Wowza!

Taking a quick break from the edits...
Isn't this cover just yummy?

Countdowns

Four and a half more days of school...

And fifteen pages cut!
It wasn't even that painful. I'm dedicating today to more discriminate chopping since I don't have that many days left without interruptions, arguments, and whining.

I plan to enjoy my quiet alone time.

Ahhh, the Dentist Chair

Hard-core dental work is in a league all its own...

* It's timing the moment you must close your eyes to avoid seeing the needle slide into your mouth for those stinging shots.

* It's being handed a tissue and a suction tube to keep the drool off your face and neck.

* It's having little bits of things pulled out of your teeth and wiped on your 'bib'.

* It's seeing miniscule bits of your teeth floating in the air above you like water vapor.

* It's keeping your reflexes at the ready just in case the anesthesia hasn't taken effect and the drilling has already begun.

* It's feeling like your lips are about to crack wide open just before the dental hygenist swipes a big glob of Vaseline over your lips like a four-year-old practicing with lipstick.

* It's hearing the varied sounds of your teeth being ground away--anything from a table saw to a kitten meow.

* It's walking out of the office pale as a ghost, hair matted strangely, lips quirked in odd and disturbing ways from the numbness.

Thank goodness they played Summer Breeze...

Chop-chop!

Well it seems (at least among the commenting readers of my last post) that I have a slightly skewed perspective from the rest of you. I read the agent's suggestion as 'Needs work, but could possibly have potential.' Am I weird to not find that all that exciting? I mean there's something to be said for it not being an outright rejection...then again, it means more work with no guarantee.

I don't want to sound whiny here--I'm just trying to keep things in perspective. I have queries out to a few other agents, and I'm anxious to see what they say. Could be they don't like the manuscript at all, could be it's not right for their lists, or it could be that they want to see other sorts of changes. Impossible to say.

That said, I'm going to begin the tightening process today. See where it gets me.

Not so perfect irony...

I'd been planning to blog about the fact that I'm always hearing (on loops, blogs, and in RWA meetings) about writers who submit to agents and then get critiques or suggestions on how to improve their work. I'd been planning to query the readers of this blog for the situations that had spurred such feedback, but with everything else going on (I swear, this time of year is as busy as Christmas), I haven't really been blogging at all. And in the interim--you guessed it--I got some feedback of my own.

Basically it was suggested that I tighten things up. Having only read the first five chapters, the agent postulated that I could cut 40-50 pages of filler and have a tighter, stronger manuscript. Then she offered, if I took her advice and revised, to look again. As usual with me, I'm a little torn. I could probably tighten. No, I'm pretty sure I could definitely tighten. But I'm not sure I could tighten 40-50 pages worth. And I know that's just a guess--an estimate--but in a 300 page book, it seems like an awful lot. Not to mention a considerable amount of effort.

Even so, I'm taking this response as somewhat good news. She likes the story, and I assume is reasonably satisfied with my writing, she just wants less of it. But it wasn't a rejection.

Any words of wisdom?

It's about time!

My sister has finally, finally gotten around to getting her blog going. (If you can call linking to my blog getting going... Just kidding--I do appreciate the link). She has a shop on Etsy selling felted animal cameos and other crafty things, and I just noticed today that she'd made and sold a giraffe, which I think is very cute. Mostly she does bears and bunnies, but I think she should branch out into the strange and wonderful.
Any suggestions? Done right, I think a couple of insects could be pretty cute. But maybe that's just me.

Thump Queen

I feel so out of touch! Not only have I not been blogging, I haven't been reading any of the riveting, inspiring, hilarious posts of any bloggers on my subscribe list. I miss ya'll! Last week I marathoned through reading my 'finished draft', and while a few things could be tweaked (and then tweaked some more), I'm relatively happy with it. I consider that VERY good news. Then, virtually the moment I was done with it, we were off to Sea World San Antonio for the weekend, and now we're back, but I've come down with something. I had my older son's Field Day all day today out on the playground at about 96 degrees, and tomorrow I'm a chaperone for my litte one's field trip. Hopefully I'm feeling a little bit better.

On the drive home from San Antonio, we detoured into Luling so my husband could 'introduce' me to some fantastic barbeque. Well, the place he intended to take me was closed, so we walked across the street, and had some pretty good barbeque at another little hole in the wall. The interesting thing about this little unplanned stop was the posters that were hanging in all the shop windows, urging you to vote for one girl or another as 'Thump Queen'. They were all wholseome high school girls posing with watermelon slices. Now I love watermelon considerably more than the next person, but I've never considered going out to hunker down in a field and hold a slab of watermelon up to my face in an attempt to win a seat in a parade. Then again, I grew up in Houston. Luling is somewhat of a watermelon town--they host an annual watermelon festival, and their water tower is painted like a watermelon. But 'Thump Queen'? Somehow it doesn't sound all that prestigious. More hillbilly. My husband did assure me that we were back at the end of June for the festival he'd write me in on the ballot. It's all I can ask for.

You're not gonna believe this, but...

My cake wasn't 'all that'. It was good...but not moan-inducing, toe-curling, unbelievably good. Perhaps something went wrong. Or maybe I'm just a simple girl, completely satisfied with cake from a Betty Crocker mix. Oh well. I'll be trying some more Pioneer Woman recipes just as soon as my butter-level drops back down to normal levels.

Thanks very much for all the Mother's Day wishes. I ended up getting some good stuff. Not that it's about the gifts...they just happen to be the best part.

I did get a little afternoon break--long enought o finish The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks by E. Lockhart, and I loved it. I highly recommend it. Now I'm on the hunt for the other books she's written. Dramarama looks very good, and Fly on the Wall has a great premise (a 16-yr-old gets turned into a fly and wakes to find herself in the boys' locker room). It's going to be fun catching up!

So...having been tagged by Sara Hantz, I'm going to give you the teeniest little glimpse into TDHoFL-B. Here are the tag rules.

1. Pick up the nearest book.

2. Open to page 123

3. Find the fifth sentence.

4. Post the next three sentences.

5. Tag five people and post a comment to the person who tagged you once you’ve posted your three sentences.


So, from The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks by E. Lockhart...I give you page 123, sentences 6-8:

"I'm not mad." And she wasn't. Not exactly.

Admit it...your appetite is well and truly whetted.

Anyway, I tag

Stephanie

Virginia

Sarakastic

Trish

Joanne

Catching You Up...

Well, thanks to Stephanie's and Beck's endorsements of The Pioneer Woman, who I think is a hoot, not to mention Eileen's somewhat unique but perhaps slightly dubious perspective on butter, I'm going to make the cake. I've amassed my ingredients and even bought a special cookie sheet to make sure I have a pan of adequate size. My motto (just for the weekend) is 'To heck with the butter!--I'm eating cake!' I will report back. Happy Mother's Day to all you mothers out there with enough time to read this blog!

Today I got my hair cut for summer. I'd post a picture, but I can't seem to take one of myself that captures the haircut. It's odd. I was standing in front of the mirror, admiring myself with my new haircut, and I took a few shots. Then a few more...then still more. I didn't look good in any of them, and I couldn't figure out why. How can I like how I look in the mirror but not like a single photograph?? It's boggling my mind. So...I will post the picture I took in to the salon. Imagine this is me, without the highlights, the eyeshadow, and the celebrity status...

Then this afternoon, I went to help setup the final bookfair of the year at my sons' school. It's a Buy One Get One Free, and the kids get to pay with points they've earned in reading certain books throughout the year and then being quizzed on them. Kindergarteners don't earn points, but my older son has enough to buy essentially one paperback. And I, of course, will supplement and stock up on some summertime reading material. I LOVE bookfairs and found sooo many titles I'd like to buy while setting up today. It's BOGO for me too--I'm so psyched!

Two book recommendations: The Curse of the Spellmans by Lisa Lutz (I love the Spellmans!)and The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks by E. Lockhart. I haven't finished the latter yet, but I'm really liking it so far.

Have a great weekend!

Killing Time

Last Monday I finished this 'second pass' of my second novel. I haven't looked at it in almost a week (and it's such a weird feeling)--it's out, being read by someone who's never seen it, and for that matter, never seen me either. She's a fellow blogger whom I asked if she might consider reading, and she agreed! With my critique partner having fallen off the earth--I seriously don't know what happened to her--and my family really rather adverse to reading things more than once, I didn't really know who to ask. But then I thought of someone whose opinion I respect immensely, someone I thought could offer useful advice without trampling my spirit. So...I'm waiting to hear. And in the mean time, I've made a list of all those things I want to get accomplished before the boys are out for the summer. I'm using this nail-biting, anxious, nervous-wreck time to tackle it.

In other news, I'm debating whether to make The Best Chocolate Sheet Cake Ever for Mother's Day. It looks absolutely scrumptious, and I never make cakes from scratch, but...as far as I can tell, cake and frosting combined have three and three-quarters sticks of butter!! That's a LOT of butter. I'm certainly not dessert shy, and I much prefer buttercream frosting to that Cool Whip style stuff, but 3 3/4 sticks! I'm going to have to think long and hard on this. And what happens if I love it, if it's as swoon-worthy as implied? Then I'll want to keep making it. But how can I justify 3 3/4 sticks of butter??? I'm torn...

A Chip Off The Old Blogger...

I am no longer the only blogger in my family. My older son has taken to blogging with great enthusiasm and gusto, and if I didn't stop him, he'd post several times a day. (He's already told me that on the weekend he'll have plenty of time for blogging, because there's no school.)

My sister-in-law has created a 'network' of sorts for her family and friends (probably while she should have been working on her dissertation), and she is obsessed with it. She's constantly trying to get us to add pictures, post events, chat, blog, and just generally 'hang out' in this network forum. I've resisted for several months, but finally, this weekend, I posted some pictures to the network and jazzed up the look of our 'page', etc.

Well my son loved being able to post pictures and type silly captions for them, and since I didn't want the network to get overloaded with pictures of my family (particularly any goofy ones of me), I suggested he write a blog post instead.

He loved it. His first post consisted only of a couple of sentences (he is in second grade after all), but at the end, he posed a 'getcha talkin' question for everyone. 'Do you like books too?' I notified my mom and mother-in-law (both sucked into the network) that he would be blogging daily, and would like to see comments from them, and they've complied, although with not quite as much attentiveness as he would like. In their defense though, who has time to check a blog and comment and recomment and then comment again on a daily basis? Maybe grandmas should--maybe I should get on them about slacking with regard to this thrilling new blog. This morning's topic was 'Our Backpacks', and yesterday he posted about 'New Underwear'.

I expect very good things.