New Year’s Post

So 2009 was a pretty good year. I got a good agent, sold a novel, and made tons of new friends. A year ago I wasn’t sure if The Rise of Renegade X would ever find a publisher, and since then I’ve held it in my hands as a real book. Crazy sauce!

In the last year I also:

Discovered the Vampire Academy books by Richelle Mead, and now I’m not sure how I ever got by without them.

Watched all of Arrested Development, The Office, and Community (I may have watched all the episodes of Community three times now…) and ABSOLUTELY LOVED all three, so don’t bother telling me The Office is stressful or that Arrested Development got canceled for a reason, because I’m not listening.

Became brave enough to take pictures of the books in the store. I used to be terrified of this and thought it was illegal somehow or that I’d get in trouble, but now I just flash my “Official YA Author” badge and everyone leaves me alone. (Lies.)

Finished reading 45 books, which once would have been a low number for me but now is sort of large.

And that brings me to 2010, which is going to be a big year for obvious reasons. My book’s coming out and I’m going to BEA and probably lots of other stuff will happen, too. I don’t usually make New Year’s resolutions, because I tend to fail at them, but I’ll at least admit I have goals for 2010.

I want to read 100 books this year.

I didn’t finish writing any books in 2009–that needs to not still be true this time next year, or I will go crazy. I’d like to finish at least two books, and since I’m in the middle of two right now, finishing them would do nicely. Ideally I’d like to finish them up in the next couple months, then take some time off and write another one in the second half of the year. (But even just finishing one will send me into fits of ecstaticness and relief.)

I’m going to at least try using my drop spindle, even if it’s terrifying. (It’s not really *that* terrifying, it’s just a wheel on a stick, but I have a feeling there will be a lot of failure involved before succeeding, and also the magic of turning wool into yarn with just a little wheel on a stick seems too good to be true, even though I saw someone do it.)

I’m going to finish up the knitting/crochet projects I’ve been working on for other people.

And I think that’s it! Sounds doable, right?

Agent Appreciation Day!

It’s Agent Appreciation Day across the internet, and let me tell you, I sure appreciate my agent, Holly Root.

You see, I used to have a not-so-good agent. One who didn’t talk to me and ignored my e-mails and couldn’t get the names of my books straight. I thought good, wonderful, OMG-perfect-for-me agents were for other people who were living the dream. So when Holly and I found each other, I was a little like my friend’s ex-stray dog who thinks eating garbage is a way of life. (Okay, I wasn’t that bad…)

Holly’s awesome. She answers my e-mails, and with real answers about what’s going on with my books. I’m not afraid to e-mail or call her any time, and she always sounds glad to hear from me. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been having a long, wonderful conversation with her on the phone, laughing together or speculating on the future, but expecting to get rushed off any minute now or grumped at for taking up so much of her time. But I think all my agent mates will agree that that would be so not Holly! She’s always there to talk to me, and it’s never a chore or a waste of her time.

There are a lot of ups and downs in publishing, but Holly makes them all sound like ups. She can put a positive spin on anything and always makes me feel like I rock and am just teetering on the verge of world domination. (She knows me so well, lol!) She *gets* my books, my voice, and my sense of humor, which are all very important to me. I know she’s always got my back if trouble comes up, or even if I just imagine that troubles coming up. Now that I’m working on a new project, I’m getting to see that Holly is there for me every step of the way, from going over book ideas, and updated book ideas, to reading first pages.

A good agent has such a huge role in making a good book a publishing reality, I can’t even tell you. I knew they did more than just make deals, negotiate contracts, and count their money, but I had no idea how important they were every tiny step of the way. Whether it’s helping me figure out my next project, hooking me up with wonderful editors, negotiating contracts, answering my questions about publishing, life, the universe, and everything, squeeing over my book cover with me (yes, I did call her to squee), delivering bad news and making it sound like the best thing that ever happened to me, or just updating me on what’s going on with my books–I honestly don’t know how I’d do it without her.

So, in honor of Holly, I have ripped off composed this short poem:

Agents are sharks,
authors are blue,
book deals are sweet,
and so are you.

Thank you, Holly, and all the other wonderful agents out there who are there for their authors every day. YOU rock, and I’m pretty sure you’re the one teetering on the edge of world domination.

Kittens! Inspired by… contests

If you’ve been following my crochet adventures over the last month (and you have, haven’t you?), you’ll know I was crocheting a bunch of kittens. Jen Nadol of the Tenners is hosting monthly giveaways for non-traditional swag for Tenner books. (The Debs did this for 2009, so if you’re familiar with that, that’s what this is.) Anyway, you’d think thinking up superhero/villain swag would be ridiculously easy, but not so! I really wanted to participate in this contest, but I had a lot of trouble figuring out what to do.

Eventually I thought of the “rescuing a kitten from a tree” scene in the book and decided to crochet 12 Kittens Stuck in a Tree (Tree Not Included). And here they are:

From Drop Box

These guys were sitting on my floor, STARING at me all month! (Staring at me while I made more of them… creepy, no?)

Some may have turned out cuter than others, but heroes have to learn to save all kittens, regardless of their cuteness.

Not dead, still here

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.

Productive

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.

Teisel’s Underground Adventure

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

More ARCs

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.

Pants!

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.