Funny story.

Mondays I meet with Cindy and BD and we critique each other’s work. It’s awesome. Anyway, this Monday once the meeting was pretty much over and we were just packing up and getting ready to go I glanced down at my ipod and caught the date staring up at me from it.

“Oh crap!” I said.

BD started laughing right away but Cindy looked a bit puzzled.

“How’d it get to be the 15th already?” I asked, dumbfounded.

“Got a newsletter you need to do?” BD asked, still laughing.

“Erm, that is…” I muttered before pointing out the window. “Look! Sparkly!”

Dani with a Sparkler

Okay…I just made up the ‘Look sparkly’ part, but the rest was true. Here are a couple more pictures to distract you while I attempt to write a newsletter before it gets any more overdue.

Indiana hanging out on the windowsill

Indiana spots a bird

I <3 my camera. For now, back to work on the newsletter…

Help Catherynne M. Valente

I don’t actually know yuki_onna or justbeast . I’ve never read any of Catherynne’s work and they aren’t on my friends list. That being said, when I read about their troubles I wanted to help. So I’m donating ad space on Niteblade, a copy of Lost Innocence and a copy of Sister Margaret to the auction to raise some money for them.

My auction is here. Please stop by and place a bid. For $5 you could win two great things to read and ad space on Niteblade Magazine. Plus, you’ll be help some people who really need it. If you can think of something else I could throw in on the auction to make it better let me know, I’m very open to suggestions.

Sometimes you just gotta screenshot things. Even if they don’t actually mean anything. This is one of those times. Sister Margaret is actually tied with all these novels in that we all have five or more ratings and 100% of them are ‘great’. I’m sure this exalted status is only temporary but how could I not take a screenshot when it looks like my story has been rated higher than The Lord of the Rings? Dude, that is one of those oppourtunities that if you don’t take it you’re a fool. I’m lots of things. I hope a fool isn’t one of them.

S.G. Browne’s novel Breathers is about sentient zombies. Can you imagine being trapped in your body while it slowly rotted around you? That’s the reality for these creatures. It’s been described as a zom-rom-com (zombie romantic comedy) and is going to be made into a movie with Fox Searchlight. Pretty sweet. Intrigued? You can win an autographed copy just by leaving a comment on/in the Of Warmth, Of Dragons issue of Niteblade. Each comment will be considered an entry into the draw, and if you buy a .pdf copy that’s 5 entries. I’m making the draw on July 1st so you’ve plenty of time to wrack up (rack up?) some entries if you’re interested.

I’d also like to say a huge thank you to anyone who bought Sister Margaret through Fictionwise and rated it there. Sister Margaret is currently the highest rated title for my publisher at Fictionwise. That is very flattering and makes me incredibly happy. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Still working on the psuedo-secret project, though it’s reached the waiting stage. I’m hopeful there won’t be too much waiting involved, but I guess time will tell. The collaborative projects I’m working on are still a going concern – one more than the other. Soon I’ll be able to share a little bit about it, but not quite yet. Sorry LOL Also working on a fun horror short story that I think has a lot of potential…more about that when it’s done

In my non-writing life things are a bit crazy this week. It’s the last week of my daughter’s dance stuff leading up to her year-end recital. That combined with things like vet appointments (for the dog, not me :-p), hair appointments (grey roots just keep on coming back…) and an upcoming visit from my parents have been keeping me busy. Once this weekend is over though, so is dance for the year. That will be a huge relief and cause a large increase in writing time. Time I’ll have to use to finish up this Women in Literature course I’m struggling through for school. Whee!

I won an auction through Brenda Novak’s auction for diabetes reseach this year for a critique by Jim C. Hines. The critique is of one short story or the first chapter of a novel. I -adore- Jim’s work and think he’s just a pretty awesome guy all round so I’m really looking forward to this critique…the problem is, I can’t decide what to send him. His usual genre is fantasy so I could send him the first chapter of Shadows, which is about as polished as I can make it at this point. His feedback would possibly help me polish it further and hopefully help me place it with an agent, or I could send him the first draft of the aforementioned fun horror short story so his critique could help guide my revisions on it and help it get placed. But it’s horror, which isn’t his primary genre.

What do you think? What would you do?

Productive again? Yay!

My focus, which has been sadly lacking since November appears to be making short appearances these days. It’s nothing fantastic and I’ve not suddenly turned into a writing machine, but I’ve been more productive than in ages.

One thing that has helped is the pseudo-secret project I’m working on these days. I’ll share more details soon…ish, but I still need to pin down a couple details first. I’m excited about it though. I’ll likely spill the beans about it on my newsletter first, but information on the blog will follow soon after.

I’m also working on two collaborative projects. Kyle Cassidy ( LJ ~ Twitter ~ Website ) recently set up a project where he paired random strangers up to work on something, anything, together. Long story short, I am working in two collaborations as a direct result. Each is hugely different from the other and I’m really enjoying them both. I feel like they are really pushing me out of the rut I’d been in and sort of forcing productivity. This is a good thing because if I do it long enough it will become a habit again LOL

Now, so long as the baseball game we’re supposed to go to tonight doesn’t get rained out, I’ll be golden. Please don’t rain. Danica has been looking forward to this all week and passed up a chance to go to a movie and a slumber party for this game. Please don’t rain…