anghara

We had a great Christmas morning. I got me one of these, which delighted me muchly - and I also got a little GPS unit, which will delight me even more muchly once I can get it going in the car (which, itself, is still going nowhere, because... well... wait until the "other news"...) We both got remembrances from the redwood trip - as in, both of us had stocking stuffers of nice redwood-veneer pens made from old redwood burls, and a tapestry throw of the redwoods to go on the armchair in the living room.

A friend sent me a T-shirt that says "Will write for chocolate". Heh.

The cats got a "self-warming" bed in fake leopard print, which has a layer build in which reflects body heat and will make for nice cozy snoozing when the temperatures go down. The inner layer rustles, though, and they're both a little... wary of this, just yet. they also got their traditional catnip christmas toys and were having a wonderful time with those chasing them in and out of the debris of the wrapping paper. They are both asleep currently. Too much fun and games.

In the other news - we're melting, with serious drips occurring everywhere and the snow turning from the fluffy dry powdery stuff into heavy wet slushy stuff which is still covering our driveway and much of the road. We're hoping for a couple of days of above-freezing temps to get all that mush out of our way. And perhaps once it does we can actually GO somewhere, ourselves, for a change instead of wimping out and having our very kind neighbours with the snow tyres who have been making occasional runs to the grocery store and the mail rotunda. But so far it's been drip.... drip... drip - although to be fair it still WAS a white CHristmas, just like in the songs. It's currently RAINING. Making a bigger mess of everything before it gets better.

Well. Hope your day was good. Merry Christmas, everyone.

If you're following this blog, you might gather I've just finished wrapping lots of Christmas presents.

A LOT of them are books.

Go thou and do likewise. Buy books for the holidays. Give the gift that keeps giving.

If you want signed bookplates to go with any of mine that you might purchase, the lines for plates-in-time-for-Christmas are open for requests until December 15 - mailing anything after that and expecting it to get places gets awfully under the wire-ish after that date.

Of course, feel free to request signed bookplates IN GENERAL. Just be aware - if you want one for Christmas, ask before the 15th.

Comments screened in case anyone wishes to leave contact info there - alternatively just email me directly at anghara at vaxer dot net.

Don't look now, but Santa's left the pole...



And it's going to be a year until you hear any of the season's songs again. So, before you leave them behind, here's my very favourite carol to usher in Christmas Day:



Have a good one, everyone.

1. Bring in UPS box from outside and place on the floor.

2. Watch with amusement while cats A and B immediately gather around the box and poke noses into same.

3. Gather up accoutrements necessary for wrapping present.

4. Remove cat A from top of box.

5. Cut piece of wrapping paper, trying to avoid stabbing cat's nose or slicing off whiskers.

6. Place piece of paper flat on the floor.

7. Remove cat A from top of box.

8. Remove cat B from the middle of wrapping paper.

9. Remove cat A from on top of the box.

10. Place box in middle of wrapping paper.

11. Persuade cat B that I don't need assistance in paper folding.

12. Remove Cat A's head from the tape dispenser in order to avoid glueing whiskers to package.

13. Remove cat B from the far side of the box where he is still trying to help me fold wrapping paper.

14. Due to optical illusions given by position of cat A on box, wrapping paper is too small for purpose. Cut additional piece of wrapping paper to complete job, repeating steps 5 - 13.

13. Place wrapped package under tree.

14. Watch in amused resignation as Cat A takes up position on top of wrapped package.

Merry Christmas to all...

...so I sigh and pick up something from dduane, and ( here goes... )

Feel free to join in the game, whoever feels like it...

...the edits of book 2 of "Worldweavers", that is. Now I need to go through it again and figure out if I unravelled anything important when I pulled a few plot threads here and there according to editorial tweak fiat. This has to be done this week, because I have tend ays to get this draft into my editor's hands before she absonds for the silly season - sure, she'll be back in early January but I'd rather she had this from me THIS year. If she does, and she likes what I've done with it, the sooner she has it and the sooner she reads it and the sooner she makes that decision, well, the sooner my on-acceptance half of the advance gets paid. Won't happen before Christmas, but early in the new year would be just GREAT.

Then I have to gather up a bunch of reviews I've written and not sent in to SFSIte and mail those in before the end of the year.

Then I have another pow wow with my lovely agent about The New Sekrit Project tomorrow (I swear, I'll babble about that as soon as I am able).

Basically I don't think I'll hear from anyone again concerning anything writerly before 2007 after this MS goes into the editor's hands, so here's a bit of recap of the writerly 2006:

Books:

"The Secrets of Jin Shei" saw daylight in Spanish, Catalan, Portuguese, Lithuanian and Czech. The Italians brought out a paperback edition. German edition is supposedly due out this year too but I haven't heard anything more about that recently, so it's a waiting game. The Spanish edition went into its second printing three months after its first release in hardcover, which is fantaastic. This leaves the Turkish edition to come out next year, hopefully, of the "old" contracts; new contracts signed for this book include those for the Brazilian and the Israeli editions, pub date to be announced.

"The Embers of Heaven" came out in Australia and New Zealand roughly about this time last year, and in paperback in the UK in September. The Dutch edition of "Embers" emerged in November. Further contracts signed include Portuguese, Spanish and Lithuanian editions. It's catching up to its predecessor, in terms of languages; however, US publication remains dangling.

The "Changer of Days" books remain in circulation and are getting me quite a few fanmails.A German edition has been sold, but not, as far as I know, given a place in the publishing calendar as yet.

The Worldweavers Trilogy is a work in progress. Book 1, "Gift of the Unmage", hits the US bookstores in February or early March 2007. Book 2 is likely to go into full editorial mode in the first quarter of 2007, and as far as I know is slated for release in the spring of 2008. FOr the duration of 2007, I shall be writing book 3, the trilogy's conclusion, which is due to be submitted by September of next year and presumably meant for a spring 2009 slot. Book 2 was incredibly fun to write; book 3 is going to be a smorgasbord of all kinds of fantasy goodness, and I am actually rather looking forward to writing that. Teh trilogy has already been sold to one foreign market, Poland

Short Stories:

Submissions: five (which is five more than last year)
Acceptances: one

But then I am not a natural short story writer. These are definitely a sideline for me at the moment...

So.

I have a few more writerly and editorial chores to accomplish before the end of next week, and then I'll kick off my shoes and pour out the eggong and concentrate on enjoying Christmas before January begins a brand new working year.

I remain astonished and delighted at my life.

To my fellow writers on this forum, I wish the promise of sparkling success twinkling under your Christmas tree. To those who read rather than write, my thanks for making what I do possible, and may there always be enough in ALL our wallets for bread and for books without either of which humankind is diminished. And to everybody - in the words of the Immortal Dickens - may God bless us, every one.

Have fun with the Advent Calendar - you can't cheat and peek ahead, though!