Author Archives: Autumn

This Week So Far

Scattered flurries are called for later this afternoon. Not that I want winter to be here any time soon — for some odd reason I’m actually enjoying the seasonal weather at the moment, possibly because the cold, damp, and very windy thing is still novel — but I’m feeling moderately insulted and stood up by the snow fairies. Everyone else has had snow, it seems; where the heck are our first snowflakes? It’s Montreal, for the love of cats. We wrote the book on spastic weather.

Liam and I had a great playdate with Arthur and Curtana yesterday. This was followed by a less than stellar nap for Liam (and none for me at all because I used the first hour of his nap to clean up and check mail, and then suddenly there wasn’t a second hour for me to use), and a good shopping outing where we picked up Ratatouille and the Pixar shorts collection on DVD. I also got doorknob safety covers to keep Liam from getting out of bed once we’ve put him down to sleep, or wandering out in the middle of the night to cheerfully ask his father where his toy trains have gone. He’s also thrown open our (accidentally unlocked) front door and tromped out into the staircase on his own.

I had an insanely productive editing day on Monday: many hours of work with Mousme during the day, where I worked myself into a fried zone, then another couple of very enjoyable hours with Sandman7 and Talyesin in the evening at our inaugural NotNoWriMo meeting, despite a bad headache. (Oh, we are all so very pleased not to be doing the usual November thing; so very, very pleased. We’ve all been there and done that with multiple wins, and now we need to move on.) All in all I edited a third of the book yesterday, and now there are only around seventy pages to go.

Our coven celebrated Samhain with a quiet, good ritual last night, featuring a needfire that burned bright and long enough to make up for the lack of needfires over the past couple of years.

Today’s mail yielded me a free copy of Author 101: Bestselling Book Publicity, sent to me by the publicity department of my publisher. Enclosed was a form letter of publicity tips that began by saying, “Welcome to our company!” I am very amused, as the pregnancy book coming out next fall is my fourth with this publisher.

Today, I read a new book and write a note-form review, as well as write a second note-form review for another book I read a couple of months ago and I need to reacquaint myself with it first. Then Friday, I will expand the point-form reviews into real live reviews and send them off. Today, though, I mainly need to focus on staying upright; I’m exhausted, despite a good night of sleep, and I ache all over. Good thing I bought acetaminophen yesterday. I will not be sick, damn it. I’ve had a dry cough over the past week that I am certain is directly connected to turning the heaters on, but the aching? Not a good sign.

Huzzah!

Now that I’ve made sure the news has been appropriately posted elsewhere…

NEW BABY!!!

To be specific…. NEW GODSDAUGHTER!!!!!

We are so happy for the Preston-LeBlancs. We spent the day scurrying around collecting things for them, because we of all people know what having a premature baby is like. Not that anyone else doesn’t… just that, well, we’ve been there in a way most people haven’t. And we were honoured to have been called for help last night. It’s wonderful to share good news; it’s harder to call and ask someone for help. We know what that’s like, too.

And while HRH was off helping in one way, I was pulling off one of the strongest magical workings I’ve done in a while. Wow.

It’s great to hear of everyone scrambling to do the food assembly thing — we did it today, too. I love how our chosen family pulls together when one of our own is in need. “It makes us all weepy,” Jteethy said to me on the phone today. I know exactly what he means.

We toasted the newly expanded family at dinner tonight, and Liam eagerly volunteered his milk cup to clink against our glasses of Jackson Triggs Proprietor’s Reserve red. He knows there is a baby, but she is much less important at the moment than his beloved Devon. Once he’s seen the baby things will be different, I’m sure; she will be real to him then in a way that she isn’t just yet.

And now, the rest of that wine calls me, as do some freshly baked cookies. Good night.

Finished!

Wow! Editing Goddess Moi strikes again. The zipped-and-yet-still-humongous file is currently uploading, my editorial memo is just waiting for the upload to be done so I can attach it to an e-mail saying as much to the recipient…

I shall have a cookie for this. Or a cupcake, anyway.

Every time I do an edit I think, Oh, I could have done better. What I always forget to add is if I’d had more time. And I really should stop thinking that way, because I did my best in the time allotted, and the product is improved. Sure, I have have missed a word that ought to have been capitalized, or a comma somewhere, but all in all, I did some good. And to be honest, I edited this at one and a half times my usual speed. Still, there’s that fretting and minor anxiety when I send something off. Is it okay? Did I screw it up? Did I misunderstand it completely and make it worse, somehow? (Answers: Yes, no, of course not.)

And as a note to myself: A deadline of noon means you have to factor in the uploading time, too. Duh.

I wonder who I should send my invoice to. Hmm. Although I’m going to wait till tonight to do that, as I’ve said I’d take another look at it after someone does the rewrites, if they’d like.

Huzzah, w00t, And Also Yay!

I sold my book! The hearth magic book has been accepted! They want to massage the title, but that always happens.

Details of the offer are being discussed. So technically I haven’t really sold it yet, as we still have to work out the offer and my counteroffer… but essentially, yes.

Let the (conditional) rejoicing begin!

(Also, I just realised that this will be book number five. Yikes.)

Break Time!

Liam woke up at 5:20 this morning, and because I have begun doing Clocks-Back-Math in preparation for Sunday (later bedtime, later nap, later getting up… the latter is still theoretical at the moment but the to-sleep times seem to be going well) it meant it would have been 4:20, and there was no way I was going to let that become a precedent. I got up and asked him if he needed to go to the bathroom, and he did (the night-time diaper was only a teeny bit damp, too!). Then we went back into his dark room and I read him a quiet story, put him back in his bed, and said night-night. He played quietly until he fell asleep, and slept almost two more hours till 7:45. (Well, 6:45 if I carry the Clocks-Back-Math through properly.) The one good thing about the sun not rising till seven-thirty these days is you can tell a toddler it’s the middle of the night and he believes you.

He asked to wear his Incredibles shirt again today. I’m going to have to get transfer paper for dark colours and do a better one for him. I foresee a series of cool personalised shirts as treats, now that we’ve begun. There’s a Totoro one in his future, maybe with soot-sprites on the sleeves.

Newest cool word he uses: ‘dirigible’.

No more Hallowe’en photos as of yet; we didn’t get any more ourselves, but somewhere down the line there may be some from his caregiver. He had a wonderful time with his playmates there yesterday, bobbing for apples (he got one!), watching It’s The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown, and reading monster stories. He even got a little loot bag from his caregiver at the end of the day; we tried to get him to say “trick or treat!” for it but all he managed was “Please? Treat?” When he opened it at home, it was hilarious to see him pull out the candy and discard it beside him, ignoring it in favour of the Hallowe’en pencil and eraser.

He asked me to draw myself with my cello today while we ate breakfast.

I’m sure some people are wondering when I’m going to get around to wishing the world a blessed Samhain. I’m one of those people who calculates the four fixed-date festivals astronomically, as the solstices and equinoxes are calculated, so my Samhain happens sometime next week; November 8 this year, if I remember correctly. (If you’re curious, they’re as follows: 0 degrees Aries – Vernal Equinox; 15 degrees Taurus – Beltane; 0 degrees Cancer – Summer Solstice; 15 degrees – Leo – Lughnassadh; 0 degrees Libra – Autumnal Equinox; 15 degrees Scorpio – Samhain; 0 degrees Capricorn – Winter Solstice; 15 degrees Aquarius – Imbolc.)

Right; back to work.