Back at home, lots to do.

I am not going to apologize for being away so long. I might choose to apologize to people who are waiting for email replies from me. We'll play it by ear.

We're recently back from a weeklong stay in New York, specifically on Long Island. We hardly got into the five boros at all, frankly, outside of trips fro and to the airport. Still, it was loads of fun: there's the food (of course, always the priority in my mind--Eddie's, bagels, Chinese, Green Cactus, and of course Thanksgiving dinner), the family and friends, and Sam playing with his cousin, also around one year old, from out in California. It's a shame cousins so close in age will spend so much of their youth so far apart. Still, though, fun.

The flight back with the very tired and restless and loud Sam? Not so fun.

There's some book news about to break as well (personal appearances, a trailer, final cover . . . boring stuff like that), but for now it's under my hat. I will announce right now that, beginning with an exciting guest post in the next few days, I'll be holding a contest here at the Exile. The winner will receive an ARC of The Absolute Value of -1, signed not only by moi, but also but several Tenners. If all goes according to plan, the signers will be the same Tenners whose guest posts I'll be hosting. Details to follow this week!

Those people from PIX are not as excited as they should be.

We're off to New York in the morning! Pizza, bagels, egg sandwiches, Eddie's* (which will be the first pizza Sam ever tries; everything is going according to my plan) . . . a 6:30 a.m. flight! We'll have to rise early even for us (our normal wake-up time is 5:30 or so). Wish us luck, please, as Sam is teething like nobody's business at the moment and has had a screwy couple of days as it is.

Perhaps you'd better wish the other passengers on our flight luck, as well.

YA Novel the First news: I sent back my second revisions to Aforementioned Editor. Assuming he approves of the minor changes I made and the itty-bitty new scene I painstakingly crafted, I think we're about to work on a final title for this thing. Finally. I've been sweating through every conversation about YA Novel the First, just dreading the inevitable "So?! What is it called??" As if that's all that matters. Sheesh.

We thought we'd see samples of my latest series for SAB last week, but they didn't show up. It's a shame; I'm looking forward to finally dropping them on the Exile and revealing what "FTM" stands for in the sidebar. Hopefully they'll be in by the time we return from back east. They're a treat to write (I just finished another for the next group in the same series today, as a matter of fact), and hopefully they'll be a treat to read. I can tell you one thing: I've seen much of the art and design, and they're positively gorgeous. They're bound to be my favorite SAB titles.


*That picture I found is awesome.