cranky pixels

So. Don’t tell anybody but I seem to be re-working my manuscript. The first one. From 1998. There’s no good reason for this, except for the fact that there is clearly something wrong with me (and also I’m waiting to hear back from any of my several beta readers before I can do another draft of the latest novel). I mean, it’s not like I don’t have enough other stuff to keep me occupied, what with the business and the kid and the house and the cats and the husband. But, see, writers? Writers are crazy.

In other news, I think the new draft of the old novel is going to rock.

The boys are camping this weekend.

Wait a second. Let me say that again: the boys are camping this weekend.

Given that there are three of us, with two of us gone that just leaves me. Alone. Completely, blissfully alone. For the entire weekend.

I barely know what to do with myself. I feel like the horse in Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency. To wit:

It slowly surveyed the whole field, and then decided to plan out a nice relaxed day for itself. A little trot later on, it thought, maybe around threeish. After that a bit of a lie down over on the east side of the field where the grass was thicker. It looked like a suitable spot to think about supper in.

Lunch, it rather fancied, could be taken at the south end of the field where a small stream ran. Lunch by a stream, for heaven’s sake. This was bliss.

It also quite liked the notion of spending half an hour walking alternately a little bit to the left and then a little bit to the right, for no apparent reason. It didn’t know whether the time between two and three would be best spent swishing its tail or mulling things over.

Of course, it could always do both, if it so wished, and go for its trot a little later. And it had just spotted what looked like a fine piece of hedge for watching things over, and that would easily while away a pleasant preprandial hour or two.

Good.

An excellent plan.

And the best thing about it was that having made it the horse could now completely and utterly ignore it.
- Douglas Adams

The horse, people? The horse is me.

Heeeeeeeeee.

I went to see Heather Armstrong at Powells last week. Room was packed, but I had a fab seat. She’s hilarious, and not just because of the way she pronounces “crayon.”

Just got Who Put the B in Ballyhoo from Amazon. I was making an order and thought I’d get something for the kid, and this has been on his wishlist ever since I saw it recced on (the sadly now defunct) Lucky Oliver.

Oh my god, this book rocks. It’s got circus freaks! Sideshows! The Hilton sisters! (Not those Hilton sisters. The other ones.) It’s like they wrote it just for me!

Er, and the kid likes it, too.