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
Upon Reflection…
Nope. After two hours to think about it, I’ve changed my mind. I’m horribly depressed about the whole affair.
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.
Health: Check
Had the annual checkup with the doctor today. Fifteen minutes of poking and listening and hurrah, I am in very good health. I also got an hour and a half of work done in the waiting room, thanks to the emergency cases the doctor had to handle this morning.
I know why you’re really here, though. You want more squirrel pictures.
You can really see how much she’s grown over five days when you compare these to last week’s pictures on the Flickr photostream.
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.
