I have SO much to tell you. I had a very full day yesterday, very full indeed. I think I'm just going to slap the pics in here and then narrate them, because otherwise, I have no idea where to start. Seriously, go refill your coffee. You might be here a while.

In the morning, my sisters Bethany (on the left) and Christy (on the right) went to the Oakland protest.

Don't you want Dumbledore to be happy? Let him marry! Equal rights for Sulu! I was with the geek squad! And happy about it, too.

There were a LOT of people in Oakland, which was a big relief. I'd been kind of nervous that everyone would cross the bridge and go to the huge SF protest and that there would be thirty of us in Oakland, standing around looking at each other, but that didn't happen. It was enormous and uplifting:  

The pocket vegans were there:

There were only two people protesting the protest across the street. A bunch of us had the same idea at the same time: cross the street and make it look like No on Prop 8 was on both sides of the street! I thought we did a really job at this. Someone driving by would just think No on 8 were the only people there, especially since one of the two protesting had a sign that said Gay = Pervert, only he used the HRC Equality symbol, so he looks like he's on the No side, from a passing car glance.

Then one of the organizers came and talked to us, one by one. He was surprisingly eloquent, because I was ready to tell him where to stick it when I heard he was moving down the line, asking us to go back to the other side. But he explained that while we could obviously do whatever we wanted, they'd really appreciate it if we left the two of them there. By themselves. Lonely and embarrassed, on the far side of the street. He had a really good point, although I could see it from both sides. Below, the two lone protesters (and one gal who was No on 8 -- you can see that nice organizer boy in the blue shirt on the right -- he's going to talk to her).

PS - Both those guys holding signs? Closet cases. You just know it. 

These ladies were on stilts and dancing.

It was an awesome thing to be at. I'm glad that we went. Fight! Fight!

Then I went home to grab a disco nap, because I had a Very Big Night to come.

I drove to the City for the Night of Writing Dangerously. Bethany, who is also doing Nanowrimo, wanted to raise money for their literacy program. With $200 dollars raised, she got to go to this exclusive benefit soiree. For $300 raised, she got to take a friend (ME! ME!). A reader (anonymous and GORGEOUS -- you know who you are, I don't, but THANK YOU!) donated enough to get not only Bethany in, but me too, and at the last minute, the Nano people let her bring ANOTHER friend (our fellow Nano'er Laura).

I beat Beth and Laura there. I knew I wouldn't be able to stay for long, because I was double-booked, and I didn't know if I would even get to see Beth, since she was stuck on the other side of the Bay in a traffic jam. I was sad. I sat outside in my car and considered whether I was brave enough or not to go inside by myself. (Normally I don't mind going to things by myself. But I was already nervous about the rest of my night and the thought of going in and making friends was exhausting.)

But I did. I got in line right as the doors opened. Chris Baty (the founder of Nanowrimo --he is so seriously swoon-worthy, I swear to god) was there at the front door and shook every person's hand as he or she came in. When he got to me,  he looked right at me (he might have remembered me from last year when I hit on him, maybe not), and he asked how my writing was going. (Don't worry, Lala thinks it's cute.)

I believe I said something like this: "Oh, my god, I just sold my Nano! For a three-book deal! At auction! To HarperCollins! I just wanted to let you know! That's why I'm here! Dude!"

To his eternal credit, he said, "Oh, my god! That's awesome! Email me! And you should speak here later tonight! You should inspire people with your story!"

Whereupon I said, "Oh, my god! I have to go soon! And give a reading!"

The people in front of me and behind me were quite surprised. One guy (hi, Eric!) was nice enough to let me hang out with him, and he was a doll, bragging on me to perfect strangers. Ain't nothing like that to make a girl feel good.

Of course, I forgot to get pictures (but Bethy did). It was straight class, yo. They really did a gorgeous job. The theme was NanoNoir, and people were encouraged to noir it up, which they did. Lookee: a whole bunch of people eating, drinking, and WRITING (in the dark):

Laura and Bethany!

Man, Bethany looks like Mom somehow in that photo. 

Here, I must say, she looks more like me. She got that hat specially for the night. How CUTE is that? Must steal. 

I did get to hang out with them for a little bit before I left, and then I jetted across the bridge feeling Oh-So-Writerly. In my station wagon. Yeah. But in my mind it was a little black MG, you know?

At Knit-One-One, we found out that Jesse Loesberg had decided to talk his wife into having twins that day, just so he could get out of the reading. So he wasn't there (you were missed, Jesse!). But neither Peggy Vincent nor I welcomed two infants into our lives that day, so we had no excuse.

Nor would I have wanted one, even though I was hella nervous. It turned out to be awesome. Sile put on a wonderful night, as she always does. Peggy was great (love her book), and I was a spazz. I kind of spazzed out all over the place, as you can see here:

What you can't see are my shoes, which are SO CUTE. Trust me, lace up black thirties style heels. They made the reading better. 

Peggy is laughing at me.

And there were a ton of wonderful, interesting people there who wanted to talk writing! Why hadn't I thought of that? I kind of thought at a knitting/writing reading (!) there would be more knitting talk, but there wasn't. It was mostly writing talk, and I was SO HAPPY. (Although talking knitting is nice, too.)

WHY do I go so red? Ack.

Sister Christy gave me the best compliments that meant more than anything. Even Chris Baty telling ME I was swoon-worthy wouldn't hold a candle to the way she made me feel special and talented. (I loved when someone asked how long we'd been friends and we gave each other a look that said, A REALLY LONG TIME.)

Okay. Enough about yesterday. Allow me to flash back for just a moment to last week. My RWA chapter gives a white rose to members with first sales. I'd been DYING for a white rose. The day before my meeting last week, after the deal was official, Lala brought me these:

She swears she didn't even know about the white rose deal with RWA. It was just a fluke. One of the best flukes ever. A week a a half later, they're still so damn beautiful. I think they're the best flowers I've ever received:

And one last thing I HAVE to share with you. My gift from Rachel O.  

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA. Srsly. I am so getting a chain and wearing it around my neck.

Heh. Today: Brunch with friends. Writing. Cooking tonight. Work week starts tomorrow, but it's a short week, so that's good. Yes. Very good.

Tomorrow, Saturday, is the day you can do something about California's Prop 8, even if you live in another state. There will be a protest near you in the ACLU's Nationwide Join the Impact Protest. I'm going to be at Oakland City Hall with my family. Join us there, or elsewhere. This is, I think, one of the most compelling arguments I've heard so far:

It's almost as compelling as Erika's argument against one of the myths:

This one always makes me chuckle.

If allowing child molesters, serial killers, death row prisoners, meth addicts, neo-nazis, corporate polluters, rapists, people who let their dog poop on the sidewalk and don’t pick it up, tobacco company executives, dog fighting enthusiasts, and serial drunk drivers to get married doesn’t “cheapen the institution,” what will?

GO HERE to find out where you can be tomorrow.

PS - Thank you all, my darlings, for your kind congratulations yesterday. I really am still dancing in chair. Almost constantly. I actually pulled my trapezius muscle from doing the happy dance. I am not making that up. It's worth it, though.

I've always wanted to type that title.

In writer-speak, getting The Call is not God urging you to become a priest. It’s when your agent calls you to tell you that an editor wants to buy your book.

I've been DYING to tell you.

Let me start at the beginning. My incredible agent, Susanna Einstein, sent off my manuscript on Monday, October 27th, to seven  or eight publishers. I tried really hard not to think about it. Tried to push it out of my mind. This, by the way, is like sharing a desk with a plate of fresh fudge and trying to ignore it for hours, days, on end.

On Halloween morning, four days later, I woke up at seven o’clock. I’d been having a wonderful dream, one of those that you don’t want to leave. But I needed to get up.

I started the coffee. I blearily rubbed my eyes. I sat at the computer to work.

Now, my normal M.O. is to sit and write for about an hour or so before I allow myself to check email or anything online. I don’t turn my airport connection off, though, because I like to write with Pandora playing in the background, so I need to be online. So I don’t check email, but my email notifier still comes through, because I’m too lazy to disable it.

I opened the document I had last been working on. I stared at it. My eyes might have crossed in sleepiness, I’m not sure.

My computer bing-ed and I saw a message come in. My gmail notifier lets me see who sent it and displays the first sentence.

The email was from Susanna. It said, “Call me as soon as you wake up.”

Yeah. Yeah!

My heart started to race. Literally. As I dialed her number, my hands were shaking. With delight in her voice, she told me that Avon (a division of HarperCollins) wanted my book! Wanted to BUY it!

Not only that, but they wanted a THREE-BOOK DEAL.

I looked up, out the window, while she was talking. Was I still dreaming? The dream I’d had right before waking up had been so good, so vivid. Was this just an extension of the dream? Was I still in bed? I remember seeing the pigeons that I hate perched up on the eave outside my window. I didn’t think I’d see the pigeons if it was just a good dream. I loved those pigeons at that moment. I think I asked Susanna that, who assured me, no, I wasn’t dreaming.

This was on Friday. She used the day to call the other editors who had the manuscript – she told them there was an offer on the table. We’d wait to hear back from them before accepting.

I still wrote. Isn’t that weird? I spent about an hour, calling every person I could think of, telling them I got the call. Then I sat down and wrote. I wrote crap, I’m sure. I’m positive it was nothing but drivel. But I wanted to honor that belief that the New York publishing world had in me, in my own silly way. I wanted to write.

I spent that weekend walking on clouds. Early last week, a week ago Monday, my book got into a little bidding war. A bidding war! My book! By last Friday, though, Avon had successfully maintained its grasp on it. I was glad: They were the first to believe in it, and in my naïve-to-publishing mind, I wanted them to win.

Right now, as I type this, I’m waiting for an introductory phone call from my new-to-me editor, May Chen. I’m as nervous as Miss Idaho in the same room as a man with a hat. If I still smoked (six years smoke-free), I would be chaining.

While I wait, let me copy and paste what was in the November 11th Publisher’s Marketplace:

(I know, it feels like forever away: Spring 2010. But I’m told by everyone who knows publishing that the time will fly by.)

Of all things, I think Mom would have been most excited by this. Remember when PM was in paper? For sale? (Is it still, or is it just online now? I’m not sure.) She loved that magazine – she’d read it cover to cover. She always knew the news, knew the book buzz. She’d be really, really happy to see my name in it.

An hour later - I’m back! My editor called! (I have an editor! Of my own!) She is awesome. I am now convinced that I have the best agent and the best editor in the world.

I am SO glad I got to tell you. I couldn’t wait.

I’m so happy. Thank YOU all, for believing in me. I also have the best readers in the world. How lucky I am.

(PS - leave a comment or drop me an email if you want to be added to my writing email list -- I won't spam you, but I'll let you know when the book is coming out so you don't miss it!)

Don't forget, I'll be reading this Saturday night. I hope you can come. I really do -- I'm pretty darn nervous about it. It won't be long, just 15 minutes each for the three of us, and I've heard a rumor that there will be wine and cheese afterward.

What if I fall over? What if I spit into the mike and short it out and then there's a fire in the wall and the fire department has to come and then someone tells them that I'm a fire dispatcher so then they want to talk shop and then I'll be at the reading thinking about work and then I'll turn red.

No, really, I know I'll turn red no matter what. I have times in my life where I'm more red-prone than others. This has been a red-prone couple of months. If someone else blushes, I blush. I'm not to the needing-medical-help kind of blush, but I do hate how often I do it. I'm blushing now, as I write this. I will definitely blush while I'm reading.

You wanna come watch me go beet-red and stutter? Doesn't that sound great? (I'll be roaring into town from the start of the Night of Writing Dangerously, and I'll be prepped to head back to it after the reading, so I'll even be more heated up with pure speediness.)

Where: knit-one-one, 3360 Adeline St, Berkeley
When: Saturday, 7:30pm

Woot! (DETAILS HERE, scroll down)

I'm half-way through the Nano challenge, and it's only the eleventh. Yay! That's good stuff. Boy, am I writing the worst novel in the whole world. But it's so fun to go at breakneck speed -- the plot twists in such interesting ways. I can fix it later.

And I just had a ball writing for just a minute about a ghost who just showed up. I do NOT write about ghosts, and it totally creeped me out. I felt like I was reading a scary book, and I really don't do that ever, either. I got so that I could hardly look over my shoulder in my darkened office (I like to write with really low lighting when I write at 4am -- less painful to be up this early). Then I finally DID look over my shoulder and I saw a man standing there.

It was a pile of clothing draped over my bike handles.

Scared the CRAP outta me.

It was really fun.

PHILLY -
Does anyone know of a cheap, adequate motel in Philadelphia? One of my good friends is travelling there tomorrow on the red-eye, and she hasn't been able to find anything for under $300, and she's freaking out. Any ideas would be helpful - Katy is a very nice, sweet person who is obsessed with coffee the way we are with yarn. She needs two nights, Thursday and Friday. Even Priceline couldn't help. Is there something fabulous happening in Philadelphia this weekend? Any ideas are welcome. MWAH!

I've been LOVING my Kindle lately. Did you see Oprah tout hers the other day? I know she got criticized for pushing an expensive product, in these days of the slumping economy, but to be fair, she made it very clear that it wasn't for everyone, that it was only for those who wanted and could afford the luxury. She also got Amazon to knock $50 off each one.

I know how she feels, with her Kindle religion. I'm reading so much more lately. I can't really say why -- it's just easy. I don't have to decide what book to carry; I already have it with me.

Lately I've been reading a lot of romance, trying to catch up with what I've been missing.

Kristan Higgins, Just one of the Boys: I loved this. A six-foot newspaper editor who rows and runs -- it didn't seem like something that I'd totally love, but the reviews got me to pick this up. I'm so glad I did. Her writing is funny and sharp, and even though you know exactly where the book is going, it's satisfying. Actually, I liked that Higgins didn't waste time trying to throw me off the scent -- we know who the main character's going to end up with, and we are pleased that it's going that way. I read another one of hers after this one, Catch of the Day, which was cute but had so many strong echoes of Just One of the Boys that it was kind of confusing. I can't wait to read another of hers, but I'm going to let a couple of books elapse between the last, lest my own writing voice start to sound exactly like hers.

Suzanne Brockmann, The Unsung Hero: Reading now. I'm starting here, with the first in the series, because people LOVE her. I mean, at RWA National, people freaked out when she walked by. Also, she's really cute and gave a great speech. I've been told that the first couple of books in this series aren't as great as her subsequent books, and it's not fantabulous yet, about two-thirds in, so it's living up to that. But it's good. I will read more of her books.

Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird
Annie Dillard, The Writing Life: I'm rereading the first, and reading for the first time the second. When I'm writing Nanowrimo-fast, I don't want my voice to be too colored by anyone else, so I restrict myself to reading books on writing before I sleep. Other books are fine during the day, but not at night, not just before I drift off thinking about what's going to happen on the page the next morning. Bird by Bird is still wonderful. Lamott has a voice that sometimes puts up my hackles, and I'm not sure why, but she's kind of like that aunt who comes around and needles you and says wise things and bugs you a little, but you remember really good things about her when she's not there.

IN THE QUEUE:

Kate Perry, Project Date: She's in my RWA chapter! She's cool! Yay!
Susan Wiggs, Just Breathe: Have read good things about her. Looking forward to it.

Anything you're loving right now? Romance is good.

Lookee! I've been knitting!

It's the Cade sweater, for the book. The pattern is as yet unavailable, but it will be someday, promise.

In other news, I've been writing. Nano is fun, but I'm tired, and I'm out of words for the day, so I'll just give you my view from my lunch table today (Bethany and I worked there -- can you imagine a better place to write?):

The Golden Gate is just visible in the background..... This is from Greens, in Fort Mason. A gorgeous, celebratory day.

(How many blog posts are titled that this morning?)

My agent said last night in Brooklyn there was dancing in the streets. She went out and danced (I adore her) and said that it looked like Fame: literally people dancing on top of taxis. That made me want to cry all over again. Yes. We had fireworks and gunfire (both are always in full supply in my neighborhood) and honking. Joy.

Now. Back to writing. I'm at the cafe. The coffee guy who knows me added a sugar to my coffee since I usually get it that way, the first sugar I've had in a month. I should have had him remake it, but it's a holiday, right? Celebration!

I'm at 11,665 words. Want to hit 13,000 today. Here I go.

Oh, HELL yeah. I cried through that whole thing. And the noise in Oakland was great.

So happy. Welcome back.

Nano wordcount: 8,020 words. I am right on track so far. I love the feeling I'm getting with this whole WRITING thing. I've been editing so long that I'd forgotten how wild a rush it is, writing the first draft. I loe that whole OHMYGOD WHAT'SGOINGON thing that occurs. Hold on, it's going to be a bumpy, if exciting, ride.

I love the little surprises that happen when you're writing -- those pieces that fall onto the page with a satisfying clink, the sound of understanding. Oh! This is what's going to happen next, and that's why that happened in the last chapter! It's like certain things are meant to be written, and you don't know it until you get there, but when you DO get there, it just works. It feels good in the brain, like a mini-massage. I'm not even kidding; that's what it feels like.

It happens in bigger chunks in revision, where whole segments of writing suddenly beg to be moved forward, or back, or worse, erased. In the case for erasing, I like to control-X big segments like that out and paste them into another document which I figuratively clutch to my chest. I shall never lose these words! My darlings! And then, always, the next time I look at that document, a month later, those words are dumb and outdated and perfectly ready for the big delete.

Writing is good stuff, yo. Yep.

Hey, folks. Serious subject now, one I'm not equipped to deal with. But my girl dee ann, sadly, she's equipped. And  boy, howdy, is she.

Go read what she says about cancer. She's an expert, and I think her entry shows a part of the disease that we gloss over, way too often. It's not an easy read, but I think it's a necessary one.

Dude, I couldn't sleep last night, thinking about Nanowrimo. That's not like me. But I knew how I wanted it to start, and I kept re-starting it, even in my dreams. I do NOT like writing in my dreams. It's frustrating, to see the words, and then to try to re-read them, and they've suddenly changed.

But I've got 5,011 words down. I have a schedule:

Workdays: 1,000 words a day, written in the morning. I will get up at the ungodly hour of 3:45am. I leave for work at five, and I only take about 15 minutes to get ready, so that gives me an hour. I can easily get a thousand words in an hour, even while half-asleep. At my top speed, I can get two thousand an hour, but that's when I'm ON.  And I know when I get home at 7pm that I am DEAD and completely unable to talk, let alone write, so:

Weekends: 5,000 words a day. From 8am-12pm, I'll write (like I did today). Four hours is good for 5,000 words (about twenty pages), including drinking coffee/eating/wandering/cleaning up the dog-vomit breaks. My weekends are always either three or four days long, so that's good for building the word count. My target word count is an arbitrary 76,000 words this month.

I don't know if I can pull it off. But I'm going to try.

Luckily, La's totally into doing NaSoAlMo again, so she's off recording in her room while I'm writing. It's nice.

Now: It's been POURING this morning and I'm loving it. I love rain, especially the very first good rain. I opened the window in front of my desk and Waylon and Willie and I sucked in that good smell of grass, rain, and asphalt.

But now we're tired. I might take a nap. Like this:

Willie and Harriet are lying right next to me, right NOW, doing that. It's even cuter in person. 

This was from our walk yesterday, but this is how I feel today. It's a good day. Nap. And then some cooking for the work week, which starts tomorrow.

Huzzah! Nano is here!

Tiny baby Digit curled up with me last night (not being a jerk at all!) as I almost-finished the book sweater. I'm always so pleased when a neckline works out (god bless EZ). Now all I have to do is graft the underarms. I LOVE GRAFTING. Love it. Seriously. Pics soon.

In other news: My sister Christy is a very good writer. Today, I am distracted with very good things, and can't seem to keep a thought in my pea-sized brain, so go read about her staunch and worthy adversary.

Good lord! A wonderful person just donated the money that will let Bethany and I both go to the Night of Writing Dangerously!

WOOOOOOOOT! This is how I felt when I found out:

Really. I did that.

Then I realized that both things I had blogged (my reading and the Night of Writing Dangerously) are on the SAME NIGHT.

So I'm going to have a ball. First to the N.O.W.D. with Bethany, where we'll set up our computers and snack and write and listen and play. Then I'll jet over to the reading. I will read and listen and shmooze with knitters. Then I'll jet back to the City for the last hour or two of writing dangerously (doesn't that just sound so romantic?).

So to you, you know who you are (and I don't! It's killing me!), THANK YOU. You made both Bethany's and my Nano November already the best one ever. I can't believe I get a whole night of magic - reading from my first Nano, now a real book (although not published or nothin', we're working on that....) and working on my current one.

You really knocked us out. And we'll toast to you that night. Thank you.

WRITERS WHO KNIT:

This is cool. I'll be part of a reading at Knit-One-One on November 15th, with Jesse Loesberg and Peggy Vincent. I'll be reading from my recently completed book. Please come? I haven't given a reading in years, not since I was in grad school, I think. At least it will be for knitters. That will ease my nerves.

Saturday, November 15th, 7:30pm, Knit-One-One, 3360 Adeline, Berkeley

T-2

Two days to Nanowrimo! I've been plotting my little brains out. I have a goal of compiling seventy-five to get me comfortably on the way, and I'm up to something over fifty now. Of course, I like plotting along the way, too, and for once in my life I know where a book is going to start AND end, so it should be easier, but you never know. I have three unfinished novels in the drawer that died the death of no-ending, so I'd like to prevent that from happening again.

Sister Bethany is also joining the novel in a month madness again, and she is raising money for the Office of Letters and Light -- if anyone would like to donate, please click here:

All money goes the group behind Nano and the Young Writers Program, which is all about promoting writing for writing's sake, anywhere, everywhere, all the time. They are seriously rad. Thanks.

(Also, if she raises two hundred, she gets to go to the Night of Writing Dangerously. If she raises three hundred, she TAKES ME WITH HER. Ahem. I so want to go.)

PS - your recipes for brown rice/quinoa/barley sound so good I'll be cooking up a storm today. Rain tomorrow. Days off for my weekend. Joy.

I swear I have. I've just lost all motivation to blog about the knitting process, not that I ever had that much to begin with. You know I love to spring 'em on you, all completed. Voila!

But I've been designing a sweater, and the cool part is that it's for the book! My main character is a knitter, natch, and through the book she's been knitting and designing a russet man's sweater. It's an unconventional Gansey (narrower chest design, zig-zag on sleeves rather than plain or cabled). I wrote the book, then wrote the pattern to include with submission, and NOW I'm actually knitting it. The pattern I sent with the book is a rough draft -- I've still got to figure out the neckline and write the chart and different sizings. For all I know, if you followed the pattern, you'd end up knitting a ranch house.

But isn't that fun? Pattern sold with book? I love it. It's like novels that feature food having the recipes at the end.

I adore how my lust for yarn increases so rapidly this time of year. Unable to think about knitting anything for so long, it feels like coming back into myself every year. (If you look at my Finished gallery, you can see that most of the sweaters are banged out in fall and winter.) I need to cast on some more socks, and finish another sweater for me, and start another one, a stripey one.... Ahhhhh. I like to think about knitting on the couch almost as much as I love BEING on the couch, knitting.

PS - Is there a way in hell to make brown rice not suck? I hate it, hate the stuff. I've tried cooking it in all kinds of broth, cooking it plain, adding spices, adding vegetables and tofu.... I might just be bad at cooking it or it might just be as awful as I think it is. I'm about ready to give up, but if you have a miracle recipe, lay it on me. Puh-leeze.

PPS - Miss Idaho says Too Many Cats Here:

No, really. I'm going. First week of December. Delta is having a sale - $161 ROUND TRIP from SFO, non-stop flight. I had been planning on going away that weekend, probably driving to Tahoe, but good god, New York will be almost as inexpensive at that price!

Of course, there's the lodging that might break the bank. Anyone know of a well-located, inexpensive hotel in Manhattan? I want my friend who's never been there to stay in the City, to see it right, but there's always the problem of the hotel. We do have an expensive room reserved already, but any other good ideas? We're looking at December 3, 4 and 5, leaving the 6th.

God, I love New York. I'm so excited.

Oh. KNIT-OUT, anyone? Woot!!!

I really may be the very last person to see it, but I finished watching the movie Once last night. It was incredible. I don't know when I last saw a movie that made me feel like I was eating it and drinking it. Every camera angle was gorgeous and heartbreaking and perfect.

I think it might have helped that I watched it with subtitles. I'm usually really good at picking out English from strong accents, but I could NOT understand Glen Hansard's words without the subtitles. But having the lyrics right in front of me made the experience of the songs richer, I think. I loved their voices together, and I loved the story, minimal as it was.

As I was watching it, I was already nostalgic for it. I can't wait to watch it again. It may be one of the few movies I need to own. (I only own a few: Breakfast at Tiffany's, Room with a View, Roman Holiday. That might be it.)

I haven't been moved like that by a movie in a long time. (It took me a long time to watch it, too, almost two weeks. I sometimes like to watch TV in the ten minutes I have between eating dinner and going to bed. La thinks I'm kind of nuts -- she can't imagine not watching a movie all in one sitting. But if it's SUCH a great movie, I like to save it, dole myself little bits and pieces of the deliciousness.)

What movie last made you feel this way?

Equality for everyone. I want to keep this marriage license, and it's just TOO close to call right now. I just signed up to wave a sign around with a bunch of other like-minded people. Wanna join the Statewide Visibility Sign-up?

Go HERE. Please.

And as your reward, Digit will ask you to the party:

Hello, kids.

It's a day off! A day with no plans in it. I've already done enough work today so that I can legitimately call it quits. At eight in the morning. I love it. (I got up early, couldn't sleep.) And unless I hear back from my agent that I need more revisions, I think Love Spun is off my plate for a bit. So it's time to plot for Nanowrimo! But I can start doing that tomorrow.

Are you doing Nano? Buddy me: I'm writerach406 (boy, do I hate that title. Maybe I'll..... No! I just did it! I re-signed up under Yarnagogo. Finally. If you've buddied me before, will you buddy me again as Yarnagogo? Yay).

I have the blurb for my Nano09 already written. I have a pretty good idea of the overall story, but how to get from here to there, now, that's the challenge. I'm excited about it, though. I've spent the last couple of months looking at every word, every sentence, with my editing brain. I actually think it might be kind of hard to get out of that space and just write, to just write crap, so Nano's the best push into that space I can imagine. Lots of people just writing crap, all at the same time. I WILL REMEMBER: It is to be polished later. Changed. Refined. LATER. If I look back and remember what Love Spun looked like out of its Nano phase, and compare that with where it is today, it's unreal.

Is the new Typepad interface slow, or is it just me? It doesn't seem to be keeping up with my typing.

Maybe I'm just hungry. An omelet with basil/tomato feta, wrapped in a tortilla, is calling my name. Then TV! And a nap later! Lala's down south on a mini-tour, so the cat's away and the mouse will catch up on Gossip Girl. Oh, yeah.