Lots o’ Links, Including a Podcast! Whee!
Hi lovely people!
So, my pregnancy-shaped excuse for the late blog this week is that there are several burly fellows renovating my basement at the moment, which involves LOTS OF LOUDNESS at 7AM EVERY MORNING. And if you know me, or have ever read this blog, you may recall that I don’t do mornings. :-) When one works until 3 or 4am most nights, the sound of drilling into the floor directly below one’s head three hours later is NOT EXACTLY AWESOME.
Which means I’m currently experiencing even weirder sleeping hours and less productivity than usual, but I’m here now! And it’ll all be SO TOTALLY WORTH IT once our basement is finished and we can store my books down there without worrying about getting spiders and dust all over them. (We might use the space for other things, too, but if you ask me, it’s mostly for extra copies of my books!) ;-)
Because that way we can put the baby in the space where the extra copies used to be, which is my office. And then my office will go into the sunroom and Adam will go into the basement (ha ha! just kidding! mostly!), and it’s one big hilarious baby shuffle, but hopefully in the end we’ll have a pretty, organized, rearranged house, which will be super-tidy for about eight nanoseconds, until the baby arrives and we suddenly have pacifiers and board books and burp cloths in all directions (whee! adorable baby things!). :-) :-) 🙂
Also, I’m thinking about switching the blog to Thursdays instead of Wednesdays from now on. Would that be terrible? Could you all handle a seismic shift of that sort? ;-) Hmmm…well, we’ll see how the next couple of weeks go!
In the meanwhile, I have writing-related links for you! Holy bananas! (Mmmm…bananas…) Author talk instead of baby talk!
First of all, a little while ago I recorded a HarperTeen podcast, and now you can go listen to it! (Please do!) It’s all about my shiny new vampire book, Never Bite a Boy on the First Date, with excerpts and everything. You have to scroll down the page a bit to find it (I’m not sure why it’s in "Past Episodes", since I never saw it be a "current episode", but I promise it’s there!). It’s a bit less than 20 minutes of me gabbling on about vampires and the book, and I must admit I think I sound QUITE SILLY, but hopefully you’ll enjoy it anyway! (Unless you were one of the Jeopardy! fans who didn’t like my voice (it is a bit weirder outside my head than inside my head), in which case this is proooooobably a bit much of it at one time for you.) 😉
But if you’re curious about the book or the vampire lore I used, or just want to hear part of it as read by me (!), then this is the podcast for you! And you can also find lots of other awesome HarperTeen authors yakking away at that same link, including Meg Cabot and Rachel Vail and Melissa Marr…so fun!
Also! Remember that fun short horror anthology I blogged about a few weeks ago? Well, it turns out it has its own mini-site! Check out the Half-Minute Horrors website, where you can get a peek at the book, see a list of all the contributors, and even share your own thirty-second spooky story! There are some REALLY cool/creepy submissions on there already…I’m so impressed! And what better way to celebrate Halloween this weekend than by buying the book or writing your own horror story? :-) Right?
Ooooo, look, I even have a banner ad I can drop in here! If this works…
Awesome! Woo hoo!
Finally, this isn’t writing-related at all, but my lovely NZ cousin Susy alerted me to the fact that New Zealand apparently voted on their favorite NZ birds (they have a lot of very cool birds you can’t find anywhere else).
Now, OK, of course the kiwi is number one. I mean, it’s a ridiculously awesome bird and symbolic of the country and all that. But the tui is only NUMBER FIVE? Are you serious? We got beaten by a RIFLEMAN? What on earth is that? It’s basically a wren! SERIOUSLY? Dude, New Zealand!
Then again, the bird at number 3 is the kea, which is a notoriously cheeky mountain parrot known for ripping apart cars to get to food (for reals!).
(crazy-awesome picture by Michael Harsch found here)
So I can see how that would be tough to compete with. And kakapos are inordinately cute, too! Dang it, New Zealand has too many awesome birds. But…but tuis have two voiceboxes! They make super-weird noises! If you think my voice is strange, check out some of the Tui YouTube videos…it’s such a weird noisy bird!
OK, the basement noises have calmed down for the day, so perhaps I’ll go take a nap (yes at 6pm! What? I promise I’ll get up again in time for The Vampire Diaries and Project Runway!). :-) OH, but can I just say how excited I am about this new season of So You Think You Can Dance? Especially now that they’re finally done with the INTERMINABLE weeks of auditions? I am most in love with Russell (squee!), Ellenore, Nathan, Ryan, and Karen right now, but I’m kind of thrilled about almost all of them. Yay for addictive TV! 😉
Quote of the Day:
Bobby: Mommy, I’m bored.
Betty: Go bang your head against a wall.
Bobby: Mommy!
Betty: Only boring people get bored.
— Mad Men