Happy New Year!

The Anticipatory Spouse and I had a party last night, so tonight it'll be just us, cheese, some sort of alcoholic beverages, and maybe watching Croupier with Clive Owen. In other words, I'll be starting the new year off right.

Meanwhile, I am thinking of New Year's resolutions, chief among them that old chestnut (reminds me: Must roast chestnuts tonight. How long do they last anyway?), lose weight. But I will do it, and then I will stop, but at least I will have dropped some poundage.

I got my new glasses, still haven't completely adjusted to the new 'scrip, so am kinda foggy. Or was that the wine I drank last night?

Anyway. Happy New Year, nice readers!

Megan

Annoying People

So I've got this way-long time ago ex-boyfriend (I've been with the Spouse for close to 18 years, so it's way-long.), and he and his wife send us a holiday card each year, which is nice, and he sends cards to the Greco-Sicilian Doctor and her sister, too. Nice, sure. But each year something happens with the cards he sends to them, and he spends quite a few emails asking about their address, their phone number, and could they call him to straighten this out? (They have the same last names, live in the same apartment complex, I have no idea what happens with the mail). Meanwhile, the G-S D. says she talked to him a year or so ago, and she gets a creepy stalker feeling from him, so I am disinclined to give him any more information so he can bother her. He bothered her enough when he and I dated, the way he treated me. So feh. Not a big deal, but pesky. Plus I feel really lame that I am piqued that he cares so much about them when he didn't care that much for me when we dated oh so long ago (we went out for six years).

But also meanwhile, the year is winding down, and my house is almost clean. Almost. very cool.

Megan

Risky Friday

Check out my faux best of list over at the Risky Regencies today.

(Like there was any doubt I'd be unable to mention Sean Bean. Although Clive remains #1, Sean is right up there).

Megan

Santa Receovering From A Bender

My favorite part of spending the holidays in the 'country' (so-called because it was originally farmland: "That was a farm," he says, pointing to a development, "and that was a farm." And so on, and so on, and so on. Now it's a cookie-cutter house painted a banal mild yellow. Yee-haw.), besides the food, family, and convivial atmosphere has got to be the deflated lawn ornaments--you know, the enormous Santa Clauses or snowmen who are plugged in and blown up, but if you turn them off, they wilt to the ground and lie there, felled by their own good cheer.

We're back in Brooklyn, wrapping up our own festivities. One of us is planning on all sorts of New Year's Resolutions, the other violently hates said resolutions. Oddly enough, I am the former. I like starting things on a certain date, and NYRs are just about the biggest kind of date-starter you can find.

And next week the agent receives Lessons In Love. Can I get another yee-haw?

Thanks for spending the last few days of 2006 with me,

Megan

Xmas Joy

  

Christmas Came Early This Year . . .

I slept until 11:00am this morning.

All I wanted for Christmas was new eyeglasses (mine broke, wearing an old, not as great pair), and some sleep.

Didn't get to the movies after all (and I don't even want to talk about why), but I did sleep. I am so grateful.

Merry Christmas, all!

Megan

Drive-by Post

Thanks to the Picky Vegetarian for letting me know six more copies of A Singular Lady sold at Powell's--I think the total is up to 134!

And I finished Lessons In Love on Thursday. Promptly had post-partum depression.

Off to the in-laws', may or may not post. The Visually-Deprived Spouse and I are going to the movies tonight!! Yay!

More later, thanks for stopping by,

Megan

I'm burning the Yule Blog over at the Risky Regencies, stop by if you have a chance.

Megan

Delurking Week!

Hey! How 'bout you say hey? I've been thinking about things where people just HAVE to speak up. There are very few absolute favorites people can claim, without any waffling: favorite number and favorite color. People have one of each, and that's it (mine is #4 and black).

Are there any others? Say hi and let me know what your favorite number and colors are, and suggest other absolute favorites.

I'm leaving this post on top all week to try to get you to come out of your shells.

Your friend,

Megan

Whoa!

First off, thanks for the nice response to the Delurking Week! It's nice to feel you're not alone.

Second, I finally got my hands on the BBC production of Lady Chatterley, starring Sean Bean and Joely Richardson. Yum. It's been my study break* in-between editing, watching Sean being all rough trade and such (although he's not so much rough trade as just rough. His accent is awesome).

I would recommend it, not just for the Bean has nookie scenes. Although those are pretty great.

I am finishing the final revision of Lessons In Love today, yahoo!

Megan
*The Greco-Sicilian Doctor and I, back when we were roommates in college, used to say "you have to study before you have a study break." It's actually a good rule for life in general.

HELP!

Okay, so I'm editing (yes, STILL), and I've got a sentence where I describe a lovely woman: She looked like Aphrodite, Helen of Troy and X rolled into one.

What does X equal? I can't think of a third beautiful woman who would have been commonly known in the Regency. Charlize Theron just doesn't do it here.

Thanks!

So Many Things To Hate . . . So Little Time

There are many, many things I really despise.

Close to the top of the list are year-end retrospectives. So far I've avoided seeing any, even the ads for any (and even the ADS bother me), but I know they're coming. Hate them. I don't know why. They just bother me, along with Ugg boots, magical realism, cotton in medicine bottles, and wearing my watch on my left hand (even though I'm a rightie).

Can't we just let the old year go without getting all mournful and nostalgic about it?

Megan

Anti-Go

Awhile ago, Colleen Gleason asked me why I didn't warn her about the horrors of Barnyard, a movie we both took our kids to (the male cow had UDDERS! Plus I thought the lead cow--or bull, despite the appearance of milk-giving nipples--was selfish, and I didn't care what happened to him). So this is a warning to her, as well as to anyone who might've been thinking about seeing Eragon in the theaters.



Eragon is so ham-fisted it gives ham a bad name. Sure, it looks pretty, especially Edward Speleers (who I think looks a lot like David Soul--"Don't Give Up On Us," remember?), although of course I perked up when the tortured teen with the dark hair and the scar on his stomach showed up. Always attracted to the dark side.

And Jeremy Irons is always fun, he's just plain older-guy dishy, but the plot is dreadful and predictable, and there were a couple of groan-worthy scenes. Oh, and John Malkovich is there, too, being his usual creepy self. As a rental, I'd say sure--it looks pretty, and the dragon is cool-looking, but paying more than a rental fee for your whole family, maybe invite your neighbors in to ameliorate the costs, I'd say no way. You'll thank me later.

And we still haven't seen Happy Feet; my son has taken an irrational dislike to penguins since seeing the ads for March of the Penguins. He says it's because the ads say penguins are the most fun, and they're lying. I told him that was the nature of advertising, but it hasn't stopped his antipathy.

Stick a Fork In It . . .

It's done!

I just finished the last, and hopefully really last, revision of Lessons In Love. Tomorrow I print out the hard copy and go through and tweak, especially those loose ends I seem to love lying around.

I like the ending; the heroine gets to punch the villain, which is cool. I like that.

Okay, so next week is delurking week, like Meljean wrote about over at her place. Feel free to start early, if you want.

Now I am going to have a celebratory beer. Yay for me!

Megan

Drama!

Last night, as usual, I woke up in the middle of the night to, you know. I hopped back into bed and removed my glasses.

Which snapped right in two. On the bridge.

I am really, really blind, in that I cannot see anything in detail unless it is (and I am not exaggerating) two inches from my face. I spent a good half hour trying to super-glue the bridge, put cardboard and tape on it, and then of course I spent a few minutes panicking. And then I decided to check if I had any old spare pair.

Thank goodness I do. Because the Mother-Helping Spouse is away for the weekend, and I am home with the Seven Year-Old, and planning on seeing Eragon, and writing, and cleaning, all of which is hard to do when one is bumping into things.

Next week I am going to pick out a new pair of frames, which means I'll have to get a new author picture. Of course, one hopes I will sell another book in order to legitimately call myself an author, but that is a worry for another day.

Whew! Crisis averted.

At the Riskies

Okay, so I'm off today, posted an interview with Jenna Petersen (all-around nice person and totally fun writer) over at the Risky Regencies.

Visit and comment to get a chance to win a copy of Jenna's latest book!

Master of the Unobvious

So I was looking up Meljean Brook's debut, Demon Angel, to see how it was doing on Amazon (way to go, MB!), and this book came up: Angels And Demons: What Do We Really Know About Them?.

And to me, duh, the answer is obvious: NOTHING. I mean, even if you believe in angels and demons, you REALLY know NOTHING about them. You can presume, or suppose, but you haven't seen, or touched, or proven. Hence the nothing. So what doofus approved THAT title for a book?!?

And apologies for being so crabby--I am soclose to finishing the revision, and then I have to do it again, and I made myself a deadline of Monday, so I'm stressing hard, and hence am more intolerant than usual, if that can be believed.

Megan

Christmas Desire

Doesn't the post title sound like a cheesy made-for-TV movie? And yet, I've got a few Christmas desires--attainable ones, not like Clive Owen in my stocking, or a nine-book contract, or someone optioning my book for a cheesy made-for-TV movie (and who would play my hero and heroine?!? Hm. Cameron Diaz? She's got the broken nose. Hugh Jackman? He's sexy, but is he flirty enough?)



Anyway. I was discussing the ultimate Christmas tree with the Holiday Traditional Spouse the other day, and I said what I really wanted was a black Christmas tree. It would match all our ornaments, look really cool, and--it'd be BLACK! Apparently I am not alone in my wishes. And then he came home with a foot-tall black Christmas tree, which we decorated with colored disco balls. Cool as beans!



And then I saw these shoes, which are so incredibly gorgeous I wish I had the kind of life and wardrobe to support wearing them--I almost do, but not quite, and they are too cool to languish in the closet. Plus they're over $100, and I'm cheap. But I love them (I know some of you are thinking they're hideous, and I can almost see that. But I just love the over-the-top-ness of them. Plus my large ankles might look dainty in them. So yay.)

If I ever get a mooseload of money, I am SO buying these shoes. If I ever get a mooseload of money AND a mooseload of storage, I am buying a black Christmas tree.

Thanks for shopping by!

Megan

Recovery

I am feeling MUCH better than last night (see below post), although I still want to listen to Joy Division. Never liked New Order nearly as much.

I thought of a partial solution to my plot problem, which might not completely solve it, but honestly, if I have to revise this story much more I am going to kill my characters off in a tragic carriage accident. Or a poisoning at Almack's, or something. So I carry on, and they will get their darn HEA, sooner rather than later (I know, Delightful Phone Friend, I shouldn't rush, but this is beginning to become a serious problem!).

I finished the third book in Barbara Hambly's Benjamin January detective series, she is such a darn good writer. Although I always get a little confused towards the end, but that's because her plots are complicated, and I can't always seem to follow it. But the writing is good.

Okay. Back to editing.

Megan

Isolation

There's a Joy Division song called "Isolation," and it's going through my head tonight.

I am finally getting to edit, but my head--and book--are in such a muddle I am panicking. I'm ripping out the unnecessary plot stuff, not trying to fill it in yet, because I know I will screw it up in this frame of mind.

This writing stuff is really, really hard. It's not that I can't do it, it's just that I want to make my story flow, and right now, it stutters and halts and speeds along and changes course and does all sorts of other herky-jerky things. I wonder if I will ever make it good enough.

Wait, can you hear the despair? Gah, I hate being whiny: Wah, poor me, I am all alone writing a romance novel with some semblance of a plot.

I am going to print the mess out, then do hard edits on paper. Add new scenes, rework my index cards, STOP PANICKING.

Thanks for letting me vent.

Megan

Short, Not As Sweet As One Might Wish

A very busy weekend (tree-trimming, old-friend visiting, party-attending, cold-having, basketball-watching) followed by a busy week.

Today there was hope that I would get to hunker down with revisions. Then the Seven Year-old stayed home from school with a cold.

So tonight there will be hunkering. And lots of hot tea, internet distractions, Christmas tree-gazing (it's STUNNING! ), and maybe a little bit of actual editing and writing. The goal is to have it in the mail by Saturday.

Thanks for visiting!

Megan

Tree Bought, Minimum of Fuss.

I am a big sap (ha!) when it comes to our Christmas tree. If there is a large, misshapen tree lurking about, I will find it, and want to buy it. I used to wander around the tree farm until I felt an urge to hug a tree, then the Tolerant Spouse would allow us to buy it, even if its shape was like, well, mine (thin on top, way huge on the bottom).

This year, we shopped in Brooklyn for our tree, eventually buying a concolor fir (also known as white fir), and it is GORGEOUS. We thought we might have to settle for something less than stunning, but no. It's huge, and wide, and idiosyncratic, and I'd hug it, but it's too large.

Yay!

Happy Holidays!

Megan, not quite as grumpy as before.

Friday On My Mind

Over at the Risky Regencies, rambling and complaining. Yes, an equal opportunity grump who can moan on TWO blogs. Look how talented I am!

Thingy Things of Thingness

Writing is a lot easier, now that my finger doesn't hurt like a moose every time I touch something. I am technically more than halfway through the revision, but when I say 'technically,' I mean that I will probably be deleting a lot more in the second half, and I'll have to rewrite as well as write new scenes to align the new streamlined plot with the new streamlined story.

It's going well, though, and my hero and heroine are flirting like CRAZY with each other, which I like. I wish I could post it here, but then I know I'd get neurotic somebody would hate it, or I'd see some insane plot loophole, and then I'd cry. Boo-dee-hoo-hoo. Not like that's never happened here before.

Today I went Christmas shopping for the As Close To A Regency Dandy As A 20th Century Guy from New Jersey Can Be Spouse. There are a lot of men's clothes with some damn silly things on them. Who needs someone else's name on their shoulder? How about a sweatshirt with skulls wearing Native American headdresses? And let's not forget the contrasting piping. Gah. Give me some plain, simple clothing that doesn't cost more than my annual book allowance ( . . .it's a lot, okay?), and I'll buy it. Until then, keep your damn logos off my husband's clothing. Plus he'd HATE it if I bought him something like that, unless it had a penguin on it. Penguin is a cool clothing line, the penguin is way discreet.

I know what I want to get him, I just haven't found it yet (yes, you can all sing U2: "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For." Love The Edge. If you were a radically innovative guitarist, what would your nickname be? The Square? The Round (wait until after Christmas!), The Neurosis? The Solipsist (guilty as charged).

Okay. Back to editing and writing and flirting and grumping.

Thanks for stopping by,

Megan

Why He Will LOVE the Movie Airplane

The Seven Year-Old: Mommy, I figured out what to say in case I'm in a conflict.
Me: Oh, honey? What's that?
The S Y-O: [said with a disdainful huff] It's a fight, Mommy.

The only good thing about accidentally peeling part of your fingernail off when you are peeling a carrot for Asian Chicken Salad (bring on the hoisin and the coriander!) is that you get to bind your fingertip with a Hello Kitty band-aid.

It is really hard to type with one finger achy and bandaged. Now I really CAN'T write.

On the Menu Tonight: Naked Beans

The Knicks-Loving (still!) Spouse is at the game tonight, so I am left alone. Just me and Anna Karenina, starring Sean Bean.

Heh, heh. I love the classics.

Megan

GRUMP.Y.

It's not as if I was ever a big fan of PMS, but now I have to declare it my enemy: PMS, you are dead to me.

I've eaten everything in sight.

I hate everyone I see, on sight (family excluded; them, I love).

I want to curl up into a ball and emerge in late 2007.

Megan

Risky Writing

I'm at the Risky Regencies today talking about the process of writing. Stop yawning already!