Winning on Mother’s Day

Thanks to Random.org, I was able to draw a number without assistance from the smaller members of the household (who are still asleep). The winner of Oh. My. Gods.by Tera Lynn Childs is:

Marianne!

Hooray, Marianne! The book will wing its way to you ASAP.

In Mother’s Day news, yesterday Andrew and Bob sneaked off to Target under the guise of going to GameStop. This morning, I am the proud owner of what may be a metric ton of chocolate. Seriously. I have enough chocolate, all sitting in a very nice (faux) leather magazine rack/tote to last until next Mother’s Day.

Plus, a funny homemade card from Andrew. Plus, I know Belgium waffles are in my future (new waffle maker “hiding” in the kitchen, a bottle of maple syrup, and so on). Andrew so wanted me to sleep in this morning (I think so he can provide breakfast in bed), but everyone else gets up so late. I tried to explain that the early morning quiet is like a Mother’s Day gift.

Maybe I’ll sneak back to bed. Just this once.

OMG! Oh. My. Gods.

Look what I won:

Not the Greek god, or the pink running shoes (although I’m digging the pink running shoes), but the YA novel by Tera Lynn Childs.

And double-plus cool? It was Tera’s congratulatory email that alerted me to the fact the The Geek Girl’s Guide to Cheerleading sale had been posted to Publishers Marketplace.

Andrew is thinking he’d like to read this one, too. He was highly amused by the strategic placing of the banner and shoes (but then, so was I).

Since there’s so much good karma going around, and since Tera is sending me my very own copy, and since I’d planned to buy a copy anyway, I’m going to give one away.

Want a copy? Then leave a comment below. You have until the wee hours of the morning on Sunday. Mother’s Day, say around 0700 hours CDT (that’s seven a.m. here in MN), I’ll draw a name from the comments on this post. Want a taste of what you could win? Read on:

Oh. My. Gods.

If Phoebe Castro can keep her grades up and have another stellar cross-country season, her dream of attending USC with her best friends is only a track scholarship away. She’s made all her plans, so it’s a complete shock when her mom announces she’s marrying a mysterious stranger and moving them half-way around the world-to Greece.

Phoebe’s stuck on a secret island in the Aegean attending the super-exclusive Academy, where her new stepfather is the headmaster and the kids are anything but your average students-they are descendants of the Greek gods, super powers included. That’s right, Greek gods are no myth! If Phoebe thought high school was hard, she knows this is going to be mortal misery.

Securing that scholarship seems like Phoebe’s only ticket out of Greece, but training and maintaining her grades will be grueling, even without a sabotaging stepsister from Hades and a gorgeous guy-what a god!-who just might be her Achilles heel. One thing is for sure-summoning the will to win and find her place among the gods could be Phoebe’s toughest course yet.

The Greek gods get a makeover in this romantic odyssey of mythic proportion.

Leave a comment if you’d like to (possibly) win a copy.

Watch this space

Three out of the four of us have spring colds. Miss B is the lucky one, currently virus-free.

In other–and more exciting–new. The “Mom & Me” watches Kyra and I sent away for arrived. Although, honestly, I think she had more fun eating the Rice Krispies and contemplating the arrival of the “Mom & Me” watches. Of course, she would eat Rice Krispies for breakfast, lunch, and dinner if I let her (she asked for them tonight).

Now, these watches looked cool on the box, and according to the the marketing claim, our lives wouldn’t be complete without them:

Now… You and Mom can always be in sync!

Set of super hip, sporty watches - includes one adult size and one kid size

Choice of a fabulous Barbie style or totally cool Hot Wheels design

Made of thermoplastic rubber

Wow. I’m all over that thermoplastic rubber. Clearly we opted for the fabulous Barbie style. Although based on the actual product, I imagine there are only about three “Mom & Me” pairings out there who can wear their watches. Ours?

Much. Too. Large. But then Miss B and I have thin wrists. (No fun for doing pushups. I never could fatten them up–the wrists, not the pushups.) But considering that she’s sitting on my lap while I write this (thin wrists, but long arms), I guess we’re in sync.

I dream of Geek Girl’s Guide

So last night, I dreamed that The Geek Girl’s Guide to Cheerleading was out in the stores. The cover was blue. Will the cover really be blue? Time will tell.

Anyway, I was paging through a copy and discovered that some of the words in the story were not written by me and Darcy. Paragraphs and scenes slipped in at some point between the two of us turning the manuscript in and it being printed.

So, I was talking to Darcy (in that dream-like way, sometimes she was right next to me, sometimes on the phone, and sometimes we simply had that Borg connection) to see what she spotted that was different.

And that was about it. We weren’t really upset, more intrigued by these strange passages in our book.

Now, in the morning, all I can think is: Me? Anxious?

Not at all.

Much.

When planets talk

I think I’ve confessed my fifth-grade sense of humor when it comes to the planet Uranus. Or rather, the “old school” pronunciation of Uranus. It makes me laugh. It has always made me laugh. It always will make me laugh. I make no apologies.

So, imagine my excitement when I read this month’s horoscope* and found:

You have an excellent day coming up on May 12, when Jupiter and Uranus will be in gorgeous communication with one another.

 I have no idea what this means, but I like the sound of it. I’m marking May 12 on the calendar.

*Perfectly sensible writers read their horoscopes. This is because so much of publishing is out of their control. If you have to listen to someone, it might as well be Uranus.

I wasn’t going to ask

I wasn’t going to ask, really. I was studiously ignoring Miss B while she tromped through the house at the behest of her brother, returning outside with overly large cups of water. No, I told myself, I’ll just pretend I’m not seeing that. It’s what I do sometimes to keep my sanity.

Alas, curiosity got the better of (as it often does). I peeked outside to see what they were doing:

They were searching for worms, so they could catch a bird. This was about as successful as their attempt to catch a rabbit.

The obligatory Golden Heart score post

If you enter the Golden Heart, and have a blog, then you’re pretty much obligated to blog about your Golden Heart scores. Can I say that I’m a wee bit psyched that this will be my last Golden Heart post, ever? (The Golden Heart is for writers not published in novel-length fiction).

Your manuscript is read by five judges and they score you on a scale of 1 through 9, decimals allowed, with 9 being the highest, 5 average, and 1 illiterate. (Okay, I made that last part up. I’ve never met anyone who received a 1, but I do know someone who received four 9s and a 2. And yes, she made the finals that year.)

Below are the scores for Geek Girl’s Guide and Fine Art (MacKenna’s story).

The Geek Girls’ Guide to Cheerleading:
8.9
7.2
7.3
8
8.3
Average: 39.70, which put us in the top quarter (top quarter cutoff: 38.7)

Not bad, although really, what’s the difference between 8.9 and a 9.0? What was the one little thing we didn’t get right? Is it rude to ask that?

The Fine Art of Holding Your Breath:
7
8.3
9
9
6.8
Average: 40.10 (again, top quarter)

I’m really pleased with this set of scores. Both, actually. I’m guessing both manuscripts came close to making the finals.

And honestly, I’d mentally prepared myself for lower scores re: Fine Art. It’s edgier than Geek Girl’s Guide and has super secret double probation subject matter (nope, haven’t blogged about it, so you won’t find anything in the archives) that happens to be a hot button topic.

I expected a wider gap between the scores. Actually, I was expecting to dip beneath a 5. That I didn’t, along with those two 9s, has me extra pleased.

Now all I have to do is finish this draft.

This is crazy

This is crazy. This is also our backyard, as seen from the deck. Today.

To quote Miss B: “When is spring coming?”

If you need me, I’ll be hibernating.

 

The secret life of Miss B

The Marvelous Miss B made a startling announcement the other day: she no longer likes Disney Princesses.

I know! Shocking. Although she amended that. She likes Jasmine and Mulan, but that’s it.

Her new aspiration is to be a teenager. This is far better than being a princess. The evidence:

As a teenager, she is in charge of 2-3 younger siblings. (Where these siblings come from, I have no idea. The ether, perhaps.) She has car keys and “driving lessons.” She has a best friend named Casey. They talk a lot on the cell phone. The one-sided conversations go something like this:

“Oh, Casey, that’s just great. That’s really great. Oh, I know … that’s just great, Casey.”

Apparently, things are going great with Casey. And no matter who is on the phone, she ends the conversation with: “Love you, bye.”

And, Miss B has a boyfriend. His name is Jason, because that’s a “cool” name. He has flat hair and bangs (also cool) and possibly a boy necklace.  Once, when Jason called, she looked at me, then pulled out her phone with a sigh.

“He always calls me,” she said in a he’s a boy, what can you do about it kind of way.

But perhaps the best part of Miss B’s secret life is her brother is the younger sibling. This drives him crazy, even when I explain to him how she longs to be older, stronger, bigger–just once.

And in her secret life, she is.

Me at 35,000

Your Personality at 35,000 Says…

Deep down, you prefer spending time alone to spending time with others. You enjoy thinking more than talking. So true. You don’t spend much time thinking about your place in the world. You are who you are - and people can just deal with that! Yeah. Just deal.   Your gift is having a way with words. You know how to express yourself well. That’s going to make this whole writing thing so much easier. You are inspired by what is unknown. You are drawn to the exotic.  It’s why I’m a technical writer.  It’s very easy for you to feel happy. You can find peace with any situation. Peace out.

The Personality Test at 35,000 Feet