I'm going to blatantly steal from DadHacker and open this post with "Yeah, yeah, M-X standard-blog-apology." And now on to content in the form of a random list of stuff I am bothering to report on:

( what's up in my life )

Greetings, people of the internet! Contrary to appearances, I have not in fact vanished into a cave/black hole/Bermuda Triangle/other location without a wifi connection these past two months. I have simply been busy. Not truly so busy as to not have any time at all to post an update, but let's just pretend, shall we? After all, here's a long ( Read more... )

The conference is over, and I'm exhausted but pleased. The agent pitch session went well. I got to speak to the two agents I most wanted to talk to, with a positive response from both. Now, to put this in the proper perspective, I believe writers were getting requests to send something more often than not. The agents are probably thinking that ( Read more... )

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Beyond this opening paragraph, there are SPOILERS! I finished Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows on Tuesday. I was too busy to read for most of the weekend, but Monday and Tuesday were Harry-filled. I read all day, except for a break to see the Order of the Phoenix movie a second time for jellyfrog's birthday. Once I was done with the book, I spent ( Read more... )

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In shocking accordance with the plan, editing has been going really well since I got back from vacation. I've made good progress this week, and I've solved several plot and pacing problems. I've probably introduced some others in the process, but ah well. The main thing is, I'm feeling great about The Overworld again after my break, and it seems ( Read more... )

The National Puzzlers' League convention was great. The puzzles and games this year were all high-quality. It was wonderful to see my Krewe buddies again and to meet some new friends. And those of you who couldn't make it, you were missed!

( Ann Arbor photos )

The other day I went into a store because of the word "adverbs". ( You know you want to read on. )

A wise writing friend has been urging me for months to read Save the Cat!: The Last Book on Screenwriting You'll Ever Need, by Blake Snyder. She says that the book is just as useful for novels as for screenplays, because it's about how to craft a good story in general. She's right, and it turns out this was exactly the right time for me to ( Read more... )