My artistic daughter

My daughter drew this for a fan art contest, and I'm hosting it on my blog so she can enter it.

At the intersection of luck and skill

As those of you who follow me on Twitter are no doubt aware, I am an Auburn football fan--I'm originally from Alabama, and my brother is an Auburn alum. Since my own alma mater (the University of Pennsylvania) isn't what you'd call an athletic powerhouse, my football loyalties remain with that family tie.

Last year Auburn was painful to watch. They went 3-9, 0-8 in conference. As almost always happens in such cases with a major program, that meant head coach Gene Chizik was fired. His replacement was Gus Malzahn, who had been Auburn's offensive coordinator under Chizik until that very year. As a fan watching the team from the opposite corner of the country, I was happy with the choice and figured we'd see a marked improvement right away, since it wasn't like the team lacked talent. Along with Alabama and LSU, they're one of the traditional powerhouses of the SEC West, the stronger division of the mightiest conference in football, and they were just three years out from their last national championship. I figured they'd go 7-5, maybe 8-4 with a little luck. They'd go to one of those random bowl games between Christmas and New Year's, thump their opponent, and be in a position to contend for a championship in 2014 or 2015.

And that would've been a fine turnaround indeed. But instead they finished 12-1. They're SEC champions, and tonight they're playing Florida State for the national championship. FSU is the heavy favorite, since they've dominated opponents all season while Auburn has tended to win nailbiters. Auburn, naysayers say, is just lucky. They then point to these two plays as evidence of that luck.

Here's the winning touchdown from the second to last game of the regular season vs. Georgia. Hail Mary tipped by two defenders with 25 seconds left on the clock:



And here, two weeks later, is the winning touchdown from the last game of the regular season, vs. cross-state rival Alabama. Until this moment, the last second of the game, this was undefeated Alabama, unstoppable machine Alabama, New York Yankees of college football going for a threepeat as national champions Alabama. The score was tied thanks to an amazing last-minute touchdown by Auburn, and Alabama coach Nick Saban decided to try to avoid overtime by attempting a 57-yard field goal despite his team having struggled with the kicking game all day. He put in a freshman kicker instead of the regular who'd been doing the struggling, and, really, what did he have to lose? If he makes the kick, game over, we all go home, and the Tide keeps rolling. If the kick falls short or is blocked, they're just going to overtime, same as they would if they'd just let the clock run out. That's the worst that can happen, right? There's no POSSIBLE way it could backfire, right?

Let's watch what happened:



I've been watching football all my life, and I didn't even know you could run a missed field goal back like that. For the first fifty yards of that run, I was muttering, "He can do that? That's allowed?" After that I was screaming, screaming so loud and long Miss Fraser came racing downstairs to make sure I was OK.

So...were those two plays nothing but luck? For the first one, luck certainly played a big role. That wasn't a great pass. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred it either falls incomplete or is intercepted or batted down by one of the Georgia players. But this time it was batted up, and Ricardo Louis was alert enough in the moment to get his hands on it, pull it in, and run it into the end zone. When luck gave him an improbable opportunity, he had the skill to make the most of it.

As for the second play...I'm calling that one almost all skill. It feels like luck because it's so rare--I believe it's the only time in collegiate football history a game has ever been won on a field goal return. But the odds of that kick falling short were very high, when you think about it. A 57-yarder? That's rare even in the NFL. And the Auburn coaching staff, unlike a mere fan like me, knew very well that you can run back a missed field goal, so they sent their best return man, Chris Davis, to wait in the end zone. And the Bama staff, despite also knowing the rule book backwards and forwards, only had big, lumbering linemen out there to guard against a blocked kick as opposed to the kind of speedsters who might've had a chance of running Davis down. Improbable as it was, beautiful and thrilling as it was for anyone but a Bama fan, that last play was skill, skill, skill.

After the game a reporter interviewed Davis and asked him what he was thinking when he saw that the kick was going to fall short. He grinned, shook his head, and said (paraphrased), "Just catch the ball and run. Catch it, and run." Because, really, what else could you think in that moment?

Tonight Auburn plays FSU, and we'll see whose luck and skill dominates. But win or lose, this Auburn season is going to inspire me for a long time to come. (OK, I'm human. It'll inspire me a lot more if they win.) Because improbable is not the same thing as impossible. Because failure isn't the final answer unless you let it be. Because sometimes turnarounds after disappointment happen quicker than you would've imagined possible. Because if you practice and work your ass off to be the best you can be, you'll be good enough to be lucky. And if opportunity falls into your hands, you just need to be ready to catch it and run.

A plea for fashion advice

I've been on Weight Watchers for almost a year now, and I've lost over 40 lbs, with another 20-25 to go. If and when I get to my goal weight, I mean to splurge on a top-quality tartan skirt, something that will last me years and years, thereby motivating me to STAY at goal weight so it will fit me for book signings and whenever else I want to rock the Scottish part of my heritage.

What I'd really like is something like this:

Or possibly something in a more kiltish cut, like this:

But even being at goal weight is not going to make me look like the bonnie lassie modeling those skirts, and I want to make sure whatever I choose works for me. And I tend to look best in pencil or otherwise straight skirts. So maybe what I really need is this:

So, fashionistas...help me out. My heart is with the first two choices, because they're more evocative of a kilt. And I'm hoping the flat front of the second option would give enough of a straight skirt look to be flattering for me. But would I be better off playing it safe with a straight skirt?

And, while I'm at it...

Fraser Modern?

or Fraser Ancient Hunting?

(Assume I'd being wearing this with a black, dark brown, or dark green sweater and some silver Celtic jewelry.)

Still here...

I'm still here, just insanely busy, and hopefully with good news to announce soon. (That's publishing-related news. No babies or lottery wins or anything of the sort on the horizon.)

Random Cookbook taking a week off

My random cookbook series is taking the week off. Between a shoulder pain flareup and Mr. Fraser's needing the kitchen to make kale chips for a Super Bowl party (they turned out quite tasty), there just wasn't a chance to spend time cooking this weekend.

Watch this space next week, when I'll be cooking from Chili Madness. Mr. Fraser, being Oklahoman and having decided Opinions about chili, will probably disapprove of whatever I produce, so maybe I'll deliberately pick one of the more East Coast, veggie-fied, city slicker recipes. Or I could try Cincinnati Chili...

Drive-by post

I'm insanely busy, as is always the case in December, this year with the added challenge of finishing the first round of edits on my 2013 novella and putting together a proposal for its sequel. However, when I have a spare moment between racing from holiday event to holiday event, I've been cleaning out my Gmail inbox. Which feels like verrrrry slowwwlllly traveling back in time.

Anyway, I found the following link in an email I sent my critique partner back in 2009.

A Regency Romance in 2 Minutes

I'm not sure which made me laugh harder, the reason for the heroes' terrible reputation or their titles.

Where I've been of late

I've been posting a bit less than usual of late, for three reasons:

1) I just finished a novella manuscript and sent it off to my editor. It isn't contracted, so I'm now in a limbo period awaiting response.

2) To reward myself for finishing said manuscript, I went in for a massage, with a new-to-me massage therapist, since my regular therapist had no openings last week. The new therapist gave me such a painful massage I was sure I'd feel wonderful the next day. I mean, if a massage doesn't hurt at all, it doesn't help. So I thought more pain = more gain, especially since it felt like she was really digging into the tightest muscles. Not so much, as it turns out. Somehow what she did made all my shoulder muscles that had been only slightly sore from the push to finish the manuscript seize up so much I missed two days of work last week. It hurt just to sit at my desk and type, despite all the ergonomic accommodations they've made for me, and I learned the hard way from my pinched nerve experience that it's not the kind of pain you want to ignore or try to push through.

Suffice it to say next time I'll wait till my regular therapist has space on her calendar.

3) Mr. Fraser turned 40 on Saturday, so we threw him a shindig.

Anyway, hand and shoulder willing, I should start getting back to a regular blog schedule this week.

Fast and frugal cooking - the shopping piece

For several years now, we've been getting grocery deliveries from Amazon Fresh. I love the convenience of it--you order groceries whenever, as long as it's at least six hours before you need delivery, and just like that, crates and tote bags full of food show up on your doorstep. The selection is pretty good, the prices are comparable to a grocery store sans club card savings, and with the exception of a week or two last year, the service is reliable.

That said, upon reviewing our household expenses last month, I realized we were spending way too much on food because the Fresh order never quite covers everything. There's often some random fresh herb or cut of meat out of stock. They don't carry a couple of brands/flavors of snack Miss Fraser especially favors, and Target is much cheaper for household and health & beauty products. So most weeks, in addition to the hour or so I spend planning meals and putting together the Fresh order, I've been running over to Target for toilet paper, shampoo, etc. and to the grocery store for the missing pieces.  And since I'm as prone to impulse buying as the next person, I rarely walk out with just those few things that were missing or overpriced on Fresh.

Anyway, I realize now that the system I'd adopted to save time, because ordering online meant not going to the store, and to save money, since searching for individual products online meant less impulse buying, was actually making me spend more time and money, since I was shopping at three places per week instead of one or two. So I've gone back to the old weekly grocery run. It feels weird to go back to a lower-tech way of living, but so far it's simpler and cheaper. It makes me wonder what else in my life could be simplified.

One week till RWA

With just one week till RWA '12, I've gone from resolutions to to-do lists and schedule-making. I won't bore you with an accounting of my multiple lists and spreadsheets.  Suffice it to say I'm the type who plans out my outfits for each day and has a schedule of workshops with second and sometimes third choices for each hour should the first prove less intriguing and useful than the title and handouts led me to hope.

The last six weeks have led me to reflect, glumly, on my habit of making vows to eat better, exercise more, and really-o, truly-o stick with Weight Watchers this time, only to give up after a week or two, as soon as some mini-crisis upsets my precarious equilibrium.  It makes it hard to start over again, because why should I expect myself to do better next time?

But I don't want to give up, either, and say, "This is the body I have, and these are my eating and exercise habits, now please pass the potato chips." I've got the family history, and I'm starting to have the cholesterol and triglyceride numbers, to tell me what a bad idea that is.  Not to mention that I'd really love the wider array of shopping options open to me if I were at my goal weight, two or three sizes smaller than I am now.  Plus, I'd see my cheekbones again. I miss them.

Yet somehow I don't think deciding to start Weight Watchers again the day after I get back from conference and really meaning it this time is the answer. I'm still figuring out what the answer might be, but I think it involves A) starting with smaller steps to give myself some victories, and thereby build in some new habits that won't collapse as soon as I have a deadline or a fever or something crazy happens at work, and B) stepping back and doing some serious brainstorming about what a healthy life would look like for someone with my combination of gifts and constraints, and then planning what it would take to get there.  In other words, plan my healthy lifestyle the way I plan my writing schedule for a new manuscript, or my ever-evolving 5-year writing career goals, or the way we tackle backlogs at my day job, rather than grabbing some one-size-fits-all plan and trying to force it to fit.

I've got some ideas for both A and B, and I've also got a new, marathon-distance goal for myself: the big European trip I'm planning for the summer of 2015.  I'm planning to be at Waterloo for the bicentennial of the battle, and I'm hoping to spend at least a month in Europe on either side of the anniversary. That's just a little less than three years away, and a smidge over 1000 days.

So that's the new goal.  1000 days from now, I'll be making lists and schedules for the trip of a lifetime instead of an annual conference.  I want to be ready to jaunt around the Continent as the healthiest, fittest, and most energetic version of me as I can muster. All I need is the right plan and steps to make that happen.

Six weeks

Six weeks from Tuesday, I'll be on a plane headed to Anaheim for RWA12.  And I want to do two things with those six weeks:

1) I want to finish the first draft of the novella I just started.  That way I can whip it into submission-ready form by sometime in August and move straight to my next goal of turning in a proposal for my next novel-length project by October or so--all the better to meet my big picture goal of having at least two releases every year starting in 2013.

(Incidentally, my stretch goal is to finish my first draft by 6/30 and submit it before I leave for RWA, but that assumes that a) I can tell the story at ~20K rather than, say, 25-30K, and b) I can plow straight through without backtracking to correct the plot or being slowed down by a shoulder pain flare-up.  So I'm not going to call myself a failure if I don't meet it.)

2) I want to stick with Weight Watchers and regular exercise, which I'm defining as doing an in-home aerobics workout Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, and at least one weekday evening.

All year I've been stopping and starting again with my nutrition and fitness goals, but at least I've figured out why it's so hard to stay on task.  Mostly, I'm just so busy that I can't do the perfect version of eating right and exercising.  I can't work out every weeknight, or even on a more regular schedule like every other day.  I buy fresh fruits and vegetables yet snack on junk anyway because junk requires no prep time.  But then I don't want to do things like buy precut fruit because it seems lazy and insufficiently frugal.

Thing is, I'm wasting money anyway by buying food I don't eat.  I'd be better off, nutritionally and financially, buying fruits and vegetables in whatever form I can just grab and eat as simply as a bag of potato chips or a cookie.  So that's what I mean to do, for the next six weeks--which I hope is both a short enough time that I'll stick with it and long enough that I'll see actual benefits in weight loss and improved energy to make me want to keep going after RWA.

I'd love to have a few accountability partners.  Your goals don't have to be related to writing or diet/exercise, but we could check in with each other once a week, cheer each other on, and if you'll be in Anaheim too, maybe we can get together for a drink or dinner to celebrate our successes.

Who's in?

I'm on Pinterest

I'm on Pinterest now. At first I resisted. Did I really need yet another place to hang out on the internet? It's not like I have so many hours of spare time, after all. And I'm not even an especially visual thinker. Would I have anything to say in a place that's all about the pictures?

Still, I got an account and started playing around with it. To my surprise, it's strangely addictive. It's less formal than a blog post, but without the strict character limit of Twitter, so I can spend the occasional stray half hour pinning pretty book covers or places I've visited or paintings that remind me of one of my heroines. Playing, basically.

If you want to visit my virtual scrapbook, you'll find me here.

Pinched nerve update

I realized I hadn't posted about my pinched nerve in awhile, so...a quick update:

It's better. Mostly. I still get regular flareups of shoulder and arm pain, but if I stay on top of my home exercises and watch my posture, I can manage it and still write and work a full schedule at my day job. I still avoid really heavy lifting, but I can manage everyday things--carrying groceries and the like--with no real issues. I can cook almost anything I want, but I've learned I'll regret chopping-intensive recipes the next day, especially if they involve tough root vegetables. (This despite the fact the pain is on my non-dominant side.)

I don't know if I'll ever be 100% again, but I'm hoping it's like my right ankle, which I severely sprained twice within a year as a high school senior and college freshman. Throughout my college years that ankle ached, popped, and would twist out from under me if I put my foot a smidge wrong. But it gradually improved, and now, many years later, it's only slightly weaker than my never-injured left ankle. Meanwhile, even though my shoulder and arm aren't perfect, I haven't missed any work time because of them in months, and I'm on pace to turn my next manuscript in time, so it's all good. At least, it's all good enough.

52 Cookbooks - Week 16, Colorado Cache

Though Mr. Fraser grew up in Oklahoma, he has family in Denver (and he's an alum of the University of Colorado). Because of that connection, one of our 52 cookbooks is the Colorado Cache Cookbook, a 1978 production of the Junior League of Denver.

I'm trying to up my vegetable intake and get out of the habit of eating the same round of carrots, bell peppers, green beans, and caesar salad again and again, so I decided to try Honey-Glazed Acorn Squash. It reminded me of a recipe my mother used to make with butternut squash and molasses:



Honey-Glazed Acorn Squash
4-6 servings

2 or 3 acorn squash
salt and pepper to taste
1/4 c. honey
2 T butter, softened
1 T Worcestershire sauce
1/4 c. chopped walnuts
1/4 c. raisins

Cut squash in half, remove seeds. Place cut-side down in shallow pan. Add 1/2 inch hot water to pan. Bake uncovered at 350 degrees for 40-50 minutes or until almost tender. Turn cut-side up, season with salt and pepper. Combine other ingredients and spoon into cavities of squash. Bake uncovered at 350 degrees for 15 minutes or until filling is heated.

The good: It's a simple, straightforward preparation. The hardest part was sawing through the squash.

The bad: It's edible, but I wouldn't go beyond that--on the bland side, and the squash is somehow squishy AND stringy. I think my mom's butternut squash with molasses tasted better, and I didn't even much like squash when I was a kid.

A cancer awareness post

I have a fairly significant family history of colon cancer, including a brother and a cousin who were diagnosed in their mid-40's. As a result, I had my first colonoscopy four years ago when I was 36, and my second one yesterday, a couple weeks after my 41st birthday.

I'm not going to go into details, because I'm naturally squeamish and unwilling to publicly discuss bodily functions--it isn't ladylike, gosh darn it, and I was Raised Right. I will say that I'm glad that between my primary care doc's persuasiveness and my utter terror of cancer (when we say "the C-word" around my house, that's the one we're talking about), I was able to overcome said squeamishness and have the test done.

I'm also not going to lie to you and claim it's an easy process. The prep is pretty much 24 hours of misery. The procedure itself, though, is not so bad, because you're sedated, and at least where I had mine done, they're very kind and understanding about the fact you're scared and feeling like every last shred of dignity you have is being taken away.

But it's still worthwhile if you have a family history like mine or you've turned 50 (the age at which screenings are recommended for everyone). Either you find out you don't have any signs of cancer, as has fortunately been the case for me so far, and you get to go home with one less thing to worry about, or the fact you're having it done as a screening rather than waiting to develop symptoms means they'll be able to catch any issues while they're still at the easily treatable and highly survivable stage. And isn't that worth an uncomfortable and undignified day or two out of your life?

Resolved

Ah, another new year (and for me, another birthday). I can never resist the impulse to make resolutions, even knowing that the combination of diehard old habits and my busy life will make it difficult to really do all that organizing and exercising and so on.

So I've done the same this year. My 2012 goals list is long, and I probably won't meet all of them. However, the most important ones boil down to:

1) Have a productive year as a writer.

2) Live a more healthy life.

I'm not going to share the rest of my goals, or even the exact steps I've delineated for productive writing and healthy living (though I may blog about them if/when I succeed).

BUT, I decided to give myself two challenges that ought to be easily achievable within 6-7 months, talk about them publicly, AND set up consequences for failing to meet them:

Challenge the First: After I turn in the manuscript for my WIP, due April 1, I want to work on a short novella. Key word here is short: I'm shooting for around 15,000 words. Once I've done a bit of research and settled on the plot, I should be able to complete the first draft in less than a month. So I'd like to finish the draft no later than 5/15 or so, and have it submission-ready by mid-June. But life happens, and my editor will most likely send me developmental edits for the WIP sometime within that window...so I'm giving myself till July 23, the day I plan to fly down to Anaheim for RWA National, to finish that first draft. And if I don't? I will wear a shirt like this on the plane:



Challenge the Second: By that same date, July 23, I want to lose 20 lbs. and/or enough to drop at least a size in my favorite jeans. (Which ought to be one and the same, but I'm giving myself an out in case by some freak chance the weight decides to come off everywhere BUT my waistline.) If I do not do so, I will wear this hat on the plane:



For me, those are some dire consequences for falling short of my goals. You see, in my real sports fan life, I'd wear this hat with this shirt:





Anyone want to pick their own sports gear nightmare and join me? I got the idea for this after hearing a pair of coworkers, one a UW grad and the other WSU, challenge each other to quit smoking with the threat of having to wear a Cougars tee for the former and a Husky one for the latter.

The fine print: the bet is off if some dire medical, natural, financial, or similar disaster interferes. F'rex, if this is the year the Seattle Fault or the Cascadia Subduction Zone is destined to slip, I'm not going to inflict Bama and Yankees gear upon myself on top of everything else.

Expectations

Generally I don't mention my religious or political views on this blog. I'm going to make a tiny exception today by talking about some thoughts on reader expectations that I had at church this morning...but I'm not going to preach at you, and if anyone uses the comments for preaching, they will be deleted.

All that being said, I recently started attending an Episcopalian church in my neighborhood, and I was happy to see that today's service was going to be Lessons and Carols. The year I lived in England, I went to two such services and loved them because they were a dream come true for someone like me who loves to sing and can never get enough of the traditional Christmas carols. Basically, someone would read a passage from the Christmas story, we'd sing two or three carols related to it, lather, rinse, repeat until we'd made it from the Annunciation to the Magi and sung at least a dozen carols.

So when I sat down with today's order of service, I was disappointed. There was maybe half as much congregational singing as in those English services, and none of it was Christmas classics like "Joy to the World," "Angels We Have Heard on High," or "Hark! The Herald Angels Sing." It was, you see, an Advent service, with Advent music. (For those of you not versed in the liturgical-church calendar, Advent is the four weeks before Christmas, and Advent music is more about anticipating Jesus than celebrating the Nativity story. Probably the best-known Advent hymn is "O Come, O Come, Emmanuel.") Now, I like Advent music fine, but I grew up in a non-liturgical church (translation: Baptist) that sang Christmas carols all December, and because of family travel I'm never at my church during Christmastide when they break out the shepherds abiding in the fields and the multitudes of the heavenly host. So there's this whole tradition of songs I grew up loving that I never get to sing anymore, and singing along with the radio or singing in the shower just aren't the same. (I know, I should probably find some carolers or something to join...but where would one find such a thing? I'm picturing the Craiglist ad: "Experienced alto seeking like-minded musicians for casual yet sophisticated and tuneful musical encounters...")

I think I spent the first third of the service feeling sad that, in fact, those Lessons and Carols services I attended back in 1997 weren't representative of the Anglican Communion as a whole--that just because two Church of England congregations in Bristol sang Christmas songs for one service in Advent did not make it required or even likely that an Episcopal one would do the same thing in Seattle in 2011. But then we sang a song that was both completely new to me and incredibly fun to sing, and the man sitting next to me, a fine baritone, started to harmonize, so I did the same. (To me, harmony is more interesting to sing and uses the richer, fuller part of my alto range--I can go as high as an E atop the treble clef, but I start sounding reedy and thin around B-natural. Still, I hesitate to harmonize when everyone else is singing melody, since it can feel conspicuous in the wrong way.) From then on, I appreciated the service for what it was instead of what I'd hoped it would be, and I'm glad I was there.

What does any of this have to do with reading? Well, it occurred to me that I was acting like someone who'd read one or two historical romances--say, a book or two by Jo Beverley--and then picked up a book by Courtney Milan or Loretta Chase and couldn't deal with the fact the voice and tone were different because all my expectations of historical romance were built on that initial sample.

I don't think I've ever been quite that picky a reader, but I've definitely had experiences where someone pushed a book on me, saying, "I know you love Author X, so I'm SURE you'll love Y, too." Once I try the book, I think the book pusher must be crazy, because X and Y are nothing alike, since Y's voice isn't as smooth or her characters aren't as vivid. Or I'll read bad reviews of books I love, and clearly the reviewer is disappointed not because the book is poorly written or offensive, but because it didn't match the expectations they had when they sat down to read.

I don't think it's possible to prevent expectations dissonance. But thinking about it makes me see the value of a well-chosen cover and title or a thoughtful review--really, anything that makes an accurate promise to the reader about what they'll find once they open my book.

Still here!

I promise to resume blogging soon. I'm recovering from a sinus infection and a neck-shoulder-hand pain flareup, so I've been devoting what computer time I can manage to staying on pace with my manuscript.

52 Cookbooks, Week Five - The Route 66 Cookbook

This week's cookbook is also nostalgia, albeit of a different kind than my recent culinary visit to Alabama. My random draw gave me The Route 66 Cookbook, by Marian Clark. It's an homage to the diners of yesteryear, giving a chapter per state's worth of stories and recipes from restaurants lining the route.

Lots of chili, barbecue, and pie...so I made pasta from the California chapter. My excuse is that I was at ECWC all last weekend, so I had to do my cooking blog recipe on a weeknight. I needed something I could do quickly, and nothing is more in my culinary wheelhouse than pasta with a homemade sauce. So last night I whipped up Loews Santa Monica Beach Hotel Penne Pasta in Spicy Sausage Paprika Sauce:



Tasty stuff, spicy from the sausage and paprika and bright from the fresh tomatoes, green onions, basil, and oregano, but SO rich. It has a cup of heavy cream, plus an entire 6 oz. carton of fresh Parmesan cheese. I might make it again someday, but given that our doctor has given both me and Mr Fraser recent Talks on how people with our familial cardiac risk factors ought to be eating, I don't think it's going to become a staple.

Back from ECWC...and introducing An Infamous Marriage

I'm now home from the Emerald City Writers Conference. This year's edition was one of the best-run conferences I've ever attended. Even the food wasn't the usual dry conference chicken!

I think my workshop went pretty well, too. The room was close to full, and people laughed at my jokes, which is always something. I was so nervous right before I started. My stomach hurt, and all I could think was what if I went beyond stomachache to actual sickness? And would that ruin my career, if I was always That Lady Who Had to Run Out of Her Own Workshop?

But then once I got the mike in my hand and started talking, I was perfectly calm, and my stomachache disappeared. Strange how that works. The reality is never as scary as the anticipation. OK, there are a few exceptions. Childbirth. Second-degree burns. Getting stung by a bee. But it's a good general rule for most phobias. Now I want to speak again! Maybe send this one in for RWA in Anaheim next summer. And I have this other idea for a talk about how much you can learn about how to behave, and how not to behave, as a writer by watching cooking contest shows.

I'm also dealing with the usual post-conference combination of exhaustion and inspiration. For the next 24 hours, I just want to get through Halloween and get the house half-straightened up for when the maid service comes on Tuesday. I don't usually do the thing where you clean so the maid can clean, but Mr. Fraser and I have had back-to-back conferences since the last cleaning, and the house always goes to seed when there's only one of us home.

But come November 1, I'm digging in. I need to update my website a bit, come up with my writing plan for 2012, and revise my 5-year plan. And then there's the obvious task--finishing An Infamous Marriage. Because my 2012 release finally has a title! I love it. I think it's a great fit for the story, and somehow it's easier to write An Infamous Marriage than to write "My 2012 book," or "The Book to Be Named Later."

Busy busy busy!

I've been quieter than usual both on this blog and online in general for the past week because I'm changing day jobs. My new job starts Monday. And I have a completely illogical superstition that if I ever have a wholly clean desk other than on my first or last day at a job, that job will disappear. Totally illogical--but so far I and my sloppy desks have avoided layoffs and downsizing, so why fix what ain't broke, you know? It couldn't be a combination of luck and skill; it's all down to the piles of paper and the inbox nowhere near zero! But as a result my last few days in a job are always a mad scramble to tie off loose ends and get paperwork properly filed. Lots of working late and coming home tired, very little blogging and tweeting. So I'll be back once I'm settled into my new job.