Okay, there's this thing called a meme. And I've been tagged with this meme by one of my closest friends, author Natalie R. Collins. The meme I have to blog to is "10 Reading Secrets." Then I get to tag 3 other people. Let's hope I can get to 10.
1) I don't read grown up books. Without fail, my favorite books are the same ones I loved as a teen... or even as a child. I have a life-long love affair with Newbery Medal winning books. My favorites: Adam of the Road, Jacob Have I Loved, My Side of the Mountain.
2) Despite making up 40% of the market, I hate romance books. Most romances are silly, predictable, insipid and boring. The heroines drive me bonkers with their shilly-shallying and I find the men mostly unattractive. Yes, I realize it is supremely hypocritical and ironic considering the over-the-top romantic content in On the Edge. Let the flaming begin.
3) I read books over and over and over and over. The ones I like best, I read again and again. I had more time to read as a kid, so books I have had since then are more likely to be read a zillion times. My "Most Read" books are probably C.S. Lewis' Voyage of the Dawn Treader which I have read around 37 times and My Side of the Mountain by Jean Craighead George which I have read at least 33 times.
4) I read when I'm sittin'on the can. It's warm; I can close the door and it's the only place I can ever get any peace. My husband and oldest daughter also read in the bathroom, but what you may find amusing is that my 4-year-old ALSO "reads" in the bathroom and has since she started potty training at two and a half. My middle child doesn't read on the toilet. Go figure.
5) When I was in 5th grade, my teacher had a contest for who could read the most books. I read 538. I was TIED with Christian Bauman, a new boy (whose mother was my doctor when I was a teen. Small towns!). The only reason I tied him? I spent the last 2 weeks of 5th grade in the hospital with peritonitis from a ruptured appendix. I read 11 books during those 10 days, but since school was over before I could return, I never got to write them down. Counting weekends and vacations, 538 books over a 272 day school year (180 days + 36 weekends + 20 vacation days) is not quite 2 books a day.
6) I had trouble learning to read. I will never forget the humiliation. When I get stressed out, I can't think. My first grade year, my dad was drinking (used to have to go into the bar to get him), my mom got PIDs from her IUD. Some people died, but my mom was only in intensive care for weeks. She only NEARLY died. And of course, I was too little to go in to see her, so I couldn't even speak to her. Anyway, I fell apart and things just would not click. I went from the highest reading group, to the middle one, to the lowest one, to sitting alone with the teacher while the other students sniggered about how smart I thought I was and how smart was I really? If it hadn't clicked in the last half of the year, I might have been illiterate.
7) I'm a writer. As you see above, I had trouble learning to read. I am a volunteer at Peninsula Reads, a local literacy organization. I tutor math.
8) I named my middle child after Anne of Green Gables, but it's my oldest girl who is the most like the Anne from the book... except without red hair. She is heedless and wild, sensitive and caring, she means very, very well, but gets into awful scrapes. She reads and reads and reads. I find that my very best friends are "kindred spirits," women who grew up with Anne of Green Gables and still love her.
9) I read very, very fast, but I am not a speed reader. I read about 2 to 3 times as fast as most other people. I don't read every word... more like every third word. I get my eye around a word, seeing the first part of it and then infering the rest from context. I'm seldom wrong. As a result, and because phonics never meant a darn thing to me, I tend to badly mispronounce longer words... because I never actually read every letter, never see every syllable. It's embarrassing.
10) My house is overflowing with books. I have books on the stairs. I have bookcases everywhere. I have books in my kitchen. When I first got married, we had to move right away (military crap) 3/4 of what was moved, not counting furniture was books... that was 11 years ago. My dream livingroom has shelves, floor to ceiling, on at least one wall--the one that's 24'. THEN I might have enough room for all our books.
11) Phonics sucks!
Now, to tag people...
Miss Snark - a very snarky (and amusing) literary agent. Miss Snark just wrote me back, declining to participate. She's got a bad backlog. But visit her anyway.
Martha O'Connor - author of Bitch Posse
Barb Huff - a prolific and talented writer of Christian young adult fiction.
Okay, I cheated. I tagged 4 people. Maybe one of them won't answer. here's #4.
Janet Elaine Smith - a very prolific authoress of hard to genre-ify fiction.
For all the new people who come to my blog (I hope), you won't find any of my books in print. Some of my very early work is at Private Ice along with various other heroes of skatefic. As for the actual good stuff, it is in a hidey hole hoping that someday my agent hires an assistant who gives a darn about it.
ta ta!
dej
Wednesday, December 07, 2005
Tuesday, November 15, 2005
Figure Skating Off the Edge
That's the edge of the earth, not a blade.
I can't believe I haven't posted since July. Well, yes, I can. I've had a bad case of busy and a worse case of completely unmotivated. I've been blue on a daily basis since about September, not so much depressed as not wanting to work, unable to focus—an absence of will.
I've been tested for low thyroid about 3 times in the last 4 years and nothing is ever wrong. I asked my general practitioner (GP) for some hormone tests—a friend mentioned I might be going through the change of life kinda early. The freaking GP told me he did the tests, but he didn't. He treated me like some kind of stupid, imaginative housewife and didn't listen to me at all. It's gotten so bad, that I finally called for a GYN appt.
And a MIRACLE OCCURED.
Normally, I can't get in to see the GYN without a trip to my GP (the jerk) unless I needed my annual poke and prod. I did happen to need one. And there was an appointment... if I left in 5 minutes. Usually, it takes two to three months to get an appointment with a real GYN. But I got one that very day!
Anyway, sorry if this is too much information, got my poke and prod and then talked to the GYN for quite a bit about what was bothering me. And surprise, surprise, she LISTENED. She is now doing the tests that the GP said he did. Which reminds me, I need to go get blood drawn tomorrow before breakfast.
It would be really nice to be able to link all these niggling, demoralizing health problems together. It would be nice to know what the problem is. It would be really nice to feel better!
We'll see.
So, back to September...
I got the kids back to school. My eldest is struggling through 5th grade... her first quarter interms were 2F's and 3D's. Turns out that she had not been doing her homework... and then lying about it that she had. So, we had a shit-hit-the-fan few weeks. Now, she's mostly doing her work... I guess. She is still sneakier than I have the presence of mind to ferret out. But I keep hoping that she will learn that it is easier to do it when it's due than to do it late, take the hit on grades, get in trouble at home and feel bad.
Sigh.
Some days, I really hate being a parent.
My middlest started kindergarden. Most days she does just fine. Some days, like day before yesterday, she shouts, disturbs the class, has tantrums, and throws her shoes. So, after my own health problems, my littlest's, making sure my oldest doesn't fail 5th grade, and laundry and dishes for 5... oh yeah, and being a successful journalist and author, I need to do something about my middlest.
Does your five year old throw her shoes in school?
God help us, mine does.
Now, on to my littlest. If you've been reading the blog, you know that she's not been well. At first they thought she had some really scary kind of muscular dystrophy. Then they weren't sure she had anything. Now... the question marks are only more questiony and marky.
I took her to the neurologist yesterday. He saw her get up from the floor, run, picked her up (to see if she slipped down, a sign of poor core strength)... and so on. She did well. But at the same time, something is not right... at least from my point of view. I worry that I'm being paranoid, but the doctor is taking me seriously. "There's something I can't put my finger on," I say. "She's not overtly weak, but she's not 100%"
I kind of wonder if I am so anxious about another "episode" (as the Neuro calls it) that I see weakness where it is just normal development. Littlest DID regress significantly... back to early toddlerhood as far as her physical abilities go. It's been a good six months since it was really clear that she was gaining ground on the muscle weakness. It wouldn't be abnormal if she was still a tiny bit behind in places.
Anyway, the doctor was clear. He trusts me not to be hysterical... he is always saying what a "cool customer" I am. I think he means it as a compliment... but it's hard. Because I know he thought ill of me when we missed seeing him in May because of galivanting off to a funeral, cross country on a moment's notice. Though I DID leave a message on his nurse's voice mail, it's obvious he never got it. He teased me about it yesterday. He's hardly in a position to know it's a sore spot, but it was... anyway, he could see why it wasn't such a big deal, because she had been steadily improving in May.
I am, I guess, a cool customer. I deceded in the beginning that if I didn't maintain some sort of serenity about this, that I was going to go crazy and be completely useless to everyone. Getting all upset was not going to make me more effective! I DID get all upset. You all saw it. I got completely hysterical and cried for days... but it was nearly two months before she saw the neurologist. I had come to terms with the worst possibilities and accepted that maybe all I could do was fight a losing battle. I couldn't stay freaked out for that long. I have a family to take care of!
Sigh.
I'm getting behind myself.
The upshot of this is that the Neuro doesn't think I'm hyterical and paranoid—even if maybe I think I am. "Trust your intuition," my friend Adele whose son has Duchennes says. The Neuro feels sure that Littlest has some kind of either mild muscular dystrophy or mild metabolic muscular disorder. With her CPK (the measure of muscle fluid leakage that is a primary indicator of MD) being normal now, there is no point to doing a muscle biopsy. Doc wants to see her next summer. He said we should continue to keep an eye on her through out her childhood, and be vigilant in case she has another episode. We're here through 2010 and he's here through 2008, both of which are good things.
So beyond having Doc's orders to maintain a healthy level of paranoia, there are only a couple other considerations. When Littlest is no longer little and wants to have rug rats of her own, she may need genetic counseling to make sure that none of hers are born with whatever she has. If she has another episode, we'll need to pursue it to finding out what's wrong... but she may never have another episode. Finally, if she needs surgery, the anesthesiologist needs to know that she has some kind of non-specific dystrophic or metabolic muscular disorder. Doc says weird things can happen under general anesthesia when there's a muscular disorder.
That's it.
After everything we've been through, it doesn't seem all that bad.
Oh wait, I almost forgot!
I went to Skate America this year (Oct 18-23). I stayed with my friends Ruthie and Trudi and had an absolute BLAST. I took a ZILLION pictures with my new camera (a Canon EOS 20D for the curious and now insanely jealous). I'll post the URL later when I get more of them up.
Sigh, I will also post a very funny story about Aaron Parchem, Julia Obertas, and Tamara Moskvina. but, now I have to go to a book fair at my kids school.
I can't believe I haven't posted since July. Well, yes, I can. I've had a bad case of busy and a worse case of completely unmotivated. I've been blue on a daily basis since about September, not so much depressed as not wanting to work, unable to focus—an absence of will.
I've been tested for low thyroid about 3 times in the last 4 years and nothing is ever wrong. I asked my general practitioner (GP) for some hormone tests—a friend mentioned I might be going through the change of life kinda early. The freaking GP told me he did the tests, but he didn't. He treated me like some kind of stupid, imaginative housewife and didn't listen to me at all. It's gotten so bad, that I finally called for a GYN appt.
And a MIRACLE OCCURED.
Normally, I can't get in to see the GYN without a trip to my GP (the jerk) unless I needed my annual poke and prod. I did happen to need one. And there was an appointment... if I left in 5 minutes. Usually, it takes two to three months to get an appointment with a real GYN. But I got one that very day!
Anyway, sorry if this is too much information, got my poke and prod and then talked to the GYN for quite a bit about what was bothering me. And surprise, surprise, she LISTENED. She is now doing the tests that the GP said he did. Which reminds me, I need to go get blood drawn tomorrow before breakfast.
It would be really nice to be able to link all these niggling, demoralizing health problems together. It would be nice to know what the problem is. It would be really nice to feel better!
We'll see.
So, back to September...
I got the kids back to school. My eldest is struggling through 5th grade... her first quarter interms were 2F's and 3D's. Turns out that she had not been doing her homework... and then lying about it that she had. So, we had a shit-hit-the-fan few weeks. Now, she's mostly doing her work... I guess. She is still sneakier than I have the presence of mind to ferret out. But I keep hoping that she will learn that it is easier to do it when it's due than to do it late, take the hit on grades, get in trouble at home and feel bad.
Sigh.
Some days, I really hate being a parent.
My middlest started kindergarden. Most days she does just fine. Some days, like day before yesterday, she shouts, disturbs the class, has tantrums, and throws her shoes. So, after my own health problems, my littlest's, making sure my oldest doesn't fail 5th grade, and laundry and dishes for 5... oh yeah, and being a successful journalist and author, I need to do something about my middlest.
Does your five year old throw her shoes in school?
God help us, mine does.
Now, on to my littlest. If you've been reading the blog, you know that she's not been well. At first they thought she had some really scary kind of muscular dystrophy. Then they weren't sure she had anything. Now... the question marks are only more questiony and marky.
I took her to the neurologist yesterday. He saw her get up from the floor, run, picked her up (to see if she slipped down, a sign of poor core strength)... and so on. She did well. But at the same time, something is not right... at least from my point of view. I worry that I'm being paranoid, but the doctor is taking me seriously. "There's something I can't put my finger on," I say. "She's not overtly weak, but she's not 100%"
I kind of wonder if I am so anxious about another "episode" (as the Neuro calls it) that I see weakness where it is just normal development. Littlest DID regress significantly... back to early toddlerhood as far as her physical abilities go. It's been a good six months since it was really clear that she was gaining ground on the muscle weakness. It wouldn't be abnormal if she was still a tiny bit behind in places.
Anyway, the doctor was clear. He trusts me not to be hysterical... he is always saying what a "cool customer" I am. I think he means it as a compliment... but it's hard. Because I know he thought ill of me when we missed seeing him in May because of galivanting off to a funeral, cross country on a moment's notice. Though I DID leave a message on his nurse's voice mail, it's obvious he never got it. He teased me about it yesterday. He's hardly in a position to know it's a sore spot, but it was... anyway, he could see why it wasn't such a big deal, because she had been steadily improving in May.
I am, I guess, a cool customer. I deceded in the beginning that if I didn't maintain some sort of serenity about this, that I was going to go crazy and be completely useless to everyone. Getting all upset was not going to make me more effective! I DID get all upset. You all saw it. I got completely hysterical and cried for days... but it was nearly two months before she saw the neurologist. I had come to terms with the worst possibilities and accepted that maybe all I could do was fight a losing battle. I couldn't stay freaked out for that long. I have a family to take care of!
Sigh.
I'm getting behind myself.
The upshot of this is that the Neuro doesn't think I'm hyterical and paranoid—even if maybe I think I am. "Trust your intuition," my friend Adele whose son has Duchennes says. The Neuro feels sure that Littlest has some kind of either mild muscular dystrophy or mild metabolic muscular disorder. With her CPK (the measure of muscle fluid leakage that is a primary indicator of MD) being normal now, there is no point to doing a muscle biopsy. Doc wants to see her next summer. He said we should continue to keep an eye on her through out her childhood, and be vigilant in case she has another episode. We're here through 2010 and he's here through 2008, both of which are good things.
So beyond having Doc's orders to maintain a healthy level of paranoia, there are only a couple other considerations. When Littlest is no longer little and wants to have rug rats of her own, she may need genetic counseling to make sure that none of hers are born with whatever she has. If she has another episode, we'll need to pursue it to finding out what's wrong... but she may never have another episode. Finally, if she needs surgery, the anesthesiologist needs to know that she has some kind of non-specific dystrophic or metabolic muscular disorder. Doc says weird things can happen under general anesthesia when there's a muscular disorder.
That's it.
After everything we've been through, it doesn't seem all that bad.
Oh wait, I almost forgot!
I went to Skate America this year (Oct 18-23). I stayed with my friends Ruthie and Trudi and had an absolute BLAST. I took a ZILLION pictures with my new camera (a Canon EOS 20D for the curious and now insanely jealous). I'll post the URL later when I get more of them up.
Sigh, I will also post a very funny story about Aaron Parchem, Julia Obertas, and Tamara Moskvina. but, now I have to go to a book fair at my kids school.
Sunday, July 17, 2005
Figure Skating through the Dashboard
I can't get any further from figure skating this month. I still have a pair of unmounted boots. I am still way over-weight. Now I'm all wet. See, I've lived about 4 blocks from the Midtown Community Center, which has a BIG pool, for about 2 years. Finally, I got down there and joined. Thanks to grandma for the cash, because God knows, I still seem to owe in every direction and that never ends!
At any rate, I have been going with GG (my oldest) to swim and take water aerobics every morning. At least we did last week. The end of this week, they had a swim meet that went the whole freaking weekend. No swimming or water aerobics for us.
Water aerobics?!
Yeah, you know, I like the same things about it as I like about skating. You stay cool while doing it. I HATE to sweat and I hate feeling as heavy as I am. The water bouys me up and makes me not feel so heavy... I mean, even whales can swim, right?
Unfortunately, my record for lap swim is 2. No, not 2 miles... 2. Laps. That's up from the beginning of the week when I swam 1.5 laps and then quit from exhaustion. The fact that it takes me 20 minutes to swim those 2 laps.... Don't laugh, at least I'm out there. It's not so much swimming as controlled drowning.
Yeah, that's it, controlled drowning.
As of last issue (I have delusions of magazinehood), I was wondering what I should do about this tech book deal on wifi. The original author dropped to 20%. Then he dropped out altogether. It was a few days before I heard back from my agent, and only because I asked, that the project had been canceled altogether. What a GREAT vote of confidence from the publisher! Ye ha!
Well, it's not so bad as all that. There's another orphaned book that wants to be written and I've tentatively signed on to it. For any of you familiar with Macs, there's a new feature in Tiger (Mac OS 10.4) called the Dashboard. It's basically a layer that holds little one purpose programs... desk accessories. Anyway, thse little buggers are simple to make conflagurations of HTML, CSS and JavaScript. Yes, I realize I just started speaking g(r)eek.
Anyway, they are looking for someone to write this book on how to program these little things and I am thinking about taking it on.
Somebody shoot me now.
He does not so have to shoot me now.
He can wait til he gets home.
So the next installment in the saga of On the Edge. I called my agent after the 4th like he asked. I left a messsage. No response. So I waited a week and called again and left another message. No response. I waited another week and left a rather terse and kind of unhappy message with the new assistant that this was my THIRD call, and there has been no response to the other two.
And he claimed to be reading my book. He said that as a new assistant, he got to read a LOT of slush pile tripe&mdahs;please don't stone me if your masterpiece is languishing in a slush pile somewhere, been there, done that, got the freaking t-shirt. Anyway, they wanted him to get a chance to read something that came in the door that DID make it through. It was a tiny boost to my ego to be the one who made it... at least to be shown to assistants to say, "Now, THIS is what we're looking for."
The kid—he DID sound like early 20's—said he was about half way through the MS and really enjoying it. I didn't test him to see if he was actually reading it. I was too flattered. I suppose, that if he was leading me on, that he did a darn good job of appealing to my vanity.
Not that writers are ego-pigs. OH NO.
So this is a good thing, right? At least someone is reading OTE. Maybe it means I am not completely dead in the water yet. I would like to think I wasn't. I really, really, REALLY would. At any rate, the boy himself called me back and said that the Man Himself was out of town and would call me Himself towards the end of next week.
We'll see. I'm not planning any victory parties.
Am I the only person just slightly depressed about the release of Harry Potter IV. Oh, of course, I am slavering to read it with the other 10.6 million US fans. As an author, it depresses me....
Not that writers NEED a reason to feel depressed. OH NO.
We used to say, "There's only one Stephen King," by way of saying that most of us were never freaking going to make it anyway, so not to get crushed by having high expectations dashed against the hard ground of the book business. Well, old JKR has indeed raised the bar, don't you think? Having become richer than the Queen of England on her books. It should be inspiring... but there is only one JKR. And I don't see it being me any time soon.
Did I just depress you? Awwwww, poor baby. I try not to think about it too.
Exactly. I'll go buy my copy sometime next month. I have deadlines on top of my deadlines and can't afford to take the two solid days to read The Tome without sleeping. In the meantime, I'm looking forward to the new Rug Rats All Grown Up movie about herded ostriches.
Okay, so I'm trying to think of some more self-deprecating and snarky things to write today and can't quite come up with any. It's not that things are going so bad, it's that i feel so freaking awful.
A good part of that is strictly physical. In VA, July is high season for Crepe Myrtle. Supposedly, these showy bloomers grow as far north as Massachusetts, but I've never seen one north of Maryland. And damn, I'm glad! I am so allergic to these things, I spend the better part of June, July and August as a basket case with sinus headaches that get so bad I wanna puke. I spend the majority of the summer alternatley pushing myself to work and wishing I was somewhere else. Ie yi yi, I hate being so sick every year.
The good news is that we really only need to live here for another 6 years or so. Then Dh will retire from the Navy and we get to leave and go live where WE want to live. Of course, where we want to live is Tennessee... which has worse allergies and makes me sicker than ever despite not having crepe myrtle.
I think I'll just make myself a plastic bubble and live in it.
Well, I guess it is time to go get supper out of the pressure cooker. Hope y'all feel better than I do.
At any rate, I have been going with GG (my oldest) to swim and take water aerobics every morning. At least we did last week. The end of this week, they had a swim meet that went the whole freaking weekend. No swimming or water aerobics for us.
Water aerobics?!
Yeah, you know, I like the same things about it as I like about skating. You stay cool while doing it. I HATE to sweat and I hate feeling as heavy as I am. The water bouys me up and makes me not feel so heavy... I mean, even whales can swim, right?
Unfortunately, my record for lap swim is 2. No, not 2 miles... 2. Laps. That's up from the beginning of the week when I swam 1.5 laps and then quit from exhaustion. The fact that it takes me 20 minutes to swim those 2 laps.... Don't laugh, at least I'm out there. It's not so much swimming as controlled drowning.
Yeah, that's it, controlled drowning.
As of last issue (I have delusions of magazinehood), I was wondering what I should do about this tech book deal on wifi. The original author dropped to 20%. Then he dropped out altogether. It was a few days before I heard back from my agent, and only because I asked, that the project had been canceled altogether. What a GREAT vote of confidence from the publisher! Ye ha!
Well, it's not so bad as all that. There's another orphaned book that wants to be written and I've tentatively signed on to it. For any of you familiar with Macs, there's a new feature in Tiger (Mac OS 10.4) called the Dashboard. It's basically a layer that holds little one purpose programs... desk accessories. Anyway, thse little buggers are simple to make conflagurations of HTML, CSS and JavaScript. Yes, I realize I just started speaking g(r)eek.
Anyway, they are looking for someone to write this book on how to program these little things and I am thinking about taking it on.
Somebody shoot me now.
He does not so have to shoot me now.
He can wait til he gets home.
So the next installment in the saga of On the Edge. I called my agent after the 4th like he asked. I left a messsage. No response. So I waited a week and called again and left another message. No response. I waited another week and left a rather terse and kind of unhappy message with the new assistant that this was my THIRD call, and there has been no response to the other two.
And he claimed to be reading my book. He said that as a new assistant, he got to read a LOT of slush pile tripe&mdahs;please don't stone me if your masterpiece is languishing in a slush pile somewhere, been there, done that, got the freaking t-shirt. Anyway, they wanted him to get a chance to read something that came in the door that DID make it through. It was a tiny boost to my ego to be the one who made it... at least to be shown to assistants to say, "Now, THIS is what we're looking for."
The kid—he DID sound like early 20's—said he was about half way through the MS and really enjoying it. I didn't test him to see if he was actually reading it. I was too flattered. I suppose, that if he was leading me on, that he did a darn good job of appealing to my vanity.
Not that writers are ego-pigs. OH NO.
So this is a good thing, right? At least someone is reading OTE. Maybe it means I am not completely dead in the water yet. I would like to think I wasn't. I really, really, REALLY would. At any rate, the boy himself called me back and said that the Man Himself was out of town and would call me Himself towards the end of next week.
We'll see. I'm not planning any victory parties.
Am I the only person just slightly depressed about the release of Harry Potter IV. Oh, of course, I am slavering to read it with the other 10.6 million US fans. As an author, it depresses me....
Not that writers NEED a reason to feel depressed. OH NO.
We used to say, "There's only one Stephen King," by way of saying that most of us were never freaking going to make it anyway, so not to get crushed by having high expectations dashed against the hard ground of the book business. Well, old JKR has indeed raised the bar, don't you think? Having become richer than the Queen of England on her books. It should be inspiring... but there is only one JKR. And I don't see it being me any time soon.
Did I just depress you? Awwwww, poor baby. I try not to think about it too.
Exactly. I'll go buy my copy sometime next month. I have deadlines on top of my deadlines and can't afford to take the two solid days to read The Tome without sleeping. In the meantime, I'm looking forward to the new Rug Rats All Grown Up movie about herded ostriches.
Okay, so I'm trying to think of some more self-deprecating and snarky things to write today and can't quite come up with any. It's not that things are going so bad, it's that i feel so freaking awful.
A good part of that is strictly physical. In VA, July is high season for Crepe Myrtle. Supposedly, these showy bloomers grow as far north as Massachusetts, but I've never seen one north of Maryland. And damn, I'm glad! I am so allergic to these things, I spend the better part of June, July and August as a basket case with sinus headaches that get so bad I wanna puke. I spend the majority of the summer alternatley pushing myself to work and wishing I was somewhere else. Ie yi yi, I hate being so sick every year.
The good news is that we really only need to live here for another 6 years or so. Then Dh will retire from the Navy and we get to leave and go live where WE want to live. Of course, where we want to live is Tennessee... which has worse allergies and makes me sicker than ever despite not having crepe myrtle.
I think I'll just make myself a plastic bubble and live in it.
Well, I guess it is time to go get supper out of the pressure cooker. Hope y'all feel better than I do.
Sunday, July 03, 2005
Now, we watch and wait...
This has been a crazy couple of months. When last I blogged, my youngest daughter had just had an MRI to pinpoint where a muscle biopsy should be done and to see if there was any indication of inflammation (which would have lead to a firm diagnosis as dermatomyocitis of polymyocitis). The day that I was supposed to call the doctor to schedule a follow up, the paternal grandmother of my husband died.
So in 24 hours, I packed up the 5 of us to make a 4000 mile road trip to New Mexico and back. We took 3 weeks, visited a lot of family, drove like maniacs, had our little dog get mauled by a 60 lb chow-mix, and got home in one piece though considerably poorer in wallet and ruffled in spirit. Three days later, dear husband's other grand mother passed. We didn't go to this funeral though.
The next couple weeks were concerned with getting school finished for the year and bidding adieu to my spouse who deployed with the Navy for a couple months. With all the stress, my middle and littlest began wetting their pants like 4 and 5 times a day. Being away for three weeks pretty much trashed my oldest daughter's report card, but she finished out the year. My middlest, the drama empress, graduated from pre-K with flying colors and an award for "Most Creative." My littlest... well, it was just weird to notice how strong she was, how she could climb, and didn't waddle when she ran, how she didnt fall so much. I went to pick her up from daycare one day in May and she just stood up off the floor without using her hands. I nearly cried.
So then in June, we go away to my mother's shore house where I normally work my ass off and get very little in the way of appreciation. This year was not much different, except that I could tell mom was at least trying to be appreciative. I wallpapered the bedroom, made new curtains for the living room, a new bedspread, and pillow covers for the day bed, fixed a miriad of small things etc and so on.
We get back and FINALLY I take my littlest to the neurologist to follow up her MRI. She shows almost no sign of ever having a muscular disorder. I can still tell she's a little weak, but she runs without a waddle, and you can lift her without her slipping. She has reflexes. She climbs stairs. She pops off the floor without a hint of Gower's Maneuver. And the neuro's eyes just keep getting bigger and bigger and he keeps smiling wider and wider. The poor man doesn't know what to think. "She's better!" he tells me. Well, I can see this already.
The neuro says there's no hint of inflammation on the MRI, so that rules out the 2 -myocitises. And seeing as she is doing so well, he doesn't want to do a muscle biopsy either. As far as he says, there really aren't any forms of muscular dystrophy that have points where a child will improve this much over this long a period of time.
So, the bad news is, we still don't know what it was that made her sick. It could have been a virus of some sort--one that had a LOOOOOOONNNNNGGGG recovery arc. There is an unknowable possibility that the weakness might return. I try not to think about this. The good news is that she is very nearly well, and is catching up with her age peers as far as physical ability. For now, the neuro says watch and wait. If she stays well or improves, he wants to see her in October. If she gets worse, back she goes.
Let's hope this is the first rays of the dawning and not just a bright flash before the storm.
So, last entry, a tech book contract just fell into my lap. This entry, that too is on thin ice. The co-author completely dropped out, even of just doing 20% of the book. He did this right before the holiday weekend, so I am not sure what kind of effect it's going to have on the project. On the one hand, it's a book deal. On the other hand, I've seen better money... only $3200 advance and 9.5% royalty. I still have to give up 15% to the agent, which pays me a bit over $2700 to write a 250 page book... like $12/page. Now, I'm not greed—ok, I am—but that seems like a lot of work for not much moula. Did I also mention I'm kind of lazy? I'm also not the subject expert for this book. That was the other guy.
If the book retails for $25 (not unusual for a tech book), then they'd have to sell like 1350 to earn out the advance and make me any royalties. A best-selling tech book might sell 10K copies, a moderate seller might sell 2K-5K. So at best, I don't expect there to be a lot more money coming in from this. It's the advance or naught.
Now, for what my editor at NewsForge told me. His name's Robin (he's a guy Robin not a girl Robin) and he's a real mercenary sort of fellow, having come to journalism from a background in... limosine driving. He says, "you don't write books for the money, you write them for your career." So I am left pondering. There really isn't a lot of money in this. There might not even be enough to make up for the income i'm going to lose working on it. But I wonder, is it time to do something "for my career?"
This year, I've been able to put two things on my resume I didn't have before "contributing editor" and "senior writer." It seems that those things get a little bit of attention. My buddy and former colleague at About This Particular Macintosh writes for MacWorld (the #1), while I write for MacAddict (the #2). I've watched him publish 3 books in the eighteen months since I wimped out of my first book deal.
Truth was, I was spooked... scared. I didn't pursue the books deals because I was afraid that I couldn't write a whole book--despite having written 4 novels and a 240 chapter serial. It was too big, too intimidating. When publisher #1 strung me along for 6 months and then dumped the book with a lame excuse, I didn't pursue the second publisher.
So maybe it's time. Is it time?
Oh, and incidentally, I finished Fall from Grace, book 5 of the On the Edge series. I finally found an ending, or really, the ending found me. That does seem to be how the muse works. She comes in her own time and pours magic into my hands.
Anyway, while I was in RI, I tried to figure out which of my works-in-progress was going to get the nod. As usual, after poring over the saleable, the light, the amusing and the profitable, I chose the one that will be hardest to sell and won't make me a dime if I do. There were a few I was scared of, a couple that didn't really interest me, one I still don't feel equal to, and then this one, which makes my muse sing.
The working title is The Barunian Incident and it's a socio-political space opera sci-fi—okay, "speculative fiction" if we MUST. As per my usual, there is a triangle of doomed lovers and lots of angst. As per not my usual, there is also political intrigue, social upheaval, sword fighting and explosions. I get to create whole civilizations... it's kind of fun. I'm enjoying it, except that since I came back from RI and got buried under work and other administrivia of being a mom and a jouralist, I haven't had a single fictional thought at all. Too much stress makes me very dull and DULL is what I am right now.
So we'll see. It took 3 years to write Unison and Counterpoint. It took 16 months, on and off, to write Fall from Grace. With OTE essentially dead in the water, I promised myself that I would write something different when I finished FFG. So now I am. If I got any more different, I'd be writing horror.Tune in next week for the upshot of my discussion with my agent about the future—or lack of the same—of the OTE series.
So in 24 hours, I packed up the 5 of us to make a 4000 mile road trip to New Mexico and back. We took 3 weeks, visited a lot of family, drove like maniacs, had our little dog get mauled by a 60 lb chow-mix, and got home in one piece though considerably poorer in wallet and ruffled in spirit. Three days later, dear husband's other grand mother passed. We didn't go to this funeral though.
The next couple weeks were concerned with getting school finished for the year and bidding adieu to my spouse who deployed with the Navy for a couple months. With all the stress, my middle and littlest began wetting their pants like 4 and 5 times a day. Being away for three weeks pretty much trashed my oldest daughter's report card, but she finished out the year. My middlest, the drama empress, graduated from pre-K with flying colors and an award for "Most Creative." My littlest... well, it was just weird to notice how strong she was, how she could climb, and didn't waddle when she ran, how she didnt fall so much. I went to pick her up from daycare one day in May and she just stood up off the floor without using her hands. I nearly cried.
So then in June, we go away to my mother's shore house where I normally work my ass off and get very little in the way of appreciation. This year was not much different, except that I could tell mom was at least trying to be appreciative. I wallpapered the bedroom, made new curtains for the living room, a new bedspread, and pillow covers for the day bed, fixed a miriad of small things etc and so on.
We get back and FINALLY I take my littlest to the neurologist to follow up her MRI. She shows almost no sign of ever having a muscular disorder. I can still tell she's a little weak, but she runs without a waddle, and you can lift her without her slipping. She has reflexes. She climbs stairs. She pops off the floor without a hint of Gower's Maneuver. And the neuro's eyes just keep getting bigger and bigger and he keeps smiling wider and wider. The poor man doesn't know what to think. "She's better!" he tells me. Well, I can see this already.
The neuro says there's no hint of inflammation on the MRI, so that rules out the 2 -myocitises. And seeing as she is doing so well, he doesn't want to do a muscle biopsy either. As far as he says, there really aren't any forms of muscular dystrophy that have points where a child will improve this much over this long a period of time.
So, the bad news is, we still don't know what it was that made her sick. It could have been a virus of some sort--one that had a LOOOOOOONNNNNGGGG recovery arc. There is an unknowable possibility that the weakness might return. I try not to think about this. The good news is that she is very nearly well, and is catching up with her age peers as far as physical ability. For now, the neuro says watch and wait. If she stays well or improves, he wants to see her in October. If she gets worse, back she goes.
Let's hope this is the first rays of the dawning and not just a bright flash before the storm.
So, last entry, a tech book contract just fell into my lap. This entry, that too is on thin ice. The co-author completely dropped out, even of just doing 20% of the book. He did this right before the holiday weekend, so I am not sure what kind of effect it's going to have on the project. On the one hand, it's a book deal. On the other hand, I've seen better money... only $3200 advance and 9.5% royalty. I still have to give up 15% to the agent, which pays me a bit over $2700 to write a 250 page book... like $12/page. Now, I'm not greed—ok, I am—but that seems like a lot of work for not much moula. Did I also mention I'm kind of lazy? I'm also not the subject expert for this book. That was the other guy.
If the book retails for $25 (not unusual for a tech book), then they'd have to sell like 1350 to earn out the advance and make me any royalties. A best-selling tech book might sell 10K copies, a moderate seller might sell 2K-5K. So at best, I don't expect there to be a lot more money coming in from this. It's the advance or naught.
Now, for what my editor at NewsForge told me. His name's Robin (he's a guy Robin not a girl Robin) and he's a real mercenary sort of fellow, having come to journalism from a background in... limosine driving. He says, "you don't write books for the money, you write them for your career." So I am left pondering. There really isn't a lot of money in this. There might not even be enough to make up for the income i'm going to lose working on it. But I wonder, is it time to do something "for my career?"
This year, I've been able to put two things on my resume I didn't have before "contributing editor" and "senior writer." It seems that those things get a little bit of attention. My buddy and former colleague at About This Particular Macintosh writes for MacWorld (the #1), while I write for MacAddict (the #2). I've watched him publish 3 books in the eighteen months since I wimped out of my first book deal.
Truth was, I was spooked... scared. I didn't pursue the books deals because I was afraid that I couldn't write a whole book--despite having written 4 novels and a 240 chapter serial. It was too big, too intimidating. When publisher #1 strung me along for 6 months and then dumped the book with a lame excuse, I didn't pursue the second publisher.
So maybe it's time. Is it time?
Oh, and incidentally, I finished Fall from Grace, book 5 of the On the Edge series. I finally found an ending, or really, the ending found me. That does seem to be how the muse works. She comes in her own time and pours magic into my hands.
Anyway, while I was in RI, I tried to figure out which of my works-in-progress was going to get the nod. As usual, after poring over the saleable, the light, the amusing and the profitable, I chose the one that will be hardest to sell and won't make me a dime if I do. There were a few I was scared of, a couple that didn't really interest me, one I still don't feel equal to, and then this one, which makes my muse sing.
The working title is The Barunian Incident and it's a socio-political space opera sci-fi—okay, "speculative fiction" if we MUST. As per my usual, there is a triangle of doomed lovers and lots of angst. As per not my usual, there is also political intrigue, social upheaval, sword fighting and explosions. I get to create whole civilizations... it's kind of fun. I'm enjoying it, except that since I came back from RI and got buried under work and other administrivia of being a mom and a jouralist, I haven't had a single fictional thought at all. Too much stress makes me very dull and DULL is what I am right now.
So we'll see. It took 3 years to write Unison and Counterpoint. It took 16 months, on and off, to write Fall from Grace. With OTE essentially dead in the water, I promised myself that I would write something different when I finished FFG. So now I am. If I got any more different, I'd be writing horror.Tune in next week for the upshot of my discussion with my agent about the future—or lack of the same—of the OTE series.
Saturday, June 18, 2005
Figure Skating Urges and Ice Blue Moods
Can I admit to being a tiny bit blue?
It's just a delicate shade of azure. Really. It's hard to be too upset surrounded by lovliness as I am. I am on a working vacation at my mother's shore house. The Cottage, as we call it, has been in my family for over 40 years... which explains why regular people like us can afford to have a house on the water. You can see pics at Tyler-Cottage.com. The panorama at the top of the page--I'm looking at thge real thing right now. Hard to be too blue, no?
The bad news is, the assistant at PMA who was my contact is leaving the firm. Now technically, I am signed to Peter Miller, the principle, but I haven't talked to him since the initial call in January. When I called roughly once a month, I got the assistant. You do the math. So I get an email at 5 PM Friday from said assistant saying basically "well, bye! It was nice to know ya!" And this leaves me wondering—okay, PANICKING—over exactly what is to become of me and On the Edge. I emailed Peter and his response was "remind me who you are." Oh THAT makes me feel good!!! Sigh. Another set back.
There is good news. After getting bounced from failed agent to promoted agent at Studio B (my tech book agent) over the last two years, I ended up with a new agent Laura Lewin. I say her name because this chick I can recommend. She comes back at me every couple months with this or that opportunity that she's heard of and am I interested in. A couple of them have not panned out. Finally, one has. A Studio B author pitched a book, sold the proposal and then couldn't commit to the writing schedule they wanted. So he's going to write about 20% of the book and I'm going to write 80% of the book. His name goes first on the cover and mine goes first on the check <grin>.
So, last but not least, an update on my daughter. Over the last several months, my three year old has grown markedly stronger. The muscular dystrophy was almost like a bad dream. we took her to Children's Hospital of the King's Daughter's in Norfolk to be a case at the Friday symposium the neurology department has for all the doctors and residents and student. The upshot being 4 different possibilities from the 4 doctors there, none of them anything that we had heretofore tested for. All of them proscribed the same treatment though, an MRI to pinpoint where a muscle biopsy should be done. So they did the MRI, and then we had two deaths in the family and made a 4000 mile road trip to the funeral, finished the school year and Dr Neurologist is not returning my calls. SIGH.
This would all be fine, except Joyah's teeth are rotting again. We've had troubles with her teeth in the past. At age 12 months, she had 8 cavities, despite having dental care similar to my other daughters who have had two cavities between them in their combined 15 years of life. By 18 months when she was old enough to get filled, she had 2 more. They filled 10 cavities and we undertook a very ambitious regimine of brushing and flossing—well, ambitious for us. It's done wonders for the whole rest of the family... except Joyah, who has at present about 3 new cavities in the last month. Inability to metabolize calcium is related to certain forms of muscular dystrophy. And a spate of cavities preceeded her last episode of weakening. in short, unless this is unrelated, and it might be, we are in for another round of weakening.
I was hoping that it was over.
Okay, maybe I do have reason to be a little blue.
It's just a delicate shade of azure. Really. It's hard to be too upset surrounded by lovliness as I am. I am on a working vacation at my mother's shore house. The Cottage, as we call it, has been in my family for over 40 years... which explains why regular people like us can afford to have a house on the water. You can see pics at Tyler-Cottage.com. The panorama at the top of the page--I'm looking at thge real thing right now. Hard to be too blue, no?
The bad news is, the assistant at PMA who was my contact is leaving the firm. Now technically, I am signed to Peter Miller, the principle, but I haven't talked to him since the initial call in January. When I called roughly once a month, I got the assistant. You do the math. So I get an email at 5 PM Friday from said assistant saying basically "well, bye! It was nice to know ya!" And this leaves me wondering—okay, PANICKING—over exactly what is to become of me and On the Edge. I emailed Peter and his response was "remind me who you are." Oh THAT makes me feel good!!! Sigh. Another set back.
There is good news. After getting bounced from failed agent to promoted agent at Studio B (my tech book agent) over the last two years, I ended up with a new agent Laura Lewin. I say her name because this chick I can recommend. She comes back at me every couple months with this or that opportunity that she's heard of and am I interested in. A couple of them have not panned out. Finally, one has. A Studio B author pitched a book, sold the proposal and then couldn't commit to the writing schedule they wanted. So he's going to write about 20% of the book and I'm going to write 80% of the book. His name goes first on the cover and mine goes first on the check <grin>.
So, last but not least, an update on my daughter. Over the last several months, my three year old has grown markedly stronger. The muscular dystrophy was almost like a bad dream. we took her to Children's Hospital of the King's Daughter's in Norfolk to be a case at the Friday symposium the neurology department has for all the doctors and residents and student. The upshot being 4 different possibilities from the 4 doctors there, none of them anything that we had heretofore tested for. All of them proscribed the same treatment though, an MRI to pinpoint where a muscle biopsy should be done. So they did the MRI, and then we had two deaths in the family and made a 4000 mile road trip to the funeral, finished the school year and Dr Neurologist is not returning my calls. SIGH.
This would all be fine, except Joyah's teeth are rotting again. We've had troubles with her teeth in the past. At age 12 months, she had 8 cavities, despite having dental care similar to my other daughters who have had two cavities between them in their combined 15 years of life. By 18 months when she was old enough to get filled, she had 2 more. They filled 10 cavities and we undertook a very ambitious regimine of brushing and flossing—well, ambitious for us. It's done wonders for the whole rest of the family... except Joyah, who has at present about 3 new cavities in the last month. Inability to metabolize calcium is related to certain forms of muscular dystrophy. And a spate of cavities preceeded her last episode of weakening. in short, unless this is unrelated, and it might be, we are in for another round of weakening.
I was hoping that it was over.
Okay, maybe I do have reason to be a little blue.
Friday, April 01, 2005
Does that make me a grand-mother, a troop leader or a pastry chef?
So, our promiscuous adolescent cat Smores had her litter in my closet last night at about 3 AM. I was having this weird dream that I was in an abandoned building trying to save some kitten stuck in a pipe. I finally woke to realize the mewing was REAL! Here are some pictures:
There are 6 kittens (not 7 as I had originally thought): one black, one orange tabby, two orange and white, one orange tabby and white, one white with orange and black patches. Since smores are an invention of the Girl Scouts (betcha didn't know that) and my oldest girl is a Scout, we decided to name the kittens after Girl Scout cookies.
Black: Double Dutch (because "Thin Mint" is a dumb name for a cat)
Orange Tabby: Samoas
Orange and White: Trefoil and Do-si-do
Orange Tabby and White: All-About
White with Orange and Black patches: Tagalong
Tuesday, March 29, 2005
Surya Bonaly's Soul Sister
I've been sitting on this news for about a week, meaning to blog it. I keep putting it off. What drives me now is that I should be working and I neither feel like doing laundry nor like actually doing the work I will be paid to do, so instead, I'll blog.
I got a rejection from Simon and Schuster's Atheneum that I'll file under "DAMN: faint praise." I won't name editorial names so as to protect the guilty, but here's a bit of a quote.
On the other hand, having OTE labeled as "nice" but not "memorable" leaves me puzzled. It causes all kinds of crazy thoughts because one of the very things I was told to do was make Elayne "nicer" and "more sympathetic." I don't think OTE the novel lost the edge of OTE the serial... but I suppose it's possible. Or maybe that's not what she meant after all.
I guess the best thing I can do is not read too much into what anyone—even an editor from a big time house—says. I am discovering that one big difference between the agent search process and the agent-selling-to-editors process is that in the latter, people are actually honest and try to give substantive reasons for rejection rather than just fobbing you off with a non-informative stock rejection.
It's a double edge sword. Until I got an agent to actually tell me what she really thought, I couldn't fix anything. But hearing the truth, REALLY HURT. Over all, I think I prefer real rejections to stock ones.
But I know why agents and editors use stock rejections. A while back, I found a novel on figure skating. I asked the author for a review copy and he sent me one. I don't think he really understood what I wanted it for... or at least the letter which came with it was so incoherent as to confuse ME as to what he thought I wanted it for. Anyway, on reading the first couple chapters, the book was shockingly awful: stilted dialogue, info-dumps, a maid-and-butler scene, a description in the mirror, a preposterous, if not flat-out, idiotic plot... then I got to the skating. The author didn't know an Axel from his elbow. There were so many technical mistakes on one page that I just put the book down in disbelief. The poor pile of pulp belonged in the circular file, not someone's bookshelf. The nicest thing that could be said was that it had attractive cover art.
I had two choices. Either I could review it and take a chance on the bits burning right through my web server's hard drive. Or I could decline to review it and write the author a short stock note. Except I have this thing about not writing stock notes. So, I wrote as carefully worded as possible a rejection as I could muster. Diplomatic I am not, but I tried. I told him that the book did not meet our standards and I was sorry, but PI could not review it.
His reply was a stinging assessment of just how worthless PI is in the grand scheme of things. He went on and on about what a crook I was and what a doofus I was and so on and so forth that I could not find the value in his masterpiece. Finally he demanded return of his book or payment of $13 for it. First of all, books sent on review are generally not returned whether they get reviewed or not. It's a promotional expense. Second, I can get toilet paper a lot cheaper.
Now, perhaps it's true that PI is not the biggest web site in the world. We are the biggest skatefic site in the world and we have the most faithful readership of skatefic in the world... and, as I've said, you never know who someone knows.
Anyway, this experience showed me in spades exactly why agents and editors don't give you anything but stock rejections. Besides being time consuming to generate, there are always nutcases out there who will waste even more of your time and energy fussing about your rejection.
And incidentally, for his $13 book, said nutcase—I hesitate to call him an author—sent a registered letter with an envelope and another demand for the return of his book... spending about $10. He didn't, however, include return postage. My response was a nice letter saying that I'd be delighted to send his book back... on his dime. I have not heard from him since. I think I trashed the book.
It's not even worth sending to the library.
It's just over the two week mark with my daughter's genetic tests. We should know within the week if one of them came back positive. A positive result will just mean that we know for sure what's wrong. A negative result means that we have to go and do more traumatic tests: a needle biopsy or a muscle biopsy under general anesthesia.
She actually seems better than she did when we first started this. I don't know if this should make me hopeful or what. I think that one thing the reading makes really clear is that the progression of dystrophic diseases are so uneven, and so individualized that it's really impossible to say what the prognosis is. My daughter could be walking into her 50s, or she could need a power chair when she's 13. It's just so tough to tell. We don't know what will happen until it actually happens. I'm going to need more serenity than I've ever managed to muster to manage this... and i wonder where it's going to come from. My MIL sent me a neat little picture:
At any rate, I got a call from the Muscular Dystrophy Association on my business line one day. They "lock up" business people and ask them to help raise donations as their "bail." This is kind of funny, and slightly cheesy, but this year it hits really close to home. I can't think about it without tearing up. This is so very personal for me. Muscular Dystrophy isn't just some theoretical disease that some people's kids get that can't touch me. Muscular Dystrophy is in my life on a daily basis. On my donations page at the MDA is a picture of my own baby girl.
So please, help me raise my "bail" and make as generous donation as you can manage to the MDA. You can use a credit card through my MDA donations page or download the donation form and mail a check. Please do it enough before May 5th so that I can have everything ready to go when they come to take me away.
And so, figure skating had their World Championship last week. I spent hours in heaven, watching every blessed program on Italian TV's Internet news feed. RaiSport RULES. I also spent a lot of time composing blogs for SkateFAIR's newest project Countdown to the Next Figure Skating Judging Scandal. I'm tickled even more so because my posts are 4 of the 5 most read and have the most people commenting (good and bad). It's nice to know that regardless of merits, at least what I write is provocative.
So why are we harping about scandals when TV says nothing? Well, here's a clue. Apparently, sports broadcasting is SO considered "not news" that "the vendor" ie, the ISU which has spent its time protecting cheaters, supporting the incompetent and punishing whistle-blowers, gets to say what the TV announcers can and cannot say. Yes, that's right. Rumor says that the ISU gagged Terry Gannon, Peggy Fleming and Peter Carruthers. Worse yet, there are credible rumors that Dick Button wasn't even invited because of his out-spoken criticism of the ISU's short-comings. Dick Button is an American institution!
Shame on ESPN. Shame. SHAME! Bad dog. No biscuit!
I got a rejection from Simon and Schuster's Atheneum that I'll file under "DAMN: faint praise." I won't name editorial names so as to protect the guilty, but here's a bit of a quote.
I was very excited to read ON THE EDGE. I did competitive roller skating when I was younger—and always wanted to transition to ice! However, I'm afraid the manuscript didn't quite work for me. The technical bits about skating (what it feels like to be jumping, spinning, etc.) were fascinating, but in the end, Elayne's voice struck both Emma and I as nice, but not particularly memorable.I think it's really interesting that this particular editor got OTE since I was a competitive roller skater too back in the dark ages. If she was of a certain age and lived in the NY/NJ area as a kid, we might have actually competed in the same division.
On the other hand, having OTE labeled as "nice" but not "memorable" leaves me puzzled. It causes all kinds of crazy thoughts because one of the very things I was told to do was make Elayne "nicer" and "more sympathetic." I don't think OTE the novel lost the edge of OTE the serial... but I suppose it's possible. Or maybe that's not what she meant after all.
I guess the best thing I can do is not read too much into what anyone—even an editor from a big time house—says. I am discovering that one big difference between the agent search process and the agent-selling-to-editors process is that in the latter, people are actually honest and try to give substantive reasons for rejection rather than just fobbing you off with a non-informative stock rejection.
It's a double edge sword. Until I got an agent to actually tell me what she really thought, I couldn't fix anything. But hearing the truth, REALLY HURT. Over all, I think I prefer real rejections to stock ones.
But I know why agents and editors use stock rejections. A while back, I found a novel on figure skating. I asked the author for a review copy and he sent me one. I don't think he really understood what I wanted it for... or at least the letter which came with it was so incoherent as to confuse ME as to what he thought I wanted it for. Anyway, on reading the first couple chapters, the book was shockingly awful: stilted dialogue, info-dumps, a maid-and-butler scene, a description in the mirror, a preposterous, if not flat-out, idiotic plot... then I got to the skating. The author didn't know an Axel from his elbow. There were so many technical mistakes on one page that I just put the book down in disbelief. The poor pile of pulp belonged in the circular file, not someone's bookshelf. The nicest thing that could be said was that it had attractive cover art.
I had two choices. Either I could review it and take a chance on the bits burning right through my web server's hard drive. Or I could decline to review it and write the author a short stock note. Except I have this thing about not writing stock notes. So, I wrote as carefully worded as possible a rejection as I could muster. Diplomatic I am not, but I tried. I told him that the book did not meet our standards and I was sorry, but PI could not review it.
His reply was a stinging assessment of just how worthless PI is in the grand scheme of things. He went on and on about what a crook I was and what a doofus I was and so on and so forth that I could not find the value in his masterpiece. Finally he demanded return of his book or payment of $13 for it. First of all, books sent on review are generally not returned whether they get reviewed or not. It's a promotional expense. Second, I can get toilet paper a lot cheaper.
Now, perhaps it's true that PI is not the biggest web site in the world. We are the biggest skatefic site in the world and we have the most faithful readership of skatefic in the world... and, as I've said, you never know who someone knows.
Anyway, this experience showed me in spades exactly why agents and editors don't give you anything but stock rejections. Besides being time consuming to generate, there are always nutcases out there who will waste even more of your time and energy fussing about your rejection.
And incidentally, for his $13 book, said nutcase—I hesitate to call him an author—sent a registered letter with an envelope and another demand for the return of his book... spending about $10. He didn't, however, include return postage. My response was a nice letter saying that I'd be delighted to send his book back... on his dime. I have not heard from him since. I think I trashed the book.
It's not even worth sending to the library.
It's just over the two week mark with my daughter's genetic tests. We should know within the week if one of them came back positive. A positive result will just mean that we know for sure what's wrong. A negative result means that we have to go and do more traumatic tests: a needle biopsy or a muscle biopsy under general anesthesia.
She actually seems better than she did when we first started this. I don't know if this should make me hopeful or what. I think that one thing the reading makes really clear is that the progression of dystrophic diseases are so uneven, and so individualized that it's really impossible to say what the prognosis is. My daughter could be walking into her 50s, or she could need a power chair when she's 13. It's just so tough to tell. We don't know what will happen until it actually happens. I'm going to need more serenity than I've ever managed to muster to manage this... and i wonder where it's going to come from. My MIL sent me a neat little picture:
At any rate, I got a call from the Muscular Dystrophy Association on my business line one day. They "lock up" business people and ask them to help raise donations as their "bail." This is kind of funny, and slightly cheesy, but this year it hits really close to home. I can't think about it without tearing up. This is so very personal for me. Muscular Dystrophy isn't just some theoretical disease that some people's kids get that can't touch me. Muscular Dystrophy is in my life on a daily basis. On my donations page at the MDA is a picture of my own baby girl.
So please, help me raise my "bail" and make as generous donation as you can manage to the MDA. You can use a credit card through my MDA donations page or download the donation form and mail a check. Please do it enough before May 5th so that I can have everything ready to go when they come to take me away.
And so, figure skating had their World Championship last week. I spent hours in heaven, watching every blessed program on Italian TV's Internet news feed. RaiSport RULES. I also spent a lot of time composing blogs for SkateFAIR's newest project Countdown to the Next Figure Skating Judging Scandal. I'm tickled even more so because my posts are 4 of the 5 most read and have the most people commenting (good and bad). It's nice to know that regardless of merits, at least what I write is provocative.
So why are we harping about scandals when TV says nothing? Well, here's a clue. Apparently, sports broadcasting is SO considered "not news" that "the vendor" ie, the ISU which has spent its time protecting cheaters, supporting the incompetent and punishing whistle-blowers, gets to say what the TV announcers can and cannot say. Yes, that's right. Rumor says that the ISU gagged Terry Gannon, Peggy Fleming and Peter Carruthers. Worse yet, there are credible rumors that Dick Button wasn't even invited because of his out-spoken criticism of the ISU's short-comings. Dick Button is an American institution!
Shame on ESPN. Shame. SHAME! Bad dog. No biscuit!
Tuesday, March 08, 2005
Figure Skating Rejections...
So, I got an email from my agent today. I briefly pitched an idea for a YA non-fiction book about a famous figure skater via email yesterday. When there's some more information, I guess I'll elaborate. I'd at least like to secure the skater's cooperation and possibly a contract.
The other tidbit of information was that there had been a response from one of the publishers who was reading On the Edge. Random House - Knopf Books for Young Readers rejected it because "despite the fascinating subject matter, it's too commercial."
Too COMMERCIAL?!
I thought "commercial" was a GOOD THING? Color me clueless yet again... at least figure skating is "fascinating." I asked my agent to send me a copy of the actual rejection—that's pretty standard. Half it's a way to make sure they're doing their job. The other half... well, so I'm a glutton for punishment.
I joined SCBWI a couple weeks ago and finally got my membership packet. I am whelmed by it. It's got a nice listing of publishers, good information and a long list of members... many of them local to me. Of course, the vast majority of the members in the region are "up North" so "We don't do much down there." Kind of peeves me as there are a good 20 people here and that's enough to get some good stuff going.
Anyway, the main reason I joined as that I heard that it give you little extra brownie points with editors. I don't know WHY it would as anyone can pay their $75 and join... only that it's supposed to. Maybe it only works for "members" who actually have previously published work, rather than plain "associates" who just paid to play.
I'm going to try to market a picture book that my agent isn't interested in over the transom (that's the little window over the door that authors used to throw manuscripts through). We'll see if it makes any difference. I don't really plan on a career as a picture book writer... but I have a few lurking around in my head that I would love to see done. I guess we'll wait and see.
My littlest girl goes to the pediatric neurologist tomorrow... probably for more tests, getting blood drawn, maybe muscle taken for a biopsy. I guess we'll find out when we get there.
I am pondering whether to have my oldest daughter (and myself) tested as well. I don't have to worry about getting medical insurance myself, but I don't want some company telling my girl that she cant get insurance or that they won't cover her children because she has a "pre-existing condition" ie a genetic disease. On the other hand... I don't want her going through life not knowing what's wrong with her... why her health is so much weaker than everyone else's.
The challenges just multiply!
And last but not least, the online community of writers to which I belong lost one of it's nearest and dearest yesterday. Bea Sheftel passed away yesterday morning. I didn't get along with Bea. She frequently annoyed me, often to the point where I was so angry that I would write scathing replies and then delete them. I almost kill-filed her. Bea saw in black and white. She simplified everything down to where it ceased to mean what it actually meant. It drove me up the wall because I see shades of gray. We were just fundamentally different—and far too much alike.
I couldn't dislike Bea. There are people that you may not be able to agree with, but whom you sense "mean well." Well, Bea meant well. Bea was easily as outspoken as I am. She was a woman of strong opinions and strong convictions. She was always helpful, often compassionate, sometimes wise. She wasn't "Saint Bea" but she was "Bea, a good person." She wasn't a hypocrit. She put her hands, and her time, and her money where her mouth was. You have to respect that. I do.
I felt guilty at first, because I had thought to make peace a few days ago when I heard Bea was sick. I had a bad feeling. I get them sometimes. I had a lot of regret at first that I didn't speak up and let her know that I didn't dislike her and that I did admire the goodness in her. Maybe I didn't want to be friends... but I didn't want to be enemies. It's a hard thing, knowing that chance is gone. I don't like regrets. I usually run my life such that i don't leave things unsaid, or things undone, that i don't have things to regret that I can't change... well, this one I can't change. Like I said in my post to Momwriters, "She knows now, but I wanted to tell her myself."
The other tidbit of information was that there had been a response from one of the publishers who was reading On the Edge. Random House - Knopf Books for Young Readers rejected it because "despite the fascinating subject matter, it's too commercial."
Too COMMERCIAL?!
I thought "commercial" was a GOOD THING? Color me clueless yet again... at least figure skating is "fascinating." I asked my agent to send me a copy of the actual rejection—that's pretty standard. Half it's a way to make sure they're doing their job. The other half... well, so I'm a glutton for punishment.
I joined SCBWI a couple weeks ago and finally got my membership packet. I am whelmed by it. It's got a nice listing of publishers, good information and a long list of members... many of them local to me. Of course, the vast majority of the members in the region are "up North" so "We don't do much down there." Kind of peeves me as there are a good 20 people here and that's enough to get some good stuff going.
Anyway, the main reason I joined as that I heard that it give you little extra brownie points with editors. I don't know WHY it would as anyone can pay their $75 and join... only that it's supposed to. Maybe it only works for "members" who actually have previously published work, rather than plain "associates" who just paid to play.
I'm going to try to market a picture book that my agent isn't interested in over the transom (that's the little window over the door that authors used to throw manuscripts through). We'll see if it makes any difference. I don't really plan on a career as a picture book writer... but I have a few lurking around in my head that I would love to see done. I guess we'll wait and see.
My littlest girl goes to the pediatric neurologist tomorrow... probably for more tests, getting blood drawn, maybe muscle taken for a biopsy. I guess we'll find out when we get there.
I am pondering whether to have my oldest daughter (and myself) tested as well. I don't have to worry about getting medical insurance myself, but I don't want some company telling my girl that she cant get insurance or that they won't cover her children because she has a "pre-existing condition" ie a genetic disease. On the other hand... I don't want her going through life not knowing what's wrong with her... why her health is so much weaker than everyone else's.
The challenges just multiply!
And last but not least, the online community of writers to which I belong lost one of it's nearest and dearest yesterday. Bea Sheftel passed away yesterday morning. I didn't get along with Bea. She frequently annoyed me, often to the point where I was so angry that I would write scathing replies and then delete them. I almost kill-filed her. Bea saw in black and white. She simplified everything down to where it ceased to mean what it actually meant. It drove me up the wall because I see shades of gray. We were just fundamentally different—and far too much alike.
I couldn't dislike Bea. There are people that you may not be able to agree with, but whom you sense "mean well." Well, Bea meant well. Bea was easily as outspoken as I am. She was a woman of strong opinions and strong convictions. She was always helpful, often compassionate, sometimes wise. She wasn't "Saint Bea" but she was "Bea, a good person." She wasn't a hypocrit. She put her hands, and her time, and her money where her mouth was. You have to respect that. I do.
I felt guilty at first, because I had thought to make peace a few days ago when I heard Bea was sick. I had a bad feeling. I get them sometimes. I had a lot of regret at first that I didn't speak up and let her know that I didn't dislike her and that I did admire the goodness in her. Maybe I didn't want to be friends... but I didn't want to be enemies. It's a hard thing, knowing that chance is gone. I don't like regrets. I usually run my life such that i don't leave things unsaid, or things undone, that i don't have things to regret that I can't change... well, this one I can't change. Like I said in my post to Momwriters, "She knows now, but I wanted to tell her myself."
Thursday, March 03, 2005
Figure Skating Cranks, Stalkers and Nutcases
Back to your regularly scheduled program of skating and publishing...
So... an author friend of mine is being cyber-stalked. She wrote a really kick ass suspense novel where one of the bad guys is the Mormon church—which covers up a heinous crime. She's an ex-Mormon and so apparently she both knows whence she speaks AND she knows the difference between truth and fiction.
This novel of hers, Wives and Sisters has drawn a lot of criticism from the Mormon community, most of whom haven't read it. It's been widely and well reviewed... except by the Salt Lake Tribune, which isn't quite—but might as well be—an official organ of the church. They hated it.
Now this weird guy is stalking her. He's signing up for all kind of Mormon and Ex-Mormon forums pretending to be her, and saying all kinds of nasty stuff. He's leaving 15 evil, abusive blog comments a day on her blog. He doesn't even appear to be a Mormon himself—anymore. Rather, he's an ex-Mormon. Color me clueless, I don't get what this guy's problem is or why he has latched on to my friend to persecute.
Anyway, the point I'm coming to is, when On the Edge does finally get published—and I'm coming to believe that it will—who's it going to offend?
I mean, OTE the Serial offended lots of people. It offended people who didn’t think OTE was all that good or deserved all that much attention. It offended people who didn't like what Trev had to say about being sexually abused. It offended people who didn't like how OTE vilified Russians or suggested that domestic abusers could actually change.
OTE the Serial actually got me cyber-stalked by some nutcase woman who was jealous of anyone who remotely appeared to be a bigger Ilia Kulik fan than she was. This woman followed me around, posted nasty responses to my posts, canceled newsgroup posts, drove me off RSSIF... scared me a little. After all, at that point, I was a housewife with a really amateurish web site. Why was this woman obscessed with me? There really was no answer... she was a nutcase.
So anyway, back to who I'm going to offend. I'll probably offend half the parents in the country. OTE the Serial was pretty graphic as far as sex and it's been a hard choice whether to "tone it down" for the YA market. I haven't yet decided if I really will or not. but it makes me wonder if I'm going to be the subject of book burnings and bannings. Well, bring those on, you can't BUY press like that. I hope The Onion writes a satirical piece about how OTE promotes profligate sexuality among today's youth. J.K. Rowling will be eating my dust.
Excuse me, I was dreaming there...
Anyway, like I told my friend Natalie, when you write something controversial you shouldn't be surprised when you get people stirred up. But the nutcases... I am not looking forward to the nutcases. Skating is just full of 'em.
So... an author friend of mine is being cyber-stalked. She wrote a really kick ass suspense novel where one of the bad guys is the Mormon church—which covers up a heinous crime. She's an ex-Mormon and so apparently she both knows whence she speaks AND she knows the difference between truth and fiction.
This novel of hers, Wives and Sisters has drawn a lot of criticism from the Mormon community, most of whom haven't read it. It's been widely and well reviewed... except by the Salt Lake Tribune, which isn't quite—but might as well be—an official organ of the church. They hated it.
Now this weird guy is stalking her. He's signing up for all kind of Mormon and Ex-Mormon forums pretending to be her, and saying all kinds of nasty stuff. He's leaving 15 evil, abusive blog comments a day on her blog. He doesn't even appear to be a Mormon himself—anymore. Rather, he's an ex-Mormon. Color me clueless, I don't get what this guy's problem is or why he has latched on to my friend to persecute.
Anyway, the point I'm coming to is, when On the Edge does finally get published—and I'm coming to believe that it will—who's it going to offend?
I mean, OTE the Serial offended lots of people. It offended people who didn’t think OTE was all that good or deserved all that much attention. It offended people who didn't like what Trev had to say about being sexually abused. It offended people who didn't like how OTE vilified Russians or suggested that domestic abusers could actually change.
OTE the Serial actually got me cyber-stalked by some nutcase woman who was jealous of anyone who remotely appeared to be a bigger Ilia Kulik fan than she was. This woman followed me around, posted nasty responses to my posts, canceled newsgroup posts, drove me off RSSIF... scared me a little. After all, at that point, I was a housewife with a really amateurish web site. Why was this woman obscessed with me? There really was no answer... she was a nutcase.
So anyway, back to who I'm going to offend. I'll probably offend half the parents in the country. OTE the Serial was pretty graphic as far as sex and it's been a hard choice whether to "tone it down" for the YA market. I haven't yet decided if I really will or not. but it makes me wonder if I'm going to be the subject of book burnings and bannings. Well, bring those on, you can't BUY press like that. I hope The Onion writes a satirical piece about how OTE promotes profligate sexuality among today's youth. J.K. Rowling will be eating my dust.
Excuse me, I was dreaming there...
Anyway, like I told my friend Natalie, when you write something controversial you shouldn't be surprised when you get people stirred up. But the nutcases... I am not looking forward to the nutcases. Skating is just full of 'em.
A Late Update
I meant to post this a long time ago, so, I back dated it... but this one is new.
Figure Skating Fiction Gets Submitted
Figure Skating Fiction Gets Submitted
Saturday, February 12, 2005
Fear. Uncertainty. Doubt.
It is with a heavy heart that I undertake to write this. I have been telling people for the last several days--bluntly--perhaps so that they are as afraid as I am. I try to convince myself of the facts.
This is not so bad.
It could be so much worse.
We can cope with this.
We can fight it tooth and nail.
Beneath my bravest face lies an untamed maelstrom of terror, in depth and breadth like an angry sea. I'm not brave. I'm wrapped in cotton wool. Shocked. Alone. When reality pounds away the protective coating... what will I do then? I'm frightened my friends. Those black waters are wide and deep and I am so small.
What throws me onto this dark shore--me--who eats editors and newbie writers for lunch? A nightmare. I can't wake up. Every morning, it hits me again, rolling over me like a tsunami. I can't wake up. I can't even drown. I move through the motions of life... working, telling people, giving a birthday party for my middlest.
On Thursday, my precious baby tested positive for muscular dystrophy. It's not the worst kind, which would doom her to an early death. It's some other kind... maybe even a virus which will get completely better. The numbers are not so bad. But her decline has been heartbreaking, inching slowly for her, but quick for me, who now knows that I saw the signs and didn't know what they meant.
She is 3.
She struggles up the stairs, hanging by both hands from the rickety banister. Or she goes up on her bum, or on all fours... like a baby half her age. From a seated position on the floor, she climbs to her feet, pushing with her hands, walking them toward her body until she can lift her torso, and come wobbling to her feet. If you so much as brush by her, she falls. If you make her walk too far, she crumples to her knees, bonelessly, loose-limbed. If she tries to step up from the street onto a curb without a helping hand, she dissolves into a puddle her arms reaching toward me to pick her up. She's so heavy now... too heavy because I am weak. And I want to scream and scream, keening for my bright, beautiful "big girl." She becomes a baby by inches while I watch.
It seems like it's only been a couple months... but I realize writing this, that is not true. Her balance has been bad for half a year at least. She has been fatigued and grouchy for months. That was never like her. I thought she was just "being 2" very late, finally coming into it when she was nearly 3. She had always been such a delight, too good to be true. She was entitled to some twoness, wasn't she?
Now she says, "Mommy! I climbed the stairs all by myself!" Like she did when she learned to poop in the potty. Like it's an achievement. I can't watch her struggling up those stairs, because reaching the top is an achievement. I can't watch. I have to hold myself from leaping after her, catching her off-balanced little body, carrying her up. She is so heavy.
At the playland, a little girl knocked her over. I flew to her, seeing myself as over-protective for the first time ever. The children were running races, back and forth past her. It took every ounce of my will to let them run. No. Stop! You might hurt her! Come to Mommy. Don't run. Don't waddle. Don't make me see what is happening to you. And I wanted to cry right there in McDonalds.
I didn't.
I can't.
I am afraid for the future, my friends. I am afraid of what will happen when I am able to feel again. She still seems so healthy... but I can't watch her climb the stairs, or not run, or stand up from the floor. I'm in agony. I try to stay calm, keep my mind on the facts, but beneath what I know is what I feel...
There but for the grace of God go I.
This is not so bad.
It could be so much worse.
We can cope with this.
We can fight it tooth and nail.
Beneath my bravest face lies an untamed maelstrom of terror, in depth and breadth like an angry sea. I'm not brave. I'm wrapped in cotton wool. Shocked. Alone. When reality pounds away the protective coating... what will I do then? I'm frightened my friends. Those black waters are wide and deep and I am so small.
What throws me onto this dark shore--me--who eats editors and newbie writers for lunch? A nightmare. I can't wake up. Every morning, it hits me again, rolling over me like a tsunami. I can't wake up. I can't even drown. I move through the motions of life... working, telling people, giving a birthday party for my middlest.
On Thursday, my precious baby tested positive for muscular dystrophy. It's not the worst kind, which would doom her to an early death. It's some other kind... maybe even a virus which will get completely better. The numbers are not so bad. But her decline has been heartbreaking, inching slowly for her, but quick for me, who now knows that I saw the signs and didn't know what they meant.
She is 3.
She struggles up the stairs, hanging by both hands from the rickety banister. Or she goes up on her bum, or on all fours... like a baby half her age. From a seated position on the floor, she climbs to her feet, pushing with her hands, walking them toward her body until she can lift her torso, and come wobbling to her feet. If you so much as brush by her, she falls. If you make her walk too far, she crumples to her knees, bonelessly, loose-limbed. If she tries to step up from the street onto a curb without a helping hand, she dissolves into a puddle her arms reaching toward me to pick her up. She's so heavy now... too heavy because I am weak. And I want to scream and scream, keening for my bright, beautiful "big girl." She becomes a baby by inches while I watch.
It seems like it's only been a couple months... but I realize writing this, that is not true. Her balance has been bad for half a year at least. She has been fatigued and grouchy for months. That was never like her. I thought she was just "being 2" very late, finally coming into it when she was nearly 3. She had always been such a delight, too good to be true. She was entitled to some twoness, wasn't she?
Now she says, "Mommy! I climbed the stairs all by myself!" Like she did when she learned to poop in the potty. Like it's an achievement. I can't watch her struggling up those stairs, because reaching the top is an achievement. I can't watch. I have to hold myself from leaping after her, catching her off-balanced little body, carrying her up. She is so heavy.
At the playland, a little girl knocked her over. I flew to her, seeing myself as over-protective for the first time ever. The children were running races, back and forth past her. It took every ounce of my will to let them run. No. Stop! You might hurt her! Come to Mommy. Don't run. Don't waddle. Don't make me see what is happening to you. And I wanted to cry right there in McDonalds.
I didn't.
I can't.
I am afraid for the future, my friends. I am afraid of what will happen when I am able to feel again. She still seems so healthy... but I can't watch her climb the stairs, or not run, or stand up from the floor. I'm in agony. I try to stay calm, keep my mind on the facts, but beneath what I know is what I feel...
There but for the grace of God go I.
Friday, February 04, 2005
Figure Skating Fiction Gets Submitted
PMA pitched On the Edge and Desperate Times to seven publishing houses/imprints. Every house they pitched to wanted to see the books!
Here's the list:
Penguin (Razorbill)
Warner
Simon and Schuster
Random House (Knopf Books for Young Readers)
Bloomsbury
Harper Childrens
Hyperion
I was thinking that OTE would be right up Razorbill's alley... but Penguin's financials are looking kind of dicey. Se we'll see. I'm praying that more than one publisher wants the book. If that happens, we go to auction... and auction means $$$,$$$.
Anyway, the excitement has been killing me for officially a month tomorrow. For agented books 6-8 weeks is a reasonable turn around. I still have a month to wait.
Here's the list:
Penguin (Razorbill)
Warner
Simon and Schuster
Random House (Knopf Books for Young Readers)
Bloomsbury
Harper Childrens
Hyperion
I was thinking that OTE would be right up Razorbill's alley... but Penguin's financials are looking kind of dicey. Se we'll see. I'm praying that more than one publisher wants the book. If that happens, we go to auction... and auction means $$$,$$$.
Anyway, the excitement has been killing me for officially a month tomorrow. For agented books 6-8 weeks is a reasonable turn around. I still have a month to wait.
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