Look at him now!

One year ago today, Beth went into labor.

Sam's first birthday isn't officially until tomorrow, but to me it starts right now. I still have, somewhere in my little notebook that was supposed to be for writing down story ideas or plot notes, several pages of timed contractions from that day.

In other news, you have right around 24 hours left to enter the big Eric Stevens/Jake Maddox giveaway. Even if these aren't your type of books, they make a great package to donate to a local library. I know a lot of the libraries in our area are in need of all the help they can get; yours probably are too! So enter! Click here! Do it today!

An Eric Stevens giveaway!

Since last week's giveaway was such a smash success -- or anyway a fizzling step forward, a little? -- Eric Stevens has decided he'd like to host a contest of his own. So, without further ado, here is Eric Stevens*:

This was going to be a Jake Maddox giveaway. I was going to ask for a favorite school or club sports memory, and I'm sure I would have gotten some great answers. But some other samples have arrived, so now the contest will be for this smashing list of titles:

FIVE Jake Maddox titles, including Field Hockey Firsts, Stock Car Sabotage, Record Run, Half-Pipe Prize, and Disc Golf Drive;

HOPE!: A Story of Change in Obama's America;

and Bandslam: Will's Guide to Music.

Since two titles have been added to the giveaway that are strictly NOT sports related, I've changed the entry question a bit. So here it is:

In the comments below (if you're reading this on Steve's Facebook page, please click over to the original post to submit a comment), briefly recount a favorite or least favorite memory from a school or club sports team, band, or government body/council. Hopefully that will give everyone something they can reflect upon.

I'll announce a winner, selected at random from the comments, around this time next week. Be sure to check back!

The Jake Maddox titles are RL 2.0-3.0, Guided Reading Level M. HOPE! is RL 3.4, Guided Reading Level N.

*Sketch of Eric Stevens by Sean Tiffany, the official and awesome artist for a shocking number of Jake Maddox titles!

Four items of varying degrees of note

Hey hey!

Good evening, happy Friday, and such and such.

No news on the YA MS the First front; I trust the esteemed EN4 arrived home from Bologna today and will be back in the office on Monday. I feel confident I'll hear all about the details (or "deetz," for you young people) at that time.

In news today, however:

1. I remembered most of the bass lines I was required to play at our first band-back-together practice last night! We're having another practice tomorrow afternoon, after . . .

2. Taxes! Tomorrow, lunchtime-ish, I'll be off to see our tax professional. Being a freelance, self-employed person is complicated, what with home offices and 1099s and expenses and such.

3. It pays to comment on your favorite blogs, people! I have been invited to become a new contributor at The Spectacle. This is pretty cool! And it's all because I dropped the correct answer to this week's Stump the Bookseller, one of the current contributors clicked over here, and thought I would be a good fit! My first official duty: write next week's Stump the Bookseller.

4. Since I was at practice last night, I'll have to make some write time this weekend. If I don't, Eric Stevens will be missin' deadlines, and that ain't cool.

Nothing more to say! Have a good weekend, y'all.

On the Island

In New York now, and updating my blog from the seat at the kitchen table I sat in as a child every night for dinner. Unfortunately, there is not a bowl of macaroni and cheese in front of me as there might have been during many of those years.

The flight was kind of a mess. First off, due to all the east coast weather yesterday morning, residual delays meant our 5:20 flight took off at around a quarter to eight. Not typically a problem, but we were flying into Newark, rather than Queens, which means a much longer drive home. We ended up landing at 11 pm, which had my poor aging mother schlepping to Jersey in the dead of night on unfamiliar roads. And of course it had me, after this insanely long day, driving from Newark on unfamiliar roads back to Long Island. Needless to say, I fell asleep pretty quickly. Sam and Beth are napping even as we speak.

Readkiddoread.com is up, from James Patterson, and I like it. But it doesn't have a section for kids who struggle with reading but don't want to be left with books written at kids younger than them. In other words, it needs some high-low and high interest: Jake Maddox style!

Anyway, we're off in an hour or so to our local kosher-style deli. Very excited.

Oh, and on the YA MS the First front, editor reports riveted, but that was Friday. I am expecting something more soon, and am appropriately excited. I have done essentially no work in almost a week now, with the exception of updating my resume and WIPs for the conference, mainly by adding yet another several sports/Maddox books and a little blurb about YA MS the Second. I need to edit it, however; it doesn't touch as heavily on the fantasy/supernatural aspects as I'd like it too. Here is the blurb! You can tell me what you think:

A Terrible Mistake
Jessamine Parson’s mother died in childbirth, and on the same day her grandmother was found dead and clutching a mysterious note: “There’s been a terrible mistake.” Nearly eighteen years later, Jessa is a foul-mouthed, socially inept, and extremely reluctant college freshman. She plans to spend as little time as possible living a typical college life, preferring to game away the hours in a violent and magical online world. But Jessa’s real-world college experience turns out to be more amazing—and dangerous—than the one she leads online.

Within days of starting her college career, Jessamine is already attracting more attention than she wants: Rope, the wiry resident assistant, seems to be around whenever Jessa needs help; Thomas Priestly, Jessa’s anthropology professor, makes an unexpected appearance in game; and fellow freshman Henry is having the strongest effect on Jessa of all—it’s something in his eyes.

WARNING: This book does NOT contain vampires.

I hope I can find a wifi signal at the conference.

Grumble, grumble

I am in no mood to update this afternoon.

I have a wicked cold and cough, a Nyquil hangover (I think there's an ingredient in Nyquil, aside from the alcohol itself, that, as it wears off, puts you in an especially bad mood), and an infant son who is bucking all the rules of the schedule.

Of course, my mood is bad from within, and I am not blaming Sam for it.

Wanna know a secret? When Sam is obviously tired, and I'm obviously being a grump, and Sam keeps spitting out his pacifier and therefore won't fall asleep, and then he looks up at me and laughs, I sometimes think, Stop laughing at me! Pathetic, ain't it?

I want to thank the people at Blogger for not citing "ain't" as a misspelled word. Kudos.

Next stop, Eric Stevens Town, where Mr. Stevens has just submitted his latest Jake Maddox title to the good people at Stone Arch. I should be using this afternoon's free time to work on the mysterious (apparently) YA MS. But, as I noted above, I am in no mood.

I hope I find the proper mood soon, though. It would seriously suck if my big day of writing tomorrow was wasted simply because I'm being such a sourpuss.

I bet you're thrilled to your toes that you bothered reading this entry!

Monday morning quarterback

At the moment (or anyway at the moments surrounding the few moments I am taking to write this blog entry), I am working on the next Eric Stevens writing as Jake Maddox title. It's the story of an eighth-grade football team, and their fight to beat their longtime rivals. Their rivals have won every meeting between the two in the schools' history. Who will triumph this year? I'll give you one guess.

The writing is going fairly well so far, oddly enough. Football, as I've previously mentioned herein, is not my thing. But hey, that's what research is for, I suppose.

And speaking of Eric Stevens, the Stone Arch Blog is updated as of this morning for the new year, and it includes a link to the new line of Superman and Batman chapter books that company is putting out. Eric Stevens wrote two (the Superman/Metallo title, and the Batman/Clayface title). Those were fun but stressful to write, since the licensor is so heavily involved at every stage. The website for the DC tie-ins looks really great though, so I recommend having a look.

And speaking of websites that my wife is responsible for, here's her new blog!

Once Sam wakes up, I'll have to put this work on the backburner, so I better get back to it right away.

Winter cleaning

Today is cleaning day here at the Brezenoff household. Beth's slaving in the bathroom right now, while I am on lunch break. Fear not; I do my part (vacuuming, dusting, some odd decluttering). We also took down the Christmas tree, which is a relief. I like it; don't get me wrong. I'm not about to get all anti-goy on this. Fact is, when I was a tot, I was jealous of many of the Christmas trimmings. I do get sick of seeing it, though, after a few weeks, and its placement makes everything else have to shift to one side a little. Now everything is back to normal.

I think after lunch, though, before I tackle the kitchen, I'm going to brave the cold and take Harry on a longish walk. It's sunny out, and I could use a little of the old vitamin D, believe you me. The winter continues to hammer away at my soul, so I better fight back when I have the constitution to do so.

This evening, I think it'll be Jake Maddox time; I'm behind on the next title (a football story), and it's due Tuesday. Eric Stevens's good name must live on.

Wednesday is looking like my big highlight this week. Various in-laws will be watching Sam for me for about five hours, and I intend to use every minute of that to work on YA MS the first. I have this ridiculous notion that I can get a draft finished before the end of the month. It's probably a pipe dream.

I am not watching football. Football is boring.

Sniffles

I've got a bad cold. I think Sam might have it too. He's had a fitful morning of sleep since his mom left. He wakes every 5 or 15 minutes and cries for a few seconds, then turns over and falls back asleep. This is pretty much how I slept most of the night, so I'm assuming it's a symptom of the cold.

In other news, my first-ever graphic novel manuscript is . . . late! But not by much, and I hope to get it done by lunchtime, or during lunchtime, depending mainly on Sam. I have 6 spreads left to go, and then I can spend the remainder of December concentrating on my YA MS, and pitching new ideas to my editors over at SAB.

Sam is having a fuss right now, so I better check on him. Not much else to report right now, anyway.

Achoo.

Pss . . . my secret identity:

Now this is pretty cool.

Of course, being me, I am also worried about it, since I'm fairly sure none of my Impact titles are even on shelves yet. Won't the students pick up the newest Impact titles, start reading, and be all, "Um, this is a totally different vibe. I'm not interested in reading this at all"?