May 1, 2012

Talent Chronicles at your neighborhood bookstore

Well, if your neighborhood is Somerville, MA.

Otherwise you’re probably SOL.

Months ago–I don’t know how many months ago, but it’s been some months–I made an offer to donate my books to libraries and to give free copies of my books to indie bookstores so that they could try them out without risk. I don’t know if it’s just because I haven’t gone out of my way to publicize this, but there’s been very little interest in the program so far. I’m not independently wealthy, so I didn’t want to get in over my head and didn’t shout it from the rooftops, but I did expect some interest and more word-of-mouth than what I’ve seen.

Not bitching, really, just reporting as it’s interesting to me and maybe interesting to my indie author friends (that I can’t even give books away, LOL).

Anyways, Massachusetts is the place to be for the Talent Chronicles in paperback. I sent books to the Somerset Public Library back in February. This week I had the pleasure of correspondence with Gil Barbosa, owner of family-run independent THE BOOK SHOP, in Somerville. Gil told me that he was putting my books in his window display, so if you happen by, feel free to snap a picture for me.

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April 20, 2012

Stakes: Not just for vampires

I don’t know if I’ve mentioned, but I’m in the middle of this epic sewing project I committed to have finished by…next week. And of course I had months to do it and procrastinated, as is my wont. The upside is that the marathon sewing gives me time to indulge in video marathons to keep me company. The last few days I’ve been rewatching My-Hime.

Basically, Mai and her little brother, who seem to be on their own in the world (as is often case in such fictions), are given scholarships to attend a private boarding school, Fuka Academy. But even on the boat that will take them there, strange things start happening, and continue to happen once they arrive at the school. Mai soon discovers that it’s her destiny to fight as a Hime–some warrior princess deal. She has to accept her “child,” a superpowered living robot sort of thing, and agree to fight against the orphans–which are evil superpowered living robot things–threatening the school. The school and town seem to be somehow connected some evil dark immortal forces of stars (well, one particular star), there’s a sinister corporation and a secret sinister government organization stirring up trouble, as well as eleven other Hime–not all of whom are nice and want to use their powers for good.

So, there’s plenty going on, and I’m the first to admit that it’s not all easy to follow, especially when you’re casually viewing while doing other things. And one of the complaints I see most frequently leveled at My-Hime is an imbalance between the first and second halves of the series. It’s not unfounded.  The first half is very light and humorous, compared to the second, when things start to really take off and get much darker. Me, I figure it’s a payoff for sitting through all the gratuitous boob humor and panty shots.

What the series does rather spectacularly is stakes.

See, all the Hime end up agreeing to fight, for one reason or another. Often it’s because they’re put in a position where they have to accept the power of the child in order to protect someone. It’s explained to them by the nasty little demon boy who’s in charge of machinations and explaining things to them and to us, that in accepting that power and agreeing to fight the orphans, there’s a risk. If your child is defeated, you will lose the thing most precious to you. And Mai, with her school girl lack of maturity, says yeah yeah, if I’m defeated I lose my life. I get it. Let’s get on with it.

Understanding love and what it means is a big theme for the show. Mai tends to be pragmatic and not given to melodrama, or maybe she would have realized that her brother’s life is more precious to her than her own. That’s certainly evident to anyone watching.

So that’s what makes the series pretty awesome. Fight or risk having these creatures kill you and the people you care about. Fight and risk losing the person you care about most if you fail. And then have lots of characters and things going on and get to start guessing which ones are Hime and who it is they care about most.

There are times in the series when Mai tries to refuse to fight, believing that, as long as she stays out of it, her brother will be safe. It never occurs to her that he might become the beloved of another Hime.

All the different relationships, the varied entanglements and the different kinds of love, all threatened by a life-and-death game in which the rules keep changing. That’s what the series holds for me.

It’s amazing how clear things get when you try to explain them to someone else. My daughter, age seven, totally gets the notion of conflict. [ETA: given the lack of proper segue, I think I need to add that My-Hime is not for little kids.] She will tell you that you can’t have a story without a problem, no hero without a villain, etc. Suffice it to say that her understanding of drama is well beyond what mine was at that age.

She hates stakes. Stakes are what make her uncomfortable.

And I’m like, no, dude, you have to have stakes because there has to be a reason to fight. You have to be scared about what could be lost in order to be relieved when it’s won. You have to scare the pants off your hero so he’ll go and fight the scary beast because, if he’s got nothing to lose, maybe he’ll just do the sensible thing and run the other way. And then I went into some spew about how, yeah, Harry just tends to go do the right thing because he’s a hero, but putting Ginny in the Chamber of Secrets made it better. Harry couldn’t lose against the Basilisk because there was more at risk than just himself, there was Ginny, a member of the family who had taken him in, which was very well set up at the beginning. Her presence brought a now it’s personal aspect to the scene that raised the drama level. (Not to mention set up a classic damsel in distress event solved with sword-wielding which many of us are hard-wired to swoon at no matter what the age of the sword-wielder.)

Did I mention My-Hime has swords?

I’m not sure how much of that got through. There’s a point at which Mom is just babbling incoherently and is best ignored.

The conversation with my daughter reminded me how natural it can be to shy away from things that are scary. How sometimes we, as writers, don’t like to go too far in what we’ll put our characters through. How we might unconsciously smooth the way for them when we should be impeding it. Maybe because we feel too much of what they feel, and maybe it’s too stressful to give them an impossible decision, an unspeakable terror, or grieve with them through an inconsolable loss.

And yet, as a reader, that’s what I want. Because when the author brings me through to the other side of that, I’ll feel like I’ve lived through something. I’ve taken an emotional journey while I was living someone else’s life. And, in the best fictions, it’s about how that changed both of us.

:throat clearing:

My-Hime: Not for everyone. Grit your teeth through all the nonsense aimed at the pubescent boys in the audience and concentrate on what’s awesome about it. You can get it from Netflix. I recently bought it from Amazon. They have the boxed set, but the individual discs are less expensive. And I’m sure you can Google around and watch it somewhere for free.

For clips, I’ll leave you with this music video…

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April 18, 2012

If Cinderella never had a ballgown…

Everyone loves a good Cinderella story, a rags to riches tale in which a young woman (or sometimes a young man), comes from nothing and finds true love and a new life with a someone who just happens to be royalty, terribly attractive, and loaded. Win!

One thing classic Cinderella lacks a bit is…well, a good relationship plot. I mean, if the story never existed and someone tried to put it out as a romance novel right now, reviewers would be lining up to make with the bashing. What is this? One night of dancing and he’s in love with her? And her state of poverty doesn’t even MATTER? Really? And is she really in love with him, or is it just about the money? The relationship happened too fast and there just wasn’t enough there…yadda yadda yadda.

They would then go on to complain that they didn’t really like the character of Cinderella because she doesn’t do anything. For the first part of the story she’s just sort of enduring stuff. And that’s all well and good. But then, when it comes time go out and get what she wants, she has to have an outside character–some Fairy Godmother– come in and make it happen. And THEN, when she meets with that whole ticking clock obstacle and has to run off, she then just waits around for the prince to find her. Really? I mean, she’s, like, this totally passive heroine who just waits for other people to come around and turn her into a vampire change her life and make her a princess.

So, while we love Cinderella, we usually need more in our Cinderella stories these days than pretty people and fancy clothes. Which brings me to the actual subject of today’s post, the Korean drama series, Coffee Prince.

O.

M.

G.

How much did I love this show.

Strong heroine?

Check. Seriously, you cannot help but be impressed by this girl. Now twenty-four years old, Eun-Chan’s been supporting her family since her father died when she was sixteen. Her younger sister is still in school, and her mother is not the sort to be very good at, you know, working. What the mom is really good at is buying shoes. Eun-Chan teaches Taekwondo, delivers milk, delivers take-out, hand sews the eyes on stuffed dolls at five cents per piece, and does pretty much any other odd job she can get her hands on. She’s a somewhat over-the-top character with boundless energy and good humor–and she’s really, really strong. The one way in which she really differs from Cinderella Classic: she’s often mistaken for a boy.

Impossible relationship?

Check. Okay, maybe you don’t know this, but I have a thing for impossible relationships–relationships that are set up such that it seems like it would be impossible for these two characters to get together, or that there’s some bit of information that, when it comes out, will make it impossible for them to stay together.

So you can kind of guess where this is going from what I said above, right? She’s often mistaken for a boy, and that’s just what happens with her prince charming, Han Kyul. When the show really starts to get going, it’s because his family is making him go on a series of blind dates hoping he’ll find a suitable bride, and he’s miserable. So Han Kyul hires Eun Chan to help break up these boring dates by showing up posing as his gay love interest. And yeah, that pretty much does the trick.

After the family gives up trying to set him up, Han Kyul is more or less forced–in a do this or lose your cushy lifestyle sort of way–into turning a failing coffee house into a money making machine. It would be great for Eun Chan, who has just lost one of her jobs, to be able to get a steady job at a coffee shop. When Han Kyul decides to cater to the young women from the nearby university, to call the shop Coffee Prince with an all-male staff of “princes,” Eun Chan has to continue her charade of playing the boy or lose the opportunity.

The growth of their relationship is exceptionally well portrayed. Eun Chan is attracted to Han Kyul, but knows nothing can come of it because she can’t admit she’s a girl. And, if she did, she figures nothingwouldcome of it because Han Kyul’s the kind of guy who can get any girl and why would he want one who can pass for a guy? As their friendship deepens, she decides that has to be enough.

It’s on Han Kyul’s side that it gets sort of fascinating, because, as the friendship deepens, he’s clearly falling for Eun Chan. For all the right reasons: her intelligence, humor, dedication, abilities, strength of character–all the awesome about her, and there’s plenty. How she fills out a ballgown is never part of the equation. I mean, how refreshing is that? He can’t actually fall for her because…she’s not a her. But she is, and he is falling for her. But he knows he’s not gay. But he feels this. And it’s really making him quite insane.

And then, when you’re so deep into a lie like that, how do you get out? And what’s going to happen when you do?

Oh the tension! Oh, the drama!

And the humor. And the secondary characters and their storylines.

I seriously loved this show. I’d say it lost a bit of steam in the last third of the series, but I thought it was worth watching the whole thing and I really enjoyed it. Now, it’s probably NOT for you if:

  • You don’t do well with a bit of exaggeration or suspending disbelief.
  • You don’t do subtitles.
  • You don’t enjoy stories from other cultures.

I mean, some people don’t, and you might not enjoy it like I did. Like Japanese stuff, there’s exaggeration here that’s different from what we usually see in American entertainment, so there are a number of things that might seem over-the-top, especially if you’re new to Asian fictions. But know that going in and then just sit back and enjoy it for what it is. It’ll grow on you.

So if you think Coffee Prince sounds awesome, lay in some supplies, set aside about seventeen hours of your weekend, get to Hulu and check it out.

If you don’t mind being spoiled just a smidge, I found this clip on YouTube. Still thinking she’s a boy, Han Kyul is trying to cope with his more than friends feelings for Eun Chan and thinks maybe if he just hugs “him,” just once, that will make things better.

If Han Kyul had ever read a romance novel, he would know this would not work. Just sayin’.

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April 13, 2012

The Walking Dead video game

So, due to yesterday’s purchase of some Megamind/B.O.B the Blob DVD from the cheapy bin, I was able to grab a few moments of quiet this morning to check out the latest Game Informer magazine, despite it being Spring Break this week.

First of all, I wanted to address a few of the quotes from a feature called “Overheard at the GDC” (Game Developers Conference).

“At first glance, the logic [of targeting everyone] makes sense. Super mainstream games such as Fruit Ninja, Angry Birds, and Cut the Rope have each sold ten of millions of copies. Attempting to replicate that success is natural. But in reality, if you are making a game for everyone, you are actually making a game for no one. The hit-based mentality takes you away from making a game that has a soul or is fresh.” -Superbrothers: Sword and Sworcery creator Nathan Vella

Well, I’m not even going to explain to you writers why I’m passing that on.

“Personally, I don’t think I can ever follow up Minecraft, and I don’t need to. I still want to make games, but it is a bit scary to think that maybe I’ve already made my magnum opus.” – Minecraft creator Markus “Notch” Persson

Hey, look, creators of awesome video games get subsequent book syndrome too.

“Lots of people want to make indie games, and they are usually waiting for permission to do it. All the information is right there. Just find some people and make a game.” -Doom co-creator John Romero

We talk a lot about putting out quality work, about studying and working on your craft, and not asking for money for your work until you actually have a product that’s worth charging money for. But, yeah, at some point you do have to stop waiting for permission and just take the leap. And besides, the best way to do that working on your craft thing is by, you know, doing the work. (Writing.) There’s a balance there, and I’m afraid I don’t know how you tell when you’re ready. I just know that if you ask everyone, there will always be someone around to dissuade you from moving forward.

I like the tone of that quote. Just go do it. Stop making a big, hand-wringing, forever-researching deal about it and just get it done. Then move on to the next one.

So those were some interesting thoughts from artists in another field.

Okay, so the highlight of this issue for me was the article on The Walking Dead from Telltale Games. This is supposedly set to begin in late April, as a monthly series for XBox, PS3, and PC, meaning it’s a digital download game, not a go buy the disc thing. It’s a single-player adventure that (I think I read in a different article) takes place at the beginning of the series while Grimes in in the coma. Your role is that of convict, Lee Everett, who escapes during the chaos of the beginning of the apocalypse. Along your journey, you’re supposed to hook up with a total of nine other characters for your party.

What interested me most about the article was it talked about player actions influencing the story. You know I’m into that. And this game seems to have a lot to do with group dynamics–you know, relationships. How you choose to treat the different people in your group and the actions you choose to take change the story you play through.

Anyway, I’m sure a bunch of you are saying, “they had me at ‘Walking Dead video game.’”

Anyone already have plans/pre-orders for this?

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April 8, 2012

Superhero party! Pass the cupcakes. #ROW80

Just going to make it for ROW80 check-in today. Not a lot to report. After I made my words for the week on Tuesday, I basically took the rest of the week off. This and that going on, lack of time management skill, lack of inspiration, no lack of procrastination skillz, blah blah blah.

Well, yes, it’s sad that SIEGE didn’t write itself through in the second half of this week, so let’s cheer ourselves up with a virtual superhero party. Look, I’ve been shopping. Pass the cupcakes. And if you’re planning a real superhero themed birthday party in the future, Etsy’s got you covered with everything you need to make it special.


 Superhero Super Hero Birthda…

$2.75
Superhero Birthday Invitatio…

$1.00

Superhero Candy Bar Labels &…

$10.00
Mix and Match Superhero Cupc…

$10.00

Comic Book Superhero Birthda…

$45.00
Superhero Party Favors Treat…

$13.99

Superhero Cupcake Wrappers

$8.00
Superhero Sound Effects Set …

$7.00

Avengers Thor Captain Americ…

$11.00
8 SUPERHERO MASKS printable …

$20.00

50 Superhero Mix Paper Straw…

$8.00
Printable Superhero Collecti…

$20.00

Batman Superhero Party Favor…

$15.00
Superhero Sayings Fondant Cu…

$30.00

Superhero BAM Action Cookies

$48.00
Superhero Cupcake Toppers

$20.00

Treasury tool by Red Row Studio

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April 7, 2012

About how my cover designer is awesomesauce

It was brought to my attention by Miss @rebeccaberto, that someone has come out with a book cover using the same image as the one I used for Hush Money. Hey, it happens. There’s only so much stock photography to go around, as Kait talked about a while back. The book, I’ll Tell You Mine, by Pip Harry, released this week by The University of Queensland Press, doesn’t appear to be available around here yet, but it looks interesting. And part of what’s interesting is the coincidence of how much the character described seems like my Joss.

But actually, I was writing a post about it to say this. Check out these covers, side by side:

It’s very happy making to see how Robin Ludwig’s work holds it own–and then some, but I’m biased.

See the original stock photo here. Just don’t everybody start using it for book covers. You’re diluting the brand. :) (I’m actually sitting here in a Talent Chronicles Joss t-shirt from Zazzle that I haven’t shown you yet because I feel dorky + I haven’t been pretty enough for a picture since I got it.)

Anyway, the lesson here is that if you’re looking for a cover designer, Robin’s your girl. And she has a new website!

/pimpage for Robin

Thanks again, Rebecca, for noticing this cover and thinking of me.

 

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April 6, 2012

Now Playing: Underworld

Before I get into Underworld, Zoe Winters needs your attention for just a minute. She’s have an Easter Egg hunt/event over at her blog. Not only is she giving away a Kindle Fire, but she’s got coupon codes up for all the stories in her Preternaturals series. This is a great time to snap up her work at low prices.

Okay, now on to my movie watching. I think I saw the first movie shortly after it came out on DVD. And I was kind ofmehabout it. Visually it was pretty awesome, and the story was good. It’s just that, for those of us who were glutted by paranormal romances involving the love/hate of vampires/werewolves, it wasn’t exactly earth-shatteringly novel. So chalk it up to the dreaded Vampire Ennui that I wasn’t super excited to see the subsequent movies.

the guy who knows stuff about things

A little while back, Andrew was doing a bit of gushing about Underworld 4 and did I see it yet. No, I still haven’t seen 2 & 3, and not sure I really remember 1. What??

Andrew said I should go back and watch them.

And when Andrew recommends something to me, I generally listen. Not just because I’m Fandrew #1, but because he’s generally right about things, especially about knowing what I’ll like.

So when I finished Fringe (loved Fringe, should talk about Fringe), I got Underworld and refreshed my memory on the first one. And I was like yeah, okay, that was pretty good, and if I didn’t like it so much before, it was because I was on vampire overload–

Ohhhh, you know what I just remembered? This was probably not too long after I read Laurell K. Hamilton’s BLUE MOON. And you know that whole Richard/Anita/skeezy vampire guy thing really made me mad. And then the series went…the way it went. I’m not even going to get into that today. But anyway, very much contributing to the Vampire Ennui.

So anyway, focus. Underworld 1. Watched it. Liked it. Moved on to Underworld 2.

And hey, yeah! Really liked that. See how smart Andrew is?

The parts of the plot of the first one that actually WERE novel to me get drawn out in the second one. While the first one seemed like a lot of visuals and action on top of a lot of vampire romance cliches, the second was much more the great visuals and action on top of an interesting plot and a nice romance.

I’ve got to watch 2 with my husband now, and I’ve got 3 here from Netflix as well. If we get through both of those soon, we might even be able to catch 4 while it’s still at the $2 theater. Here’s hoping. Because sometimes it feels like I’m the only person who hasn’t kept up with this series.

 

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April 5, 2012

The Internet: Why Life is Better Here # 815

Yesterday I wore a spiffy new t-shirt.

I spent a few hours at my daughter’s school yesterday with a handful of other moms. In the evening, I stopped in at church, GameStop, the grocery, and the coffee shop. It is fair to say that yesterday I was out and about.

Not one person said “hey, awesome shirt” or even cracked a knowing grin.

Sometimes I feel so alone. [cues dramatic music] Like some lone Whedonite, wandering in the desert.

For those of you who don’t recognize the phrase, maybe this will help…

And for those who do, let’s just have a “we happy few” moment of mutual appreciation.

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April 4, 2012

#ROW80 Update: Write the good parts first?

So yay me. Basically I have two goals right now:

  1. Write every weekday
  2. Write 1k+ per session
  • Monday: 1193
  • Tuesday: 4938

Yeah, I typed that right. OMG, I was exhausted. It’s been such a struggle to make myself sit down and put any words on the page. There was a lot of giving up. But yesterday was the 5th weekday in a row that I was making myself sit down in the coffee shop to get something done, so maybe I’m getting warmed up.

One thing about yesterday, though, is that I skipped what I was supposed to write– Raine and Tim having a bit of a fight in front of pretty much everybody. When I sat down, I still didn’t know how that was going to go, so I decided to move on to the next thing. And the next thing was the first big reveal of our villainous element for this book. So it’s a big deal and something I’ve been kind of primed to write for at least a month (when I finally figured out how I wanted to do it). It was something I actually wanted to write, which makes a big difference.

I was soooo tired at the end of it, though. 1k-2k is usually pretty comfortable for me. The last week of writing a book I’ll have days of 5k-8k because I so desperately want to be done with it and I can see just what’s going to happen, but by that time I’ve built up some muscle. But yesterday, by the time I started to wind down to end the chapter, it felt like my brain had melted and was leaking out of my ears. So, really need to get back in shape.

Wouldn’t it be cool to write 5k per day? Write a book in a month. Not that I could put out 12 books a year, but dang, 2 would be nice, wouldn’t it?

One thing that I started doing when I started writing with Kait: working sequentially without skipping. Before that, I think I used to do a lot more jumping around and writing on inspiration–though it’s been several years now and it’s hard to remember.

Last year I was having a lot of trouble getting going on CURFEW. The front end felt really off, much like the front of end of SIEGE does. By the time I got to the middle of CURFEW, where I was writing the scenes that made me want to write the book in the first place, I decided to stop, go back and rework the front.

I know there are different schools of thought on this. I was talking to AM (do you follow @AMhairiSimpson? She’s awesome.) about this the other day. “They” always say you shouldn’t go back and continuously rework the front end of a book, never getting anywhere on the rest of it. And I totally get why that is. It’s something I’ve had to break myself of. On the other hand, it is DAMN HARD to keep moving forward when you feel like you’ve got this big mess hanging over your head that you have to clean up later. Especially when it’s a case of feeling like you have to work through how to make it RIGHT before you can move forward without digging yourself deeper into total shite.

For HUSH MONEY, I just pushed my way through, skipped very little, refused to go back rework what was already there. And that worked. But that book–that book was written by fairies. I still don’t know how that came together as fast and as well as it did.

***Going to talk about plot here. Potentially spoilery***

For CURFEW, I had to go back and fix the front end before I could really move on. There were a few scenes I pulled out and rewrote, really changing the mood. Like that fight Joss had with her dad–that needed to be angrier, and end angrier than it had when I first did it, which resulted in Joss making a different choice and me having to do minor plot fixes thereafter. I already realized I needed to do a better job setting that up, went back and made big changes to the previous scene with Joss and Gene. And, after I did that, the whole Joss/Gene plotline worked a lot better and was easier.

I went back and changed Vivian’s role in the story. Pulling her in tighter to the plot, and that changed the story itself, for the better.

I needed to go back and fix a Groundhog Day problem. It was lame to have too much talking stuff going on before school on different days. I needed to do something else in school. I had this idea I was going to send Joss to the nurse’s office and that’s where she’d run into Bella because the point was to get out that idea of why kids were willing to follow Marco, and why Joss might need to think about stepping up. Having just made decisions to change Vivian, I realized that I could introduce her here, which would bring her in even closer to the beginning, and also reintroduce Dobbs, and getting the cast introduced early on is often a good thing. Suddenly my Groundhog Day of bleh was a lot different and more interesting. It worked a lot harder.

***/rehash***

Whew. That damn book (in fact, possibly we’ll just start calling it DAMN BOOK instead of CURFEW, not to be confused with SIEGE which we’ll call DAMN BOOK2) was still hard all the way through, for a lot of reasons, but I felt SO much better about it after that.

So all I’m saying is that sometimes it’s not good to ignore that feeling of offness because a good fix can really change things and make the later stuff more interesting.

Plus, when you FEEL like you’re facing a huge rewrite due to the piles of stinky shite you’ve left behind, it’s hard to be motivated to keep going.

I mean, at some point, you get to be the grown up and you get to judge whether you’re doing a partial rewrite because you really need it, or because it’s perfectionist procrastination that’s keeping you from moving forward. I mean, sometimes “they” are right, but they’re not the boss of you and sometimes those rules just don’t apply to you.

Anyway, I know this is getting long, but this brings me to SIEGE and the notion of skipping ahead. In a way, it doesn’t make a lot of sense to me to skip ahead because you miss some of the things your subconscious develops for you by working sequentially. But then, as I have clearly shown (okay, it was clear to me), sometimes my subconscious it a bit slow to work things out. And maybe it would work out more stuff if I let it go ahead and say okay, THESE are the points we are definitely making. Now you go figure out the best way to get from point to point while I go wash these dishes, kthxbye.

But then, what if I wrote all my favorite parts first and then I had nothing to look forward to and the rest of the book was just total drudgery?

So, does anyone do this? Skip around and write all the high points first, then go back and fill in? Does it work for you? Did you try it with horrifying, project-killer results?

Best wishes to the ROW80 crew.

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April 3, 2012

What would Buffy do?

“Watch out for the apocalypse!”

That’s what my daughter called out to me as she climbed on the school bus this morning. And as much as I was kind of weirded out by that, I still managed to reply, “If the apocalypse comes, beep me.”

Because culture is important.

The whole thing raises some concern about my parenting, I suppose. But we’ve come up with a fitness plan for Spring Break next week. I’ve been stalled out on Couch to 5k, waiting for running shoes to arrive (which are scheduled for delivery the day after tomorrow). Because starting such an endeavor without proper footwear was a Bad Idea. Anyway, our current plan is to do a ghetto version of Zombies, Run! in which she pretends to be a zombie and I run away. We practiced this a bit in the house this morning, with fairly good results, so I’m hoping this will translate into actual time on the track while she’s off school. We could both use it.

In other news, I’m supposed to be out walking right now and then on to the coffee shop to get some writing done. Pretty sure I’m stalling because Tim and Raine are supposed have words and I have no idea what those words are. So I’m using the excuse that my laptop needs a bit of charging before I head out for the morning.

In other other news, last night I finished reading the front end of Kait’s current WIP. It is absolutely full of win. You are going to love it.

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