Once again, not dead - just wilting.

I finished the semester. Let us never speak of it again.

(Actually, let us speak at length and in capslock of how TOTALLY AWESOME AND USEFUL my Business of Writing class was, because that nearly salvaged a terrible semester. But not today.)

It was in the mid-90s today, and the air was so thick with heat it felt like soup. I live in an attic apartment with a struggling AC unit and a built-in loft bed that gets no air circulation. Now, normally, my bed is my favorite place. If I could, I would set up a gift shop for my bed and send my friends confusing "Wish you were here!" postcards from it. Bed is my friend. Bed does not judge me for the Dragon Ball Z t-shirt I still wear as pajamas. (And neither should you, if you know what's good for you. I still have my tenth grade fan fiction, and I will read it to you, and you will not like it.)

Tonight, I miss bed. It's stifling hot up there. I'm currently camped out on the cool tile floor near the dog's bed with a pillow, a notebook, and my laptop, putting my inability to sleep to good use by writing. Three things come to mind:

1. One piece of advice I've heard in just about every writing class is "Learn to write anywhere," but I'm pretty sure those instructors meant writing in planes and cafes and things, not lying on my stomach on the floor with an elderly yorkipoo snoring in my ear.

2. How the hell does Hobbes get this much kibble on the floor? There's a path of dog food debris from his bowl at one end of the apartment clear to the other end of the apartment and sometimes winding into the bathroom or my shoes by the door. It's like those Family Circus cartoons where the dotted line traces the path that little Billy has taken around the house, except with kibble.

3. I need another fan. This thought inevitably leads to Mitch Hedberg's joke about oscillating fans:

I've got an oscillating fan at my house. The fan goes back and forth. It looks like the fan is saying "No". So I like to ask it questions that a fan would say "No" to. "Do you keep my hair in place?... Do you keep my documents in order?... Do you have three settings? ...Liar! My fan fucking lied to me. Now I will pull the pin up. Now you ain't sayin' shit."

If I had an oscillating fan right now, I think I'd ask it, "Will sleeping in front of you help?" We'd both already know the answer.

State of the--criminy I need more caffeine.

The last couple of weeks have been mostly school, work, and semi-disastrous attempts at knitting. I wish I could show you my semi-disaster projects, but my camera is broken.

I mean, it's been broken. I got it in 2003 and it's been broken in one way or another since about 2007, but now it's really broken. This camera has slowly been working its way toward becoming a battery-eating vortex for a while now. It started by burning through two sets of batteries in a week, then it ate three sets of fresh batteries in the half-hour photo shoot I did for my Sylvi coat, and now it's taken the next step and eaten the batteries completely. They're just gone. There were batteries in the camera a few days ago, and now - without the camera having moved from the pile of art supplies it was nestled in - the battery case is empty.

I'm taking this as evidence that my camera has progressed to full-on vortex mode, and it will soon begin engulfing other things, so I should probably get it out of the apartment before it gets the dog.

Unless the Roof Dweller snuck in and took the batteries. There's something living on my roof that creeps around at night, making the ceiling groan in a really unsettling way. Judging by how big it it sounds, the loping rhythm of its footfalls, and the turkey bones it keeps leaving on my deck, it's either a very large raccoon or a disturbed but ambitious neighborhood child. (A friend suggested it might be Spider-Man, but he's way lighter on his feet than that.)

Anyway, I had a point. Coffee, where was my point? Oh yeah. Camera.

I would replace my camera were it not for two very exciting but expensive things going down this week:

1. The vanquishing of the Stink. On Tuesday, Hobbes spent all day at the vet getting a dental cleaning and tooth removal - as well as some fine sedatives, which he loved because my dog is a fuzzy little junkie at heart. When I got him home, he spent 22 hours straight lying in one spot on a blanket in the living room, occasionally giving me "YOU DID THIS TO ME" looks. Now he's back to his old self, minus the Stink. I've held back on saying it because I was afraid the Stink would make a sudden resurgence like the supposedly-dead killer in a slasher flick, but it's been four days, so I think we're safe...

Ladies and gentlemen, the Stink is dead!

My dog's breath smells like dogfood and not like a repository for the stenches of every wild animal that's died in the last month. Which means that I'm no longer living with a creature that belches near-visible fumes as he walks across the room. I can't describe how happy this makes me. Hyperbole doesn't cut it.

2. Kiah and I found a new place to live! We sign the lease tomorrow and move in July. I'll hold off on squeeing too loudly about it until the signatures are dry, but I'll tell you this:

The ideal new apartment we were envisioning included: two bedrooms and a den/sunroom/smaller third bedroom for me to use as an office, a sane and responsible landlord, a decent amount of space for the two of us, nice neighbors, proximity to the bus lines we frequent in a neighborhood not too far from my campus, and a fenced-in yard.

The only thing on that list we didn't get is the fenced-in yard. Everything else exceeded our ideal by quite a bit. And the yard doesn't really matter, because the duplex is right across the street from a park. Right. Across. The street. And that has a truly epic playground, which Kiah and I are excited about, because we're grown-ups.

Further evidence that we're grown-ups: I'm planning on having a small potted veggie garden in the sunroom at our new place. When I pitched this idea to Kiah, she didn't even hesitate before responding, "I will put little dinosaurs in all your potted plants." Cue an excited conversation about how the sunroom will be the perfect place for our plastic dinosaurs because they need to keep warm.

I've got my fingers crossed that this will be an apartment in which we can be grown-ups for a good long while.

And that's what I'm up to.

Good News, Bad News -or- My New Hobby: Threatening the Universe

It's been a tumultuous two weeks. Allow me to break it down for you.

Good news: I spent the first week of February getting a good chunk of writing done.

Bad news: ...while I was at jury duty, not getting selected for a jury, listening from afar as hordes of orcs ravaged my workplace, set fire to the consultants, and forced my boss to run sobbing into his office. At least, this is the picture that's been painted for me by the consultants. It may be an exaggeration - my office didn't smell like orc when I got back.

Good news: I've been making good progress on reading The Princess Bride aloud to my dog, a goal I took on for 2010.

Bad News: ...because I figured out last week that Hobbes is quickly going deaf, and I feel the need to finish reading him the book before he can't hear my voice anymore. Yes, it's irrational. Yes, I'm a crazy person. But I've had this dog since I was ten years old, he loves it when people talk, sing, or read to him, and reading aloud has always been a passion of mine, yet somehow I've never read an entire book to him. It seems wrong.

Good news: I won't have to shovel the deck stairs of my apartment next winter!

Bad News: ...because last week I found out that the bank is foreclosing on my building, so I have just over six months left in this apartment I love so dearly before the bank starts trying to sell it out from under me. This apartment where I was planning on spending three more years. This apartment that was so perfect for me because on top of its unique space, its proximity to everything I need to get to, and the fact that there are freaking fruit trees in the back yard (fruit trees, people!), it's owned by a friend of mine who has been the best landlord I've ever had.

So you understand why I haven't been blogging lately. I've spent this last week stomping around fuming and making threats to punch the universe in the crotch. My friends say, "And how will you find the universe's crotch?" and "But you have very small hands," but goddammit, I'm sure Google Maps can give me a vague idea, and if I need to sculpt a giant fist, there's always paper mache.

But then, on the other hand...

Good news: Thanks to feedback and a kick in the ass from a fabulous new writer-friend and beta reader I found through Ravelry, I now have a polished draft of Or Your Money Back that's ready to be shopped around to literary agents! Which I'm planning to start doing this week! And I'm so excited about it that every thought that has anything to do with the querying process ends in an exclamation point! I should print out address labels! I think there's still some nice paper in my desk drawer at work! Do I have envelopes?!

Bad news: No, I think I used up all my envelopes! (But I'm sure I can borrow some from work!)

Yeah, that's it. I've got a query letter almost ready to go and a list of my four top pick agents sitting on my desk! I've been excited to start the agent hunt since I finished the first draft of this novel, and this week I'm finally doing it! I'm hoping that all the crap that's come my way these last two weeks is the universe's way of balancing out something really awesome that's on its way. Maybe something publishing related, even.

And if it isn't? Well, then, I'll plow ahead on the agent hunt and spend my spare time making that giant paper mache fist.

This blog is now about Misha Collins.

Once again: not dead. I've just been buried in revision and...erm...things.

Oh, hell. No use trying to skirt the issue.

I've been doing Supernatural fandom crap. Fic writing, fan art, collecting animated gifs like they were precious metals - y'know, the usual crazy fan-person stuff. It's sort of eating my free time right now, and I'm sort of happy to let it.

In my defense, Misha Collins made me do it. He busted into the series last season as a dude named Castiel who quickly became one of my favorite characters in the series (possibly of all the characters I'm watching on TV right now). He basically dragged me into writing fan fiction for the first time since high school, totally against my will. I didn't mean to write it. I just stared too deeply into his eyes on the screen, and when I came to I was covered in Cheetos dust and I had a pseudonymous LiveJournal account* with like five fics posted on it.

So you can see how it's not my fault. Things just happen when you stare at Misha Collins for too long.


Things like this:


I haven't had the motivation to finish a digital painting - even a speed painting like this - in ages. Not, apparently, until Misha Collins spent a whole scene illuminated by firelight.

So, let this be a lesson to you: DON'T STARE DIRECTLY AT THE MAN. Just don't do it. For your own self-preservation.

(I think maybe you can stare at him if you use a hand mirror, but I haven't tested this theory, so don't blame me if you try it and find yourself making LOLMisha macros at 4am.)

*All my fandom crap is under a pseudonym because I'm not sure I want the name I'm trying to get published under to come up with a bunch of crack!fic when agents Google it. But one of these days I'll have to write an essay on why fan fiction is an incredibly useful practice.

Sketchy - Seb character design

Cart master: "Bring out yer dead!"

Muse: "Here's one."

Writer: "I'm not dead!"

Cart master: "'Ere, she says she's not dead."

Muse: "She is!"

Writer: "I'm not!"

Cart master: "She isn't?"

Muse: "Well, she will be soon. She hasn't written anything usable in a week."

Writer: "I'm getting better!"

Muse: "No, you're not. You'll be stone dead in a moment."

Cart master: "Well, I can't take her like that. 'S against regulations."

Writer: "I don't want to go on the cart!"

Anyway.

The moment I'm no longer buried in school, I'll start writing Seb and his godawful sandals.