I just realized that I need to run two sentences in Dutch past someone who is much better at that language than I am. It is not cool to think that your character is saying “What do you want?” when in fact, you’ve written “You have a pickle growing in your ear.”
Do any of you guys speak Dutch?
If you do, please contact me at laurie AT writerlady DOT com.
I offer everlasting gratitude and public thanks in the acknowledgment of my book. I will make sure you get a free copy of it, too.
Thank you!
It is Friday, so I will list Five Beautiful and Unexpected Things. As an added bonus, two come with pictures.
1. Meredith the Office Mouse spent part of yesterday weeding through a mountain of books so that BH can build some bookshelves. By the end of the day, she made an amazing discovery. She found the floor!
I had forgotten it was there.
2. Heidi Sheffield’s English classes at Oswego High School sent me flowers.
I did a drop-in surprise visit on them a couple of weeks ago. Thank you, everyone! (Notice the stacks and stacks of books in the background.)
3. The final, final, final CHAINS galleys should be arriving any minute now.
4. My research plans for the summer are suddenly falling into place, after much anxiety.
5. If you want to read about the BEA conference from a booksellers POV, Bookavore is blogging from LA a couple times a day.
There is a mouse in my office; she’s taller than me.
She keeps poking into corners and rooting through all the piles of papers that are labeled “Yeah, I’ll deal with that as soon as this book is done. Or maybe after the next book.” She is dealing with it now.
She is a mouse of many talents: printer installation, database management, some kind of wizardry involving graphic arts. In the famous words of Ashley’s Hannigan’s mother in PROM, she “don’t take crap off of anyone.”
The mouse is Daughter #3, Meredith, who is more organized than her mother. She has taken pity on this overwhelmed maternal unit and come up to help me get the non-writing part of the writing life under control.
For the first time I truly appreciate why farmers used to have so many children. They grow up and offer to help with the plowing!
More good news: We New Yorkers have a governor who is moving in the right direction.
And Syracuse won the national lacrosse championship.
What’s good in your life?
Various characters from AUTHOR’S latest novel swarm the beach in front of the mythical CAVE OF REVISION. Helicopters swoop by low enough to cause sand to swirl and whitecaps to form on the water.
The opening chords of Richard Wagner’s “Ride of the Valkyries” plays loudly from hidden speakers.
Activity on beach freezes as AUTHOR steps out of CAVE OF REVISION, clutching manuscript pages in her hands.
with apologies to Francis Ford Coppola and John Milius
still revising, almost done
still horrified by condition of my office
still running
still gearing up for new books coming out
still excited to see all our kids this weekend
still grateful for this week’s interview (thank you, kelly!)
still in need of sleep
still hungry for barbecue
still loving my life
still revising…