Welcome to Nyeusigrube

Well, it's about two weeks from Thanksgiving-- by which I mean the one I happen to celebrate, though I do know perfectly well that other countries and many religions have their own, similar holidays.

In the last few years, I have become the primary cook for my family. And by "primary cook," I mean I am responsible for the turkey (two turkeys now), and almost all the side dishes, which include apple-raising stuffing, oyster dressing, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, brown rice, white rice, acorn squash, green bean casserole, two types of cranberry sauce (one fresh, and one shaped like a can), and probably other stuff I forgot since I'm not looking at my list and I'm typing at 6:55 in the morning. Oh, and pies, don't forget the pies-- we generally do two pumpkin, one cherry, and once mince-meat, and someone brings apple.

That's what gets cooked in my house. My mother does the oyster dressing, my father does the fresh cranberry-orange relish, and my sister does the squash. This year, my partner is in charge of the sweet-potato dish, since we're doing tsimmis instead of the recipe I picked up in South Carolina and have been making the last couple years (the one with marshmallows on top). She is also making farfalkugel, though I haven't decided if it counts as a side-dish, or dessert. My father also frequently makes egg nog, though that's almost impossible to predict ahead of time.

We have to have a lot of eggs, milk and butter going into it, because those are the things you always run out of trying to make that many dishes. Thankfully, all three things can be purchased at places like Cumberland Farms, which usually stays open on Thanksgiving.

I think this year will be a relatively small Thanksgiving, for us- 10 or so people- but for the first time, my cousin Jennifer is joining us, which is very exciting. On the other hand, my brother is stuck working that day, so he won't be with us. My sister and partner both have to take personal time to get the day. Personally, I refuse to ever work in a field where I'm so essential that it isn't assumed I'm going to take Thanksgiving and Christmas off. I refuse to even go to classes the day before Thanksgiving (thankfully, my graduate courses aren't that stupid, but my undergraduate schools had classes that Wednesday, which I thought was foolish), since I spend most of that day cooking.

Soon it will be time to polish the silver (passed down from my mother's family), count the china, find the table-cloths, and start to set the table- also my job. I refer to the [i]Joy of Cooking [/i](the old version, not the 75th anniversary revised edition) every year to confirm where everything goes on a formal table. I decide which dishes will be used to serve each side-dish, though for all my preparations my father almost always uses the wrong one.

And then, after all the stress (eu-stress, good stress) and bustle, family and friends sit down at a beautiful table (at which there is usually some small child to smear food on the table-cloth) and share a meal made of love, and tradition, and new traditions brought to us by new friends and family.

For those of you who aren't waiting on the edge of your keyboard for it, November is National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo). For the third year in a row, I will be participating. My user name is NeseraRai. You're welcome to add me as a buddy there, but I don't personally add people I don't know.

What I'm writing is still a *little* up in the air, but hey, I have about 48 hours before November 1, right? At the moment, I'm trying to decide if what I want to do counts as "cheating." If my ML and my writing community say it's all right, which seems to be the way we're leaning, I'll be scrapping about 10 files from the past 8 years into notes, and turning it into a book I've wanted to write, and finish... forever.

I have written some- actually, a lot of prose for the book already, but it's junk. It's fragmented. I don't like it. I want to strip-mine it for the ideas and turn it into a real book. My plan if I do this is to not even look at the prose, which I haven't worked with in years (I glanced at it in August?), and create something new and, I hope, complete. I don't think that's contrary to the spirit of NaNoWriMo.

So, junior: You commented on my previous blog, and hopefully here's your answer.

Everyone wish me luck in November!

Was this a particularly long week for anyone else? Despite starting with a 5-day-weekend from school and only being a 4-day week due to Columbus day, it seems like these last four days were incredibly long.

The strange thing is, it wasn't a bad week. I was in a substitute position for three days that was difficult in terms of figuring out what I was supposed to do, but it was also deeply rewarding. I learned new things about myself.

Of course, I left the house at 6:30 in the morning to work all day at school, then went directly to my own evening classes in the city until 9:30. Then drop my sister off at home (we carpool), then get myself home, and walk into the door thinking, "I have to be up in six hours."

I turned Night's Plutonian Shore in to my editor first thing this week, which is why the supposed 5-day-weekend wasn't particularly restful. Normally I would be incredibly nervous at this point- every time I turn in a book at any stage I then worry about it until I hear back- but I've been too busy.

Next week, I'm in a wonderful school substituting for 7th grade Humanities. This particular school is so rewarding to work in, so I look forward to being there regardless. However, the prospect of working in my subject for a week is also appealing. I am also doing the classroom-observation portion of my MAT (Master of Arts in Teaching) program in this school.

Grad school, substitute teaching, and here it is almost November. Aah! How do these things happen? What happens to the time?

[This post is a complete ramble. If you're looking on information about anything going on in my publishing or professional life, look elsewhere]

October. The Red Sox are going to the ALCS Championship Series, and my Patriots managed to remember they were playing football after only about a quarter of the game on Sunday.

To address some common misconceptions here: Though I'm an English major and planning to be an English teacher, I actually like both math and science, and I am good at them both. I would even go so far as to say that math comes more naturally to me than language does.

I am a Patriots fan. When I was a little girl, and my family lived in D.C., what I wanted more than anything else in the world was to grow up to play pro football with the Washington Redskins. It's the first dream of what I wanted to be when I grew up that I can remember having. I stand a towering 5' 1" and could probably weigh up to 125 if I wore my heavy leather jacket, found some steel-toed boots, and was soaking wet, so I'm pretty sure the quarterback could pick me up and throw me with the ball into the end-zone for a touchdown.

One of my best friends works in politics, and another of my best friends paints and sells on commission custom My Little Ponies in addition to her "real" job.

For my senior prom, I desperately wanted a dusky rose pink prom dress. Unfortunately, cotton candy pink is a more popular color (not one that looks good on me), and even though I was willing to make my own dress, I couldn't find fabric in the right color. Yes, I can sew. I also love to cook, and am into feng shui and interior decorating.

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday, so it isn't surprising that autumn is my favorite season. I love New England; I love the colors of the fall. I love hot mulled cider, and pumpkin pie. I love the smell of the bonfires when people burn leaves in their back yards.

I love the ocean, and the smell of salt water.

I love standing on a stage, but what I love even more is being backstage, helping other people have their time in the spotlight.

And now you know a little bit more about me, perhaps, than you did before. More importantly, you know something about me that isn't directly related to what book I'm publishing next. Why? Because people ask me to update this blog, and that's what I felt like saying today.

Welcome to autumn, everyone! Welcome to the season of change.

(Note: a summary-explanation is at the end of this post with some FAQs on the publishing front)

It has been a month of crazy schedules and new things. My partner and I are both starting new jobs and new school semesters, and trying to get a handle on what hours are available to work or have us-time has been entertaining.

Meanwhile, my Patriots had an embarrassing loss on the field... really, really atrocious. They say, however, that Brady showed a great start his first game and then lost horribly his second, so maybe I shouldn't worry too much about Cassel... but it wasn't all his fault, either. The team had no defense, and he had no protection during offense, either.

That's all I'll say about that for now, except that I hope next week will be better. My oldest sister brings her daughters, my delightful 17-month-old twin nieces, with her to watch the games at my parents' house with us. It does make it harder to watch, but it's worth it. I love those girls.

On a related note that actually turns the subject of this blog to writing, it's easier to revise Cooper during football season. The character was created during football season. Of course, much of his book was written while listening to Christmas Carols, and I haven't gone back to that playlist. I've been listening to Seether, a CD I apparently bought at some point and completely forgot existed, which meshes with the fact that the revised version is definitely darker. I have noticed that I tend to be a lot more glib when writing quickly; I like writing quick, witty banter. CooperV1 was written for NaNoWriMo07, with all the trademarks of NaNos, so it has required a lot of editing to turn it into a book worth giving to you all.

My goals for today: For my "Teaching Literature" class, I need to start my 5-10 page paper (due 10/1), start my lesson plan #1 assignment (due Oct 1) and write two follow-up posts on blackboard. For my "Learning and Accomplished Practice" class, I need to write my secondary response (due at 12am), contribute to the Wiki (due tomorrow), and write a 500 word memo (due today). For my "Inclusion, Equity and Diversity" class, I... wait, do I have nothing due this weekend for that one? Awesome!

And in there, I need to fix a major continuity error with the weather in the chapter of Cooper I finished yesterday morning, and hopefully finish the hospital scenes, and then hunt down my beta readers to get some feedback. I'm aiming to get it in by the 10th.

Meanwhile, I'm substitute teaching at a couple local middle and high schools, to get some classroom experience while in graduate school.

Given the load of things I have to do even just in the next ten hours... I have the sudden, intense desire to play World of Warcraft. If you ever considered picking up the game, DON'T. It's highly addictive. I only broke the habit by going away for four months where the network wouldn't support the game. I let my account expire in the spring of 2007 and haven't played since, but sometimes I'll see or think something, and just want to play... just for a minute...

One of my friends has decided I need to get to know anime, a genre I have refused to even acknowledge until very recently, and provided me with a list of shows available via my Netflix account. She made me watch .Hack. I should have warned her of the WoW addiction beforehand...

All that said, a brief summary-update about titles I get asked about (for the record, for this type of information, your best source is usually the message board):

Persistence of Memory is on sale December 9.

Night's Plutonian Shore (tentative title), which I also often refer to as "Cooper," is the next one in line. It is the first in a three-book contract, which means there are two more planned after it, but I don't know yet what they are.

All Just Glass and Poison Tree are both possible titles for publication after Cooper's book. At this point there are no guarantees, since if I come up with something I like more it will go out first, but since this year's NaNo is Castrili and then I'm doing a full-time practicum in the winter/spring, I suspect the 2010 book will be one of those two. Persistence, AJG and Poison Tree represent a kind of backlog of projects I have wanted to get out for a long time now, which were sidetracked by the length of the Kiesha'ra Series. Cooper sneaked in there, but that doesn't mean I like the others any less.

Don't know what any of those titles are? They're all covered on the Books page, and you can find out more on the message board.

Oh, and a new FAQ: "What is Castrili?" (since I just mentioned it)

All my published books take place in a world I call Nyeusigrube. Castrili is my other world. If you've ever heard me refer to Mancer or Blood of My Blood, those are Castrili titles. They are high fantasy stories, and I adore them and the world. They are not on the immediate list for publication because they are not YA, and I find publishing for a YA audience incredibly rewarding. Again, though, you can find out a little more through the message board.

Now off I go to that list of work...