Now That You Mention It...

I Should've Asked Santa For Bigger Pants

Holiday Recap:

15 hours of driving time through an ice storm.

One overnight hotel stay in Lafayette, Indiana thanks to I-65 shutting down.

Eight million presents, including a kick-ass Aerogarden. Now I can be all "organic" and grow my own vegetables.

One Ugly Sweater Party, complete with a wee too much holiday revelry. I'm sure the pictures are floating around Facebook as I type this.

Christmas Day spent watching fantastically bad (and thus awesome) made-for-television movie called Holiday Switch while revising This Book Rulez and Has Irish Stuff In It. (Am suspecting I am giant Loser)

Ate five thousand pounds of Skyline Chili and LaRosa's Pizza.

Bring Me Some More Plot Devices, Plot Devices, Plot Devices and Bring Them Right Here

Tonight my husband, son, dog and I will all pile into our car and road-trip over to Ohio to spend the holiday with my inlaws. Because nothin' says the holiday season like battling five kajillion other cars on the highway and dodging toys thrown at your head by a screaming toddler.

The presents are wrapped, the suitcases packed, and the blood pressure elevated. Although, Christmas came a little early for me this morning when, as I was driving into work and stressing about a big, fat Plothole of Death in This Book Rulez And Has Irish Stuff In It, the answer suddenly revealed itself to me. As in, one moment I was turning down Ogden Avenue, dreaming of a cup of coffee, and the next minute, BAM! My muse suddenly whispered, "Here is your nice plot patcher-upper-connector-thing, Maureen! Don't say I never gave you anything."

So, despite revisions being far, far from over, at least the next few steps of the roadmap have been revealed to me. Now, if only I could get Ms. Muse to actually DO the revisions for me...

Oh, and fellow Novel Girl Lesley Livingston's Wondrous Strange released today! I pre-ordered my copy from Amazon and am severely bummed that it's not arriving until Monday! Her book looks so awesome and it's about faeries. And, I must say, her faeries sound WAY more interesting than mine!

My Agent Rulez

As if my agent doesn't rock hard enough, she sent me notes for Book #2 last night. As in, one week after I sent her the complete manuscript. ONE WEEK. So now, once again, I have two books to revise simultaneously.

Her speed is ten kinds of awesome, though. I hear about other authors waiting months for revision notes, which would literally make me go, "OK what book is this? Who's Clare? No, I'm pretty sure I didn't write this. Doesn't look familiar" since it's really freaking hard for me to get into the groove of a book after it has been sitting for months. Doesn't take much to confuse and stump me, folks.

But seriously. She's so fast I'm starting to wonder if she's secretly some kind of agent/cyborg hybrid. Or maybe I've just been watching too many episodes of Fringe.

So I will be sure to thank Santa this year for sending me such a great agent. Also? I will thank him for the fantastically cheesy holiday movie Holiday in Handcuffs, starring the great Mario Lopez, of A.C. Slater/Jessie Spano's boyfriend fame and Melissa Joan Hart aka Sabrina The Teenage Witch. Bonus points to anyone if MJH will always be Clarissa to them. (She explains it all, you know.)

Maureen's Excellent Revision Adventure: The Sequel

Revisions on This Book Rulez and Has Irish Stuff in It are going smashingly. As in, I want this book to come to life so I can smash it against a brick wall. There are glimmers of hope amidst all of the ugly plot-holed darkness, so I'm soldiering on.  There's still a few minor issues (read: PLOT THREADS DEFYING LOGIC) that need to be resolved, but I'm hoping the answers will reveal themselves to me shortly. If not, I can just throw a whole bunch of possibilities into a hat and ask my sixteen month old to pull one out. Of course, then I'd be stuck with my main character joining the fairy circus while she works undercover for the mob. (Note: none of these are actual plot threads)

I'm hoping to have it wrapped into a nice little package for Agent Holly by the end of the year. But with Christmas, an Ugly Christmas Sweater Party, Yuletide wine-drinking and New Year's all thrown in there...yeah. We'll see. Not to mention, I should be getting some notes from her on the sequel to A Bump.

Methinks I need to sharpen my multitasking skillz a bit.

Oh, and please go sign up to win a signed copy of fellow Novel Girl Lesley Livingston's Wondrous Strange! I'm DYING to read this book. Actually, if it arrives before the end of the year, let's just add that to the List of Things That Will Prevent Me From Writing Anything Other Than Grocery Lists.

Chuck E. Cheese: Jerry Springer Guest Haven

In an effort to procrastinate just a bit more on writerly things, my husband and I scooped up our kid (who was Toddler of Flaming Death this weekend, by the way) and decided to meet some friends at Chuck E. Cheese on Saturday night.

We said, "Hmmmm....games? Good. Pizza? Good. Beer? Double Good. We're in!"  Yet the second we walked in...OMFG!

Since neither us nor our friends had been to CEC in like twenty years, (bonus points if anyone remembers it as Show Biz Pizza) it was an interesting experience. Mind you, we could handle the ear-crushing noise of eight thousand children screaming and the Bing! Bing! Bing! of the games. (Side note: CEC sounds like a kiddie casino.) What we could not handle was the interrogation by the order-taker people who refused to sell us beer. Or the, um, interesting clientele and children of said clientele.

At first, my husband was confused, and asked me, "Why are there so many teenagers here? Isn't Chuck E Cheese a little young for them?" At which point I invited him to take a closer look around. Those teenagers? Were there with their children.

I was prepared to witness several tantrums, some from my own Angel Child. Yet, I was not prepared to get bitched out by a four year-old. Who used a four letter word, smacked my kid on the hand and demanded that she be allowed to ride in the Barneymobile. Whose mother shot me a "Wanna fight? I will SO cut a bitch up" look in response to my horror over her child hitting mine.

I was also disappointed that the former singing, dancing Giant Robotic Band O' Animals was dismantled in favor of huge plasma televisions.

It was the seventh circle of hell. We all left screaming through the parking lot, booking it to our cars. Our friends texted us later: Chuck E Cheese is the worst place ever. Let's never go back there.

I concur.

Why Dawson! What Long Fangs You Have!

Sequel: Officially shipped off to agent's inbox.

Book #3: Awaitin' the smackdown to begin this weekend.

So, I now have something glorious: Two days to relax. (Before the aforementioned MTV reality show blitz marathon. Did I mention how excited my husband is? Whatever. He's always like, "Why are you watching this crappy reality show XYZ?" quickly followed by, "No way! I can't believe she thinks Lauren slept with Justin Bobby! That Audrina...")

In these fantastical two days, I'm going to catch up on some books I've been dying to read. First up? The Comeback Season by Jennifer E. Smith. Cubs? YA? Picture of Wrigley Field on the front? Awe-to-the-Some.

And there's about a million other books I'm DYING to read, but the whole full-time-job-full-time-writer-full-time-mom stuff doesn't allow for a whole lot of lesiurely reading by the fireplace.

Which is the excuse I'll use for the following confession: I've never read Twilight. Never seen the movie, never read any of the books.

I've heard all of the books are quite entertaining. I don't know, maybe it's just too built up or something. I feel like the hype needs to chill a bit before I'll pick it up. I mean, I just watched all of those Lord of the Rings movies this summer.

Oh, and one of my husband's friends was dragged to the movie by his wife and this was his assessment (never having read the book, either): "It was kind of like Dawson's Creek. If Dawson was a vampire."

Now THAT intrigues me.

Oh? And if someone has a cure to get that new Beyonce song out of my head, please help. You know, the one that's, "If you like it, then you should've put a ring on it..." Because I'm about two more verses away from inserting a letter opener into my eyeball.

Book #3: I'm A Comin'

As of today, my revisions on Book #2, the sequel to A Bump in the Road, will be finished.

GAH!!!!

All I was supposed to do was to "fix" a few "minor" issues that came up during my copyedits for Bump. Too bad my inner editor went, "Ha!" followed by, "Looksee here, missy. This book dun be effed up. You best be getting on those problems ya got there yonder."

No idea why my inner editor speaks in folksy farmer language.

One reason why the revisions have taken much, much longer than expected (four weeks instead of two) is because it's sometimes difficult to know when to stop tinkering and adding. With both Bump and the sequel, there were many times where I thought I was done, only to hear a hilarious anecdote or see a quirky thing happen at the grocery story and go, "I SO have to include that. Clare would die if she saw that."

I finished Bump with only the motivation of Must. Get. Agent. before giving birth, but with the sequel, it's been dragging on For-FREAKING-Ever.

The only way I've gotten my brain to shift to Finish Line mode is to say, "You can always add it in during the editorial revisions." And, of course, some small grain of light is burning in my soul that says maybe there could be a third book for Clare's saga.

Anyway, the soul-sucking revisions are soon-to-be complete. I'm not sure if I want to make my character come to life so I can issue the ultimate smackdown to her or if I just want to punch myself in the face.

BUT.

Finishing the revisions for Book #2 means...Duh Duh Duh Duuuuh!  I get to work on my YA Book: This Book Rulez and Has Irish Stuff In It. It's been the carrot on the end of the revision stick, so to speak. In preparation, I have lots of research to do this weekend. Including watching some old DVDs of cancelled MTV reality shows.

Intrigued yet?

I'm sure my husband is, seeing as how I mandated that he watch all ten hours with me. Martial Marital togetherness and all that crap.

One-Stop Christmas Shopping

Happy Holidays?

Uhhhh...

For those who don't know, last Wednesday is being called, "Black Wednesday" in the publishing industry due to massive layoffs, restructurings, a freeze on acquisitions at a major publishing house and a whole host of other things that can be called Not Good.

Seems the bad economic virus has finally hit close to home. Economy? You're officially pissing in my pool.

And there's nothing I can do. Except what I've already been doing. Write. Write because I want to laugh, crack myself up, and create a story. Write despite not having a clue if it'll ever get published.

That was pretty much the way I wrote my first book and you know what? It seems strangely liberating. Working on revisions for book #2 and book #3 have started to go from, "I LOVE REVISIONS!" to "STRESSSTRESSSTRESSOMFGSTRESSTHISSUCKS!"

Time to stop focusing on selling, advances, contracts, amazon ranking and everything else. Time to get back to the crux of what I love and why I do this--writing. Telling a great story. Falling in love with my characters again.

But, holy hell, I'm still going to be doing my part this Christmas. Everyone, and I do mean EVERYONE is getting a book this year as a gift. Including my sixteen year old brother, who will use it as a drink coaster or to prop up his XBox 360.

And hopefully, by the time I'm done with revisions on Book #3, everything will have calmed down. That's what I'll choose to believe anyway. Kind of like how believing in TInkerbell will make her come to life.

Let's all say it together now:

I DO BELIEVE IN PUBLISHING! I DO BELIEVE IN PUBLISHING!

Here Lies Maureen. Her Book Killed Her.

My cold has finally cleared, and the brain fog lifted, but I'm still slogging through revisions to A Bump in the Road's sequel. Despite having made some nice progress today, I still feel like I'm starring in Maureen and Her Main Character's Excellent Revision Adventure.

Except I'm getting so sick of the book that it's starting to feel way more like a thrashing than an adventure. I think it's partly because the book is a sequel, and I was simultaneously doing copyedits on Bump, so it feels like I've spent one of those too-long vacations with my main characters. You know the kind--even if the person is your best friend, husband, sister, whoever, too much time together in close quarters will lead to someone making the other person cry and/or want to beat the ever-livin' crap out of.

So, that's kind of what my  main character is doing to me. I'm all, "Clare, COME ON. THINK OF SOMETHING FUNNY TO SAY THAT IS NOT A KNOCK-KNOCK JOKE." And Jake? "HELP HER OUT! SHE'S A WORKING MOM. YOU MEN HAVE NO IDEA WHAT IT'S LIKE..." (You know it's bad when you want to get all feminist-ranty on your main character's husband.)

Although I'm kind of ready to throw my main character, and the entire book itself, off the proverbial island, I'm sure once the revisions are done we'll be besties again.

But until then, MAN.

Must. Finish. Book. Then. Burn. Draft. In. Effigy.

Oh, and must share this: Someone found my blog today by googling "man uses netti pot and brain explodes."

W.T.F.?