The Trouble With Deep One

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I can’t resist this one.

I dreamed that my son and I were at a beach house vacation with a couple buddies of mine. While my son was out, we were attacked by a Deep One; the three of us killed it, but we had no idea what to do with the body in broad daylight–I was half convinced there was a real person under a suit I couldn’t find.

Then my father arrived for a visit. He was much different than I remember when he was alive 18 years ago (he seemed like an old man) and there was some farcical rushing around as he cleaned up the place and my buddies had to hide the boy from him. Then, suddenly, we were having a big party; my father wanted to hang with me, my son kept misbehaving and I had no idea where the Deep One’s body was. In that room? That one? Where could I give my son a time out where my father, trailing behind, wouldn’t trip over a monster’s corpse?

In other (non-)news…

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I’m suddenly way behind on everything except my daily word goals. All social networking sites, my day job, email responses, the Q&A I’m supposed to do for the very nice guy at Random House, all of it.

Having my son home from school has upset my routine. Time to make a new one.

This one I like

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Stay indoors! Do not try to apprehend!

Links ‘n Stuff

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Boring! What you need is an action scene! a webcomic about writing. :)

Why I read Savage Love. (Link NSFW, in case you didn’t realize. Check out the first letter). It’s not for the advice which is sometimes so-so but is absolutely perfect for that letter. It’s because those letters are a window into people’s private lives that I would never see otherwise–especially the crazy, twisted thought processes they go through.

Mother fails to recover custody of her children when she showed up for a psych evaluation with 13 beers in her. Apparently, the psychologist did not put much weight behind her claim that it was no big deal since she could “drink like a fish” and therefore wasn’t drunk.

Book Marketing 101: an introduction by Andrew Wheeler. A book marketer talks about his trade. It’s the first in a series, and I plan to follow them closely.

Huh. I appear to have left out the “stuff.”

Awful and awesome

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Just as I was about to post about a single awful thing, I came across something to disturbingly awesome that I had to post about it. I leave it to you, the reader, to recognize a connection between the two.

First, the awful: Bacardi hits new lows of misogyny with its new “Ugly Girlfriend” ad campaign, which strangely seems to be targeted at women. Has to be seen to be believed.

Now, the awesomely disturbing–or disturbingly awesome… I can’t tell which this is, because it’s so freaking insane: Kid finds out his mom is cancelling his WoW account and goes nuts.

Me Day

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Because Salad Eater works on Sundays, our Sunday holidays (like Father’s Day) are usually celebrated on Saturday, with a little runover to the day itself.

Therefore, when I got home from my long walk yesterday, I received a Father’s Day present (grinder attachment for my stand mixer–my hand grinder is a pain) and then I got my real present: reading time. I spent most of yesterday and a good part of today with a book.

Because I’m something of a pokey reader, I only finished one. Because it was next up, it was Turn Coat by Jim Butcher. It was fun stuff and in keeping with the previous novels. It’s very much in the summer tentpole action-fantasy movie style, with likable characters, a final act that covers a quarter of the story and sexy actresses for all the female roles. I enjoyed it, but then, I would say that, wouldn’t I? I’m sure you’ll hear kudos from others, so there’s no need to take my word for it.

Today was a day off from writing to plan the next section of the novel and have breakfast in bed. I had corned beef hash with poached eggs on top, and right now I’m drinking a tall glass of Rogue Arrogant Bastard Ale. Maybe I’ll get out the rowing machine tomorrow.

I’m going to sign off because it’s late and I have some more thinking to do. That grinder, though? It worked great. ‘Night.

Two Things on a Satwosday

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First, via Emma Bull:

Oktapodi from Asım Varol on Vimeo.

I can’t wait to show that to my family when I get home.

Second, I just finished The Gift of Fear by Gavin de Becker. If you know the book already, you know why it’s great. If you don’t, you should definitely read it. Let me talk about something briefly, though.

Three days a week, I ride the bus to downtown for my day job. Part of the trip involves a fairly high bridge. Now, I have a thing about heights, so I sometimes sit on the right side of the bus so I will be right at the edge of the bridge (no sidewalk) looking down, hoping that I will get used to it and get over it. (There’s a name for that sort of therapy, but it escapes me for the moment and my google fu is weak today.)

Most days, though… no. I’m too tired, too stressed, too whatever. I tell myself I don’t have enough resources for that, so I ride on the left side, I close my eyes, I look up. Anything but look down while thinking of this picture.

But yesterday, I took the window seat. And by chance, I happened to read one of the final chapters in the book, about the difference between real fear and worry (a minor part of the book, really). And what Mr. de Becker said made so much sense to me that I closed the book in my lap and sat looking out the window during the bridge part of the trip.

Yeah, there was a little tingle of worry, but I have never felt such calm at the edge of a high place in my whole life.

I’ve been talking a bit here and there around the web about self-imposed limits, but this is a biggie. I’ve always been a worrier, but now I’m wondering if I’ve let my stress levels push me into self-indulgence. Fears are there to be conquered, right?

Let me blow the dust off my white polyester suit

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I’ve been invited to the Random House party in Comic-Con. I’m still trying to get used to the idea–for a lot of the things that have happened with my writing, I’ve been able to imagine it first. I know what a book signing looks like. I know basically what I’m supposed to do when I see cover art.

But I have no context for this party–which is actually kinda cool. It would be interesting to go in without expectations for once and see what plays out.

Five things make a Friday post

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1) Child of Fire is now at 340K in sales rank at Amazon.com! What is that, one sale a month? Not too shab for a book that won’t come out for more than three months.

2) I’m already checking Amazon.com sales rank numbers! I’m doomed!

3) The Best Discount Gun Shop for Kids in Seattle–which is too bad, because that is a rocking park. Mango Eater and I had a blast there one day, just walking the paths.

4) A bookseller meets with a Random House sales rep to discuss orders from the fall catalog. Strangely, my book wasn’t mentioned. I know! Crazy! (seen via pubrants)

5) To wrap up the most narcissistic five things post ever, I’m now on Facebook. No, I won’t play Mafia Wars. No, I won’t take a quiz to find out how girly I am. I didn’t want to join, but my sis-in-law puts pics of my nephews there, and the only way to see them is to fork over my identifying information. Grrrrr, Facebook. Hate.

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!

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Now I have to buy myself a duck-handled umbrella!

This absolutely fantastic piece of kid lit history courtesy of bookslut.