Blog A Go-Go

In which I am going on vacation

As of this morning, The Dead Travel Fast is on its way to my agent and editor and I am ON VACATION! I mean it--I'm taking a real, proper, honest-to-God vacation with my family. (And not the pseudo-vacation that you tack onto a research or signing trip, but a vacation so real and so frivolous I can't even write it off on my taxes. I just realized how many times I've typed the word "vacation". I don't care. I'm GIDDY.) Anyway, when I travel I usually leave blog entries queued up and waiting to post for each day of my absence. Not this time. For the first time in 13 months, the Blog A Go-Go is taking a proper vacation too. Starting tomorrow, it will be on hiatus until Saturday, December 6. I don't know what the blog will do with its time off, but I'm going to Florida. So take care, gentle readers. I wish you all a very happy start to December and I'll see you soon!

In which it is Thanksgiving

If you are an American, you can get on with your turkey and your football and skip over this one if you like. I'm writing it for the readers abroad who might be wondering what, precisely, we get up to on this Thursday in November. (Canadians already know, but they're smart enough to do it in October so they can have turkey for Thanksgiving AND Christmas because in two months you really are ready to feast all over again.) Anyway, if you are one of the many lovely global readers of the blog, you might not know that Thanksgiving is the BEST American holiday of them all. SERIOUSLY. The Fourth of July is lovely--very patriotic, lots of cookouts and fireworks--but, and I say this with a furtive glance over my shoulder because I live in one of the MOST patriotic towns in the country, it is just too hot. And because it's the middle of summer, you can't start a proper fireworks display until LATE, I'm talking ages after you finished your barbecue. It's just awful. You sit on scratchy blankets, oozing sweat and slapping mosquitoes, waiting for the show to begin and wondering if the potato salad was a little OFF.

Thanksgiving is entirely wonderful. First, it's autumn--perhaps my favorite time of year. The air is brisk, the leaves are turning, and it is time to put on a sweater. The food is unparalleled--roast turkey with dressing and mashed potatoes and gravy and loads of other good things is just happiness on a plate. Then there's the football. Imagine--you get to stuff yourself witless and then lie around watching other people beat the cranberries out of each other. And to top it ALL off, no presents. No special decorating, no cards to send. Nothing but the sentiment of gratitude to share with your nearest and best. (And since I'm convinced that gratitude is the most powerful attitude on earth, it suits me to a T.)

So, if you don't have a nationally legislated holiday to be thankful, make one up for yourself. Pick today or the second Tuesday in March or twelve days after Yom Kippur--whatever makes you happy. And spend that day eating good food with people you love and tallying up all the goodness you have in your life. It will make you feel infinitely rich, I promise. Happy Thanksgiving, everybody!

In which I ought to make it up to you

Yesterday was scary, no? So today I offer you something genuinely lovely. It is Contrariwise and the concept is simple--it is a blog that records and celebrates tattoos based upon favorite literary works. Some are visual, some are words, all are terribly meaningful. (Again, this is a site someone else linked to and I've managed to forget where I saw it. It may have been my friend Kristin who had herself inked in honor of her darling son with a few lines of e e cummings.) In any event, it got me wondering, what words are powerful enough that you would want them engraved on your skin forever? If I were to do this today, the quote would be from Tolkien--All who wander are not lost. But doubtless I would find something different tomorrow and deeply regret something that requires lasers and skin grafts to undo. (I do have a tattoo but it's so discreet it took my former gynecologist a year to notice it. It's on my left hip, high enough to be hidden under shorts.) 

Revision watch: 350 pages done and the next two days will be the most challenging. Today I have to write a lengthy scene that isn't in the first draft but ought to be, and tomorrow will be a 75-page push to finish instead of my usual 50. But it's almost there and it's going VERY well, so I'm not complaining.

In which I need a new blog category

I ought to have one entitled "Hideous Things". No, really. I wish I could remember where I found this link, but I've managed to misplace it in my memory, and for that I'm truly sorry because this one deserves some credit. It's similar to the other bad craft links I've given you, but I think this one surpasses them all. It's called What Not to Crochet and they mean it. Don't even THINK about crocheting this stuff because if you do, kittens will die, the oceans will dry up, and life as we know it will cease. (Be advised that this is not necessarily suitable for work. Because of the crocheted penis. I WISH I were kidding.)

In which you might eat fish

And if you do, you are probably aware that there are conservation issues related to waters being overfished. The Monterey Bay Aquarium begs to help. They have an online seafood guide to help you determine which fish should be consumed, which should be avoided, and which sources are best--farms, rivers, or the sea--for each variety. My fabulous friend Jerusha did point out that it seems the slightest bit odd to have an aquarium telling you which fish to eat--rather like the zoo snack bar offering wallaby-fries. But if you are trying to eat sustainably, then this will certainly help. There are also special notes for sushi lovers. (And it occurs to me that this is a mildly disturbing post in light of yesterday's musings on being buried at sea. Sorry about that...)

As of Sunday evening, I have 254 pages of the revisions DONE. Four more days, people, FOUR MORE DAYS!

In which I want a burial at sea

I have always wanted to be buried at sea. Ever since I found out that my great-grandfather died aboard ship and was consigned to the sea at the Rock of Gibraltar, I've wanted to do the same. Obviously it would be a little tricky to arrange to actually DIE at sea, but I thought I could possibly have a proper sea burial by  just ordering it up. Apparently NOT. If you don't want to be cremated first, there are about a hundred hoops to jump through, including all sorts of tremendously expensive permits and an extensive boat trip because they want you FAR out if you're going overboard whole. (Actually, better than a regular sea burial would be a VIKING burial. Being floated out to sea while being set on fire is just a tremendously impressive way to go. But very eleventh century and a little hard on the environment, I think.)

So, I have reluctantly agreed to undergo cremation FIRST. (Although since claustrophobia is my main objection to a regular land burial, it seems a bit cruel to put me in a coffin for cremation, but I figure I won't know the difference. Yes, I realize that logic brings us right back to just having a regular burial ANYWAY, but it's my funeral.) I think after the cremation I would like to hang out in a Sea Reef. Lots of fish to swim by and it actually does something productive for the environment.

Two hundred pages down on the revisions. I am insanely sore from my graceful tumble on Friday  night, so the rest of Saturday--it's Saturday afternoon as I write this--will be spent lounging in bed, watching movies and sharing a bottle of pinot noir with the husband while we work our way through the contents of the fridge. Don't worry--we plan to watch a triathlon on Sunday afternoon to make up for it.

In which I am a shadow of the woman I once was

Oh, yes, it's true. I have 150 pages done--right on schedule, and this is when it begins to feel like WORK. (But it's balanced out by the feeling that this is all coming together and aren't I the luckiest girl in the world to get to DO THIS for a living? So it's not at all bad, really.) Yet it is a wee bit of a grind at this stage, and I do stupid things. Like put on 4-inch platform stiletto boots and think that I'm going to be able to walk out to my pitch-black driveway on uneven brick and not fall down. Because I didn't make it. I caught myself before my tail or my knees hit, so I didn't so much fall as crouch really fast and unexpectedly, but it is one of those supremely stupid things I tend to do at this point in the game. (My family has generally agreed that cooking and operating heavy machinery is out of the question until the book is put to bed.) On the bright side, I got to see my daughter perform in "Bye-Bye, Birdie" Friday night, and it was magic. I freely admit to a mother's prejudice here, but the kid WAS good. It's hard to be bad doing something you love so much.

And for a bit of substance, here's a little tidbit about the process for me: when I'm ready to revise, I go through my notes and pull out every detail or fact or line of dialogue I want to include. They are highlighted or snipped out and taped to the walls around my desk. Shorter snippets or general ideas are jotted onto oversize sheets of sketching paper in thick marker so I can read them easily. (If I were smarter, I would color-code them, which I plan on doing the next time.) As I incorporate each bit of information, I use a black marker to strike through it. That way I can keep track of how well I'm managing to integrate the new material with the existing manuscript. I'm extremely visual, so this technique works very well for me, even if it does leave my study looking like the lair of a weird, word-stalker type of person.

In which you might need something to play with

So I give you Wordle. It's a fabulous little site where you can plug in a list of words or the URL to a site or blog and it will generate a graphic. Be warned, it's addictive!

And today is a very special day in our house. My baby turns fourteen. I don't know where the time has gone, because I'm pretty sure she was a toddler YESTERDAY, but she is so grown-up now it takes my breath away. She is kind and funny and smart as a whip, and I am so proud to be her mom. SHE is the best thing I've ever done. Happy birthday, sweetie!

In which you get your first look at the new book

This is the manuscript in its current incarnation, all 13.5 pounds of it. The book itself is on the bottom, 430 pages of pink, wordy goodness. The rest are notes that have to be incorporated into the manuscript to form a final version to send to my editor. Yes, ALL of that has to be included. Scary, no? On the bright side, I have the first 50 pages DONE. I'm on a 50 page a day quota--that means that each day I pull the next 50 pages from the manuscript and go through them, adding detail, correcting phrasing, and layering in any elements I missed the first time around. (That also means that by the time I'm finished, that day's work may well be more than 50 pages.) And on the BRIGHTEST side, I saw the concept for my website and OH MY WORD. It's beautiful. It's unique and mysterious and interesting and I love it. I cannot WAIT until it's finished and I can show it off!

In which this may not be sportsmanlike

But I'd still pay to see it. Catania, an Italian soccer team, has decided to employ a new strategy to score goals. They're dropping their shorts on penalty kicks--not to distract the goalie with their comely thighs, as I first suspected. No, it's to block his sight line so he can't actually see the kick being made. Okay, I recognize that this may, MAY, be bending the rules of polite competition. But let me just say that I was once stuck in a security line for almost two hours at the Manchester airport with the Roman soccer team. And if the Catania team looks anything like the Romans, I'm thinking they can raise their ticket prices a LOT.