I am finishing up my work year early–this week, in fact–because next Monday Kelly and I are turning over the cats to the housesitter (or the housesitter to the cats; I’m not sure which) and jetting off to Italy for the entire holiday season.
Rumble is Unimpressed:
What does finishing up mean? First, and very exciting it is too: I sent a new novel off to my agent Monday!!! And I hope to be able to tell you all sorts of things about it in the very near.
I also have one last January blog post to prep for Tor.com. Meaning: it’s written, and I just have to do some coding.
Aaand I’m fine-tuning my Novel I syllabus for the spring quarter of the UCLA Extension Writers’ Program. And, less this list bore you to death, I’m prepping An Unveiling. Yes, gang, tomorrow I will be posting the Blue Magic cover art.
After that it’s all minutiae, like tidying up paperwork, and writing that handful of e-mails to people that boil down to “If you want something from me this month, you need to let me know now.” If you’re reading this, and the preceding sentence might apply to you, you should remember that my brain will stop running well before Monday. Get your requests in STAT and use very small words to express ur needz. Because, really, I say I’m working this week but whenever I can get away with it I’m lying on my face on a dock covered in seagull droppings taking pictures like this:
And then going home to post the photo while washing my tights in gasoline.
Because, you know, the tights are also going to Italy!!
Italy, Italy, Italy, Italy. More specifically: Rome, Palermo, Agrigento, Modica, Siracusa, Catania, Napoli, and more Roma!
Between one thing and another, Kelly and I have been saving both vacation days and dough for this trip for a shockingly long time. I am tired and ready to experience some exciting new things… and to photograph them! In fact, since I am a mad photoposter, some may well go up before I’m back.
WiFi permitting, you can look for them here:
Tumblr: mirrors my Instagram posts, which also get Tweeted.
Flickr: I have set up an Italy album, but all it contains is the above picture of my suitcase with a cat in it. My plan is to see if I can leave a slide show running on the site before I go.
Facebook: Anything I put on Flickr ends up here.
All that said, I sincerely hope all of you have such gratifying and exciting holiday plans that checking out my trip photos is the furthest thing from your minds.
Hey, what are your gratifying and exciting holiday plans?
, and you can 
and 
, entitled “Sick Sex Smackdown, Eighties Style” is 
presence at the con was mighty and well-costumed. 
, and the workshop was a terrific creative cauldron. 
, and the feminist heart of that series–the stuff about a woman trying to make it in a male-dominated profession–was very in-your face. For some reason, I thought that material would be downplayed or excised entirely.
, too, though the high school reunion episode was too mean for my liking.
this year. Last year’s finale was Far Too Cheesy, cheesier even than a quattro formaggio sauce with extra cheese on top, served on cheese-stuffed tortellini. It may in fact have been the most howlingly tasteless thing to cross my flickerbox since Kiefer Sutherland solved 
hours worth of his personal and professional problems by taking an axe to… well, I won’t spoil you just in case. Either you’re blissfully unaware or you’re cursing me for reminding you.
reboot before it became obvious that not even the promise of a taste of childhood could offset the bad writing, acting, and directing. We tried 
. It turns out, though, that she’s