A Twist of Things to Come

Friday night, I watched The Woman in Black with my boys and my youngest's friend Jake, who was over for a sleepover.

That is an extremely atmospheric film, and a fairly scary one. Not scary, maybe, to people who require/expect monsters or Saw levels of gore, but for an old coot like me, pretty tense. My Beloved refused to go to the theater to see it, because the trailer scared him so much.

In any case, the boys and i had plans to watch it, and we had been under the impression that Jake had several other offers for the night and would not be coming. But, he came over anyway. Robert and I told both him and William not to talk during the movie, but you might as well tell water not to be wet. Jake's a talker.

"There should be monsters. Monsters are scarier than ghosts. Ghosts aren't scary..."

Robert and I, together: Shhhhhh!

And so on. Eventually, he excused himself to William's room. I figured he'd just get his laptop out and wait for William to join him. But no.

A few minutes later, this black thing jumps out from behind the couch onto William, making a strange, blood-curdling noise. It's Jake, who had excused himself to change into a black morphsuit. He then sat down and watched the rest of the film through te mesh of his morphsuit.

Jake is a bit of a character. He is a very good actor - he's very expressive and loud, and also makes some amazingly ...um, atmospheric noises. He and William get on very very well, partly because William is just socially impaired enough not to exclude Jake for his obvious eccentricities. Not that there is anything wrong with Jake. He's actually amazing enough that if he were a grown man, he'd probably already have his own TV show. Part of his amazingness is how little he cares about fitting in, when most twelve-year-olds think that is their full time job.

What amazed me was that, when packing for a sleepover, he brought a black morphsuit, just in case.

He got us all, good.

***

The movie was creepy enough that my creepy old house -- to which I am largely accustomed -- once again became old and creepy. I hung a dress over my mirror just to sleep. (It is positioned such that when trains go by a lot of the light that makes it in the window gets cast about by it, making my bedroom full of writhing black shadows.)

Also, Dan Radcliffe grew up kind of hot. I feel a tad dirty-old-woman-ish just saying that, but... yeah.

So, Big Boy had a different idea for his "book trailer" but they said it should have a cliffhanger and make people want to read the book, so he went for the ultra-creepy Man-Jack-coming-to-kill-Bod-as-a-toddler intro. I think it's effective.

My friend Anne provided the vocals. The song is from the book, and serves as an outline for the plot. She sang it for me twice, once to All the Pretty Little Horses and once to Fear a Bhata. My son liked the first half of one and the second half of the other, so I cut them together for him, but he did all the editing. (I consulted occasionally, when he needed help figuring out how to do something, or find a particular clip.)

Today I polished up the chapter I wrote last week, and made up the hours I was short at work. Didn't really make much progress on the next chapter, but my Beloved is leaving Saturday and it was just better to spend some family time. We went out together to get William's hair cut, then to dinner and shopping for sundries.

Big Boy has joined the Freshman Literary Magazine. Said he was one of three boys in the group and the rest were girls. Also, he ended up being called upon to place posters around the school in higher places, because he was by far the tallest. ("My Tallest!" Honk if you get the reference. :P )

***

Writing. There are about 100 pages left of my first draft that need to be assimilated into the second draft, just from looking at it, I'd say it could probably be cut in half by the time I'm done with it. Then I get to go back and hack and slash at my second and third Kane chapters. I think I can begin to work on queries and such while I'm doing the third draft, because the heavy lifting should be done by then.

I've gotten to the place where my revisions are making things shorter with every pass. I think this is a good thing.

I had a horrible headache and crippling angst on my day off. I made some notes for my chapter, but really couldn't much stand to look at a computer. My Beloved fed me and petted my head and generally did his darnedest to help, but not writing on my day off filled me with angst and FAIL.

I think I'm over it now. Once I realized I just couldn't open my eyes and let go of my preconceived idea of what was supposed to happen, it was better. I mean, it still sucked, but it sucked less once I accepted that I am not always going to be in control of every little thing. *sigh*

***

My littlest Big Guy has a friend over now, and one on the way. They are both going to sleep over. Tomorrow I take them home and we all get to see Jack for teh first time in several weeks (for me) or nearly two months, depending.

I miss my cat.

It's really frustrating that I'm not any closer to getting him back than I was in August. Well, that's not true, but it feels true.

***

I got up with the hubby, who had to take the bigger Big Guy to ROTC orienteering this morning. I worked my four hours in my dressing gown. The hubby brought me my smoothie up, and one of the party guests arrived before I had my shower, but it didn't seem to bother anybody. (This is one plus of having a son with a slight social impairment -- he gets on with other kids with slight social impairments, and they don't seem to think twice about seeing a grown up in a bath robe at noon. LOL)

I made cupcakes, and the hubby watched a bit of Luther with me. He really enjoyed the first episode, but felt the second was full of plot holes. (He was right, but I was hoping he hadn't noticed on account of I like watching something with him.) He will watch the third episode, he says. The entire show is six episodes, but I don't think he'll watch it all with me. :P He's such a perfectionist when it comes to media. Everything, really, except for me. He's apparently convinced himself that I'm perfect. (I do not mean to sound like I'm complaining, mind. It's just... odd.)

I know that my shampoo is in Seattle and my son's music stand and violin book are in Texas, because i have the tracking numbers.You probably shouldn't ask why my shampoo is being shipped from Canada. Just FYI.

***

My hours are still short for the week, but I'm actually getting a feel for this quality control thing. I suspect that I'm uniquely suited to the work by temperament and inclination. However, this X hours in the morning, X hours in the afternoon, X hours in the evening, plus X hours on teh weekend thing? Getting really old. Gives the impression that I'm always at work, or about to work. Or thinking about work.

But I think that will be better when I start just coming in on two days a week. It will remove the hour and half to two hour commute (45 min on a good day, one way). Though it has been nice to hear my radio plays and things on the trip, especially these last few days with the weather cool enough that I don't have to change and roll down the windows for the drive home.

Fun Boss was in today, and she will be coming back every so often and after her Current Project is over. She's training people for Inquiry, because the Inquiry department is empty and swamped.

***

So, this one Amazon Marketplace store refuses to give us a refund or replacement for something they sold us that we never got. It was just a thumb drive, but it's annoying. It's in arbitration with Amazon now. *sigh* I gave my thumb drive to the Big Boy because he needed one for school, and I needed one back up my writing. I also use Dropbox, but I'm old and I like to have something tangible to point at and say, "My work is there." Just give my thumb drive I paid for or give me my money back. Is that so hard?

***

The automated attendance at Big Boy's school has sent us two attendance alerts today. One said he'd missed seven days and one said he missed ten. He registered three days in, because they wouldn't see us before school started, but he has been there every day since then. The hubby will take care of it, but Oi.

My vehicle blew a hose on the trip, before we had even made it out of Louisiana. Seriously, the border with Mississippi is less than an hour away from New Orleans, and it broke down before I got there. Popped hose, lost water, overheated. BUT I pulled over right away so no major damage was done.( Cut for the disinterested. May include details of the move, plans for the weekend and my putting-the-kids-in-new-schools angst. )

In other news, my friend Andrina had convinced me to join youwriteon.com and enter an opening chapters contest, so I I did. Your piece has to have 8 reviews to qualify for the contest. You earn reviews by reviewing other people's stuff. I've done six or seven so far, and gotten two reviews in return. (So far they are quite positive.) It's a spot of work, and I'm somewhat pressed for time at the moment, but I'm going to get 8 reviews by the end of the month if it kills me.

So, if anybody would like to read the first two chapters of my second draft, you can find them here:

http://www.youwriteon.com/books/samplechapters.aspx?bookguid=e9d5c639-1dd3-40b8-ac67-b77b426011de

The site makes you register, but it is free. If the direct link doesn't work, you can find it by a title search for "Form and Void." If you see fit to review it, I would appreciate it a lot. :)

My Thing on Friday was taking a walk with the whole family down Magazine street. We stopped off in the Radio Shack to ogle electronics. The weather is still quite pleasant. Either I have acclimated to New Orleans, or we are really having a mild spring. Can't tell yet.

Either way, it was lurvely.

***

Last night, I watched Repo! The Genetic Opera with the hubby. As lame as it is, that was my Thing for the 21st. It was something I'd meaning to do since Pearce wrote about it on GC ages ago. It was strange and stunning, and actually a bit wonderful, in the way that strange and stunning things often are.

***

Today, I took the Big Boy to a House Elf meeting, just to see if he wants to volunteer at the Hogwarts summer camp. He still hasn't decided, but hopefully he will soon. Also, Wee Boy wants to attend as a camper, now. I hope we can scrape up the money for it. Last year on the opening day, they actually had fire eaters in Diagon Alley. All the performers were volunteers. And the church (First United Universalist Church of New Orleans) is this big stone thing with a courtyard and vaulted ceilings and such. SO BELIEVABLE as Hogwarts. They only have three houses, and those are made-up. Because the first year (years ago) everyone wanted to be Gryffindor or Slytherin -- and the Slytherin kids got a bit method in their commitment to the role, if you take my meaning. *chuckle*

Yesterday, I fed a week-old kitten. Abandoned by its mother and eventually coming into the care of my friend Meredith, this kitten was incredibly tiny. Meredith is the lady who gave us the caterpillars, so as soon as she was settled in with the kitty, she suggested I bring the fellas over for a look at her "newest science experiment."

( Large pictures of a tiny cat under the cut. )

So cute!

Today, I finally posted my interview with "James S.A. Corey" (the writing team of Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck), which I had been attempting to transcribe for-freaking-ever. (I really suck at transcription, and I kept having to stop because it gave me migraines. :P )

In any case, the interview itself was tremendous fun. You can read it yourself at GeekaChicas - Leviathan Wakes: A Chat with the Authors.

It was fun to see how they work together, and how easily they could razz each other. Daniel Abraham's entire body of work has landed right in my To Be Read list. He was very charming, and his list of favorite authors made me very happy. His rants about Urban Fantasy and "weaponized" female characters also had me thinking. His take on the phenomenon I used to call The Buffy Effect helped me clarify my thinking about it.

It also put my protagonist in perspective, too. Lethe is a reaction to the whole "female power through violence" thing, but in a different way. I'm anxious to get back to her.

I have been doing stuff, and not really feeling up to posting.

One of the things I have been doing is transcribing a mondo interview with Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck, who write as James S. A. Corey. The first book of their new trilogy, LeviathanWakes, is coming out this month from Orbit.

I interviewed them, like, months ago. I had intended to record it via Skype, but they didn't want to be on video. So I recorded the audio and had to transcribe it. I suck at transcription. That is part of why I didn't post for a few days. I was a) transcribing and b)trying to sleep off transcription-induced migraines. :P

So, finishing the transcription of the interview is Thing Eleven. WOOT!

***

Thing Ten was a lovely trip to the Hong Kong Market. It is an Asian grocery and collection of Asian food places that bought out the old Wall-Mart building on the West Bank. If you live in New Orleans, the West Bank is like Siberia -- stray too far and you might end up eating your dogs. But really, my oldest's orthodontist is over there. He had an appointment, so we packed everyone up with the intention of going to the Asian market after the appointment.

( Pictures and such below the cut )

Thing Nine wasn't really anything. I was proud of myself for going to gym and for opening up the file to start the transcription, but I ended up with a headache with nausea (which narniadear informs me is a migraine -- I had thought I'd had migraines before, when I was on the pill. Horrible light sensitivity and sort of ripples in my vision, couldn't do anything but lie there and twitch. Those went away when I gave up hormonal birth control for good, but I guess all migraines are not created equal.)

In any case, just getting to spend a little quiet time with my family was so delicious after all that. I couldn't do my bedtime reading with the boys (we're reading LOTR), but the hubby read. I got to sit in the dark and listen, and it was very good. :)

Forward motion on teh re-write has begun again. I've almost worked my way over the sticking place. The work is much stronger than it was, and I am pleased.

***

The hubby has a line on a permanent job that could have been written for him. The company contacted him, which is always a good sign. It would be local, too, unlike some of the contract work he's been getting.

This is very exciting for us - no relocation! If you're the praying type, please do. If you aren't, good vibes would be appreciated.

***

So, I went across the river and picked up some friends of the boys yesterday, and we went to the Cool Zoo, which is a water park type of place at the Zoo. Then we walked around the Zoo, came back here and they played video games. Fun was had by all. The back seat was full of tween and teen boys talking in fake British accents and generally being awesome. They were very polite and flattering, though. My vehicle was awash in glottal stops and blarney. :P

However, one of teh boys left his swimsuit here. They are leaving tomorrow morning for a camp, so I need to take it to him. It's maybe six or seven miles away, but it feels like a great inconvenience to do this. Weird. Ron used to have to drive that far to work in Atlanta, and it felt like *nothing.* It might be the fact that it's across the river. People treat the west bank like it's a huge deal to go there, and I begin to see why.

I can walk most anywhere I want to go from here. Eight miles is like trekking to Mongolia.

I have become a city dweller. O_O