Amber Stults had a link from her site that would grade your website’s SEO friendliness. I was curious so I checked mine. I was pleased with the results and also enjoyed the suggestions for improving my SEO ratings.

If you’re interested in plugging your site in you can do it at http://website.grader.com/ .  Since the code for the badge given to me by that site is only working on select browsers, I’ll also just come out and say, my grade was 89. Did you beat me?

Help Catherynne M. Valente

My auction for ad space on Niteblade, a copy of Sister Margaret and a copy of Lost Innocence ends at midnight tomorrow. Right now it has one bid on it (thank you Greg) for $5. Surely we can do better than that? The auction is here please check it out.

In other news, my short story “How It’s Supposed To Be” is up at The Legendary. Sadly, this story was inspired by a very similar situation that happened here in Edmonton not so very long ago.

I’m guest-blogging at Jenny Gilliam’s blog today about roles in life and time management. I’d love to hear what you do to make sure you manage your time too so go take a peek and leave me a note

Every year wasps come and build a nest by our front door and every year we knock it down. The nests are never in the same spot, but always in the same general area. They are persistent. If they would just build the nest somewhere out of the way we’d probably leave them alone but it’s a safety hazard to have a wasp nest right by your front door. Ya know, because people need to walk there. That means we don’t really have much choice but to destroy it.

I’m especially sympathetic to the wasps today, because I can relate to them. They keep buzzing around, building nests and having them knocked down and they are going to keep doing that until they find the perfect spot. One where we can leave them in peace and co-exist. I keep writing and revising SHADOWS trying to get it to that perfect spot. One where a reader will be hooked from the first paragraph, devour it in one sitting and ask for more.

I suspect both the wasps and I have a lot more work in our future.

I like SHADOWS’ current incarnation. I like it a lot but I think I’m going to rewrite it again. I received my critique of the first two chapters back from Jim C. Hines and it was fantastic. He showed me the parts that worked and what didn’t and gave me some suggestions for improvement. After thinking them over and really pondering the middle of the story, I think I can tell a better tale if I start from scratch.

I have a couple things to clear off my plate here first (a paper to write for school, a final exam on the 26th, that sort of thing) and then I’m going to start over. My plan is to really map out the plot, add a lot more detail to it and then start writing about July 13th. Why so long away, you ask? Well, I will be doing the outline thing and then I’ll be on vacation in San Francisco from July 5th to 12th. I think I’d be deceiving myself to think I’ll be doing any work there LoL

So yes, once the 13th comes I will be back to work on SHADOWS. Unfortunately for the wasps, they’ll be rebuilding a lot sooner than that.

*It’s probably not a good thing that it took me nine shots to get a picture of their nest that I liked, is it? LOL

I sent June’s newsletter out this morning. I actually finished writing it yesterday in good time, but then became distracted and forgot to sent it out until now. *facedesk* I fail at focus this week. Sorry.

Anyway, it’s out now, and um…yeah.

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Look! Sparkly!

*flees*