Category Archives: Books

Parallels

Michelle West writes an excellent parallel between writing books and mothering here.

A belated Mother’s Day to all the moms out there. My day began very early, waking up with a jump at the crash made by a small boy dropping a play tea set on the floor next to the bed ( “Oh hi, Mama, I making you tea!”), moved through brunch with the Preston-LeBlanc clan (complete with smoked salmon, mimosas, a heaping bowl of fresh strawberries, and waffles), and ended with an afternoon with HRH’s parents and excellent steak.

Good Things

Life is remarkably miserable these days, so I’m trying to look for good things to share instead of the crap. Here’s a selection.

1. I read two books yesterday, Hale’s Austenland and Clark’s Because She Can. I’m so glad the boy is at an age where I don’t have to actively play with him all the time. Once in a while we can be in the same room or out in the backyard together, each doing our own thing with periodic interaction. This doesn’t work all the time: the boy has to be in a secure enough headspace to allow it. But yesterday was one of those days. There were other trade-offs, however, and other things were not as successful, which was very frustrating.

2. Last Tuesday I wrote twelve pages of Swan Sister longhand. I know I said the Vivaldi novel had ambushed my brain, but evidently I was wrong.

3. And perhaps Swan Sister‘s not the winner after all, because I sat down on Monday afternoon and drafted a two-paragraph summary and then a two-page synopsis for a new YA novel that had occurred to me. Because, you know, I don’t have enough unfinished YA novels lying around. At least this one has a full outline, up to a point at the end. I know that the protagonist’s obstacle gets worked through and she achieves her goal, and even how it happens, but there’s a secondary story in there about another character that affects her and that goal and I’m not sure how that resolves yet. Or even if it needs to be resolved, really; the protagonist may just go on being the only one to know this character’s secret. I’ve never written a full synopsis for a novel before it’s been written, and it was a very interesting exercise. I may even try to write the novel now. (I mean, of course I’ll write it at some point, and I didn’t expect to want to write it immediately. But it’s all there, so to speak.)

4. I’m sleeping okay, which I am trying to see as a tolerable trade-off for the increased pain I’m experiencing these days.

5. Sun is nice and good. Cats all returned to a level of sanity is also good. Life is less stressful when they’re all normal. (As normal as my cats, or any cats really, get.)

Adventure

Today, the boy and I went to the library.

This may not sound like an adventure to you, but ours is a family that thrives on books and money is tight. Add to this the fact that over the past decade HRH and I have lived near only one excellent library for three years (during which my reading time was otherwise occupied), and that in the past I’ve repeatedly had the irritating experience of being interested in reading the type of books that libraries rarely carry, so while having a library card is a Good Idea joining this one was never a must-do thing. I’ve wondered about our local library a few times over the past three years but for whatever reason never got around to checking it out (no pun intended). Today, however, I planned the outing for us as a diversion for the boy and a book run for new reading material for me.

The first thing we did was get library cards, which involved having our pictures taken and printed on hard plastic passes. The boy has one of his very own, which he insisted on carrying around in his hand until I persuaded him to put it in his back pocket, just like Mama. That lasted all of ten minutes before he pulled it out and dropped it into the basket he was carrying around for my books. He was very helpful once he had darted around the adult section as his whim took him, exploring everywhere. I had a list of books to pull (hurrah for on-line catalogues!) that I filled before taking him by the hand and leading him into the children’s section. He was thrilled with the ladybug stools and the low tables with paintings on them, the kid-made dollhouses displayed on top of the stacks, and the bins of picture books that he rifled through enthusiastically. Then I took him to the stacks and we talked about how libraries shelved their books by subject, stopping at the transportation section. He pulled several books on cars and trains out and sat on the floor going through them, eventually choosing one to bring home. He placed it very proudly in the basket on top of the Leo Lionni omnibus, an orchestra book, and a Tonka trucks book. I sat him on the check-out counter so he could see the woman scan his card and then each book, and print out the slip identifying the books and their due date. It was all very, very exciting. I wish I could find the kid-sized I Can Read bookbag I used to have so he can carry his own books next time. I’ll sew him one for his birthday, one with a pocket for his card.

Personally, I was impressed at the selection of English books in both the adult and children’s sections. I didn’t get a chance to see the adult non-fiction sections but I’ve already searched a handful of non-fic titles I want and found about three of the five. I took out six books, two of them Laurie R. King mysteries that I haven’t yet found in stock in a bookstore (why does no one carry backlist?), two of them novels that I know I’ll read once and never again, one a YA fantasy, and I can’t remember the other one. Maybe there were only five. I intend to put holds on the others I want too. So all in all I think I saved myself about eighty dollars today, and I have reading material for the next week.

I am smug, and very satisfied. And I am now going to return to reading Austenland by Shannon Hale.

What I Read This April

Ragtime in Simla by Barbara Cleverly
Essay on the Art of ‘Cello Playing vol. 1 by Christopher Bunting
The Outlaw Demon Wails by Kim Harrison
The Lost Memoirs of Jane Austen by Syrie James
Ophelia by Lisa Klein
Looking for Anne by Irene Gammel
Vivaldi’s Virgins by Barbara Quick
Something Rotten by Jasper Fforde (reread)
The Well of Lost Plots by Jasper Fforde (reread)
Lost in a Good Book by Jasper Fforde (reread)
The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde (reread)
City of Bones by Cassandra Clare
Einstein’s Dreams by Alan Lightman

From Good To Not So Good

Well, I’m glad I had a good morning.

I’ve just found out that the pagan pregnancy book was one of the two titles cut from my publisher’s fall list, because advance sales and pre-orders weren’t high enough. Two had to go, and mine was one of them. My editor is storming offices and tiger-taming magnificently, and has managed to get the sales and marketing department to agree to put it on hold instead. At the moment the most obvious option is to retitle it, making it more general and less specific to get it out from the niche-y complaint they had about it, which in turn may bolster sales to the big chains in the US. Sales and marketing suggested altering the content as well but neither my editor nor I think that necessary, as it’s already pretty broad.

I am strangely sanguine about this. I think that over the course of the hearthcraft book, what with all the struggling about the contract and the title (I haven’t gone into that battle here and won’t), I’ve finally accepted that these books are not really mine. I write them for the publisher under a work for hire contract, they pay me, and it’s theirs to do with as they will when I’m done. I regret that a solid book that can really help people in a certain position might not see the light of day, but it’s not the end of the world. If changing the title, the back cover copy, and maybe the introduction will help get it out there, then I’m all for it.

So if you were looking forward to buying it at the end of the summer, you’ll just have to wait a little longer until such time as they decide to reschedule the release. Unless something major is done in the next month, I can’t see any changes being applied in time to maintain the release date.

Weekend Roundup

The weather was beautiful, which went a long way towards offsetting how ill I felt over the weekend. Going downtown on Friday really messed with my energy levels and I paid for it. This is one of the big reasons why I was reluctant to commit to a full-time in-house job: the commute alone would kill me, thanks to the FMS. And if I needed proof to demonstrate how much the medication I’m taking for it has been helping, skipping a night because my throat thing was making sleeping difficult what with the dry scratchy feeling I couldn’t shake no matter how much water or honeyed tea I drank and throat lozenges I sucked, because the meds dry me out and made the whole throat thing worse at night, illustrated precisely how much they take the edge off the pain. We had to cancel a dinner on Saturday because both Liam and I were sick, and HRH was at the tail end of a stomach thing. Then because I was still too wiped out we passed on the public Beltane ritual on Sunday as well. I slept badly all weekend too, but that’s a given when I have bad FMS days now.

Instead we took things nice and easy over the two days. I spent a lot of the weekend just kind of sitting down, mainly reading Christopher Bunting’s Essays on the Art of ‘Cello Playing Vol. 1 (which is brilliant) and Kim Harrison’s The Outlaw Demon Wails (which is also excellent, moving things in the series along, further developing characters and relationships, and addressing some very interesting issues) while HRH and the boy enthusiastically overhauled the garden and prepped it for planting vegetables and whatever new flowers we decide to add. Late Saturday afternoon we meandered down to Dorval for some ice cream at Wild Willy’s. Sunday we picked up grass seed and vegetable seeds in the morning, HRH laid the grass seed and raked in new earth with it, and when Liam woke up from his nap we packed the wagon with water bottles and an apple and ambled to the park so he could play. He is a mad slide fanatic. HRH fielded him as he threw himself down various slides while I sat in the sun and watched. When the boy had reached the clumsy stage from all the activity we trundled to the corner store to buy Freezies and ate them on the way home. I picked three wild violets just around the corner and drank in the sweetness the rest of the way to the house. The side garden along the path to the backyard is a windy happiness of tulips and daffodils too, which makes me very pleased.

Orphaned squirrel update: There was a second one rescued the day after the white one was brought inside. The new baby is a more usual grey colour. The white one’s eyes opened on Saturday (lovely brown eyes, so it’s not an albino) and the grey one’s opened on Sunday. They are both girls, and the white one does seem stronger than the grey. They both suck lots of formula from the syringe, though, and curl up so sweetly in a hand or under the chin once they’re done. They are remarkably good-natured and behave much like gerbils do. At the moment they’re about the size of a large gerbil, too, fitting very securely in the palm of my cupped hand. Liam has held them and petted them very carefully, has rubbed them gently against his cheek, and has decided that the white one is his favourite. He asked to sleep with it the other night and we explained that it was very very tiny and he might roll over on it and squish it. I’ve posted three of the pictures at Flickr taken last Thursday evening when we first found the white baby on the ground. I don’t have pictures of the little grey one yet, as when I’m with them now I’m usually handling them.

It’s cool and rainy today, which is a good thing because the gardens all needed a good soaking.