Category Archives: Cogging for Kibble

Hearthcraft Book Update

Total word count, hearthcraft book: 7,551
New words today: 2,511

I originally ended at 6,721 to yield another 1,682 word day, but that was too much of a coincidence, so I did a short expansion on spoken magic and ended up with 6,905. That gave me a day’s total of 1,866 and I said heck, I can add another 44 words to make an even 1,900. So I did, talking about the use and care of cast iron, and I just kept going, because I might as well finish the section. Of course, that left me fifty words below 7,000, so I did it again. And then again when my daily total was 2,487, because 2,500 looks so much better.

Heh.

So much for stopping at four o’clock to give myself some time off before I have to go make supper. But an extra eight hundred words in half an hour? I’ll take that any day, thanks.

(Twelve percent done! Woo-hoo!)

Hearthcraft Book Update

Total word count, hearthcraft book: 5,039
New words today: 1,682

Oh, I was so, so very bored today. Not with my book in particular, just with everything in general. I couldn’t settle down to anything. I’m thankful I got at least this much done.

Some chapters are looking suspiciously unwieldy already, and they’re only in point form. Thus the reorganization and refocusing of chapters looms close on the horizon, only a week into the project. Better now than later.

Wednesday, Thursday

My parents came into town for the day yesterday, and of course that was the day the two-year-old fairy decided to visit and dump her bag of tricks over Liam’s head. He woke up at 5:30, he upended his cup of milky tea on the floor of the kitchen, he upended my cup of tea into his toy drum, he pulled over the water fountain. He screamed for an hourish after being put down for his nap, and when he woke up he didn’t want to come out and see his grandparents, calling me into his room to curl up with him on his bed instead. Eventually he came out and socialised, and he cheerfully ate a big dinner (on top of the two bowls of Cheerios and milk he devoured once he woke up from his late nap). I took my parents to the airport while HRH handled the bath and bed stuff, and the boy was in bed cooing to himself when I got home. I went in and sat on the edge of his bed and he smiled at me with sleepy eyes, as if it had been a wonderful day, and mumbled a goodnight. I kissed him, and he snuggled down with Bun-Bun and was asleep within five minutes. He didn’t wake up till 6:30 today, and was in a great mood. I think he has to have an uber-cranky day once in a blue moon to make up for how great he is the rest of the time. His cold is much much better and almost gone; I now must grudgingly admit that I have it, although it’s staying in my sinuses and is almost gone too.

It was really nice to see my parents, though.

I bought a bread maker this morning. When even no-name generic sandwich bread goes up to $2.10 a loaf, I put my foot down. I also bought black socks. It’s probably a bad sign of something when I feel that buying plain black socks is a big thing.

I mailed out my contracts for the new hearth magic book on Wednesday. Also in work-related news, I’ve been getting pings from private individuals about small editing jobs this week. One of them was an indirect response to a message I sent out requesting info as a consumer; the recipient noticed my sig file and said she wrote short stories in English, her second language, and wanted to know more about how I could clean up her work. Nothing concrete yet, just responding to queries, but more queries mean more potential for work.

I wrote about a thousand words of inane stuff in the Vivaldi novel on Wednesday. I’m restless, now that the other YA novel is finished; I can’t seem to settle into anything. Research for the hearth magic book is, of course, ongoing.

Pregnancy Book Subtitle And Release Info

Colleen alerted me to this at the end of last week, and what with all the other web site updates I’ll throw the info out here as well:

The pregnancy book has an official title, subtitle, ISBN(s), and release date. Pagan Pregnancy: A Spiritual Journey from Maiden to Mother (ISBN-10 1598693972, ISBN-13 978-1598693973) is scheduled for an August 2008 release, which means it ships mid- to late-July. It’s listed as available for pre-order at all major on-line bookstores, but please take the time to tell your local independent bookshop that you’d like to order a copy of it. They’ll be more than happy to do so for you.

I’ll post the cover art when it’s finalized.

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.