Summer Fun

It's funny that almost the minute I come back from hiatus, every other thing that pops up in my face is about two very famous people getting a divorce (and forgive me for not naming them, but I'm not inclined to join in the hen party/crow fest.) These were the same two people who got together in properly scandalous fashion back when I started PBW, so it's a little ironic that I've outlasted them. Or may not. The day I retire they'll probably get married again or have a secret baby or something. Well, at least they're not Kardashians.

What have I done that I can talk about . . . I finished quilting the lap quilt I made for my Mom's birthday:



I machine pieced it but hand-quilted it, and battled my aversion to the color yellow in the process. Yellow pretty much won me over, but it was a necessary surrender. Since Mom is spending the winter in Oregon I wanted this to invoke summer and sunshine. The pattern is Atkinson Design's Yellow Brick Road, which uses blocks made by cutting up fat quarters into strips and piecing them in different ways. Very easy to do, with nice results.

I also rehabbed a Victorian-era photo album into an art journal, which was a first for me. Here's how the album looked with its worn and torn velvet covers, and dirty celluloid flowers, before rehab:



This was a delicate challenge, because I had to carefully remove the celluloid before I cleaned the cover. I also made a new binding for it and handstitched it together. Here's how it looked after being cleaned, repaired, and bound with my journal pages:



I loved being able to show on the front some of the original blue velvet used for the covers, which the dirty flowers actually protected for a hundred years or so. Here's a peek inside:



I made all the pages with recycled papers, old calendars and some pages left over from another art journal. It turned out massive but so worth it. I have another old photo album in red velvet that I'm going to rehab in the same way.

Finally my kid and I made our annual summer pilgrimage to the no-kill cat shelter to make a donation and spend some time with the kitties. They really love her:



Even the suspicious ones were cute:



And of course I fell in love (again):



My guy and I have made the difficult decision not to adopt any more cats, as they tend to be very long-lived with us, and we're not getting any younger. We also don't want to introduce an older cat into a household that at present has two very active, nosy dogs. That and we really are dog people. But that just means I can go and visit the shelter whenever I need a feline fix.

So did you all have any creative adventures over the summer? Share your stories in comments.

Hodge Podge

While I was down for the count my review copy of Yoga and Meditation Adult Coloring Book by Alexandru Ciobanu arrived. Since I'm a bit frazzled trying to catch up and get ready for Easter no doubt it will come in handy. I'm also planning to use the pages I complete for another project, so stay tuned to see how I do.

I also joined BookBub, a free service for readers that e-mails me every day with an alert list of free or low-cost e-books being sold on Amazon. I was a bit skeptical at first, as I couldn't imagine getting free books every day, but they really do deliver at least one or two free titles in every e-mail. On the downside, most of the freebies are badly-written, or smut, or both. Mainly both. There's been only one history book in the bunch since I started the subscription. Still, I have snagged a couple of romances by authors who knew what they were doing -- Courtney Milan and Carrie Ann Ryan, to be exact -- so it wasn't a total waste of my time. I'll keep my account for a few more weeks to see what other pearls I can glean from the swine.

Finally, since Easter is Sunday I am going to move Just Write to tomorrow, so I don't leave poor Nex in the arms of that enormous squid thing for another week. But will Navara wake up long enough to keep her from being squid kibble? Stop by if you have a chance and find out.

Thanks also for your patience as I get back up to speed.

So I Don't Sit Around and Cry All Day

Hey, sorry I'm showing up late and unprepared (again!) -- losing a furry pal who has been with you for almost twenty years takes a bit of a toll. Jeri was also our last cat; we've just got the dogs now. It always leaves a huge hole in your life when you lose a pet, but I guess that's the ultimate price tag of being blessed with all that unconditional love and devotion.

Anyway -- I will not weep on you today. I do have some random weirdness to share, in hopes of lightening everyone's spirits. Here's the first weird thing I found this past week:



Yep, they are now making maple and bacon flavored Pop Tarts. My maple and bacon-loving daughter is over the moon. I'm a bit more skeptical -- these things were really nutritional black holes to begin with -- but bacon? Really? What's next, beef and cheddar flavor? Uh, Pop Tarts, that was not a suggestion.

My guy took me out to dinner over the weekend to an Asian buffet we love, and with our check they always give us each a fortune cookie. Here's mine:



That's not one but two fortune cookies in the same package. I debated on whether to open it or save it as an oddity, and then I just caved today and opened it up:



There were two complete cookies inside, and each one had a fortune. Since I usually get the grim, stern-sounding fortunes I braced myself, but each one was kinda nice: "A love relationship takes on an added dimension" and "A friend asks only for your time and not money." Since both already came true it's also a little creepy, but there you go.

I think I'll make a point to visit the cat shelter this week and make a donation in Jeri's name. That seems like the best way to honor my pal.

Hodge Podge

Library Thing just sent me a heads-up that the first book I'll be getting from their Early Reviewers program for 2016 is The Naturalist by Darrin Lunde, which made me give a sniffly cheer. I love all things Theodore Roosevelt, and the author has impressive credentials. Darrin Lunde currently works as "a Supervisory Museum Specialist in the Division of Mammals at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History." Before that he worked at the American Museum of Natural History, where "he led field expeditions throughout the world." He also "named more than a dozen new species of mammals and provided valuable scientific insights on hundreds of others." From his bio the guy sounds like a total Indiana Jones, so I expect he'll write a terrific book, too.

I haven't gotten much of anything done this week writing-wise, but being under the weather gave me lots of time to sew and think. I probably needed the break, too (I never think I do until I'm forced to take one.) Once I do get all the fever/congestion/aches behind me I'd like to do a workshop on the blog. It's been ages since I have, and I always have fun with those. I was thinking I might do one that details some ways on how to take an idea and turn it into a novel, soup-to-nuts fashion. If there's any other topic in particular you'd like to see me cover, throw me some suggestions.

What's up with you guys? How is the writing going in your corner of NetPubLand? Anyone read a fabulous book lately and want to share a rec? Let us know in comments.

NaNo This & That

Today is the last day to vote for what I write for NaNoWriMo; see the list of choices and post your preference in comments here.

The official NaNoWriMo site has a bunch of free and discounted offers of writer stuff for participants and winners this year; I'm planning to check out all of the freebies and report back on how they work for me.

If you're looking for a free wordcount widget for your LJ or blog you might check out the freebies over at Writertopia (and I'll be hunting more as I put together my own list of NaNo freebies.)

Finally, to do my part to help out, my OOP writing how-to, Way of the Cheetah, is now available online in .pdf format here for anyone to read, download, print out etc. for free until December 1st, when it goes back into the vault for another year.

Wait for It

I have a few announcements, some of which due to various and sundry details to be confirmed/wrapped up/signed/so forth have to sit on the back burner for now. But in the meantime I can let you know what's confirmed and drop a few hints about the rest:

My publisher has sold foreign rights for Twilight Fall and Stay the Night to be published in German. I've also accepted an offer for audio rights to all three novels in the Lords of the Darkyn trilogy, so those will be coming out as audio books as well as print and e-books.

I've turned in to my new editor the complete manuscript for the steampunk novel I sold this month, so that's done (and this book is the one I wrote the first draft of during NaNoWriMo 2009, for those who have been nagging me about it.) More info to follow once I've signed the actual contract, finalized the title, get pub dates etc.

The second novel in the Lords of the Darkyn trilogy is also finished -- yes, I've been a busy girl -- and since someone else spilled the beans on the title of book one before I had a chance to announce it, let me be the first to tell you book two will be titled Nightbred. More details on this one are also pending.

Those of you who would like a chance to preview Nightborn, the first novel in the Lords of the Darkyn trilogy, should definitely stop by the blog next week.

Finally, while I can't discuss what I was writing because I don't want to jinx it, my total count for November was 98.4K, and the goal I set for myself was 80K, so I reached my finish line, too. Congratulations and hugs to everyone who participated in NaNoWriMo 2011.

Potter & More

I finally had a chance to look at J.K. Rowling's Pottermore, which has been sending shockwaves as well as lots of speculation through the industry since it materialized. Not much to see at this point, although the news folks claim that the author is cutting off publishers and booksellers from taking a slice of the profits while using it to release e-book versions of her phenomenal series and offer some sort of interactive experience for readers. However it turns out, I think it's an interesting experiment, potentially an enormous cash machine, and certainly a great way to hang onto the worldwide online readership and their love for all things Harry.

Amazon.com finally brings the questionable ethics of compensated blurbing out into the open by offering to authors promotion in exchange for cover quotes. It's basically the one hand washing the other approach; you review their book, and they'll promote yours. Which is no different than the reciprocal and buddy blurbing that has been going on behind the scenes in the industry practically forever; they're just being upfront about it.

The bootleggers are now making book videos in order to promote pirated copies via YouTube (and no, I'm not going to link to the jerk I found doing it.) An image of the cover art is shown along with a brief message about downloading the book for free and what kind of formats are offered, and the actual link to the bootleg is listed in the video description area. To find out if your copyright is being violated by one of these pinheads, do a You Tube search with your psuedonym and/or your book title.