When Worlds Collide

After Prophecy of Days sold last year, I started a new manuscript—a twist on a ghost story that involves a teen girl, her triplet brothers, and a Buddhist monastery. It's one of those ideas that came fully formed, and I'm not sure from where. I took a few classes at a Buddhist monastery in Seattle, but that was over a decade ago and I haven't set foot in one since.

Meanwhile, in my other life, I started a new job. When I applied for the position the company was in another building, and since accepting the job on July 1 and starting on August 12, the company moved to a great new space in Ashland. When I showed up the first day, I discovered that my desk looks directly at this:

Intrigued by the strange design, I went over at lunch to investigate what this oddly constructed building will be. I’d love to say I was blasé when I found it was the first newly built urban Tibetan Buddhist center in the United Sates, but I am wired to find synchronicity. Here’s a photo of what the finished construction will look like from the back, what I will see from my office:

Every day when I come to work I park not 20 feet from this jobsite. The eight or nine hours I’m at my desk I look directly at the construction. There are all sorts of cheesy metaphors that I could make between constructing a building and building a novel, or concepts I could apply to the writing process, like patience and attention to detail. But mostly I just like to watch this thing being built, piece by piece, day by day. In a strange way it has made me relax into the process of selling a book. And it’s given me a new, longer timeline—I like to believe that this manuscript will come to fruition at the same time construction finishes and the Tibetan Lamas move in. If I had to guess based on its current state vis a vis finished architectural drawings, I’d say it might be a while. But really, who can tell with these things?

Tears and Coffee

Today was Hank's first day of kindergarten!

Now I have two kids at the same school—a first!

Since we're just two blocks from Bellview it's a nice little walk.

I admit I teared up a little as I said goodbye. The teacher's aide helped me with some distraction so I could leave without making a scene. However, tears turned to joy when I went for coffee with Mom right after drop off.

How can you be sad around such a beautiful vehicle for caffeine? The accompanying Tartine with ham and thyme butter was camera shy but equally gorgeous.

Creepiness in the Woods - Redux

Do you remember a few months ago when I posted about the Cat Psycho at my Dad’s house? If you need a refresher, the post is here. Basically, he had left his house, which is in the middle of nowhere and protected by a gate with a code, to run some errands and when he got back his big black cat—still inside the house—was wearing a shiny new red collar. The same collar, in fact, that can be seen in a painting that is also inside his house. Nothing was missing, nothing was trashed. Which is, of course, the creepiest part.

Other odd things started happening. A sandwich that had been left for a moment outside would be relocated. Items would go missing and then return in odd places. They even called the sheriff at one point, but realized they sounded insane when mentioning things like sandwiches being moved around on the patio and cats being collared while they were gone.

For months, it remained a mystery of creepy proportions.

A couple of weeks ago, neighbors up the hill came by to say they were moving. Something about a new job and better care for their daughter, who, they finally confided, was schizophrenic. These neighbors mentioned they couldn’t take many of the potted plants they had outside and invited my Dad to go by and pick them up if he wanted them. Once the neighbors were gone they went over to get the plants. It was then that they noticed that a small section of fence near the back of the property was missing. They went to investigate and found a path through the woods that led—you guessed it—right to the edge of my Dad’s acreage. From the looks of the trail, the girl had been on the path trhough the woods hundreds of times.

It makes sense now: A mentally ill girl trapped with her parents on a mountain looking for something interesting to do. They had been there a couple of years and you have to wonder how many times the girl had watched them from the woods, let herself in to their house, walked around among their things, left with something small and meaningless.

The question is, what would be worse—never solving the mystery or realizing that you’d been watched for years?

Easy Bake

One of the great things about having kids is the nostalgia for one’s own childhood that comes with the various phases that roll by. For instance, as a child I was the number-one fan of the Easy Bake Oven, which is saying a lot considering I didn’t even own one. My friend Holly had one and every time I went out for a sleepover I’d lay awake sending her a singular telepathic thought: Wake up and give Christy your Easy Bake Oven.

It never happened.

My joy in making tiny baked goods in tiny cookware has not diminished in the decades since I coveted Holly’s oven, so when my daughter’s Easy Bake phase was in full force I was all over it. We’ve had frog phases, fizzy experiment phases, and Lite Brite phases, all of which I’ve enjoyed. But this new phase was one I’d forgotten all about and it brought back waves of joy: the paint-by-numbers phase.

My sister is an artist and yet I have absolutely no skill when it comes to drawing or painting. I’m decent with visual design, but if you asked me to create any piece of fine art you’d assume I’d done it left handed. And blindfolded. I’m simply incapable of translating what I see to the page or canvas in pictures, which is why I found so much comfort in paint-by-number kits as a kid. It was pure magic, the way you could follow the formula and end up with something that, to my young eyes, looked completely professional.

Being able to produce a painting of a lighthouse or a fawn was like all of a sudden knowing how to perform surgery or fly an airplane – a skill that had been completely out of my grasp was now within reach. Of course, it was an illusion of skill but does that matter? I can’t decide if it does or not. I just knew it made me happy.

I think I’ll give it a try this weekend. And I might pull out the old Easy Bake while I’m at it.

I am datum!

I am swooning, literally.

I'm actually physically dizzy because I just saw my name in the Library of Congress! I don't think anyone has ever been this excited to be datum! I know I must seem like a total dork to get so excited about this, but honestly getting my ISBN and being in the LOC database has been what I've looked forward to more than holding an actual book in my hands...

Cover Tease....

I got to see my cover this week! After hearing many stories of disappointment from fellow authors who have hated their covers, I have been really, really dreading the moment when I got the cover art. So when I saw an email from my editor titled "POD Cover” I gasped. Then I yelled for Scott and the kids to come in with me while I opened the file.

First there was this:

Hi Christy, We had our cover meeting today and everyone fell in love with the cover that’s attached. It was done by Kevin Brown (did I mention he was the cover artist I was hoping would do this?) and I think it’s stunning.

I really love this. It incorporates a lot of different icons from the book (the Three Hares, the Fraternis tattoo, the Tzolkin sigils, the Scottish rings) and gives us a good look with which we can continue in the second book. It’s got that ominous quality to it which I think will work well to sell the more mysterious elements of the story. Thoughts?

And then I opened it. We all screamed, “Cool!” at the same time, which I think is a good sign. Plus, there’s foil involved. Shiny!

It’s probably not for everyone. I hope there are teen girls who will appreciate mysterious and ominous over light and pretty. I certainly do, but I am also quite odd.

I wish I could show you now but I’ve been instructed to wait two weeks for final art. What was revealed was just one of the concepts presented at the cover meeting so now it goes for polish and perfection.

Believe me, the minute I get a finished .jpg it will be all over the place!

I'm up in the cupboard, right behind the flakes...

I saw this on PR Newswire:

"Brain Injury Survivor Recovers, Releases Novel on 2012 and the Mayan Calendar"

I wonder how they'll position my release.

Inspiration v. Aspiration

I’m back. Arrived home late last night to a massive, low-slung moon and a clear sky full of stars. I’ve been away for almost two weeks; long enough to miss the summer scent of Oregon, miss seeing the mountains we’re tucked below, miss the soft cheeks of my kids.

The conference was exhausting but crucial. In years past I’ve always focused on the “craft” sessions, taking away loads of inspiration for writing. This year I attended the ProTrack (sessions for authors who are published or in the process of getting published) and the focus was different—it was all about the selling and marketing of a book. So instead of leaving inspired, I left with lists of things I need to do to have my books succeed. The list is long.

But today I am going to enjoy being home. I won’t think about niche markets or Bookscan or whether B&N will like my covers. Maybe we’ll go to the lake or the park or the ice cream shop. Maybe we’ll barbeque and have a picnic under the big Sweetgum tree that shades our patio.

Here, the possibilities for inspiration are endless.

SCBWI Update!

I’m here! Arrived Thursday night and had drinks with Paul, Graeme, SarahFrances, Katie, Shelli, and Kimberly. Then got up at the crack of dawn to register right when it opened - I was dying to see which editor I have for my manuscript critique. I nearly fainted when I saw it was Wendy Loggia, Editorial Director of Delacorte Press at Random House, one of the biggest editors here. Now I’m terrified that I have to talk to Wendy Loggia at 8 AM...

But onward! Sherman Alexie gave one of the best speeches about writing and books that I’ve ever heard. We laughed, we cried...then we bought very book he’d ever written.

Then I went to Wendy Loggia’s talk – you know, sort of pre-critique stalking. Loved her. She’s very warm and charming and not too scary until you start to remember the massive number if bestsellers she’s edited.

Now for the best part of the day: Lunch with the YA Bloggers Khy, Catt, Alicia and Vania! All of the Tenners here at the conference met them at Pink Taco and as we were gathered around outside they were so into the authors that they did not even look twice when Magic Johnson and his entourage walked right by us into the restaurant. However, Lindsey Leavitt and I nearly peed ourselves.

KHY WITH MONKEY

These young women who review YA books online wield a lot of power, but they are the sweetest people you will ever meet. Khy even made personalized gift bags for everyone! We all nearly cried when we received them, and one author quipped that her husband wasn’t even this thoughtful. My gift bag included Mayan cacao powder, Mayan worry dolls, a castle that grows 600 times its size in water, a corn husk (because I love the smell of corn husks!), an amazingly cute monkey, and a mini book on origami (in my book, the monkey communicates through origami). Khy did this for every author there and we so appreciated how much time and energy she (and her beautiful mother) put in to researching us to put together just the right bags. Thanks again, Khy!

It was a blast to meet Catt, who gave me my first WoW review and also became the first person ever to ask for my autograph! Catt, you are amazing! Thanks to all of you who came to the lunch to talk with us.

CATT & ALICIA

The evening was great fun reconnecting with old friends. Today is a full day of sessions plus a luncheon for the “published authors” here. That’s a table I’ve always wanted to join and I’m pinching myself that the dream is coming true!

No writing, but lots of fun!

We’ve been busy here in Estes Park – chasing Pikas, hiking, ghost hunting… My eyeballs are too fried from a day at the lake to type much, but I’ll post some pics.

Beginning our hike around Bear Lake

Juliet spotting a big Rainbow Trout

A Pika spotting us!

What started as a 1-mile hike tuned in to a 6-mile hike. The kids were troopers, but Hank did need a lift here and there.

Hitting the Stanley Hotel for some ghost hunting

Communing with the ghosts!

Edits, check! Ginko, check! Ghosts, Check!

I just finished my edits on Book One and hit the "send" button! I was able to shave off 10 more pages on this round, so now it's coming in at a positively svelte 298. It's amazing how unsentimental you get on the 3,456th reading of your own work; I was slashing and burning with abandon.

And now a quick shower and then to the airport. We fly to Colorado this afternoon for a Raedeke family reunion in Estes Park, elevation 7,522. Yes, there will be gasping. We’re loading up on ginko because the interwebz said to. It also says that regular Coke is an excellent remedy for altitude sickness and my kids are more than happy to test that one out. Sweet caffeine, what will you do to an excitable five year old?

I’m excited to poke around in Rocky Mountain National Park and to do some whitewater rafting. I’m also anxious to get to the haunted Stanley Hotel, the place that inspired the setting for Stephen King’s The Shining. Redrum!

Between caffeine, rambunctious counsins, and ghosts, this promises to be a sleepless vacation for the children. Ah, summer!

Record highs, pressure mounts

As I turned 43 yesterday, I heard the door of middle age creak open for me. I’m not quite ready to walk through—not sure if I’ll ever be. Maybe when the time comes I’ll get on my knees and go through the dog door. For now, my feet and my delusions stay firmly planted on the side of youth.

I don’t lament the “growing old” part of aging, l lament the pressure to do more with less time in front of me.

We had a record- high temperature yesterday—108. As I am wont to find meaning in even the most trivial things, I took this as a really good sign. 108 on my birthday! It satisfies my left hemisphere because mathematically speaking 108 is considered an “abundant number” and it satisfies my right hemisphere because 108 is a sacred number in many ancient traditions.

But physically speaking, 108 sucks. It’s hot.

I’m trying to finish my revision on Book One before we leave for Colorado on Saturday and the combination of my fleeting youth, the record-high temperatures, and the revision deadline is adding up to one hell of a pressure cooker...

I am 6 years old in Dog Years

With 43 candles I can boil 5.3 ounces of water. The moon was waxing gibbous on the day I was born and my Native American Zodiac sign is Salmon. My life path number is 3, which means I have “skills in the verbal realm” of writing, speaking, acting, or similar endeavors.

For heaps of trivial trivia the day you were born, click on this Birthday Calculator. Fun stuff if you can tolerate the synthesizer version of, “You Say It’s Your Birthday” playing in the background…

And it hurt...

Nine years ago today I delivered my first blogger! Click HERE to see what she's up to...

Happy Birthday, Juliet!

Spelunking the Lava Tubes

My friends and I are usually good planners, but this time we kind of lost it. In the hottest month of the year, we decided to pack up our kids and head to Oregon’s High Desert where it’s even hotter. Apparently that wasn’t punishing enough, so we headed across the border to the Lava Beds National Monument in Northern California to really sweat.

It’s a bizarre landscape. As soon as you cross into California you see the long, flat expanse of Tule Lake, infamous for being the largest internment camp for Japanese-Americans during World War II. Lawson Inada, Oregon’s current Poet Laureate and the father of my good friend, was held there as a child and he’s written of it in his book Legends From Camp.

Once you pass Tule Lake and its population of huge white pelicans you enter Lava Beds National Monument, a moonscape of black rocks and cinder cones. There are over 750 caves there so everywhere you look you can imagine a subterranean world of bats and other creatures of the night.

We’d forgotten half of the flashlights and a lot of the water, so we had to bumble through caves sharing torches. At one point Joan pulled out her iPhone to use the flashlight feature, but it didn’t seem to be ranked for cave use. I’m not sure why we couldn’t get it together and plan better—I suppose in the searing bright light of the high desert it’s hard to imagine you’d need light—but it did make it more of an adventure.

The rag-tag bunch of spelunkers prepares to enter their first Lava Tube.

The descent into Skull Cave.

Enjoying a respite from the heat - from 104 degrees to 55 degrees in ten easy paces!

Way down at the bottom of Skull Cave the temperature never goes above freezing and this pool of ice never thaws...

Historical footnote:

This was Modoc Indian country and their legacy lives on through the huge collection of rock art in the caves. During the Modoc War of 1872-1873, a small band of Modoc Indians used an intimate knowledge of the volcanic terrain to their tactical advantage. Under the leadership of Kintpuash (Captain Jack), the Modocs hid in "Captain Jacks Stronghold," a natural lava fortress and for five months held off US Army forces numbering up to ten times their strength. Go Modocs!

Pass It On...

Author Kay Cassidy, supreme marketer, ex-cheerleader, Mensa member (for real!) has nominated me for a Kreativ Blogger Award. Thanks Kay! Kay has created an amazing game for librarians and kids called The Great Scavenger Hunt Contest—check it out, it’s ingenious! Looking forward to having a book out so I can participate as well.

So, for the blog award I must list seven favorite things and nominate seven fellow bloggers.

The seven favorites that came to mind first are:

-Reading in bed in the morning

-Warm, glossy brownies

-Nebulae

-The sound of my kids laughing hysterically

-Travel - anywhere

-A frosty Gin & Tonic

-Handbags

I’m nominating these blog friends:

Corey Schwartz at "Thing 1 and Thing 2"

Tess Hilmo at her eponymous blog

Eric at "Working My Muse"

Jennie Englund at her eponymous blog

Deb Markanton at "Diving Into A Writer's Life"

Heidi at "Some mad Hope"

Beth at "Write It Out"

Apologies if you’ve already received this award, but can we ever be too lauded? Thanks for being fresh and creative bloggers and for your great blog comments!

And now for a bit of good news...

If you're a writer today, looks like yong adult is the place to be. There's a great Wall Street Journal article today about Borders launching teen bookstores within their larger bookstores. Apparently, the numbers support cannabalizing the dying CD sections for teen books:

"At a time when book retailing is slumping, young-adult titles and graphic novels are still delivering growth. Albert N. Greco, a professor at the Fordham University's Graduate School of Business Administration who studies the book industry, estimates that young-adult fiction, fantasy and science fiction will generate $744.3 million in U.S. publisher revenue this year, up 13% from $659.1 million in 2008. That compares with U.S. publisher revenue of an estimated $9.73 billion for consumer books as a whole, a 4.7% decline from 2008's sales, according to Mr. Greco."

You can be a dork too!

In 2011 my name will be on Mars.

Yours can too.

I’m not really sure why this seemed so enchanting to me, but when I heard about it I beelined over to the NASA website. Just type in your name and location and your name will be placed on a microchip going to Mars. You even get a certificate proving the fact.

Am I the only one who thinks this is kind of cool? If you like the idea, head over to NASA.gov to sign up!

Anyone? Anyone?

A friend and I are teaching a summer youth class at Southern Oregon University about getting published as a teen. It starts tomorrow and all of a sudden I'm really, really nervous. I think this is because I am the worst teacher in the history of the world. Fortunately, my friend is the best teacher in the history of the world. I’m afraid I’ll just be an accessory. My big splash is to bring donuts every day.

Anyone out there have any words of advice for teens who want to get published in newspapers and magazines? Any nuggets of wisdom I can feed them with their donuts?

No Chocolate Needed

While I was up visiting my sister, I arranged to meet the mysterious Teri Hall, author of THE LINE. Back when her book was slated for a 2009 release, I was assigned as the 2010 author to interview her so we had established a nice email relationship. I was excited to meet Teri; her book was getting buzz and it sounded like something I would love—primarily because one of its Library of Congress designations is “Government, Resistance to.”

I got to Teri’s house at just after six in the evening, armed with wine and chocolate – two things that could prove to be essential props if it turned out we had nothing to talk about. I needn’t have worried; from the word “hello” we did didn’t stop talking for seven hours! My sister called just as we had hit a new juicy topic and said, “Where the hell are you? It’s one in the morning!” I swear I thought it was around ten. We never even opened the chocolate.

I hadn’t done that, sat around and chatted for endless hours, since college. But in a way, being a debut author feels a little like being a freshman again. You and your fellow freshman authors are alone in new territory, not knowing what to expect, not knowing who will flunk out and who will be valedictorian. We talked about agents and editors and plots and process and everything in between. Teri is smart and hilarious and has this strength of will that I admire so much. I could have stayed and chatted ‘till sunup! (Plus she set out this gorgeous spread of French cheeses and olives and other lovely nibbles that kept us fueled through our marathon chat session!)

After our meeting, I was even more intrigued to read her book so when I got the uncorrected proof this week I devoured it. It’s phenomenal. The buzz that it’s getting is no fluke, this is the real deal. I expect to see starred reviews rolling in over the next few months.

Well done, Teri! It will be fun to say I knew you when…

I love what Cynthia Crossen, who writes the Dear Book Lover column for the Wall Street Journal, wrote about YA literature in a recent column:

"Good YA is not dumbed-down adult fare; it’s literature that doesn’t waste a breath. It doesn’t linger over grandiloquent descriptions of clouds or fields, and it doesn’t introduce irrelevant minor characters in the hope (too often gratified) that the book will be called Dickensian."

On Getting Flashed...

This is a photo of a dragonfly lighting on my daughter, Juliet. It happens all the time in the summer—dragonflies land on her hands, her arms, and even her head. Sometimes we have a hard time getting them off. It’s baffling. Come to think of it, whenever we go in butterfly gardens the butterflies land on her too.

What do you attract? I used to attract flashers.

My earliest memory of being flashed was when I was a kid, on a trip to southern California. I looked over and suddenly the passenger in the car nest to us on the freeway was flashing his junk at me. In college I’d be out for a morning run and and pow! a car door would open with a pantsless guy inside. Even in Europe I got the classic trench flash in a park in Provence. I’m not sure if it’s because I have the kind of face that really registers surprise, or if I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time a lot. It became part of my life.

Then one day I was bored at work and had a hankering to sew (now that’s bored!) so I pulled a sick day and headed to Sears to buy a sewing machine. This was right after college and I didn’t have any money but I had a Sears card with a huge limit, so anytime I needed/wanted anything it had to be from Sears. Klassy! So I walk out of the store with my new entry-level Singer and notice that a guy parked in a white BMW was staring at me and grinning like he knew me. I looked in at him and noticed he was wearing a suit jacket and tie but was missing his pants. And undies. That was the last straw for me; I smiled at him, put the machine in my car, and drove around the corner to call the cops.

Cops in Redmond, Washington don’t have much going on, so two cars arrived within seconds. One pulled up to me, the other to Jiggly McBits. Then they made me get in the police car and drive by to identify him, which really freaked me out. I thought reporting a flsaher was like calling about a dog that won’t stop barking or some other public nuisance, but no. Something about there being a preschool in that mall changed the rules about what he was doing. So I had to identify the guy and then later show up in court to testify. Like I had time for this? I was deep into a curtain project!

Anyway, that ended my run of flashers. Not sure if it was a late-eighties fad or if I flipped some magic switch, but I haven’t seen a flasher since. Not that I’m sorry. Any fetish that involves the unsuspecting is totally uncool with me.

I got WOWed on 7/8/9

I knew 7/8/9 would be a lucky day! I got my first WoW (Waiting on Wednesday) post - which means a YA book reviewer has marked my book as one she's excited to read! You have no idea how cool this is to a newbie author. Seriously. I'm levitating right now. Thanks Catt!

Click here to check out at Catt's blog, The Dreamer Reader, and see the 7 reasons why she wants to read the book!

Release Date! Happy Beltane!

I just got word from my editor that my release date has been moved up for marketing and publicity reasons. So, move aside July 1, 2010 - May 1, 2010 is my new release date!

It's weird that I can be both elated and nauseous at the same time.

Ever superstitious, I was a bit worried about “mayday” being a distress signal. So I googled it and found it’s just the mispronunciation of the French “m'aidez”(come help me). That aside, I like being released on May Day. It's a holdover from the Celtic celebration of Beltane, especially nice since much of the book takes place in Scotland. I might even have a bonfire in Lithia Park on Beltane Eve to celebrate! Because there are also some ancient Indian connections in the book, I had to also check out the Jyotiṣa calendar and 1/5/10 and indeed, it’s one of the few auspicious days in May 2010—at least according to Vedic Astrology, with which I am temporarily preferring to side on this matter.

PS – Let’s not tell my editor about any of this. It may make me seem crazy. Or crazier, depending on his current assessment of me...

Sláinte!

Guest Blogger: Better Half

I'm still typing with only the lame left hand, which has clearly been getting a free ride all this time. It's spent the last 43 years as glorified a ring holder and now that I'm asking it to take up the slack for my sliced up right paw, it's getting a bit cranky. So I'll redirect to Scott's blog for all the exciting 4th happenings (sadly, no naked lady this year at the parade).

We're hoping there will not be another evening of watching the lawn go up in flames, but with an arsenal of fireworks and a big bucket of frosty beverages, there’s just no telling...

Happy Independence Day everyone!

Sweet Sixteens

Today is my 16th wedding anniversary. This is us at Kiana Lodge on Agate Passage, a short ferry ride from Seattle. It was an amazing day, but stressful as I prefer not to be the center of attention! For our honeymoon we were dropped by float plane to the middle of the British Columbian wilderness where a lone cabin sat on the shore of a lake. No electricity, no technology. But the ice chest was stocked with champagne and steak and every three days a pilot flew in to drop off provisions and make sure neither of us had been eaten by a bear. We caught enormous Rainbow Trout and cooked them on the wood stove in big cast iron pans. It was the best way to chill out after a big stressful wedding.

Today is also my 25^th High School reunion. This is me at 16. My marriage is as old as I was in this photo. Weird. My marriage may not be looking as fresh, but it’s definitely wiser than this sap!

Why I won't be typing much for a week or two...

The latest...

Another one flies the coop

When is enough enough? How do you know you are done with a manuscript? I find it a lot easier to write "The End" on a first draft than I do with subsequent drafts. I just sent off my work-in-progress manuscript (Astrid) to my agent and I had a hard time figuring out if I was “done” or not. When someone questions your work, pushes you to strive for more, it’s hard to know if you’ve reached that goal they had in mind for you.

For me, the biggest surprise in this publishing process is how little line editing is done early in the process—mostly you receive “notes” in letter form, describing overall things that need to change with not a lot of direction about how to do it. And it seems you could do one of a hundred things to fix each thing! In my experience, revision has been a bit like throwing spaghetti at the wall and seeing what sticks. But then again, I have a very editorial agent who wants to go through a revision (or two!) before ever sending to editors.

So, Astrid is gone. She’s flown from my email to a desktop where she will be printed and scrutinized. Good thing I have so much to do in the coming weeks—stewing over whether or not the spaghetti is sticking to the wall is no fun at all.

How do you know when you are done?

And this is your brain on caffeine…

I'm back! After 1200 miles of driving with two kids across two states and an island, I'm ready for some parental help. It was tough without Scott, and not just because of all the driving. How do single parents do it? There is just no relief, no quiet, no end to the crushing responsibility of feeding, cleaning, and clothing children. Not to mention all the listening. The listening might be the hardest part.

While we were away, my cat of more than 16 years went down for The Big Sleep. I just could not face the fact that it was time so I heaped the entire burden on Scott, who had to take care of it before he left on his trip and before we got back. So after having been traveling for 14 hours, the kids and I arrived home at around 9 at night to an empty house for the first time in a very long while. Being the only driver, I was caffeine loading at every stop and was too wired to sleep. At about midnight when I felt I could finally get in bed, I went to check on the kids and screamed as I saw a cat running from the kitchen to the cat door.

Even though I heard the click of the cat door flap, I still walked the house with my headlamp and two brooms just in case there were any other cats that had decided it was okay to cruise around in our house now that Stimpy was no longer protecting her turf. And what about raccoons, I thought, a pack of raccoons could have been totally nesting in the house while we were gone! And opossums! Adrenaline coursed through my body as images of opossums hanging by their scaly pink tails from my son’s closet rod ran though my mind. The kids were so exhausted that Hank would probably not wake even if feral cats were gnawing at his succulent little fingers nor would Juliet stir if rabid raccoon kits curled up in the soft warm curve of her neck.

In a dark house at midnight, my imagination is more dangerous than an intruder.

Beyond the cat that managed to escape, no other animals were found. I stacked all three of our suitcases in front of the cat door and had to watch both episodes of the New Jersey Housewives reunion show to get my heart rate back to resting.

Scott returns tonight. He has been missed!

Out of Isolation

So, I was in isolation at the cabin for four solid days and missed reality TV and the internet almost more than I missed my family. But I got a ton of writing/revising/plotting done so I feel like things are under control as far as book deadlines go.

I drove back like a bat out of hell to make it to a doctor's appointment that was straight out of a nightmare. I was hooked up to an electrical current and had all the nerves in my arms and wrists repeatedly shocked to test for nerve damage due to carpal tunnel syndrome, also known as I Shouldn't Have Cheated Through Typing Class Disease. Fun!

Now I have just enough time to do laundry and repack, for tomorrow the kids and I leave for a 9 day trip. We'll be making our way up to Orcas Island in the San Juan Islands for my family reunion. We've rented this fabulous little chalet for our immediate family:

Isn't it adorable? Home base for the rest of the extended family will be at the exquisite Timber Lodge. Me likey:

Orcas is a spectacular island with lots of good memories, all the way back to high school when my friends and I went to bike camp up in the San Juans. I spent a lot of time there when I lived in Seattle and we took the kids there for the first time just last year. We're all happy to be going back. I love any place you can only get to by ferry or float plane!

My postings might be intermittent for the next week or two! Happy summer everyone.

Off the Grid

In a few minutes I'm heading out to the Moody cabin for some high-level hermitry.

Between this evening when I arrive and Monday afternoon when I leave, I'll finish my revision of Book One, get to the halfway point of Book Two, and possibly dabble in a WIP I've got going on the sidelines.

No TV, no intewebz, no children, no laundry.

No problem.

Radio silence begins...NOW!

End of an Era

Today Hank spent his last day at University Preschool! Now, for the first time in six years, I have no children in preschool. Huzzahh!

We had a luau carnival thing and I signed up for the exploding volcano booth because really, who doesn’t like chemical reactions? I also souped it up with lots of red and orange food coloring because without it, baking soda and vinegar just looks like an oozing sore. Plus I let the kids scoop up big handfuls of pine needles and sticks to throw in the volcano so when the magma came rolling out it had some nice texture. I was shocked that no one had taken that booth until afterwards, when I stepped in from the outdoors and realized I smelled like I'd just pulled two shifts at the pickle factory.

Some snaps from the day...

Crowding the tattoo table.

Hank decided on a full-face Spiderman face tattoo. After a whole box of wipes, some of the red pigment still will not come off.

It gives him a bit of a drunken Irishman’s glow.

It really can't be called the last day of school until the parachute comes out.

Hank walks up to receive his memory book from his teachers.

His self portrait on the front is not that far off...

Cognitive Dissonance and the ARC

I just read my first ARC and I’m devastated.

An ARC is an Advanced Reader Copy that the publisher prints up and then sends out to buyers and reviewers to get an early buzz going. Authors get a case of these too, to use as they see fit.

As part of The Tenners, a group of Young Adult authors making their debuts in 2010, we circulate the ARC among our ranks so we get a sneak peak at what’s going to be published next year.

I just finished Kimberly Derting’s The Body Finder and am blown away. To say I’m intimidated would be an understatement; it’s honestly made me consider never sending my ARCs out at all. Ever. To anyone. Kim has a perfect plot with two great lines of tension. As the engine of the book, this plot makes The Body Finder read like a luxury sports car runs—really fast with a smooth ride. In comparison, my plot is more like one of those early model Fords, where after pushing and pulling lots of levers, you would crank the car to get the engine going and then bounce around in the cab because the thin tires absorb none of the shock of the crappy unpaved roads.

I’ve been thinking a lot about cognitive dissonance lately—you know, that bad feeling you get from having two contradictory ideas at the same time. For instance, these two thoughts live side by side in my head at all times:

- I want to be a published author.

- I don’t want anyone to ever read my book.

As my release date inches ever closer, I’m not sure I’ll be able to handle the public scrutiny.

While I privately suffer with my crisis of confidence, may I suggest you place your order for The Body Finder? Congratulations, Kim. Amazing debut work!

Literal Video Hilarity

My sister justs sent a link to this and I don't think I have ever laughed out loud alone for that long. Still wiping the tears away... I'm now going to watch every Literal Video ever made. It's genius!

Nude Dude

I'm getting some flack from my friends in Seattle because my little towns is, again, in the news for having random naked people roaming about.

Last year we made the national news because of the fracas over the naked lady with a conch and now we've got an old dude getting his daily exercise by cruising through town naked and making children burst out in tears. It was my first time seeing a very old man in the nude and I must say, gravity wreaks shocking havoc on some parts of the anatomy.

Both skin lovers moved here from California, natch. Viva the lax nudity laws of Oregon!

Just like the space shuttle (without the rocket fuel)!

My book has a launch meeting date!

On July 21 the marketing, editorial, and design people all get together to discuss my book, set the title in stone, and start cover design. My editor asked me to send lots of title ideas and cruise Amazon for covers I like. So many choices! So many directions to go!

Help! What are your all-time-favorite book covers?