Excuses, Excuses

I’m busy with other things today, but John DeNardo was nice enough to include me in the responses for the latest Mind Meld question: "It seems that more and more, fiction marketed as "Young Adult" deals with mature themes. Has it crossed a line? Is young adult sf/f is too explicit?"

My answer is basically: No. Follow the link to see more thoughtful responses, and, er, the expected comment from one John C. Wright.

I am behind on everything — if I owe you a letter, a read, something interview-related, etcetera, etcetera, it will come but slowly. I’m in revisionland, both for the novel and the critical thesis, and knee-deep in the final throes of Tiptree reading. And the cold keeps resurging. All this adds up to one pushing-everything-that’s-not-on-fire-aside type of girl.

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Last night we had lovely sushi at Tomo (Lexington has great sushi), which did a fairly recent remodel to–among other things–install fancy Japanese toilets with heated seats and a bunch of other features. That, of course, has nothing to do with the food (good as always), but was a memorable change.

I finished reading Wit’s End over dinner, stopping to read particularly delightful sections (Lord of the Rings Trivial Pursuit!) aloud to Christopher. It’s a book that makes me very, very happy.

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Can I tell you how much I love the new car? Lots.

We decided to name it using a strategy based on Pullman’s daemons. I’d give it the name Christopher has to use, a girl’s name; Christopher would do the same for me, giving it a boy’s name that I use.

So the car is either Claudette Colbert or Mario Cipollini, depending on who’s talking. Mario or Claude for short.

Until this critical thesis draft is done, things’ll be sparse around these parts (it’s due Monday morning, so not that long). Today we bought a shiny new car*, which we pick up tomorrow. That isn’t nearly as big as the news that Colleen Lindsay is henceforth an agent with FinePrint Literary Management (congratulate before querying!). Oh, and go over to Micol’s and follow her instructions on helping save Teen Central by dropping a line to the NYPL.

That is all.

*Storm silver, if you must know. And I also love the fact that the commercial features giant eyeballs! And the fact that Slate and US News and World Report love it too!

It’s hard to get real sleep when Emma the Dog is enduring tornado-warning conditions. We’re fine and I think even our trees made it (must get that one trimmed this spring!), but I’m taking the day off from the blogger blog to yawn and finish up my Cybils jury reading. In the meantime, here’s a weather story with meteorologists disagreeing, pretty much my favorite bloodsport.

I am — hopefully, weather permitting — headed home from Vermont today, arriving somewhere this side of midnight. I should be back here sometime tomorrow, but it could be Thursday. Play nice.

While more than ready to go home at this point, I have to say that this has been the best residency of my MFA program yet, and so I am taking lots of things home with me to think about and attempt. Eighteen or so amazing lectures will do that. Conversations in the hallway and in workshop and over dinner will do it too. I’m sure I’ll have slightly more mixed feelings when I’m writing out the student loan payment checks in years to come, but for the moment I’m convinced this is the best investment I’ve ever made. I will admit to feeling some dread of the critical thesis semester before coming to Montpelier, even to a feeling of burnout… and yet, all that’s gone, and I’m left only with the desire to do the work. That is something akin to magic.

And it’s all because of the amazing faculty and students in this program. I can’t recommend it highly enough.

More coherent thoughts when I’m resettled. Maybe.

Yeah, as you’ve noticed, no content here. I’ll be back next week, just in time for the holidays. But there is:

No.
Time.
Now.

So I’ve got my 70 SPF sunscreen (almost) packed and have vowed to finish my novel and we’re off tomorrow to Jamaica to beachify with friends… off so early it won’t even be bright yet.

I don’t plan on checking in here until we’re back and recovered, which means late next week, though I might post some photos at Flickr. Now to decide what books to take with. Oh, the agony. (Also: Read Molly Gloss’s new one, The Hearts of Horses, if you haven’t, because it is FABULOUS.)

Be good.

Yeah, still horribly behind on email and lots of other stuff. It’s probably going to get worse before it gets better, since I’m trying to finish my book this month (a draft of it, anyway), but I’ll get to what I can. I beg your tolerance for my flightiness in the meantime, but something has to give…

…one of those weeks, dearies. Too much going on, not enough time to breathe let alone blog. I may pop in again a time or two, but I also may follow the example that the rest of the ‘sphere seems to be setting and turn the lights down so low they’re barely even on. (Except for over at the LBC, of course — where you should definitely be checking out the various Jamestown-related festivities this week.)

I haven’t managed to answer any e-mail yet, not even the nicest, best e-mails (especially those), and that’s not likely before next week either, I’m afraid. Deadlines are sitting on top of me until then — and they’re not purring either.

But next week promises to be a bit livelier around here, what with Recommendations from Under the Radar Week and a drive-by from a completely marvelous author whose first book hits the shelves Tuesday (and who does a mean "Love Shack"). Until then.

I put up a ton of stuff yesterday, and so I am taking the rest of the week off, thank you very much, to finish my first packet of the semester and entertain Her Pinkness. Back on Mondayish.

Please do go browse through all the Aussie posts. They were fabulosity defined.