Secret Revealed... Honest!

I SOLD A BOOK!

Read My Lips has been acquired by Simon and Schuster's YA line Simon Pulse. Eight months after it had been subbed! Eight months! Michelle Nagler left and Caroline Abby, who replaced her, happened to come across the manuscript and loved it!!!

So I am officially a contracted author!!

Must go celebrate by doing more yard work! Spring waits for no woman, even a contracted author!

And the Secret Is....

I'M PREGNANT! .......................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

NOT-- I'm just fat (wink)

Actually, just got the word that the secret cannot be revealed until next week. Because of some damn holiday or another.

Holiday? What holiday?
GAH!

Possibly.

I should be able to reveal the secret today or tomorrow. I thought it would be sooner, but what do I know? I hope I can reveal it because, quite frankly, my head is going to explode all over my computer screen if I don't. (Sorry for the graphic visual image, but it is!)

Have to run mom home today after her docotr's apt. Radiation is done and she needs to help dad pack up. Then another five hour trip this weekend to load up and move her here. GAH.

Those articles? The ones that have to be done by the end of the month? Maybe not so much.

On the up side... dh and I will actually get to see each other for five straight hours! On the down side, my mum will be there. Snort. Ah well, you can't have everything!

Trying to work

I'm still plugging away. It's difficult to work when you are holding your BREATH! No word on secret yet. But my deadlines don't CARE that my entire professional life is on the line. No, deadlines just keep marching on, demanding ATTENTION! I have two articles due this week and two due the next. Which, considering Mom's radiation schedule, moving parents entire home 250 miles and my dh's vacation, (during which he wants to get our entire yard done,) is going to be somewhat challenging.

Then there is DASH, otherwise known as the book that would not get finished. Well, actually it's done, but it's crap. I was revising chapter six and seven when I realized that my hero and heroine CANNOT have sex yet. They wanted to and I let them, but it is far too soon. They need more electricity before they do the deed. So I may have to write a brand new chapter and stick it in there. GAH.

I thought characters were done telling their story when the book was finished, but now I'm finding that they are just as unruly as ever during the revisions. Who knew?

I Have a Secret

That I cannot share...not only can I not share it, but I am sort of afraid to, in case I jinx it.

So la la la la la la la la la!

Monday's To Do

Got a promising email from my agent. Seems that an editor found one of my manuscripts that the former editor had left behind. She's "really enjoying the read" and wanted to know if it was still available. Of course, I don't know how much she's read, could be a couple of pages or it might be a couple of chapters. She does have the full, though, so who knows.


Long weekend. Had a nice Mother's Day, though. Have to get started on this week's work. I hate being behind.

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Rewrite chapter four and five in DASH.
revise chapter seven in Dash

I was up to seven in DASH, but a CP pointed out that chapter five lacked conflict and I should change a couple of things in chapter four to get the ball rolling there. Not sure I am going to do as much as she suggested, but I am definitely going to have to ramp things up a bit. I hate snags like this, but since I need to add wordcount, this will help.

American Idol, apartment hunting and Oh, yeah, writing.

American Idol

We all knew this would happen. Jordan, Blake, and Shrek. I mean Melinda Doolittle. I am sorry, but my the first time my son saw her he whispered in a stunned voice, "Oh My God, It's Shrek." Now I can't look at her without thinking about that. Great voice... but... Shrek. I think Jordan will win. Incredible voice. Lurve Blake Lewis. So funky and original and I love the sounds of his voice when he is straight singing. Would love to see the both of them in the finals.

Apartment hunting

Must. Find. Apartment for Mom and Dad. Now. They have to be out of their mobile home on the first of June. The problem is they need the following:

Washer and Dryer hook up
Ground floor (mom has cancer, dad is 90! nuff said)
Takes cat
Move in ASAP
Is cheap.
Is not scary

The apartment also has to be close to me since I am the designated caretaker.

And they really need to move out. Cause evidently I don't use enough vegetables when I cook and I don't cook three meals a day. WTF? Does anyone cook three meals a day anymore?

Writing

My writing is actually going pretty well., I am caught up with critiques and am moving right a long with DASH. Am more than ready to be finished with that one and move on. I really do want to write more than two books a year. GAH!

Getting some sleep

With the girls gone, my family and I decided to participate in the first Brown family sleep-in-day ever. Is there anything more lovely in the entire world than waking up and knowing you don't have to get up so you go back to sleep? To wave stuff off for one blissful morning of snoozola? To snore instead of chore?

Then to top off the morning, my brother came and took mom to breakfast while my son and I ate german pancakes alone. Then I stayed in my pajamas till past noon. And I worked all day on fiction. Not a spec of nonfiction.

Not enough adjectives to describe the day. Today it's back to work, but I'm not overloaded this week... just busy. Need to find my mom and dad an apartment close by and get her through radiation and take her home to help dad to pack up his stuff.

I have a bunch of non fiction stuff to work on, but not going to take on a lot of new assignments this month. I want to finish DASH and start on FAT. So that is my main goal for May... finish the revisions on DASH.

And sleep in at least two more times! Good for the soul!

A burden lightened and other happy thoughts

After dropping the children off at my best friend's house yesterday I called her on the phone.

"Don't trip on the weights in the driveway," I told her.

"What weights?"

"The ones falling off my shoulders on my way to the car."

She officially has the girls now. My baby KK and my Zoe monster will no longer be living full time in my home. Those weights. Not that I didn't love and adore them. But having a very needy three year old and a 20 month old in the house with two teens, my dh, my mother and my mother's cancer was just too much for me. My friend Ann, God bless her bones, has turned out to be more like family than our real family. She ended up loving the girls as much as I did and applied to be their foster mom. Good thing, because if they hadn't given them to her, they would have been separated. Unreal. They have already been separated from their mom and their brother and now us and each other? GAH. The system sucks, you know that? This way, they will be able to stay with us often and as they are already used to staying at Ann's home, the transition won't be as traumatic.

Now I can concentrate on the other big things in my life. Namely, my family, my Mom and my career. That's enough for one person.

Back in the saddle...

Am trying to get back into the swing of things, but it's difficult. We still have the wee ones, but I think the state is going to make a decision about that this week. I am finding it challenging to keep my mind on my writing. Not fiction... I managed to finish the revisions on my YA proposal last week, so both DASH and LIPS are out. YAY! But non fiction is another story and since that's where the money comes from... You get the picture! Am having trouble with a source, but can't move ahead without them. Need to get to work on my other articles as well. My editors have been more than patient and I need to reward them back by getting this stuff done.

Which brings me to the next challenge. I've been very dissatisfied with my writing as of late. My nonfiction is boring and my fiction lacks depth. I am thinking both these things stem from the same writing weakness. My lack of patience. I write my nonfiction like newspaper stories... I get in fast and get out. There is no...style to it. This is troubling me. I feel my fiction is the same way. It just feels like it is lacking...something. Without nuances perhaps. And my lack of grammatical knowledge is really concerning me. I have always been one to spout developing an "ear" but lately, I have wanted to understand they whys and wherefores.

I really don't have a lot of time to worry about this right now, but would like to get some ideas on how I can change it. How can I, at 42, pack a whole bunch more knowledge into my lazy little brain?

Now that we know...

Lung cancer. My mom has lung cancer. And she quit smoking over 28 years ago.

Well, crap.

That really pisses me off. All the trouble of depriving yourself for 28 years and you get lung cancer anyway? I would just like to say here-- NOT FAIR!

They can't see the tumor yet, but know it's there and is already sending out mean little cancer tumors. There may be one in her thyroid too. So two weeks of radiation then a round of chemo. It will kill her eventually. The question is...how long. No one knows.

My biological father died two years ago of lung cancer. How much you wanna bet that no one will give me a life insurance policy? I feel like a damn time bomb.

My parents will be moving up here to be near me and OHSU. I'm happy about that. I'd hate for them to be five hours away where I can't help them.

So that's the final word. I think I'll be done blogging about it for a while. I'm depressing myself here. I just want to blog about my writing life. I still actually have one. Finished an article yesterday and my editor loved it. I sent out the DASH partial and hope that HQ editors loves it. Got two critiques on my LIPS revision and need to get that out next week. Need to catch up on my articles. That sort of thing. I like blogging about stuff like that.

Rocking On

Actually been getting some work done. Half an article (which I would finish but missing some information that I'm waiting) on and got some valuable feedback from my CP on my synopsis. Even posted LIPS for my other group of CP's to look over. So I just keep on rocking on.

Been trying to keep up with reading everyone's blogs even if I'm not commenting much. You all rock too:)Thanks for the support!

Bummed it's not breast cancer

After my mom and I left the women's imaging center, I had to tell her. "You know things are bad when you are actually bummed that it's not breast cancer!"

We laughed so hard I thought I was going to have to pull off the road. But it's true. It would have been easier if the results had come back positive for breast cancer... at least then we would have known! Still getting the run around on the most important test, the PET scan. Hope to get that done soon so we know what we are dealing with.

Still working on the synopsis from hell. Almost finished with it and then I can fling it to my Cp's to help me fix and get that requested partial out. Then work on LIPS. I have a lot done on it, but still have a lot to do.

You know, I almost wish I had done it from someone else's POV. It might have been an easier sell. I think people are afraid to have a deaf heroine when the writer isn't deaf because, even though I know a lot because of my deaf neice, I am a hearing person... how much can I actually know? Hindsight is always 20/20.

Oh, well. Onward and upward!

Heath and writing update...

Mom is home with me and doing well. We know we have a long road ahead of us, but are sure that all will be well. That's how you have to go into a fight, knowing you will win, no matter what kind of fight it is!

Am writing the synopsis from hell so I can get my partial out to the editor who requested it. Not going well. The book is so different from the first synopsis I wrote that it needs a complete overhaul. Hope to finish it today while the kids are at daycare. I still have to finish revamping the first three chapters of LIPS for that editor who requested it.

Need to figure out where I'm at with my nonfiction, too. My to do list is so long, I'm not even going to include it!

Must rush off... live well everyone!

The Big C

I arrived at the hospital yesterday and find my mom talking to another doctor. Yep. An oncologist. The tumor was not only cancerous it had come from another source. They ran a CT scan on her and her lungs and stomch were clear but she did have some swollen Lymph glands near her broncial tubes. Since the preliminary stains from the tumor suggested lung cancer they are very supicious of her bronchial tubes. If they can't find the source... which occasionally happens, they will do a broad based round of Chemo. On top of the four weeks of brain radiation she already has to have.

She can't do this in hermiston where she has no one to help her. So she is going to have to do it here. Which means... yeah. But my dad can't stay here. No room. So...

Sigh. Have tons of decisions to make in the next couple of days.

But think of the research I will have done if one of my characters is ever sick!

Mom and GE

Mom came through the surgery fine yesterday. She can see and they got all the tumor they could see. Not sure yet if is cancerous, but they think that it probably isn't a non cancerous tumor. Mine was a menganoma (sp?) and they knew right away that it wasn't cancerous, so we will have to wait to find out what it is.

On the good news front... Dash of Desire took first in the Great expectations short and long contemporary category:) And I got a request for a partial. The score sheet was awesome... got 128 out of 130. Now I have to call my agent and let her know:)

Have an early hospital visit, so have to run.

My tumor's bigger than your tumor...

Actually it's not. Mom's got me beat. And it's far more dangerous than mine was. She has a tumor about the size of a small egg in the occipital lobe of her brain. It's hidden behind the main arteries that feed her brain. They brought in the big guns for the operation, the head Oregon State Hospital University's neurology department is performing the surgery, which is scheduled for Weds.

They let her out of the hospital yesterday because they got the brain swelling down which was causing all the speech and memory problems. We ran around all day yesterday and everytime we forgot something, we would joke about our brain tumors...mine is a dead mass in my head, though, while hers is... well, we won't know till the operation what hers is.

Today my brother and his family came up from the coast and another brother and grandaughter came from the other side of Portland to have Easter dinner with us. Yes, I managed to make Easter dinner. My friend Ann took the babies for the weekend and we picked them up today... poor things have been shuffled around enough. My dh is staying home from work for the next couple of days so he can watch them while I focus on my folks. She will take them again on weds while I'm at the hospital. Almost as worried about my 91 year old dad as I am my mom.

I'm sort of in the twilight zone of my life... Haven't felt like this since preparing for my own surgery.

Prayers and good thoughts

I was told yesterday that my mom has a mass in the back of her brain. She's currently in this little podunk town in Eastern Oregon. They're moving her to Portland today, Thank the Lord. She'll be only about 25 minutes from me. She's 71 and my dad is 91. Friends are picking him up and bringing him to my place. My blessed best friend is taking the girls for a few days so I can concentrate on my parents. My editors are awesome and have rearranged the editorial schedule so I can work without pressure.

HOT and DASH will have to wait. If I thought I was drowning yesterday morning that is nothing compared to how I'm feeling now... Sorta like I'm on the Titantic.

ACK!

Glub.
Glub.
Glub.

That's the sound of me drowning.

Too much to do, too little time!

I have nine articles due this month, the revisions on LIPS and the edits on DASH.

No time.

Even getting up at 4:30 am isn't helping. Two days of daycare isn't going to be enough this month. My house is gross and my teens are melting down. I'm pretty ticked off right now that the state told me they were going to give me daycare then backed out of it. I'm furious off that my SIL told me she would do respite for one weekend a month and then backed out.

All these things would have kept us going and my own family and my career intact. Now I'm just swimming along and going under!

On a good note, the edits on LIPS are going well. We'll see what my agent thinks. I hoped to have it to her by the weekend. Now, prolly not. Oh, well. Maybe next week.

On a better note, Zoe's preschool teacher offered to help out and take the girls for a whole day once a month. That won't help me career wise because I really need to use it to spend time with my own family. But it's still a very good thing.

Off to try to work while I only have one baby. The other one is at preschool!

Teens and teen lit

My life begs the question: Who are these people and what the H&%* are they doing in my house?

That's the question I asked as my dh and I sat out on the curb last night sharing a Sam Adams lager. It was actually nice, to be sitting out on the curb with the man I married. Sort of like we had been transported back to 1989 when we first fell in love. But the problems were real. TEENS!

Don't get me wrong, I have comparatively GREAT teens. We are extraordinarily close and they don't drink, do drugs, lie or skip school. I am grateful for them. Sorta. Because they are not grateful toward us in the least. No, we are the idiots who stop them from having fun and expect things from them. I remember being a teen. I understand. That doesn't mean I don't get to say who are these people and why do they eat all our food, spend all our money and tell us we suck?????

And why are teen girls so flipping dramatic?? Like I said before, "too old to spank and too young to bitch slap."

Ahem.

Oh, and I started my first Scott Westerfield this weekend. Uglies. All I have to say is: Oh. My Gawd.

He is blowing my freaking mind. I've read three new books since the beginning of the year. All by talented authors. But not one of them did to me what this book has done. The voice is so fresh. The story so freaking compelling. It's all I think about. If it weren't for having the wee ones I would be done already, deadlines be damned. It's that good.

Go buy it and read it!