Conjugate this

Yesterday I wrote.

Today I have been writing.

Tomorrow I will write some more.

This is the day when you are allowed – no, encouraged – to take candy from strangers. Proceed with caution.

Samhain

We are getting to a curious time of year for me…. Halloween… can’t go there yet, maybe I’ll talk about it next year.

The allergy/asthma/cold thing is better. Ran a surprisingly fast 5K Goblin Race yesterday. I still cough a lot at night, but that should improve this week.

The past week went up in smoke, between feeling punky, going to doctors, taking my mom to doctors, and other family things. Was I writing? Not as much as I wanted. And yeah, that was me a week ago, giving the speech at the Rutgers One-on-One Conference about how we have to “be writing” blah, blah, blah.

brief interlude I had a blast at Rutgers. Part of it was seeing so many old friends (not nearly enough time to hang out with them), part of it was the kinetic charge I always feel at a writer’s conference, and part of it was meeting one of my heroes: Jim Murphy. I was privileged to work with a wonderful mentee, to be in a fascinating 5 on 5 group, and they let me give a speech at the end, a speech I needed to hear as much as anyone in the room, because weeks like last week make it easy to forget I am supposed to be writing. end of interlude

So the Dark Time of the year begins midnight on Tuesday, aka Twisday, aka Tyrs day. We’ve had a taste of it this morning with whipping winds, and squalls of hail and snow. I love it…. I am much more a Dark than a Light.

What is your costume this year? Why?

cough

That hacking noise? Is me, coughing, coughing, coughing, coughing.

Been sick for a couple of days. Trying to write is hard when nose goo drips on the keyboard. Trying to write with your face tilted skyward is harder.

I am going to drink more hot water and cozy up with my nebulizer now. Wake me up when the virus is over.

Festivities

This is celebration day in the forest. Why? First, it’s a good month for things I care about:

National Reading Group Month Obvious.
Breast Cancer Awareness Month Because I enjoy being alive.
National Popcorn Popping Month Food of the gods.
National Book Month Well, yeah.
I couldn’t find any links for National Pajama Month, but this is the couture of choice for working writers.

It’s a good week, too:
Give Wildlife a Brake Week Because critters are cuter when they are not roadkill or plastered across your bumper.

They should make this Post-Teen Read Week – a week-long celebration that would be highlighted by paid leave days for YA librarians, complete with massages, brownies, and fluffy pillows

And today? Drum roll, please.
International School Library Day! ::waves at international school libraries::
National Mole Day (chemistry, not little critters)
TV Talk Show Host Day Do with this what you will.

On this day in history:
1915 – Approximately 25,000 women demanded the right to vote with a march in New York City, NY. Huzzah!

A couple of people were born on this day in history:
Michael Crichton
Ang Lee
Dwight Yoakam
Weird Al Yankovic
Doug Flutie

And me. It’s my birthday today. To celebrate with me, eat popcorn and read. (Make sure to grab a napkin to wipe your greasy fingers on if your book came from the library.)

Writer’s conference recap tomorrow, assuming my cake and ice cream hangover isn’t too bad.

New awards to vote for!

A group of kidlit bloggers (superhero bloggers by night, cleverly disguised librarians and teachers and writers by day) have started a new award – The Cybils.

They explain it best: “Welcome to the 2006 Cybils, the first award of its kind from kidlit bloggers. We’re basically going to let you, the blog-reading public, nominate your favorite books and then we’ll have the happy task of winnowing it down to our favorites.”

You can nominate one book per category – books must have been published in 2006. (This means none of my books qualify.) All the details are on the site. Go there and have fun.

::coughcough:: Seems to me this might be a good thing for English teachers to have their students do ::coughhintcough::

Last night, we hung out with my nephew who is home on leave from the Army; shot pool and laughed a lot. He is home from a long tour in South Korea, and heads to Georgia soon for a few months before heading out to Iraq. It was great to see him again, but it made me wish that Election Day was tomorrow so I could vote and do something useful with the all-consuming rage I have about the current state of American politics.

Today is a “getting ready for tomorrow” day because tomorrow is a “drive to the conference in New Jersey” day in anticipation of Saturday, which is the Rutgers University Council on Children’s Literature One-on-OnePlus Conference. Am stoked about this one. Must finish my speech, though.

Before I go, let me point you to The Ophelia Project, which a teacher at PCTELA told me about. Does anyone out there have experience with their programs?