground rock to an angle, and then left it to sit there. Again, that's just what I overheard. I welcome any comments that want to tell me more! I love geology! (Actually not a lie. It's my favorite science.)
And this is, of course, the great rock climber Kaylee, ignoring all signs forbidding rock scrambling, taking a whisk to the limestone. You go girl!!

Catching up (on my reading)

So I did a bit of traveling this weekend, out to Denver and back, and while pictures will follow of our windy trip down to Colorado Springs and the Garden of the Gods, as well as of Doyce's adventures buying a tux, what I'm writing about TODAY was something I read in the one of the three Entertainment Weeklys I caught up on during the trip.

First of all, I was thrilled to see a review of BEFORE I DIE, a YA novel that wasn't by Meg Cabot (It's by Jenny Downham). No offense to Meg, who I have on good authority is an totally cool person full of the awesomeness, but there's a lot more YA out there, as she'd be the first person to tell you. So, yay, YA review! Then the reviewer says this:

Unfortunately, Downham's publisher has handicapped Before I Die by labeling it a young-adult novel, thus ghettoizing this gem to the back of most bookstores. It's a shame, because this book is vastly superior to most so-called adult novels with high-school-age protagonists that have been embraced by the literary establishment. (Curtis Sittenfeld's promising but conventional debut, Prep, springs to mind.)

I'm sorry, but "handicapped"???? I have to disagree.

There's a reason I represent YA and middle grade fiction, and that's a strong belief that the books we read as highly receptive kids and teens have a much more lasting impression on our lives than adult novels do. As for "ghettoizing" the book in the back of the bookstore, though I would love to see more teen books on the front tables at B&N, I can't fault the stores for putting YA books in a place where kids know to reach for them.

I do a lot of reading in my job, as you might imagine, and a good portion of it is reading manuscripts that someone thinks are YA, just because the protagonist is a teenager. Trust me, that's not the only requirement. If David Fickling, a brilliant UK editor whose eponymous imprint is publishing Before I Die thinks it's YA -- I trust him. Prep, for all it's being about teens, was not YA -- and though the literary elite lauded her, I don't know any kids who read the book.

Anyway, I'm looking forward to reading Before I Die -- and the many other wonderful YA books on my to-be-read shelves -- long before I'll pick up the next great literary adult novel.