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Podcast preview

I spent yesterday afternoon and half of the night recording the TWISTED podcast and then trying to figure out how to post it. Thanks to everyone who wrote in with suggestions and explanations. I recorded it using GarageBand. That part was fun. Figuring out the next step was near impossible.

For right now, you can find the podcast here. Some people have been able to open it and listen with no problems. Other people only get an an error message. Let me know if it doesn’t work. If it does work, let me know what you think.

Do me a favor – if you are going to comment on the podcast (or your inability to listen to it) let me know what kind of computer you have.

In the next couple of days, we’ll figure out how to post the podcast on the Writerlady and the Penguin websites. Then everyone will be able to hear it and peace will reign again in the Forest.

Today I have to go to the library and the drug store and the bank and Staples and Mom’s and the gym. I have to pack, fret about what I forgot, unpack to double and triple check, repack, and stare at the suitcase.

Have I mentioned how excited I am?

edited to add My webgod, theoblack, just figured out the problem. It has to do with the format in which I saved the podcast not being compatible with everyone’s sound cards. Or something like that. He is fixing it. I’ll let you know when he’s finished.

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Sunday laundry list of scattered thoughts & plea for help

I have to record a podcast about TWISTED today. This is a new thing for me. What should I include? Should I just read a couple of excerpts from the book? More? Do you listen to podcasts? Why? What do you want to hear? Where does the word podcast come from, anyway?

We have a new washing machine. It came with one hundred buttons, a graduate degree, and an attitude. I am intimidated. It took me a month to master the coffee pot. But I don’t have a month to develop a relationship with Mr. Whirlpool Fancy-Pants High-Efficiency Kiss-My-Buttons-and-Grovel Washing Machine. I have a lot of clothes that need to be washed because the plane leaves on Tuesday. I am tempted to go to the laundromat or beat the clothes against a rock in the river, but I’m afraid if I don’t confront the snooty appliance today, it will mock me every time I walk past it.

Don’t you hate it when machines sneer?

Georgetown won. North Carolina won. Ohio almost didn’t win and Pitt had a scare. Yesterday’s tournament was rocking with overtimes and close games. Gotta love it.

Check your pet food today!

Thanks to everyone for their kind comments about my mother, the rebel without a cause. She read through all your comments and loved them. Now she is telling everyone in town that she’s famous because she’s on the Internet. Yesterday she promised she wouldn’t die or get sick when I’m on the book tour. You are my witness.

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My mother is 16 years old

Remember the elderly woman I brought home from the hospital yesterday? The one with metastasized cancer, a bad heart, plugged-up arteries, and emphysema? The one who requires oxygen 24/7? The one who promised me she would sit quietly at home for the foreseeable future and let her lungs heal from the infection that landed her in the hospital? Promised me.

Yeah, that one.

She went AWOL last night. I called and called and there was no answer and I thought “OK, she’s collapsed and the ambulance is there” or “OK, they’ve both died” or “OK, they are slowly dying on the floor, and can’t quite reach the phone.” It was the same sick feeling I had when my kids would stay out waaaaaay past curfew and refuse to answer their cell phones and I knew, just knew, they had died in a fiery wreck. I’d get in my car and drive all over town until I found them. (This did not amuse them. Or their dates.)

So we drove down to Mom and Dad’s. Pulled in just as they were pulling in. When they saw me, the look that crossed their faces was exactly what my teenagers looked like when I asked them to roll down the steamed-up windows. Busted. Mom was feeling so much better, having escaped the clutches of death, that they decided to go out to dinner. The doctor’s instructions about staying inside, resting, etc.? She said, “oh, it was just a little dinner.”

How was I going to argue with that? You’re right. I wasn’t going to to say a damn thing. If anyone deserves to go out to dinner and eat pie and laugh, it’s my mom. So I didn’t ground her. (Not that I have the authority to do that. Mom definitely has the upper hand in this relationship.)

So here’s my advice, courtesy of my juvenile delinquent elderly mother: eat pie and laugh a lot this weekend. It’s good for what ails you.

Image and video hosting by TinyPic My mother, the wild one.

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A contest note and hints of review love

I love all the entries for the last drop of snow contest. Keep them coming! You have until March 20th to enter. (For the record – it rained most of yesterday, which ate away at the snow. But we have flurries right now.)

Today I have phone interviews in anticipation of the TWISTED release next week. And I have to get my hair cut. And I have to go shopping to pick up various odds and ends. And return my library books and go to the bank. And pick up my mom from the hospital.

That last item is, of course, the priority of the day. My mom has emphysema and came down with pneumonia. We spent Tuesday in the ER and she was hooked up to meds in the hospital all day yesterday. The meds did the job and and now she can breathe again, so they are letting her out. She is fond of breathing. We are fond of her breathing, too. Mom has emphysema because she smoked. She started when she was 17 years old and finally quit two years ago, when she was forced to go on oxygen 24/7. Please don’t smoke. It is nasty.

A few more reviews (VOYA & KLIATT & Horn Book) came in yesterday ::glows:: but I have to check to see when their publication date is, and if I’m allowed to post them.

Basketball starts at noon and continues all weekend. Don’t like hoops? Then read one of these books about the lies and injustice of “higher education.”

OK, that last sentence was really cranky. I don’t want to be cranky today. I want to be happy. Muffin happy. Muffin. Muffin. Muffin.

edited to add Mom is home safe and healthier from the hospital. Man, oh, man is she feisty. I think it’s the steroids. Poor Daddy. But it is awesome that she is not gasping and that she is so quick to smile again.

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Gazing in a crystal ball & contest to win a signed book

At about three this morning, a chunk of ice the size of a coffee table and six inches thick released itself from our upper roof and crashed into the roof of the sunporch, right outside my bedroom window. The impact put a sizable dent in the two layers of steel roofing. It also woke me up. Nearly gave me a heart attack, in fact.

I think this is going to be a long day.

I leave on the book tour in one week, exactly. First stop will be Arkansas and Mississippi. I have not been to either state yet and am very stoked. The Mississippi event is open to the public. It is actually more of a Tennessee/Mississippi event. The store, Books-A-Million, is in Southaven, MS, which is a suburb of Memphis, TN.

Do you know anyone who lives near Memphis? If so, would you consider begging them to go to my signing on Wednesday, March 22? How about Oxford, MS? I’ll be there on Thursday, March 26th. The bookstore is Square Books, Jr. and the event starts at 3:30pm. Author Karen Hesse (whom I adore) will be there, too, so please, please, grab the dog and the kids and join us!

One of the nice things about having the first part of the tour set in the South is that the chances of sheets of ice crashing in the middle of the night are slim.

It’s time for a contest!!!! Guess when the last bit of snow is going to melt in my yard. Step right up, folks! Declare your guess for the the date and time in the Comments. Guesses must be posted by one week from today, Tuesday, March 20th. The person who comes closest will win a signed copy of TWISTED.

Let the game begin!

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