life is great!

Bullet points make a post

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* ‘Sfunny, when I’m writing a first draft, I sit down for a specific time to write, and when I’m done for the day I’m done. When I’m doing a polish, it’s like an all-day thing. I keep dropping back into the file, reading a few lines, tweaking sentences. It’s kinda annoying, especially since it makes me feel as though I’m not accomplishing anything.

* Yesterday I got word that my Russian language rights money was on its way. Hooray! I’m really looking forward to posting scans of the foreign language translations of my books.

* I’ve decided to wait 3 days (or 24+ hours of inactivity) before announcing the winners of the book giveaways. I’ll roll a die for the first one tonight, maybe the second, depending. Also, I’ll announce it when someone has won.

* I have a couple Sekrit Projects to work on. Those are nicer than my public projects, because I enjoy them just as much but you, blog reader, don’t have to listen to my complaints.

* I have a bunch of interviews and essays to write. If I owe you one, don’t worry I haven’t forgotten. I have an SP to breeze through and then I’ll be all over it.

* Thank you, Judge Walker. The ruling still needs to go through the 9th District and Supreme Court, but this is the right step.

* I’ve been contemplating a post about all the ways the Obama administration has disappointed me, but honestly, I have better things to do. I knew the administration would disappoint me when I voted for him, but I didn’t anticipate the manner.

And just how busy do I have to get before I accept that I’m honestly busy? My LJ friends list is currently at skip=120, and that’s only after a day of dedicated downtime-at-day-job reading. Really, Obama can wait.

* It’s now less than 4 weeks until the publication of Game of Cages, and I feel sick. There’s so much to do and (seemingly) so much at stake and the economy is still in the crapper and I may be laid off from my day job and I may have to stay at this day job and I’m not sure which is worse and I just want to stand up, go home, take a shower and go to sleep for a very, very long time.

But other than that everything’s great.

A spider has set up home on my desktop computer

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It’s awfully cute, hanging there, and I supposed I could take plotty inspiration from the complexity and interconnectedness of its web, but it’s also anchored to my reading materials. I’ll have to sweep it up and dump it outside eventually, but I’m willing to wait until it warms up out there.

Besides, it may help keep my son off YouTube for a little while.

If you can read this, you’re invited.

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I’ll be having a book signing for my new book, GAME OF CAGES, at Magnolia’s Bookstore, on Saturday, Sept 4th from 1 pm until Tears of Loneliness pm. My signing hand will be limbered up and ready to scribble pithy remarks on the title pages of my second novel.


Here it is!

All are invited. I won’t be doing a reading or anything, just sitting, signing and chatting. Hope to see you there.

Harry Potter and the Constant Lulz

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My family is reading the Harry Potter series right now. We’re on the second book, and we’re reading it aloud to each other.

I did not remember how funny these books are. Maybe it’s just the difference between hearing them aloud and in my head, but we have been laughing and laughing throughout. Rowling really has a feel for broad characters and light comedy.

It’s fun!

More great news!

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Things have been crazy busy today (what with day-jobbing and solid progress on The Buried King) but I have to share this: Child of Fire is going to get a second printing!

B&N ordered several thousand more copies so they can shelve it with Game of Cages in a freestanding pyramid fixture. Both books will be available for new readers! It sold well enough for B&N to order more! Freestanding display for both books!

Damn, it’s been a good couple of days.

Break out the frothy drinks and pastries!

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I just got word today that GAME OF CAGES received a starred review from Publishers Weekly!

I can not tell you what a relief that is! I’ve been getting some great responses from early readers and that relieves an amazing amount of stress that I didn’t even know I had. Longtime readers of my LiveJournal know how much I struggled with the writing of that book–the restarts, the stalls, the plot mixups, the cast of characters, the uncertainty over whether the ending was too intense–all of it was really, really difficult.

And then I read this: “Connolly doesn’t shy away from tackling big philosophical issues–whether good ends justify evil means, how many civilian deaths can be justified in the pursuit of creatures that can destroy the world–amid gory action scenes and plenty of rapid-fire sardonic dialogue.”

Yes! Monsters! Face-punching! Moral quandaries! Not necessarily in that order!

My only quibble is that Catherine is an investigator, not a sorcerer/peer, but the essentials are spot on.

Yay! Check out the first chapter here.

Happy Independence Day to my fellow Americans

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I’m having a quiet day at home, just like yesterday, hanging with family. We were planning to camp out on the side of a hill somewhere to watch the fireworks tonight, but we’ve been invited to a party. I have no idea what we’ll end up doing. All I know is that I plan to bore my son with an explanation of what we’re celebrating and why.

Happy Birthday, America.

Aren’t raccoons supposed to be nocturnal

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Why the hell is this one wandering around my front yard at ten till ten in the morning?

Blow the vuvuzelas!!

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We celebrate the restoration of my home internet connection. We shall not discuss the amount of time spent convincing Qwest that the problem was, in fact, on their end.

I’m logged in at the library

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Skimming through my LJ and checking emails. I didn’t make the trip to Best Buy to swap modems because guess what?? When I got home from work, the supposedly-broken modem was working!

I know. You’re shocked.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t working working. It took ten minutes and multiple tries before Thunderbird could download an email or newsgroup post. Yet another call to Qwest got me a conversation with someone who was willing to admit that they’d been having outages in my area for the last 48 hours. The engineers said it would be fixed in 8-12 hours.

This morning, I still didn’t have internet. This morning, I called tech support again. The helpdesk guy told me that the problem was fixed, but of course it wasn’t. He went consulted with the engineers again and reported that the server had failed again.

You know what? I wasn’t angry. He’d told me the truth, instead of a lie that cost me 90+ dollars and wasted several hours of my time. If the first person I spoke with had told me the truth, I would have been much happier than I am now.

Current plan: See if they can get this fixed by Monday morning. Then hook up my old modem again. If it still works, return new modem and use the 2hr commute time wisely (if possible).