My list of things to blog about grows longer and longer. I don’t feel like getting into a big post right now, but here are a couple of amusements. First, it’s my brother’s birthday today (okay, it’s after midnight, so technically it was yesterday). Hooray! He rocks. Also, he saves lives, which is a fairly rockin’ thing to do. Also, he’s my one-stop medical story consultant, which is cool. I’m not paying him anything, though, so I’d better continue to give him compliments on the blog here or he might get disgruntled and cut me off, in which case I’d have to turn to… my sister.

Anyways. Happy birthday, Mike!

I just finished knitting a hat. Now, I can handle paying $12 for a pattern from an independent shop owner and all, especially when it’s cute. But gosh darn it, not when it’s WRONG. And there are no ERRATA. Boo. So now I’ve got this oversized conehead thing going on. I might not be brave enough to leave the house with it. Leland says, “it looks like a Norman helmet! Eleventh century! It’s even got the rivets!” Actually, it looks like a Hershey’s kiss, only purple and ill-fitting. I point out that he didn’t even try to pretend that it doesn’t look ridiculous in that “Aww, that’s cute, honey” kind of way.

Let’s see… what else? Broke Jeff’s early evening inking trance yesterday to meet up for a beer. He tells me that our story, “The Dog Lady,” will drop in ish 6 of Cryptic magazine, not ish 5 as initially expected, because of some coloring issues. So we’ll continue to hold for that. In the meantime, he’s got a tasty Dr. Gore piece for the picking in ish 4, out now. Also, I feel compelled to warn you that Jeff will be on the run from Dr. Gore for the next few months, hiding out at comics conventions. So stop by with the good wishes and the safe harbor if you happen to be where he’s at. Next stop, Wizard World Chicago, which is a couple of weekends from now. Details on his MySpace page.

Amusing non-sequitur from today’s email: “hey, if you want to do the Yeti book, we can do the Yeti book.”

That’s all I gots.

The bad news first.

We lost another member of the Genco clan. One of my parents’ best friends (to the tune of the past 30 years) lost her battle with cancer yesterday. That makes five deaths in our close-if-not-immediate circle in the past three months, in case anyone happens to be counting.

Enough already.

And then there’s this:

That, apparently, is the Frankenstein adaptation that Jason and I cooked up a couple of months ago. Click through and you’ll see my name in lights on… Amazon.ca! Also on Amazon.co.uk!

But not on Amazon.com, apparently. Bah? Bah.

I had no idea that she would be out so soon. (Though, as you may recall, we did have to work in a flurry.)

Thankfully, Jason took care of all blatant Bernie references that slipped in there. What a peach! (And holy smokes! Check out this link! Huzzah!)

The Weekly World News is shutting down?

I, like some staffers, suspect a cover-up.

Edited to add: I’d better get Ed Anger’s book while it’s still available for .02.

Snapbang! Had my head down for about, hrm, 12 hours today (most of it copywriting, though I did spend about three hours on a pitch this morning) and only just now remembered that this dropped today:

Latest anthology from Terri and Ellen Datlow. Illustrations by Charles. Tricksters! Hooray!

Also new: two novels from the dynamite husband and wife team of Emma Bull & Will Shetterly. (Their early urban fantasy novels continue to blow my mind.) Details on the Endicott blog.

I seem to be having run-ins with music I’d forgotten. We had the Suzanne Vega last night. Some Beautiful South that’s so pretty and so pained, it has always made me want to cry… almost. Love Tractor — anyone else remember them? And an Irish tune called “The Mooncoin” that’s so frickin’ addictive, I just had to learn how to play it. Especially since all the recordings I could find were kind of crappy (yes, even the Steeleye version, I’m sorry to say — maybe there’s just something about hearing it in a New York bar). But I haven’t played anything in a long time…

Oh!! Speaking of music: hello Fairport Convention BBC box set extravaganza hello. As if I had the eighty bananas to blow on this. I had to put the Pixies DVDs back. But Leland, bless him, made sure I didn’t leave the store without it.

Never was a Suzanne Vega fan until Leland came along, really, but there was what can only be described as a one-off phase back in my college days when this record came out. My boyfriend at the time was responsible; he couldn’t stop playing track 2. It’s a great album; not a bad song on it, really, but this is my favorite:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=omyXU1uxNE4

I had no idea that there’s a video for it.

The album has some of my all-time favorite album artwork ever. Grimy, creepy, New York City carnival, complete with fishnets, boy shorts, and that totally cool knife necklace she wore everywhere at that time.

I don’t think I could ever pull off a 3″ blade hanging from my neck…

Anyway. Too bad it’s out of print now. We just picked up her brand new one; it’s all New York and, naturally, all great.

On the Harry Potter funwrecker tip, Kelly Sue informs us via Twitter by way of Fraction that some mope has posted major Book 7 spoilers on the Internet.

I don’t know who, I don’t know where, I don’t know why. Well, okay, maybe I do know why. Because this person is an ass, that’s why.

Anyways. Take care where you click!

edited to add: scanned and posted the entire book; my bad

Missed a few key updates. First of all, there are now four pages of YES, MOTHER online (the most recent went live today):

YM page 1
YM page 2
YM page 3
YM page 4

We’re a little behind on TATTERED COAT as Valerie is out of town. Here are the first 3 pages, in case you missed previous updates:

TC page 1
TC page 2
TC page 3

Slow, slow going on a short piece for the 2nd volume of a certain comics anthology which shall remain nameless for the time being… I wanted to have it turned in by now, but you know, life, death, and yes, sometimes other stories get in the way. In the plus column, we’re three or four sketchy drafts later and now it finally appears to be structurally sound, so I’ve started coloring in the lines. Decided the hooker wasn’t working, so she got the boot. Added a few more hallucinations instead. Hookers, hallucinations… my stuff is always so dang happy!

The other story I’m working on is full of Death. But it’s silly, I swear!

Anyways. We’re going to see Ratatouille later. I really want to see 1408 but Leland’s not much of a boo movie fan, so I’ll do that one alone. Also, also… superdork alert… Loch Ness monster movie OMG… shiver me timbers, that’s just awesome. I’ve watched the trailer something like 5 times. Dangitall I love fantasy.

What else? Here’s some bad news for Harry Potter fans. Funwreckers.

This looks relatively new: The Brooklyn Indie Market. Ah, the old neighborhood. How cool is that? I think I may have to get us over there next weekend.

And, because all the cool kids are doing it, here’s my new Twitter page. The full size photo is on my Flickr page.

Spiderwick Chronicles Myspace page TRAILER ACTION YEAH!!!

Holy CRAP that looks FANTASTIC! You can see it bigger on the movie website.

I was just thinking about this the other day and was wondering if there was a trailer yet.

Urban Fantasy ROCKS the house EVEN HARDER than it has been rocking for the past two and a half decades. Congrats, Holly.

Ok, back to work for me.

Well, sort of. You know how it is when you first get back from a week away? Sometimes it takes while to get going. The day has been less than a wash by a long shot, and frankly, that’s grand. So.

Thanks muchly to everyone who expressed their condolences after the last post. I can now safely report without chafing the ones I love that it was Bee’s dad who died. Bee, as readers of this blog probably know, is my best friend of about 20 years. Mike Round was a constant presence in my life for most of high school and has been a family friend ever since. He was just the coolest guy in so many ways… looking back on his life over these past days has uncovered lessons, to say the least.

Now, I recently quit my job to write full-time, more or less without a net. I don’t feel like I’m holding back in my life… I’ve always aggressively gone after what I want, even if it means wrastling with so much internal resistance, and writing is no different. But sometimes I do it with altogether too much navel-gazing, hand-wringing and malaise. Oh, and I often do it with my eyes closed.

Lesson 1: Mike Round never closed his eyes for anything. And he never had a bad day.
Lesson 2: Remember: who’s driving the bus, here?

Mr. Round, I’ll miss you!