SeaHeart

It's sunset outside, the time of day that the birds erupt in a chorus of "good nights" to one another. <3 The cats are at the windows, watching with extreme interest as the robins hop across the lawn and meadow, and the sunshine streaks the tops of the pines with glittering gold. It is a beautiful, beautiful evening. <3

Jenn and I have been editing non-stop. Jenn was doing the final edits of Braided, which was released today, and I've been working on the broad-sword-chopping-edition-of-edits on The Tea Spell, which should be released later this month. <3 I wrote The Tea Spell (Book One of the Moonrun Chronicles!) the month of and the month after our wedding, and it's taken this long to be able to tackle it for edits. It's a joy to work through, because I keep remembering specific days in which I wrote specific scenes, like our trying-on-our-wedding-dresses-day. There's so much of the joy of our wedding suffused into that little book. It makes me very happy~ <3



The Tea Spell is a novel, not a novella (YOU ARE SHOCKED, I KNOW), and is book one of the Moonrun Chronicles. Moonrun is this magical little town on the New England coast where the weird of the world end up. It has pond monsters and flying horses and zombies and werewolves and Krakens, and it's into this bizarre place that Amy now finds herself. Amy is an Actual Witch (TM), of the Goddess worshiping, composting, Sabbat ritual, Pagan variety. When she moves to Moonrun, it's discovered that the last witch could actually ride a broomstick and wore a pointy black hat.

Amy's a little in over her head.

She's also falling deeply in love with this wise-cracking, red-headed werewolf chick named Morgan, who happens to be the daughter of the Moonrun werewolf patriarch, Allen...who may have the best of intentions for the town, but a really crappy way of showing them. As Halloween approaches (of course, the biggest night of the year for the denizens of Moonrun), it's clear that Strange Things could not only put a damper on the celebrations...Amy could actually lose her girlfriend to something sinister and dark. And possibly fairy-like.

DURING THIS TIME, she also opens up a tea room named The Tea Spell, sets up a ghost ball for her resident ghost-lady, helps her girlfriend keep an evil mermaid from invading the town and helps rescue baby pond monsters from Certain Doom.

Life is never dull in Moonrun. <3

It's the rompiest romp I've ever written and never, ever, ever takes itself seriously, and is my last hoorah before I dive back into Ragged's editing surgery, and the writing of The Bone Girl. :D So THIS IS WHAT I HAVE BEEN UP TO. I have also been TERRIBLY BORING because of it. See? ALL I CAN TALK ABOUT IS WRITING, I HAVE TURNED INTO THAT WRITER, OH GODS.

WHAT ELSE. Hopefully (hah!), our next Fable Tribe update will be this coming Wednesday--a week from today! :)

This weekend, we're going down to PA for Jenn's sister's baby shower (IT IS MONKEY THEMED. WE WENT A LITTLE OVERBOARD ON THE THEME), which should be a lot of monkey-induced fun!

My laptop is an ancient, but lovable Macbook G4, and it DOES NOT like Livejournal, which is why I haven't been around. :( Jenn has been doing a lot of transcription, which involves this laptop that I'm typing on, and she actually needs it back right now because she got an assignment. IF YOU HAVE BEEN WONDERING: WHERE DID THE CRAZY PINK-HAIRED LADY GO? I'm here! Just not that much on the interwebs! :D I wanted to say: I aten't dead!

SOON, when the debt has been paid off, I will get a GLORIOUS, SHINY AND INEXPENSIVE NEW LAPTOP, which will actually let me do more than just type things (and sometimes not even that--my beloved little Macbook, when she's In A Mood, will simply not type every other letter while emitting a VERY LOUD BEEP. XD I HAVE A LOT OF PATIENCE. SOMETIMES.). :D THAT will be a GLORIOUS DAY.

<3 *LOVE*!

I got Sara Bareilles's album Kaleidoscope Hearts from the library because I am a huge dork, and I love their music collections there. I have been listening to it nonstop. Two of the songs, in particular, have become the anthems to the beginning and end of my forthcoming novel, Ragged, and I wanted to post them here--both so I can share the tone of the book (music is such an important part of my writing process/feel of my novels), and so that I can share what the book made my heart feel. In lovely song format. <3

~*~

Talula is the main character of Ragged--and she's essentially fucked up. She's funny, but neurotic, has never been kissed and is bitter about the fact that she survived the end of the world, and hardly anyone else did--she wishes she died. Why, she wonders, when she loses everything she loves, should she bother trying to feel anything?

And then, along comes Din. She's a monster, right? The Gilt (fairies) are killing people, and Din's killed people, but none of them wanted to murder. The Gilt are cursed to kill by a fairy queen who is more unhinged than a serial killer, believes in genocide. And Din is looking for a way to stop it, has created an underground revolution to try and put a stop to the Monarch. And, so far, she's failed miserably.

But Din sees something in Talula, something special. And together, after Talula loses everything she's ever known, they set out on a fairy tale quest to try and stop the murdering in a fucked up world. Din's idealistic, Talula's pessimistic, and she can't stop falling in love with the person...who isn't a person at all.

When a true monster is set loose to stop them, Talula is in very real danger of losing the only thing that matters: Din.

So, the first song--all of Talula's angst and hope that she'll, someday, not be alone, but worry and fear and that she always will be. The second song--disbelief that she's falling in love, that something beautiful is finally happening in a very not beautiful life. And the possibility of something growing when everything else is dead.

Is anybody listening?

Does anybody know how to hold my heart
How to hold my heart?
'Cause I don't want to let go, let go, let go of you

And if you say "be all right"
I'm gonna trust you, babe,
I'm gonna look in your eyes...
And if you say "be all right"
I'll follow you into the light.

We didn't go to church yesterday--the first Sunday we've been home and haven't gone since summer. Jenn and I lay curled up in bed, limbs tangled, and talked for hours. We did that Saturday morning, too. One of my favorite things about the weekend are the leisurely snuggles we're able to get, entwining our fingers together, cracking jokes and then getting serious and then dissolving the seriousness with jokes again. The warmth of her next to me, the softness of the blankets, the sunshine streaming through the lace curtains: heaven on earth. Precious beyond reason...

Perfect.

~*~

My mom asked me this morning: how are you coping with Shiva being gone? And I told her the truth: I'm writing constantly. It's all I do, words, words, words--it's the most potent form of relief and catharsis I've ever known, and the way I've dealt with everything in my life. When I dive into the story, there's such a sweet sense of peace in the words coming right and the story weaving as I hoped it would, and even when it doesn't, to "pull out all the stitches," so to speak, and make it what I hoped it would be again.

Nova, Jenn's parents' beloved dog, passed away over the weekend. When Jenn told me, I just sort of sat there in shock for a good long moment, then we sat and held one another, crying. Jenn's parents--both of them some of the best people I've ever known--loved that dog more than can be articulated. She was so old, so sick--they'd found her wandering on the side of the road a few months ago, emaciated (even when we volunteered at the shelter, I've never seen an animal that bad) and hardly able to walk, and did everything they could to find her original owners (who were probably assholes if her condition was any indication, which it is), and took her to the vet countless times, and--basically--Nova found the best possible home in the entire cosmos to end her life in.

We've often joked that Jenn's parents' house has a gigantic neon sign pointing to it that every stray who needs it can see. <3

~*~

My next novel, Ragged: A Post-Apocalyptic Fairy Tale is coming out January 24th--two weeks and one day. I've got to get everything set up, set up a blog tour, start to ask reviewers if they'd like a copy, do eleventy billion other things to get the knowledge of the book out there, but I'm sad and tired and feeling quiet. This isn't a bad thing--every individual needs time to grieve--but it's not a great idea when you're trying to launch the follow up to your first novel. A lot of people are looking forward to the novel, which is going to help it, I know, and this quietness will pass next week, I'm sure. I hope. Eh...

Side note: I posted two excerpts from the novel over the weekend in my Tumblr--Talula's first kiss, and then the follow up "gay" scene, which is one of my favorites in the novel. If ye be readin' them, please enjoy. <3

~*~

I spent a lot of time hugging the animals this weekend. This happens every day, but instead of singing them ridiculous songs (and then hugging them) and dancing with them (and then hugging them) and playing games with them (and then hugging them), I just...hugged them. They were, of course, very weirded out by this. "BUT, MOM, WHY YOU BE SO SERIOUS?"

~*~

We spent a lot of time putting together the Sparkle Room. If you've ever visited our house, you know how craft supplies take up every available square inch of space. There were blank Glamourkin tiles in the freezer, I'm sure. We've been wanting to make a dedicated space for crafting now, which is CRAZY since we craft everywhere in our house, but we also wanted the ability to make very dangerous things and not have the animals around.

We haven't unveiled our new Etsy shop yet, but we will soon. One of the more interesting/exciting things about it is exactly what I'm deconstructing and then constructing again, and how. It involves a hacksaw. I MAY have almost sliced off my thumb in one of my more stupid daring moves. Jenn gets very nervous when I'm hacksawing.

So, yeah. A separate room is a GOOD IDEA. :D

We had ideas for the Sparkle Room for ages, and we've been gathering them together. We wanted it to be the brightest, most inspiring space we could create, and we used a lot of things from our wedding--not only are they no longer sitting in boxes, but we get to see them everyday and get all smushy and happy, just looking at them and the memories involved. :) <3 So now there's the Temple Room for writing and spiritual endeavors and the Sparkle Room for all things crafty. When we get things a little more organized, we will take eleventy billion pictures, because WE REALLY LOVE IT, and are ridiculously happy with how it came out. :)

Jenn and I just keep wandering into it, standing in the center, and even though it's still messy, we look about with a nerdily euphoric look on our faces and say THIS IS THE HAPPIEST PLACE IN THE WORLD.

This is also helping the general sadness of the household with its BRIGHT COLORS and rampant MY LITTLE PONIES and STRAWBERRY SHORTCAKES.

~*~

From New Year's Day, on the lake shore~ <3

Announcing my next two projects at my blog, Muse Rising--my next novel, and my upcoming novella! Along with COVER ART REVEALED! :D

For example, the cover art for Ragged: A Post-Apocalyptic Fairy Tale by the incomparable and amazing Laura Diemer~ <3333


(If you enjoyed the post, or were moved to comment, you can do so at the blog. Thank you so much~ <3)