Hey everyone! I realize I’ve totally been MIA on the blog lately. I have been working on a new book and watching Friday Night Lights. I won’t tell you which one of those things I’ve been doing more of. ;)

I’m finishing up the 12 Kitten Stuck in a Tree (Tree Not Included)s–I’ve got one more to finish up and then send off tomorrow–for the Tenner monthly contest thing next year. (I know, great description–now you totally know what I’m talking about.)

Bookmarks should be here Thursday! I am crossing my fingers and hoping they turn out awesome.

Emilee over at Penultimatepage has a Renegade X ARC contest going on! Easy to enter, and you can try and get referrals if you want extra entries.

A couple of bloggers have put The Rise of Renegade X on their lists for the 2010 Debut Author Challenge! W00T! Khy of Frenetic Reader was awesome enough to make my book first on her list! So I’m feeling pretty awesome about that.

Today was a productive day. I just feel like I have to tell you that at almost 2 in the morning, when I can’t seem to look away from the screen anymore and am very blah in the brain and have been trying to catch up on other people’s blogs, but failing a little bit, and mostly just getting eye strain. So, you know, you have to know how productive I’ve been, so *I* don’t feel bad about a case of late-itis. (Late-itis is much like Sunday-itis. Sunday-itis is when you get restless on Sunday, because you know you have to go to work/school on Monday and your freetime is too precious and limited to spend on just anything, so instead you freak out and don’t know what to do and end up wasting your time. Night-itis is like that, except at night–could be any night, really–when you don’t want to go to bed, but you know you will eventually, so you flounder around, wanting something important to happen, but knowing the only important things that are going to happen at 2 in the morning are things you do yourself, and you’re not going to, because you’re too tired and worried about going to bed soon.)

Anyway, my list of productiveness, let me show you it!

–As I mentioned in my last post, my first ARC contest is going on over at The Story Siren’s book blog. Which isn’t really a show of *my* productiveness, it’s Kristi’s, and any productiveness on my part was done yesterday or so, but I feel like it could count as my own productiveness if I believe hard enough.

–Got stuff to wrap/send sekrit knitting project (of doom). Did not actually *wrap* said project, but I’m not Wonderwoman, ya know. You can’t be expecting everything all in one day.

–Teased Khy about a sekrit, then promptly gave up the sekrit, like I so often do. (For sekrit, see item one in the list.)

–Worked on a thingy for the Tenner thingy I’m not sure if I’m supposed to tell you about. But now I have, er, three and a half of the things, and that’s half a thing more than I started with this morning.

–Watched Smallville. Am catching up on the last couple years that I missed. (OMG, KILL LANA ALREADY, but for reals this time.)

–Made a list on my blog of all the productive things I supposedly did today. It did not make me feel as accomplished as I thought it would. In fact, I felt a little more accomplished when all my accomplishments were just vague ideas in my head instead of cold hard facts.

–Went to the grocery store. It was a madhouse. It’s always a madhouse. There were people with carts everywhere, standing in front of items I wanted. And then an old man asked me where the crackers were and I blanked. I waved in the general direction I was pretty sure they were in (and since we were on the far side of the store, it was a pretty safe bet that since they weren’t in our aisle, they were the direction I was pointing–you know, the only possible one) and was like, “I think over there. Somewhere… Maybe… But I don’t actually know.” -__- My adventures at the grocery store know no bounds.

–Read. I am reading a NON-FICTION book. Reader, did that sentence there burn your eyes? Were you scarred by this fact? Did you look out the window to check for flying pigs? Yeah, me too. But I am. It’s a book about Cicero. It’s called “Cicero.” Surprised, yes? (No, really. It’s by Anthony Everitt. It’s good. Go read it if you’re into biographies.)

Did you know Cicero didn’t start his career until he was 25? Even though most people were starting earlier, he was better preparing himself. Did I mention I didn’t graduate college until I was 25? For, er, similar-ish reasons. And his career didn’t really take off until he was 27, and I didn’t get published until I was 27. Things like this make me feel much better about myself. Also that story about Julius Caesar crying when he read that Alexander the Great had accomplished more than him at his age. Ahhhh. Makes me feel good. You just cry about it Julius, so I don’t have to.

Want to read The Rise of Renegade X, but wish you didn’t have to wait until May? Head on over to The Story Siren’s blog and enter to win an advanced copy. The contest runs for two weeks, and it’s super easy to enter!

Today the landlord came to check the water levels in the basement–so far, so good, no flooding like last year–and Teisel decided this was the time. He was going down in the basement. “The basement” is this creepy, half finished hole in the ground. You have to lift a giant slab of floor to go inside, and it looks like Pyramid Head should live in there, and I hadn’t been down there before today. But the cat went down there, I SAW him go down there, and he was still down there when the landlord left. So I climbed down into the creepy basement to get him and… no cat. I look around some more. No cat. I look around even more than that, but it’s basically a hole in the ground–not a dry, sandy hole, but not a Hobbit hole, either (in fact it was very dank and smelly)–so where could he have gone? But still NO CAT. And he wasn’t in the rest of the house.

Eventually we discovered that he’d gone into a dark, dark crawl space that was so dark, it was hard to tell if it was a hole or if it was solid wall. And I could hear him moving around above me. So, no magic disappearance in the scary basement, just a regular, annoying kind of disappearance. I called him and called him (trying to sound hurt and/or lonely), and then he made an appearance to check on me, decided I didn’t really need his attention, what with being okay and not having any food on me, and promptly disappeared again. This happened a couple of times throughout the afternoon.

I left him alone for a while, and when I went to check on him again, he’d come out of the basement and was on the stairs. I grabbed some wet food–they like this stuff that looks like chum and has fish chunks in it–and he got all excited about that and came running. While he was distracted in the kitchen, I closed up the portal to Hell–I mean, the basement door-slab–so he couldn’t get back in. I don’t think he knows *I* did it, I think he thinks the hole disappeared, because he didn’t seem pissed about it, just confused. (And believe me, he would have been mad if he’d known I did it. He gets mad about stuff.) Then he laid around on the floor all smug-like. He lays down like a tiger when he’s being smug, all flopped down with his front legs out, being very majestic. He does that when he’s up on his cat tree and thinks he’s better than me just because he’s up higher. Well, he was pretty smug about his underground adventure, until I grabbed him and threw him in the bathtub. I told him that’s the price you pay for having an adventure, because he was pretty filthy and smelly. So now he’s had a bath and has been de-smugged. /adventure

Pictures of the box of ARCs that arrived today, both in their box and out of their box:

From Drop Box

From Drop Box

I have ten ARCs in this box for marketing and promotional purposes–which is a pretty decent amount, considering that a lot of authors only get one or two, and considering how much it costs to make an ARC (pretty close to the price of an actual book–see Alex Bracken’s post on ARCs)–and six months until the book actually comes out. Very exciting in a What Now kind of way.

From Drop Box

Creepy, yes?

From Drop Box

There are eyes and noses. As is to be expected. How can you have eyes without noses?

These are for a project I’m working on for a Tenners giveaway. Is it a secret? (Is it safe?) I don’t know! So I’m keeping my mouth shut for now. ~__^

I just successfully bought pants. I know, this is big news.

Buying pants is one of my least favorite things to do, because lots of the pants all look the same to me, yet most of them don’t fit right. Either the legs fit, but the waist doesn’t, or vice versa. Or they fit but are hideous, or they’re pretty but too uncomfortable. And they’re always too long and drag on the ground and get yucky. (Hemming? What is hemming?) I had two pairs of jeans, but they both have gigantic holes in them. The pair that’s still “wearable” has giant holes in the knees, and I’m afraid to wash them, in case they disintegrate. So I finally went over to Value Village to look for pants.

First off, my head wasn’t in the game or something, and I kept driving the wrong way to the store. Which is especially stupid because it’s not hard to get to. It’s, like, up the street. That’s it. How could I screw that up? Several times? Well, I made it to the store, which was super crowded. I grabbed some pants and jeans and a couple shirts that were too shiny not to try on. The first pair of pants fit perfectly. *le gasp* They actually looked flattering while also being comfortable. Not too tight, and not so loose I’ll need a belt. Sweet! I tried on the other stuff–none of it was right. I grabbed another batch of stuff to try on, still not right. But at least I had that one pair.

Then I get up to the counter, and it’s a good thing I did only find the one pair, because their credit card machines weren’t working and they could only take cash. D: Luckily, I had just enough cash to buy this one pair of perfect pants. (I think I might have flipped out, at least on the inside, if I had finally found pants that fit and looked good, only to be foiled by being cashless.) Then on the way home there was lots of traffic and a wreck and it took a lot longer to get home than it should have (though at least I didn’t go the wrong way that time -__-).

But I have pants I’m not ashamed to wear in public again. Pants without holes in them that aren’t also my pajama pants.

The end.

Took Eustace the car in today to have maintenance done. I thought I was going to have to sit there for HOURS, but then my friend Olive called and we went and hung out instead. The car is doing well–aren’t you glad humans don’t have preventative surgeries all the time like I am?–and it all cost less than I thought it would, so yay. We named out car so he wouldn’t die, like all the other, unnamed cars we had. I like the name Eustace, plus it kind of rhymes with “useless” which is what cars usually end up being. I AM PROTECTING HIM WITH MY SARCASM. And capital letters.

Also today, I ordered a bunch of plastic safety eyes and noses. I think my awesomeness is reaching its high point–I mean, when your life is this exciting, where else is there to go?

And I am! W00T! I just put down ACTUAL MONEY on airline tickets and made hotel reservations. I’ll be in NYC May 24th – 28th. (It’s going to be just like in Down with Love, right? #sarcasm)

For those not in the know, BEA (Book Expo America) is a giant book convention thing where publishers have booths where you can pick up advanced copies of books not out yet, and there are also lots of author signings and other fun stuff, plus lots of book peeps to hang out with.

I can’t believe it. I feel sick. I can feel it in my TEETH, I am so excited and nervous and maybe hungry. So many people I know are going to be there, from other authors to book bloggers to agents and editors and publishers and even teens I know who had to beg their moms to take them all the way to NYC are going. My book comes out two weeks before the con, which means not only will May be one big giant culmination of my publishing journey, but I will also get to sign books.

Also I am going to fantasize about re-enacting the end battle from The Last Olympian but probably not actually do it. But I’ll be thinking about it. <__< A couple months ago I was afraid if I went to one of these things, I'd be hanging around my publisher's booth the whole time, hoping they wouldn't shoo me away because I'd have no where else to hang out. But now I know so many people I want to hang out with that are going, it's going to be crazy insane and there will be no wallflowering!

Gah, apparently it’s been a week since I posted. The days just slip by!

So what have I been doing the past week? What breaking news is there to report from Chelsea Land?

Er, not a whole lot. Mostly I’ve been writing. And freaking out and deleting scenes and then deciding I like them and putting them back in again. (With minor tweaks. Remember what I said about minor tweaks being so useful.) I am loving this book a lot, but trying not to push myself too hard when I get frustrated. At this point, it’s less about adhering to a strict word count every day as it is just being happy that the book is going well and that I love it and that freaking out will only lead to more stress, whereas stepping back a little might lead to answers. I’m up to 40k, and if I finish it by the end of November (for fake NaNo), I will be SO HAPPY. This book is a sequel I’ve been struggling with for, erm, a couple years now, and this incarnation of it is one I’m finally happy with (and so’s my agent, and let’s hope my editor is too), and it has gone from being a frustrating, unfinished burden (while I had the day job) to being something I don’t ever want to finish because I looooves it, Precious, except that I do want it to end someday so I can BE DONE with it and move on with my life, even if “moving on” is just fantasizing about the next volume. This is the writer’s dilemma: Odi et amo. I hate and I love.

I read through my ARC. It was good times. I still have it in my stack of books on my night stand, and sometimes I leave it lying around in my pile of junk next to my beanbag, just to see it sitting around, being real. Like it could be any other book, piled somewhere in my room or on my desk, and it’s MINE. Also, speaking of my ARC, I heard Egmont gave away some copies at a YA festival thing in Austin, among other awesome ARCs like Anastasia Hopcus’ Shadow Hills and Bree Despain’s The Dark Divine–both of which I have not yet had a chance to read, but AM DYING FOR. Ahem. Anyway, how cool is that that people I don’t even know might have my ARC sitting around? Very cool.

Also I changed the description on the Rise of Renegade X page to match the jacket copy. It goes like this:

Damien Locke knows his destiny–attending the university for supervillains and becoming Golden City’s next professional evil genius. But when Damien discovers he’s the product of his supervillain mother’s one-night stand with–of all people–a superhero, his best-laid plans are ruined as he’s forced to live with his superhero family.

Going to extreme lengths (and heights), The Rise of Renegade X chronicles one boy’s struggles with the villainous and heroic pitfalls of growing up.

I’m reading Heat Wave, by Richard Castle (I know, right??), a tie-in book for ABC’s show, Castle, which, if you didn’t already know, is awesome. I’m almost done with the book. It’s pretty good–just like the show, except that Nikki Heat and Jameson Rook, the NYC detective and the reporter following her around, are characters Castle supposedly made up, so unlike most tie-in books, life changing stuff can actually happen in it. Which is brilliant!

I’ve also been watching Supernatural. I’m about 3/4 of the way through season one. I love it. It has it’s really stupid, cheesy moments, and then there was that hillbilly episode… but overall, they always get me with whatever emotional dilemma is going on even on the episodes where , and I love the roles the Sam and Dean play, both in their demon hunting team and as brothers.