What I've been up to this afternoon

I mentioned recently that I planned to practice drawing again. I miss it something fierce, and hey, getting my old skills back will only improve trailers of the future. THE FUTURE!

So, here's what I've been up to this afternoon. They're just sketches, but I can totally feel myself getting better. Recognize anyone? If you click it, they will get bigger. I think.
Oh, and by the way. I'm racing Kurtis Scaletta to 500 Twitter followers. The moment I do reach 500, I will give away two free copies of The Absolute Value of -1 to random followers. Here's my Twitter. I'm not telling you Kurtis's.

Lots of tunes!

I'm on two deadlines right now, and waiting for some exciting news. So, to pass the time while simultaneously procrastinating on those two deadlines, I will now drop my 200th blog post: my official playlist for YA MS the Third, a book almost no one has read!

I hope it won't disappoint anyone.

I don't make a habit of publicizing my working tunes, but recently, the AE was recommended a particular Avett Brothers song, one that played a nearly formative role in YA MS the Third. We got to tweeting briefly on the subject, and I decided I'd go ahead and share my full set list. I'm finally getting around to doing so.

Some of these are old, old favorites. Others are newer tunes that were in such frequent rotation that they colored the mood of the book to some extent. Others, like the aforementioned Avett Brothers tune, are so appropriate to the book it's uncanny, especially when you consider how much of the plot and characterization was set in stone before I even heard them.

Without further annoying ado!:

(grouped by artist)

Avett Brothers
"I and Love and You" -- this was the song the AE first tweeted, and the first song that I associated with the book. It's lyrics are crazy appropriate, as its general vibe of hopeful melancholia.

"Head Full of Doubt / Road Full of Promise" -- this one maintains the previous mood, but its lyrics feel somehow even more appropriate. I verge on tears when I hear this one, simply because it reminds me so much of my main characters.

"Kick Drum Heart" -- a more upbeat tune from these bluegrass punk fellows, this tune captures nicely the not-so-uncommon lighter moments in the book.

Noisettes
"Never Forget You" -- I always felt this tune fit the vague retro feel of YA MS the Third. Its theme, also, of long-lasting friendship, especially with booze involved, fit nicely with a sub-story.

"Sometimes" and "Cheap Kicks" -- mood-wise, same deal as above. They just work, to me.

The Ting-Tings
"We Walk" -- you knew I had to get my Ting-Tings in here, and this song is the only one on the album that feels appropriate, lyrics and mood-wise. The Ting-Tings bring the added bonus of being a two-person band, which is relevant to YA MS the Third. Also, there are no rhymes, which always impresses me.

Madness
"One Step Beyond" -- whenever I sit down to work on or simply read through YA MS the Third, this is the song I first put on -- it's on right now. It is the over-arching theme of the book to me, though I can't say for sure why. If you see me at BEA next year in checkered Vans instead of orange Chucks, you'll know why.

The Replacements
"Androgynous" -- a longtime favorite of mine that sneaked into the manuscript toward the end of my last phase of revisions, and I'm glad it did. This tune and "One Step Beyond" are I think the only ones mentioned directly in the MS.

Yeah Yeah Yeahs
"Heads Will Roll" -- I needed a couple of angry vocalists on this set list for one particularly angsty scene, and Karen O -- who isn't from Brooklyn, but always makes me think of Williamsburg -- couldn't have been more perfect.

The Gossip
"Heavy Cross" -- not sure what it is about this tune, but it felt like a natural for the MS and to rock along with Yeah Yeah Yeahs. It's also one of the first tunes my son danced to, so hey.

Belle & Sebastian
"We Are the Sleepyheads" -- I have no idea what this song is actually about, but the frenetic fun vibe of this tune suits plenty of sunny, lovey moments in the MS. Plus I was dying to get something from this amazing album on the set list.

That's it! I hope you hear some new songs and enjoy them. Let me know.

Fly, little novel.

YA MS the Third went on submission yesterday. I hope it is doing okay out there in the cold world. Soon, it will no longer be called YA MS the Third in this space.

Meanwhile, here's its Wordle cloud. I don't quite know why "back" is featured so boldly. Huh.

Sacrifices must be made

First, some news, which you may have already seen in my Twitter stream. The release party and reading for |-1| has been scheduled! It will be at Magers & Quinn in Minneapolis on September 23. This gives you plenty of notice and time to plan, so get those airline tickets bought now if you need them.

The trailer for |-1| will be showing up very soon.

I've let my WoW account expire. This was mainly to make me a more productive writer, just like last time I took a long WoW break, when I finished |-1| and started YA MS the Second. Ironically, though, I plan to use the otherwise wasted time to now finish YA MS the Second, which is about a girl who plays WoW too much! Truly, the mind reels, does it not?*

Also ironically, YA MS the Third is done! Which is to say, it somehow earned agent ENIV's approval last week, and this week he might, ya know, show it to someone else. So that's fun.

Also fun: the last touch it needed required a smidge of research. I went down to the art supply store and rather sheepishly explained I needed some newsprint and vine charcoals. Then I got to do something I haven't done regularly in far too long: draw. I chose a desk lamp, for reasons I won't get into now, and had a great time. This was all so I could better describe the experience of drawing with charcoal on newsprint--the feel of it, the smell, the smudging on the sides of my fingers, et cetera. Anyway, there are like 49 more sheets of newsprint on that pad, and I intend to use them.

*The crying Night Elf above is not my toon, but some random level 13 I chose simply to illustrate a crying Night Elf. If you happen to recognize this toon (called Swan, by the way), perhaps it is yours. If so, I urge you to spend your four talent points. They don't get better if you let them age.

The droghte of Marche is totally about to perced to the roote

Gracious, it's the last night of February. Happy March Eve, everyone.

Here's how February went, well known among many as my least favorite month:

1. YA MS the Second and YA MS the Third are done. Caveat: both are drafted. YA MS the Third I considered strong enough to send along to ENIV; I second guess that decision on a frequent and regular basis. YA MS the Second I finished drafting only a few days ago, and I know full well it's not close to submission to the Otters, never mind ENIV.

2. I wrote a short story for my Loft group. I haven't written a short story in years, nor anything not specifically for young readers, teen or younger, so this was a nice departure. In working on it, I've come to feel a lot more comfortable with the revision process, on a nice small scale, than I ever have been before.

3. I saw the nearly final cover of THE ABSOLUTE VALUE OF -1! This was, oh, a week ago or so, and I cannot yet show the world. But soon, my pretties. Soon . . .

4. |-1| is also totally on Amazon now! Pre-order!

5. New York pizza is all about home-cooking now, since I learned how to make, stretch, and even hand toss a really good dough. With my homemade tomato sauce and some mozzarella, I can make a pretty passable NY-style pie. Now if I could just get my oven to 800 degrees, we'd be all set.

6. It's March in like five hours and change. Rejoice!

Big, cold week

It's super cold out again. We had a mini-March of sort for the last seven days or so, but as of yesterday, and certainly as of today if my cold toes are to be trusted, January is back, 110%. Let's all put our heads down against the wind and get through it.

That is, as soon as I get back from New York. I'll grant you, New York isn't much of a respite from winter blues, but it's a little one, if your winter blues are Minnesotan -- especially if while in New York you get to go to the SCBWI Annual Conference! Which of course I do. I'm extra excited (and nervous) this year because I get to meet my inimitable agent, ENIV, and hopefully a handful of Tenners, of which I've met exactly none, at least in person. Online we are not counting for these purposes. Or porpoises. I have a cold and feel very foggy in the head, but I'm sure I mean "purposes" or "porpoises."

I like dolphins.

Yesterday morning, I finally decided to send a finished draft of YA MS the Third to ENIV. I know it's not perfect, so yesterday's decision was about letting it not be perfect, after lying awake night and night and anguishing over every paragraph and plot decision for the past several months. I think it's good. I think it still could use some work, but let's remember that agents and editors (if this book ends up seeing any) are very helpful people when it comes to creating a book. Now, I will look forward to hearing from ENIV and his thoughts on what I've written.

Is it okay to say I know a lot of it is really good?

Now, back to life. Everyone here is sick with a cold; Sam probably picked it up at the Rosedale Mall play area late last week, and has been good enough to share it with myself and my wife since then, by all manner of coughing and sneezing on our faces.

Resolutions, but not the kind you expect

You'll notice I haven't posted any resolutions this January. I suppose I could--like finishing both my YA WIPs; like cutting my cholesterol and getting back on my bike this spring--but I don't feel like it. So let's just say it's those three things and move on.

Here's a rare Sam update: We got him this little blue chair, still a little big for his modest frame. Still, he uses it well. He pushes it all over the house, then uses it to climb up to places he ought not, like toy chest tops and kitchen counters and dining room tables. So that's fun.

Beth has taken to bakin'. There is fresh bread all the time. It's fantastic.

Today was red-carpet day in children's books, as most of you probably know, and I have a lot of reading to do, for sure. You may recall a mention of one winner here at the Exile some time ago. I loved it then and am happy with the choice, for sure.

But awards day is something else to me too. It's a day I get particularly fired up to do the hard work it takes to write a really good book. Last year, I had just submitted a complete MS to the AE for the first time, and was taking a little break before shooting off to SCBWI in NYC. This year, I haven't submitted anything to anyone in far too long, and I have a week and a half and a couple of write days and nights before SCBWI in NYC. So I plan to take advantage of the ALA-inspired fire in my gut. With that in mind, I'm making not New Year's resolutions, as I mentioned above, but instead, ALA Awards Resolutions:

1. YA MS the Third: this thing has been sitting about twenty feet from the goal line for months, no exaggeration. Plenty of excuses, but no exaggeration. There are a few scenes I know I need to write, but that will also mean lots of revisions to existent scenes that I love and don't want to revisit. That idiocy ends now. The work will get done on Wednesday and Saturday.

2. YA MS the Second: this needs a synopsis. This time last year, I thought I was about to finish it. I had written about 40k in about a month, and was loving every minute of it. Then plot holes and wrong turns reared their ugly heads (as did another book by a brilliant writer also about a girl and her werewolf man), so I put it on the back burner and have only tweaked it slightly over the last year. That idiocy ends now. I will synopsize this beast by the middle of February.

And that's it. Beyond February 15 (happy seventh birthday, Harry!), I'm not making any promises. Sure, there's that middle grade series that I want to rewrite YA, and there's the story of a couple of background characters in |-1| I want to revisit, but I'll probably make a nice set of post-BEA resolutions.

Oh, and I promise to blog more. Natch.

WYAOM! (The M stands for "month.")

The second half of December is totally WYAOD half-month! It began yesterday, sort of, since it was Wednesday, which means SIL babysitting and a half WYAOD. It was particularly special because I think it was the first Wednesday in some time on which I had no reading to do for the Loft workshop (it's over until late January), no homework for an education class (I'm also taking the spring semester off, so that won't change for a while), and no SAB job to help Eric Stevens with (he always needs my help, the bum).

But on Saturday it really kick into high gear! Beth and all the SILs will be at our house baking Christmas cookies for the whole afternoon, and in the morning Beth will be out with Sam buying ingredients for said cookies. That means WYAOD for me!

But it just gets better from there. After Christmas, Beth has a number of days off from work, and I hope and plan to use a couple or few of them as WYAODs as well. At this rate, my current WIP, aka YA MS 3, which is at the moment a hot mess, will be feeling a lot better before the first of the new year.

Oh, also: new crit group forming! We had our first meeting last night. All kinds of fun.

Three years!

Happy anniversary!

To who? To me and Beth, natch. Today is our third anniversary, in fact, and in celebration, Beth went off to work and I stayed home with Sam!

Wait, no.

Last night, while I was at my awesome Loft class (which, by the way, was a riot last night; everyone seemed drunk, in a good way), Beth made a batch of maple glazed cookies with coarse sea salt. They are amazing. I have eaten at least 8 since then, and do keep in mind that it's not even noon here and that I was asleep for about 8 hours between when the cookies were given to me and now. The point is, though, that I recently Twittered that I was having bona fide maple lust. It is sated -- for now.

In other, less interesting news, YA MS the Third is done. Again. I think. I am in the middle of a read-through right now, and then I'll pass it off to Beth, as she is my favorite first reader. It's very short. Like, too short for most editors to look at seriously, I think. The AE is okay with the length, so that's reassuring, certainly. But he's a maverick!

In truth, I probably wrote lazily and could have include more action here or there.

My next task, after Eric Stevens finishes his latest assignment, is to fix and finish the trailer for |-1|. Not that there's any hurry.

Did you guys know Josh Berk is eating a burger a day for a hundred days, to celebrate the release of his debut, The Dark Days of Hamburger Halpin, on the 100th day? How jealous are you? Or more to the point, how jealous am I?!

I wish I'd named my book The Absolute Value of Negative Pizza.

Updates and BBW

Clearly, my five posts weekly resolution has been smashed. Then it was stomped on, put out with the recycling, and run over with a steamroller.

Oh well.

Tonight, the first 20-odd pages of YA MS the Third are on the chopping block in my Loft workshop. Early reactions are positive, but I manage to retain fear. It's my nature. I'm strong like that: in the face of positivity, I maintain a lack of composure.

I think I mentioned a trailer for YA Novel the First. Perhaps that was on Twitter. Regardless, I've decided, I regret to say, to redo much of it. The more I fiddled with it, the more of the book I felt I was "giving away," such as it is, and not adding much to the trailer itself, visually or oomph-wise. It eventually became really ineffective. So I'm backing up about three of hours of work, rethinking some of the sketches and the narration script. With a live-in babysitter set to arrive tomorrow afternoon, hopefully I can get it done by the middle of next week.

Not that there's any hurry, of course.

As I just noted briefly, by the way, Beth's mother-in-law will be arriving tomorrow afternoon. She'll be with us until Tuesday. I'd warn you that I might not update much during her visit, but since I've been about the slackingest blogger in Minnesota anyway, why bother.

I can hardly believe I haven't said a thing about Banned Books this week. Everyone did, except me. Of course, as you likely guessed, I am opposed to the banning of books. That said, I expect someone will challenge |-1|, and that bothers me not at all. It seems to me that much of the art teens have loved since "teens" became a demographic has been heavily challenged, regarded by much of the adult world as somehow dangerous. I don't expect that will ever change. And frankly, if it ever did, I expect art for teens would simply push farther, as it should. The teen age is one defined by its burgeoning individuality and independence from arbitrary adult and societal authority. Absorbing that which is challenged and subversive is a rite of passage, and a crucial one.

The Secret of Roan Pizza

More excellent pizza!

This time it's on the east side of the Metro, and, though Hiawatha Pizza is certainly closer to home as the crow flies (or the bike rides), getting down there in the car is a huge pain thanks to the clusterfrak that is Lake Street. So, we present Pino's of Woodbury. I won't get into a whole review spiel here, since an excellent review is already up at S4xton. (Photo is from S4xton.) It's spot-on. I think Hiawatha is a little closer to perfect NYC-style slices. It's also a little cheaper and the slices are bigger. However, since Hiawatha does very little business, the product is often a little sitting-aroundy. I also have no confidence that Hiawatha will still be in business a year from now, whereas Pino's seems in good shape.

I'm out for some write time at the moment. Been stepping back and forth between my two most important WIPs (YA MSS the Second and the Third, that is). I'm 99% certain that the first 25 pages of YA MS the Third will be my first submission for crit at the Loft. Thing is, I feel like I'm just teetering on the edge of eureka with both projects. Like, at any moment, the thing that's going to make plots really work and feel organic is just around the corner.

So what am I doing here? Who knows. I'm probably a little afraid to get there.

Beth and I watched The Secret of Roan Inish last night. I still love it. Beth was very against it from the get go. I think the scene in which cousin Tadgh tells Fiona about the family's odd mating history is what got her turning around on the issue. Either that or she just said at the end that she liked it to shut me up and she actually didn't like it. Who knows. Anyway, I very much want to read the book on which it's based, The Secret of the Ron Mor Skerry. Has anyone out there?

Workshopping, finally

I haven't workshopped my writing since 2001. That was the year I did two classes at the Gotham Writers Workshop in New York. (In fact, while killing a few minutes before one such workshop, I ran into an old music biz/college friend, and yadda yadda yadda, within a month I was working at S&S Children's; thanks, Detroit*.) I found that experience to be at times horrible and useless, but very often invaluable. In fact, it's safe to say that my first instructor at GWW, one Alex Steele, was one of the three most important--how shall I put this?--cattle prods in my writing career. He was a big fan of some of the earliest scenes in |-1|, and without his confidence in the piece, I don't know I ever would have written even the novella it was this time last year.

I digress. The point is, been a long time since I was active in a workshop, but now it's on: I've just begun the Advanced Fiction Workshop at the Loft, and, no offense to Brian Farrey, I'm glad I ended up "stuck" in this class, rather than BF's "Better Writing through Buffy." That class sounded hell of fun, but probably would not have been quite the swift kick YA MS the Third really needs.

Already the workshop has been helpful. In selecting the 6500-word section I want to submit (I volunteered to submit next week, essentially right away), I determined that the wrong 25 pages are right now the first 25 pages, and the 25 pages I chose for the workshop should be the first 25 pages. Already a win. Oh, plus the first story we read was Kelly Link's "Stone Animals," which, swoon.

*My old friend's name is not actually Detroit. Detroit is simply what a particular mispronunciation of her name sort of sounds like, but not really.

"Self-destructive"

I have a blog? How 'bout that.

Yup, been gone a week. No good reason for it, frankly.

My last Thursday afternoon for work, with MIL sitting Sam, is today. I'll be working mostly on an SAB title, which is nice. My two most promising WIPs (aka YA MS the Second and YA MS the Third) have been gathering dust, not for lack of time (though I haven't been taking write-nights as religiously as I ought to), but for lack of get-up-and-go. I think writing a quick football title for SAB will help me to feel potent again. Let's hope so, 'cause YA MS the Third is so freakin' promising, and yet I am afraid to approach it.

This has always been a problem for me, and I assume for many writers. I write and write like a house afire, and then, upon reaching some roadblock, stop. YA MS the Second has been wallowing for some time thanks to that issue, and I am afraid YA MS the Third is destined for the same fate. Heck, YA Novel the First wallowed on and off for about twelve years. It took some interest from the AE to really bang it into shape.

This afternoon, I have contractual obligations to attack that SAB title. It's due on Monday, after all. But after this weekend, I'm getting my BIC on, religiously. In fact, here's my vow: YA MS the Third will be agent-ready by Halloween.

Not to put to fine a point on it, but just typing that sentence gave me a small anxiety attack.

WIP dreams

The Eric Stevens giveaway is officially closed. I'll announce the winner early next week, and in that post I'll also include the final portrait, with ink and shading, of Eric Stevens, by Sean Tiffany.

Today, I'm back to my current WIP, aka YA MS the Third. It's my genuine obsession. Last night, I dreamed I was the protagonist, running around Greenpoint, visiting a bike repair shop that also served espresso drinks. It was a very cool place, and it was run by a guy named Jim, who I think was a counselor at my sleepaway camp when I was about ten or eleven. I'm not sure the idea of a coffee counter at a bike repair shop would be a good idea in reality*, and I don't think I need to add a cycling motif to the WIP at this point, but it was pleasant to dream about my characters a little. Protagonist wore some really cool jeans, like a member of the Smiths or something.

Speaking of the WIP, it's made the rounds in the Otters (my online crit group) and has gotten some very good and some very . . . errr, constructive comments. Good: nice writing! Bad: no plot! So I have gone back to the beginning and written up a nice beefy synopsis that I think has added quite a lot of tension and hopefully a nice arc and all that story stuff. Now I need to start the rewrite. So what am I doing here, blogging?

*Um, apparently it is a good idea, since there is a popular one right here in the Twin Cities.

Cures for Heartburn

YA MS the Third is giving me serious agita. I'll be taking a short break from it, letting it worm around in my fuzzy little mind, and maybe the problem will look less problematic when I return to it.

Meanwhile, I will be dedicating the next 30-45 days to some SAB business, including one very exciting, totally new, and mind-blowingly cool project that I can't even say anything about yet. I mean, I wouldn't want to build it up too much or anything. I can say it will likely be the longest, word-count-wise, project I've ever done for SAB.

There's still a few days to enter the Field Trip Mysteries giveaway. Give it a whirl! And if you don't win this one, I think Eric Stevens has a giveaway planned for next week. He just got all kinds of samples in, too, including Bandslam: Will's Guide to Music. He's really proud of that one--spent a good amount of time yesterday reading through it, second guessing some, but mostly just liking it. That was an insane project. Some revisions arrived, with a short turnaround requested, the morning my . . . I mean, his son was born! (That's almost one year ago, for those playing at home.) Anyway, I expect that title will be involved in the giveaway next week.

Now then. Back to the Isle of Conquest!

Allow me to ramble and whine about T-shirts, please

I have several favorite T-shirts. Shall I name them? I shall:

Helmet (Meantime-era logo)
01000100 01000001 01000100
Space Invaders
Strong Bad I
Strong Bad II
Four Gregs
SAB
Rockford Spelling Bowl

That's all of them, in no particular order. But here's the thing: Helmet, due to intense wear, and Strong Bad I, due to my having worn it while painting Sam's bedroom, are no longer public appropriate. Clearly, I need to replace those shirts. But meanwhile, I haven't had the extreme pleasure of wearing my Helmet T-shirt in months.

I know!

I wear T-shirts all day, every day (writer lifestyle FTW!), barring some kind of fancy-shmancy social engagement, like a wedding, for which I obviously need to wear a shirt with a collar so the tie won't look silly. But meanwhile, I live in constant fear that my favorite shirts -- the ones still presentable -- will soon become worn and unwearable!

The solution is clearly to right now buy an extra of each of my favorite shirts. Does this sound like a good idea?

But more relevant: why am I wasting blog space and your time with this issue? Who knows.

Today, beginning at noonish, I will enjoy a surprise WYAOD. An hour or so of it will be for SAB work. But after that, I intend to attack YA MS the Third with a vengeance. Much revising needs to be done, and I'm the man for the job.

Ooh! And some friends have lent to Sam a cool little car thingy that lets him practice walking! Enjoy this video.

Wordled!

It occurred to me that I finish that WIP draft and didn't drop a Wordle of it on y'all. So here it is!

Sunday in the house with Sam

Yesterday afternoon I finished the first draft of YA MS the Third. It turned out about half as long as I think it will be, with one entire plot missing, a plot which is yet to be determined but that will save this thing once I figure out what it is.

Beth read the whole thing last night, and had some very helpful notes for me. I think overall she enjoyed it, and her biggest concerns were the same as mine: "What the hell is going on?"

In other news, I haven't updated in over a week now, which is actually fairly embarrassing. But like I mentioned in the last update: still waiting for the final title of YA Novel the First to be officially final, and for a few other things, that will help to make an update a little more worth reading than, say, this one is.

Right now, I'm hanging out with Sam, letting Beth sleep in a little longer. But I do hope she wakes soon so the three of us can get to our Sunday morning tradition: the Saint Paul Farmers Market. Have I ever raved about the market here? It's truly wonderful. It's fairly small, but every farm represented is local and organic. Throughout the summer, I'd say beginning in early May or so, the stuff for sale changes with the months and weeks; we begin with perennials and annuals for sale to the hobby gardener, and soon asparagus and strawberries show up. The corn appears soon, along with peppers and cucumbers and broccoli, and zucchini, et cetera. Eventually the apple-orchard people come out, with sample slices and fresh-pressed cider. It's really one of the best things Saint Paul has to offer.

So that's where we're headed, once Beth gets up. We'll get everything we need for salads, our traditional Sunday night dinner, plus a couple of coffees to enjoy as we stroll the aisles. And I promise that this week, I'll update twice more, very likely with nothing interesting to report, but a promise is a promise, after all.

It's the July WYAOD

I know. It's been almost a week. If you're tracking my resolutions, you're no doubt as disappointed in me as I am in myself. Here's the thing: I spent much of the week, when not working on a new FTM title, or simply doing the best job ever (watching Sam, that is), simply waiting for word on a couple of things.

First, Aforementioned Editor (how long will I keep up this pseudoanonymity of various people and projects?) and I have been discussing final titles for YA Novel the First. It's down to a few real contenders, one of which I'm favoring especially. It was Beth's idea, that one. In fact, nearly all of my favorites were Beth's idea. ENIV is also favoring that one. I suspect it will be the final title. Meanwhile, though, I wait for word from designers and salespeople and marketers, who are no doubt holding hours upon hours of meetings to discuss the issue, I assume, via AE. I know we're all anxious to settle on something, so I'm sure I'll hear next week.

Next, I mentioned very briefly that a writer whom I admire had agreed to blurb YA Novel the First. The exact wording of said blurb is still TK (I think the acronym list will be growing after this entry, by the way), and I'd love to simply just paste the entirety of her email below, but I think that would be in poor taste. For now, since she already made this public news on Twitter, I can reveal that the blurber is Sara Zarr. Yes! That Sara Zarr. And regarding the email, suffice it to say that when I read it to my mom, she cried.

So. The point is, I was hoping to update the Exile with some final word on either of the above issues. It wasn't to be. Instead, I'll let you know that today is a WYAOD for me. Like a giant doof, however, I biked to the coffee shop, ready to work, and forgot the excellent Father's Day gift cards I'm supposed to be using, per Beth's most excellent gift to me. Anyway, I'll be slaving away on YA MS the Third (poor the Second; why have I abandoned you?), and occasionally embarrassing myself publicly by playing air guitar along with "Aqualung," as I am right now. Don't judge; be glad there's no flute solo in this song.

Going back east, sans laptop

I am saddened, for two reasons:

1. I lost a follower on this blog! I'm back down to 30. Sadness. I think I get a few followers here who aren't terribly interested in anything I have to say but are merely hoping I'll follow them back. I get a tremendous number of such followers on Twitter, too. Oh well. Good riddance, I suppose.

2. My laptop--aka, the most important inanimate object in my life--is in dire need of repair. The display simply doesn't work, 9 out of 10 times I try to start it up. And that 10th time, it usually goes black after a few minutes. The thing is still on warranty, so I'll have to ship it out to Dell and wait for it to return to me.

I am cheered, as well, though. For beginning Tuesday of next week, my family will spend a week in New York! This is great for all the usual reasons (i.e., food), but also because we will finally meet Sam's cousin Jaden, born to my brother and his wife in California way back in December!

With any luck at all, my laptop will be back in my possession shortly after we return home in early July. Then I can get cracking on YA MS the Third, which I am re-excited about after a long discussion with my agent yesterday. Oh, and YA Novel the First? I have to write the two tiniest little passages you ever heard of, which I'll probably do this weekend on Beth's laptop (using it right now!), and then I do believe the editing portion of our show will be over. Woo! Then it's final title, cover ideas . . . I can't stand it.

Oh, and speaking of early July, here is a public service announcement: Please, if you live near a family with a dog, don't shoot off firecrackers or fireworks. Thank you. Oh, also if you have fingers.