Release Dates and Book Covers and Readings, Oh My!

*Don't forget to come to the Banned Books Week event posted on the right side of my blog TONIGHT if you live in the Chicagoland area!!!*

I would like to start by writing that my ass is fully asleep.  I've been sitting on my bed for an hour, my laptop perched on my Boppy, and my ass has gone numb.  Just another hint that I need to be exercising my ass.  Buns of steel, here I come.

I know I owe you guys a blog post that is to be the opposite of my Celebrity Dissings post from last week, but I have to think of the people I want to write about.  Next week, I'll be out of town, so either I'll get some steam (and ass) to write it this week, or you'll have to wait two weeks.  So far, I'm thinking my list will include Eddie Vedder and Joss Whedon.  I may not have a whole lot to say, though.  I kind of wished I didn't promise that.

In other promising news, I received a comment from someone named Robyn (could it be the Swedish pop singer?  You know, I once had an email pal named Adrian Grenier, but it wasn't that Adrian Grenier.  Weird.) asking why the release date of GET WELL SOON II: ANNA BUSTS LOOSE [I love making up titles for that book] won't be out until 2012.  I don't quite know every detail of why it takes books so long to come out, and maybe my commenters can chime in, but part of it has to do with the long process of getting it revised.  I revise it [what's the difference between revising and editing, btw?  I'm using them interchangeably for now] until it's ready for my editor to see, then she reads it, marks it up, sends it back, and we go back and forth like that for a bit.  Then it has to be copy-edited and designed and laid-out all prettily, a cover has to be designed, and it has to be printed.  There are also other factors.  Books are put onto lists, which are like seasons, and these lists are carefully planned by publishers to be balanced.  They wouldn't want two books about the same topic or by the same author to be on the same list because that would mean competing with their own books.  So sometimes completely finished books still have to wait.  I think that explains it.  I have a book, DON'T STOP NOW, coming out on May 10, 2011 (ARCs available sooooooooooon!!!!), so it would be logical from a sales perspective to not have a second hardcover come out in the same year.  I think.  Plus, I will not be nearly done with the SEQUEL for a while.  I still have to type up the 397 pages!  Which I am putting off by blogging right now.

Lastly, I'm hoping to have a DON'T STOP NOW cover to show you soon.  Actually, who knows.  I'm just saying that.  The cover comes when it is ready, and I don't want it to be rushed.  Rich Deas, the gifted designer, always makes me happy, so I'll wait.  And wait.  This is a business of waiting, people. And one day you check your email, and there it is.  The message that says you're going to have a book published or a TV show made or a brand new cover to your book.  It's worth it, but it sure makes it hard not to check your email 50,000 times a day.

I was Banned and Stuff!

I did not post yesterday because I was too busy going to appointments, all of which were useful but completely time-consuming.  I may be making some major life decisions soon, but I suppose every decision we make is major in some minor way.  How not profound.

Anyway, first a reminder that I will be speaking along with Adam Selzer at The Book Cellar tomorrow night in Chicago about having our books challenged/banned.  Info is on the right side of the screen.  I hope it is an awesome event and not one where we know everyone already and they humor us by pretending they want to hear what we have to say and then buy one book for that friend whose birthday is coming up.  I sound bitter for some reason.  I'm not feeling bitter.  A little annoyed, maybe.  I just finished writing my BBW guest blog for Quimby's, an amazing store in Chicago's Bucktown (where I used to live) that sells self-published zines (how I met my husband), along with great indie comics and other maybe not indie but definitely awesome items.  If you are ever in Chicago, you should visit for sure.  The point was that I blogged for them about being a challenged/banned author (because I am both!  Yowza! [That was for you, Brian]), which is a super cool thing, obviously, to be recognized in such a rebellious sort of fashion, but also obnoxious that there are people out there who want to take away children's freedoms.  Hopefully, when the Quimby's post is up and I link you to it, you'll read it.  But I wanted to include this email I received from a parent- a FATHER (since everyone always assumes it was a mother who wrote it)- about GET WELL SOON.  I read it at every school visit I make and every year during Banned Books Week at work, and it never fails to make me laugh while pissing me off.  Here goes:

Dear Ms. Halpern,

My daughter aged 15 was reading your book. She is quite a reader and reads all of the time. From time to time she will set down her current book and I will usually check out what she is reading. The other day I picked up a yellow covered book entitled “Get Well Soon”. I started reading the first page and could not believe my eyes when I saw the “f” word there. I started paging through the book and could not believe the curse words strung throughout. I looked at the cover and saw that it is labeled for youth. To be honest with you, I cannot understand how a book for youth and teens can be riddled with so much profanity. I am not going to attack you or assassinate your character but I will say that, in my mind, it is totally inappropriate and lacking proper judgment to write a book like this and label it for youth. It makes “The Godfather” look tame for crying out loud. Anyway, I just wanted to let you know how I feel about your book.

Signed, Bad parent [not actual signature]

[I am repeating my conclusion from my Quimby's post, but I figure some of you won't read that and most of the Quimby's people won't read this.]

I think this letter speaks volumes about the way a book challenger’s mind works.  Try talking to your kids.  Because then you’ll realize that their reading books with swears and sex does not make them bad people.  It makes them readers. 

Who am I?

Such a profound blog subject!  Oy!  But seriously folks... is this thing on?  I'm in a weird mood apparently.  Perhaps it's because I SLEPT last night.  Which is, of course, hilarious in many ways, since I finally made an appointment with the dang sleep doctor for tomorrow.  I may have to call and cancel.  If I sleep tonight.  The suck of it, if what someone told me was correct, is that my sleep time has to be before 10:00 in order to sleep the entire night because I trained my body (while I was working in a school) to go to sleep that early in order to get sufficient sleep for my early morning work day.  But now that I'm trying to stay up, and not even an hour later, the difference in bedtime has me PASSING my sleep moment, and, therefore, prevents me from sleeping through the night.  Is that true?  I'll never be able to watch a movie in one sitting again!

Enough sleep talk.  It's making me hungry.  Speaking of hungry, yesterday I went to the 7th Annual Young Adult Literature Conference at Anderson's Bookshop.  Actually, it was at a funky hotel that served my favorite, expensive brand of tea.  I totally should have taken some teabags home with me.  What was I thinking?  Anywho, I was hungry because the lunch for vegetarians was the "Caesar" salad, sans chicken.  Which meant lettuce.  And then there was bland bread and a plate of cookies, which worked GREAT with my whole high glucose thing.  But aside from the food, the event was excellent.  Was I speaking there as an author?  No.  I paid my $99 and went as a librarian.  But, am I really a librarian?  If I'm not working as one for a year?  I am so confused.  Because listening to a bunch of writers talk all day (and it was a great list of writers, as you can see here from my cut and paste from the Anderson's website: David Levithan, John Green, Blue Balliette, Charles Benoit, Kenneth Oppel, Dana Reinhardt and Pam Munoz Ryan. Also meet authors Alexandra Adornetto, Andrea Cremer, Simone Elkeles, Claudia Gray, Stephanie Hemphill, Antony John, Sophie Jordan, Stacey Kade, Kody Keplinger, Jim Klise, Kirsten Miller and Kiersten White), where I nodded my head frequently as I related to things they said about publishing and the writing process, etc. (God, I hope I didn't look like one of those weirdos who nods at everything a speaker says.  According to me, I did.)  It got me thinking: could I do this for a living?  OK, the event did not get me thinking about that.  I have been thinking about it constantly since the school year started and I have no school connection.  I'm all about the Ferris Bueller philosophy: Life moves pretty fast.  If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.  Life, of course, being my daughter, Romy.  Sigh.  Such choices I will have to make over the next year.  Good ones, for sure, but tough ones.  I do love my school and being a librarian, but it sure gets in the way of being a mom.  Sigh again.  And when would I wear all my work clothes?  Decisions, decisions.

This is the End

Huzzah!  I finished draft number one of GET WELL SOON II!  It weighs in at 397 handwritten pages.  Of course, I still have a few scenes I have to go back and add.  Sequels are tough.  There's a lot of recall and rereading involved.  For me, it went (and continues to go) like this:
1.  Reread GET WELL SOON to get into Anna's voice again.  Take really bad, not very helpful notes that I think are going to give me enough info to write the sequel.
2.  Write the sequel, all the while jotting down seventy million questions I will have to go back and answer once I'm finished.
3.  Reread GET WELL SOON again, this time taking copious notes, using highlighters, and inserting Post-it notes throughout.
4.  Type up the manuscript.  We're looking at probably the next two months on that.
5.  Now I have the text to search in order to locate all my screw-ups in continuity.
6.  Pray that everyone who read the first book forgets things if I slip up and change things on them.

So that's a sequel.  I wouldn't recommend it necessarily.  I mean writing one.  Not reading one.  Please read it!  When it comes out in 2012. 

I shall now leave you with two brilliant Sesame Street pieces.  The first being that Sesame Street is pulling the skanky Katy Perry footage they filmed.  I, for one, am happy about this.  First, because our young boys and girls will see enough objectifying images of women in their tiny lives.  They don't need that on Sesame Street.  Second, Katy Perry is a toolbag for thinking this was OK to wear in front of children and puppets.  Grow the eff up.  The only reason most people even listen to her music is because she's half to fully naked in all her videos.  Am I right?  Ooh.  I sound mean.  But she crossed the line with my Muppets.

The second is this (naturally) brilliant play on True Blood.  Even the opening credits!!!

Celebrity Dissings

In my barely-used Moleskein notebook, I have listed that I should blog about the celebrity interactions I've had.  Well, once again I didn't sleep for crap last night.  I guess I'll try the Lunesta again, but it wasn't very effective the first go around.  It is so boring being awake at night.  I am not the type to get up and do productive things when I can't sleep.  The fear is that I'll never fall back asleep.  Ever again.  Which I may not.  Anyway, because of the lack of sleep and my annoying glucose level not allowing me to eat candy and cookies as often as I'd like, this is going to be a crotchety post.  Therefore, the celebrity interactions of which I speak are my BAD ones.  There are heaps of good ones, but these are the ones that have disappointed me.

The actuality of this blog post is that the disappointments are the celebrities who never got back to my adoring fan letters or canceled last minute at a Comic-Con appearances, so I never even got to meet them.  The celebrities I've met in person have pretty much met or exceeded my expectations (at least those I pursued. Random celebrity sightings don't warrant disappointment).  I'll blog about those happier times another day.  For now, here are three sad tales of celebrities dissing my ass.

1.  Rupert Grint.  What's the deal, Rupe?  I totally wrote about you adoringly in my novel (INTO THE WILD NERD YONDER), enough that one of your mega fan websites interviewed me.  I wrote you a fan letter and sent you my books at your dad, Nigel Grint's, address.  I even included a self-addressed stamp envelope with a British stamp on it, courtesy of my friend's mom in England!  What the eff?  I'm sure you're busy, but filming for the Potter films is over.  Plus, how busy could you have been while you were filming Potter?  I'm sure you had like eighty hours a day to just pick your butt while they changed scenes and stuff.  I feel seriously dissed by the Grintster.  Sigh.

2.  Felicia Day and Wil Wheaton.  Per suggestion of a friend, I decided to send NERD to this professionally nerdy duo, since I thought, being gamers and all, they might be interested in a book by a gamer and somewhat about gamers.  I think I sent these out in the spring.  Well, it's fall, people, and I never heard back from them.  I don't know what I expected.  Probably that they would be so excited that they'd send me a free plane ticket to L.A. and write me a guest role on The Guild.  But I would have settled for a nice, short email acknowledging my existence.  Where is the love?

3.  Noah Hathaway.  If you don't know (and you really should), Noah is the boy who played Atreyu in "The Neverending Story."  Granted, he's not a boy anymore, according to his online tattooed presence.  But whatever.  As you may or may not know, I am a regular attendee of comic fests of all sorts, and several years ago Noah was slated to appear at the Chicago Comic-Con.  I was severely giddy (and completely freaking my husband out) about meeting him.  I saw TNS three times in the theater as a kid and have the dang movie memorized twelve times over.  We get to the Con and are walking around, biding our time before Noah's autograph hour, when an announcement over the wonky loud speaker informed us that Noah Hathaway canceled his appearance.  Did anyone else there care?  Who knows?  Was I traumatized for life?  Perhaps.  It takes so little.

Anybody else out there have some disappointing, unrequited star moments?  Lay 'em on me.

Yul Log

First off, how could no one comment on those hideous shoes?  Did I offend?

Second off (?), I am feeling pretty sad about the upcoming completion of my first draft of GET WELL SOON: THE SEQUEL (not the real title.  Will there ever be a real title?  I have about twenty so far.).  So sad, in fact, that I keep putting off writing.  I thought maybe it was because I was being tired and lazy, but that's rarely the case (the lazy part.  I am almost always tired, no thanks to the failure of my Lunesta after only two nights of taking it).  I think it has more to do with the fact that I love these characters so much that I don't want to leave them.  Is that weird, considering Anna, the main character, is essentially me?  She's not as much me as she was in GET WELL SOON: THE ORIGINAL RECIPE (also not real title), but she still has a lot of me in her.  And the friends I made up for her are awesome.  So funny and odd.  Did I already tell you I'm on my SEVENTH notebook?!  By the time I'm finished, I should have about 400 handwritten pages.  Which makes the panic set in when I think about typing those bastards up.  For now, though, I am in pre-completion mourning for the characters.  Of course, I will see them again and again as I type, then revise, then revise again, but it's not the same.  Their story will soon be written.  So shall it be done.  If only Yul Brenner were sitting next to me, saying that in my ear.  In his Ten Commandment days.  Not as a corpse.  That was gross.  Sorry.

Hideous Newspaper Shoes

As promised, below is a ghastly pair of shoes, sold in the Sunday coupon section of the newspaper.  I don't care how old you are or how much your feet hurt, YOU DO NOT NEED THESE.

How awesome is the word ghastly?

I did not work on the novel this morning because I was on my third morning of Lunesta, and I couldn't get out of bed.  Tonight I am going to go it without the drugs and see if I'm back up.  I may work during Romy's naptime, which is a hit or miss work time for me.  Sometimes I just want to watch that guy eat way too much food on Man vs. Food.  Why does that show always make me hungry?

Tomorrow is Yom Kippur, and my mother in law (are there hyphens in that?) will be in town through Monday, so blogging may be sparse (which it usually is on the weekends anyway).  I have a short list of things I'd like to blog about, such as using quotations in books and celebrities who have and have not disappointed me.  Be on the lookout for those.  Have a great weekend!

It's a Rainy Day

As the post title suggests, it is raining outside.  Thus, when I get Romy out of bed, I will sing her this:



Amazing how a song can stick in my head for thirty years.

I am so almost done with the first draft of the GET WELL SOON sequel!  I wrote the biggest scene yesterday, and I was sort of crying.  I mapped it out, and I have three book days left.  Holy crap!  Home stretch!  I am thrilled and sad and terrified of the crappy next step-- the typing!  But after that, wow, that's like the book is almost complete.  Now to think of a title...

Schooly J

I was going to blog about another pair of hideous newspaper shoes (hold tight for that masterpiece), but the picture of the shoes is upstairs and you know what that means.  Instead, I'm here on my blogging chair, ready to tell you about my two recent school visits.  These were not author school visits in the sense that I went as an author and spoke as an author and people applauded and bought my books.  These were school visits for research for the GET WELL SOON sequel, to lend authenticity to a couple of things so that I don't look like a moron.  The first visit was to my Alma mater, Buffalo Grove High School.  I went to check out their photography studio, which I assumed changed since I graduated eighteen years ago.  I was happy to see that they still had a darkroom, although not the darkroom that I used.  Sadly, that was torn down to make more space for other stuff, so there was a newer, fancier darkroom for the students.  It made me feel less nostalgic (not that I am ever nostalgic for my high school days, just that I loved the darkroom and the comforting, um, darkness it provided) with a different darkroom, but glad that kids still had the option of old school picture developing.  It also meant that I could keep some darkroom scenes I have already written in the sequel.  The students I spoke with, AP Photo students (damn, I wish they had that when I was in high school!) were incredibly helpful, showing me the digital equipment they had to work with and explaining how they use both film and digital for different projects.

While at my old high school, I decided to stop by my old English teacher's room to say hello and show her I had made something of myself in the English realm (that sounds like I am some British royalty.  I am not.).  I knew she would still be there because she was only in her early twenties when she taught me.  Plus, I found her name online.  She was super excited to see me, and I met her husband (maybe he works there?) and gave her my books.  I hope she gets in touch with me after she reads them.  I'd feel like Lamey Lamerson if she didn't.

The other school I visited was Fremd High School, the same one where I read the hilarious Krispy Kreme scene from INTO THE WILD NERD YONDER in front of 500 students.  There I met with an English teacher to discuss CATCHER IN THE RYE.  This is a novel that I read in high school immediately after leaving a mental hospital, and I was curious to hear his interpretation of the book as well as how students of today discuss it.  I sat in on an English class and took copious notes.  The teacher was incredibly nice and made me feel at ease with all of my inane questions.  He will for sure get a mention in the acks.

So those were my research visits.  I thought I would have more time to blather on (I have blathered enough!), but Romy is up from her nap an hour early.  Shazam!  I must go!  Back!  Back!   Back to school again....

501 Blues

Ha!  I am so clever with my blog title.  Because this is my 501st blog post, and I kind of have the blues.  Not really, but I have not had a decent night's sleep in over a month.  Maybe.  I am so tired, I can't remember the last time I slept through the night.  Therefore, I am just not myself.  Which is annoying.  I guess it's time to go to the doctor and get some sleeping pills or something.  I know it's time because I'm dreaming about going to the doctor and getting sleeping pills.  I am also dreaming about the insane cost of prescription drugs now that I don't have prescription drug coverage.  Thank you, money-grubbing pharmaceutical companies!

Wow this is an incoherent post.

How about I announce the winner of my contest from last week (which I was supposed to announce on Friday, but I was too out of it to do so):

Congratulations to A FAN!  Um, hopefully there is not more than one of you who uses that name, since you don't have a link or anything for me to differentiate you from another A FAN.  If you are indeed A FAN please email me with your contact info and which book you would like autographed and to whom at julie@juliehalpern.com

I promise a more interesting blog post tomorrow.  I have a whole list of things I'd like to blog about.  If I can only remember where I put it.

500!!!!!!!!!!!!

L'Shana Tova to the MOT, and a happy 500th Blog Post to me!  To celebrate, remember my contest to win an autographed copy of any of the Halpern/Cordell books!  All you have to do is comment on one of this week's posts.  I'll choose the winner tomorrow night!

I'll make you wait until the end of this post to see the brand spankin' new paperback cover for INTO THE WILD NERD YONDER (out in April).  Of course, you could scroll down, but then you'd miss my final list of blog greatness from the past.

POST TEN: The epitome of my obsessive Harry Potter posts.

POST ELEVEN: A very Julie story about talking to a worker at Fuddrucker’s.

POST TWELVE: A post filled with videos of songs to which I have the words wrong, including commercials for Monchichi and Crispy Critters Cereal.

POST THIRTEEN: A very short, very funny, random post.

POST FOURTEEN: The first, and best, of my Awesome Book Covers series.  It involves some clever cutting and a mullet.

And now, presenting the new paperback cover of INTO THE WILD NERD YONDER:

Super cute, right?  I'm really happy with it.  Very different from the hardcover, which I absolutely LOVED, but it's exciting to get TWO covers for my book!  I wonder if there will be a third cover if NERD becomes a TV show.  Hmmm....

Thank you to everyone for reading my blog and celebrating with me!  Here's to 500 more posts and even more readers!

499!

Tomorrow's the big day: my 500th blog post!  Please read here if you'd like to enter the contest for a fabulous autographed prize!

I wonder if the reason I'm focusing so much on my 500th post (besides the fact that it's quite an achievement.  I think back to all those people who told me I'd never make it to 500 posts-- just kidding.  Nobody really said that.  Most people don't even realize I have a blog) is because I missed the moment when my 1998 Honda Civic rolled over the 100,000 mile mark.  It was tragic.  I noted that I would probably hit 100,000 before I left work, but then I got caught up in some audiobook or clicking to the next song on Shuffle that I missed it.  And then, number loser that I am, I totally also missed when my car hit 111,111!  Fool!  Anyway, I'm not letting this momentous numerical occasion pass me by.  Celebrate with me, won't you?

Below are today's retro posts.  Click on the post number for the actual post.  Remember, if you comment on any post this week, you will be entered into my contest!  And tomorrow, along with being my 500th post, I will also reveal the new paperback cover for INTO THE WILD NERD YONDER!  Now read:

POST FIVE: A lengthy San Diego Comic-Con round-up where I emote about meeting Joss Whedon.

POST SIX: A very Julie post about pandas and video games.

POST SEVEN: A very Julie post about narwhals.  This one makes me laugh out loud.  And yes, I spelled narwhals wrong in the title.  See how charming my blog was in the early days?

POST EIGHT: My first in a string of celebrity look-alikes posts.

POST NINE: My second in my celebrity look-alikes posts.  This one had me crying.

Countdown to 500!!!

Ladies and Germs, this is post 498!  To begin my countdown to 500, I have a few things for you.  To start, leading up to #500 I'm going to highlight past posts that I think exemplify me as a blogger.  That doesn't mean they are well-written or profound, but they are ones I remember writing and ones that still, for the most part, make me laugh.

But before I post the links to my PAST, here is a contest of the FUTURE!  Anyone who posts comments OR links my 500th post to their blog (you have to either comment to let me know that you do that, or email me at julie@juliehalpern.com) about my blog retrospective this week will automatically be entered to win ANY of the books you see on this bookshelf (autographed, of course):

That means not only my books, but those written and/or illustrated by my gifted husband, Matthew Cordell.  One comment per post will be entered into the contest, and I will even count comments from yesterday's post.  Sorry, but I can only ship within the US.  The winner will be announced on Friday, my 501st post!

On Thursday, Rosh Hashanah, and the proposed date of my 500th Blog Post, I will also reveal the brand new paperback cover for INTO THE WILD NERD YONDER!  Could this week get more fabu?

Now for the retro posts.  Click on the number to get to the post:

POST ONE: The full story of how I made my appearance on Antiques Roadshow.  Very early in my blogging career.  Possibly pre-spellcheck.  I mean, not before it existed, but before I remembered to use it.

POST TWO:  Nothing special, but a classic Julie posting.  I think the first few lines are brilliant, if I do say so myself.  I laughed out loud.


POST THREE: A warm and fuzzy story about a field trip with my middle school students to downtown Chicago.  Still a really great day.

POST FOUR: Read one of the nicest things a student has ever said about my library. [with an annoying typo]

I hope you enjoy!  More tomorrow!

Grungy Mags

Since it is Labor Day, and I'm assuming very few of you are reading the blogs today, I'll make this short.  Not that I have much choice.  Something horrific has happened to my already terribly spotty sleep abilities, so I am altogether grumpy, useless, and hungry (which I seem to get when I am tired).  Below you will find a photograph of a collection of magazines I found in my mom's basement.  It's Grunge Era to the EXTREME.  If anyone is a huge Nirvana fan and would like this collection, comment below or email me.  The magazines are in nice condition.  Some of the them are perfect, and some are in good condition but with the covers separated from the mags.  I'll send them to you if you send me money for shipping.  I figure someone out there needs a collection of Seattle Sound memorabilia.

Happy day off, and good sleeping to all!

Last Ice Cream Parlor

Sometimes when I'm in the middle of doing something else, I will write the most hilarious blog post in my head. Then, when it's time to actually write a post, I have no idea what to talk about. But I am five posts away from my 500th post, so I better think of something! Here's my weird brain: the town where I live used to have an old-fashioned ice cream parlor, but that closed (and I refuse to visit the nearby Oberweis because the owner, Jim Oberweis, is also an Illinois politicam with very different political views than mine).  Why am I telling you this?  Because the old ice cream shop was called "Wishes, Etc."  Semi-ridiculous name, but it made me think about wishes in general (I am really tired.  This is not making sense.  Go with me).  My mom was talking to me about her will today (not for any particular reason), and I said something about how when I die they better take my ashes and throw them overboard from the Peter Pan ride at Disney World.  I wasn't kidding.  Except that I don't really want to be cremated.  Maybe they could just drop my body overboard.  Do you think anyone would notice?  So, to continue with my morbid, yet sincere, gross, but totally committed plan: do you have any weird last wishes?

Happy 90210!

Today is the holiday we have all been waiting for: 9/02/10.  To celebrate, I will share this delightful scene of Brenda and David dancing (thanks, Joyce, for the hand-off!).  L'chaim!



I also have another funky video clip to share, this one courtesy of the awesome author of THE VINYL PRINCESS, Yvonne Prinz.  She turned a scene from GET WELL SOON into a robotic cartoon production.

stuck Stuck STUCK

It is 7:49 a.m., an hour after I woke up, and I haven't done crap.  It's raining out, and it would be the first day my students are at school if I were going to school this year.  I am so confused.  Of course I'm thrilled to be home with my daughter for a year, but it is completely weird not to go to work.  I am a very driven person, and when the motion stops, I kind of stop.  Not that the motion can stop with a 22 month-old.  When she's around and awake, all is good.  She peed in her little potty last night for the first time.  While holding a picture of The Monkees.  That kind of good.  But when was the last time I didn't go to school after the summer ended?  Um, never, right?  I mean, there was the time pre-school, but I don't remember that.  So this is completely weird.  I'd love to talk to some of my fellow authors who write full time and ask them how they make their days meaningful.  I should be working on the GET WELL SOON sequel right now, since this is my writing time.  But I don't feel like it today.  No worries--as I said, I'm driven, and I don't ever NOT write.  I just don't feel in the mood right now, so if I did write it would just suck.

Anyone out there reading my blog work from home?  How do you not get in a rut?  Because Chicago winter is coming, I can feel it.  That means cold and dark and trapped.  When I look at my daughter, of course I made the right decision.  But now, in the grayness of a rainy morning, I'm scared at what the future of this year may bring.

Maybe it will all be OK if we go out and buy some galoshes...