Brenna Yovanoff

This year, in the great writerly tradition of 'Show don't tell', when your children start asking when Santa will arrive, why not let them track cuddly old Chris Kringle with the help of NORAD's Santa Tracker.

I used it last year. It's a great way to ensure you don't put the cookies & milk out too soon, or if your kids are like mine, to tell you when to set the traps in front of the fireplace 

Renee protecting me from the Shadow of Doom(tm)

To my darling reneesweet, the sort of friend that only comes along once in a blue moon... Have a FABULOUS birthday!!

You always make me smile, when I need to smile.
You offer support and unconditional love.
You know when to push me, when kindness isn't working.
You are crazy, in all the best ways! ;)
Your generosity of spirit inspires me to be a better person.

Have a wonderful day, dudette. I'm so glad we met - you're stuck with me for life! *g*


I baked this Lost cake especially for you. *has shifty eyes*

Good Solstice, everyone!

I feel like calling your main character Rudolph today. (Humor me.)


Revision Tip #20


Don’t make it too easy on Rudolph.

Your story should not be a tale of the desires of Rudolph. It should be the thwarted desires of Rudolph up until the very end, when finally, FINALLY, things go right, tho' not in the way he originally thought they would.

For every desire, there should be an obstacle. Every step on the path leads to another detour.

Review your manuscript and make sure that poor Rudolph runs into obstacles over and over again. You fiend.


Revision Tip #21

1. Record yourself reading your manuscript aloud. The whole thing.

2. Listen to it with your manuscript in front of you (I am most comfortable with the printed-out version at this point.)

3. Pause whenever necessary to make notes on what needs fixing. This is when I find repeated words, awkward phrases and dropped plot points.

4. After a marathon listening session, go back in and finish all the repair work.

Augustine. "Dad, pull the bloody curtain!" Where's Max? Tink. "Hellooo, I'm in the sun."

edit - I tried posting this four times, and the photos still aren't where I placed them. They keep moving! Merry Christmas everyone.

I just finished my draft four edits!!!! Woot! Woot!  Hell yeah . . . in your face . . .  HAPPY DANCE!!!!   But wait, there's more!! I managed to burn the playlist for my virgin beta readers.  Gotta give them the full Diyari Chronicles experience. Did I tell you that I am excited?  I'm not even tired. That is a lie.  A total lie. But I have to push through. I still have 8 bags of baked goods to put together.  That's right! Not only did I edit the last three chapters of my 79,000 YA novel, I went to church, I ate lunch with friends, and I was kicking butt and taking names in the kitchen.  Puppy Chow, Margarita Cookies (my own recipe), and cupcakes with pumpkin cheesecake frosting for EVERYONE. Who cares if I fall asleep on my clients tomorrow (I mean later today).  I was an excellent writer and baker today (yesterday).  Who am I kdding . . . when 6:45am rolls around I'm going to be cursing the gods. 

But in this moment I'm the master of my little universe.  Woot! Woot!! Hugs & Encouragement!!

( You are about to view content that may not be appropriate for minors. )

Ok, so here is the first video I have made in a long time. I've posted it on Vimeo and I hope it looks nice.

Christmas 2009 from Chelle on Vimeo.

Decorating the Christmas tree and for Christmas in 2009.



Santa Baby - Eartha Kitt

White Christmas - The Drifters

I hope you enjoyed this. I will be making more of these in the near future. :-) Pictures are up on Flickr. Check them out. :-)

Loves ya,
Mouse

( You are about to view content that may not be appropriate for minors. )

Meant to post this earlier today but I got busy doing other things. Some of you will have seen this, since I re-Tweeted my publisher's post on it Friday night, but for those of you who haven't, here is the trailer for FIRST DROP OF CRIMSON. Hope you enjoy it! I also received an early Christmas present from Romantic Times when reviewer Jill Smith had this to say about FIRST DROP OF CRIMSON: "Book by book, Frost builds her reputation as an author who delivers only the best." RT gave FDOC a Top Pick rating, too. Needless to say, I am extremely flattered by both the comment and the rating :).


(Note: the trailer has sound, so if you're browsing at work and don't want to get caught, turn your volume down ;-).





If for some reason the embed code is acting up, here's a link to the trailer here:

http://www.youtube.com/user/JeanieneFrost#p/a/u/0/k1zhJysS3mQ

Also, I uploaded a few cool fan-made trailers up on my Favorites page on YouTube, which you can check out here. Aren't they neat?:

http://www.youtube.com/user/JeanieneFrost#p/f

And in more Christmas-came-early news, I just found out that Germany bought translation rights for FIRST DROP OF CRIMSON, ETERNAL KISS OF DARKNESS, and Cat & Bones # 5. A lot of good things happened in 2009, but there were some tough knocks, too - though I usually don't blog about those. Everyone has enough of their own stresses without me piling on mine :) So this was a very nice way to close out the year, and of course, it wouldn't have happened without reader support. Once again, thanks so much!

But it will have to wait until later to pop up here because I want to
get the pictures uploaded to Flickr first for those who are on slow
connections. Hopefully tonight, but mos def tomorrow. :-)

Loves ya,
Mouse

Now words could properly tell you how shocked I am to learn of the passing of Brittany Murphy. I just loved her acting and its so sad and hard to think she's no longer with us.



I guess another reason I am in shock is because she's not much older than I am. I remember watching Clueless for my 16th birthday and she was my favorite character.



I followed her career some and loved all the work she did in her movies. I had no idea her career had stalled. I am thinking this was either a heart problem she didn't talk about or didn't know about or sadly it was drugs. Its weird her husband doesn't want an autopsy done. Either because he knows it was drugs or can't deal with the fact that she'd be cut into and whatnot.



Another star does dim tonight. So sad. Ok, back to more cheerier stuff next time. I promise. Bye for now.

Loves ya,
Mouse

http://journal.neilgaiman.com/2009/12/nakedly-commercial-post-sweetened-by.html

Just a quick post to let those interested know that both Amazon and Barnes and Noble are doing extreme Christmassy discounts on ODD AND THE FROST GIANTS. It's available for 50% of the cover price...

The Amazon.com link is http://www.amazon.com/Odd-Frost-Giants-Neil-Gaiman/dp/0061671738

The Barnes and Noble link is at http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Odd-and-the-Frost-Giants/Neil-Gaiman/e/9780061671739I got to amaze and impress my daughter Maddy the other day, using http://us.akinator.com. You may enjoy impressing someone with it. Or perhaps just learn to demonstrate your telekinetic skill (I wish I'd known how to do this when I was twelve. I would have conquered the world with it).

This weekend, I’ve been mourning the sudden death of a good friend. I’ve been debating whether to blog about this, since this blog is largely about writing and I tend not to say much about my personal life. Also, I have found the greatest consolation in talking about this with the people who also knew my friend.

But writing is inextricably bound with the emotions that make us human. I have been finding solace in my writing—in what I have already written and what I am writing now. I’ve even found myself turning to the pages of my own book, which is in part about grief and loss—the loss of a different kind of relationship, to be sure, but still loss. I remember that one of my early critiquers questioned this passage:

“I knew then. But some part of me didn’t believe it, and in the days after that I kept waiting for more information, waiting for the story to change. Even when everybody knew she was dead, when the obituary came out and the funeral was scheduled, I kept expecting to see her ...”

Would the character, asked my critiquer, really be in such denial? I didn’t hesitate to say yes, having experienced it with other losses, and I’ve been living the truth of it all over again. I have been going in and out of that same denial all weekend.

This is one reason I read, and one reason I write: to share the emotions and experiences common to all of us.

My friend was one of those people who brought joy to everyone who knew her, the kind of person who’s always giving, and doing for others, and thinking of others. She was at my wedding, and we shared walks and birthday celebrations and countless other occasions. She cheered on my writing career; she took care of my cat when I was away. That joy is my other consolation: having given so much of it to all of us, she would not want us to throw it away. So I feel cheated to have lost her and lucky to have known her, both at the same time.

I may or may not have participated in a Bear Dance yesterday w/the Guild of St. Andrew at Elizabethan Christmas. I'm withholding photographic evidence. However, I will admit to making gingerbread dough (we're making gingerbread bears today), amaretto bread, and raspberry-walnut fudge. Also a peasant's edition of coq au vin. Much more cooking and prepping to be done before my peeps arrive on the 27th, however. I'm spending the New Year w/BFFs from home and I *cannot wait* until they get here.

And since I have very little computer time these days (my computer still isn't fixed and husband's back-up mini comp is also borked), I probably won't be on social networking sites past this post. Every moment of precious computer time needs to be spent on the writing.

But I'm looking down the barrel of 2010, and frankly I want it to be so much better than 2009. Resolutions give me hives, honestly, and maybe that's because I don't like to be held accountable for things that always seem to get out of my control. As soon as I set my sights on something, I seem to jinx it utterly. But, it could also be that I don't make achievable goals (viz m_stiefvater's post).

So...here's what I'm going to do in 2010 writing-wise:

-Finish THE UNNATURALISTS. I hope this will happen before the New Year, but much depends on recovery of files post-crash. Otherwise it'll happen within early January.
-Finish MARKED. I'm halfway there, and if I'm let loose on it, I think I could wrap it up very quickly.
-Finish FOSSIL RAIDERS. This may take the bulk of the year. It feels like a big book, and there's still plenty of research to do. (Hopefully involving more museum trips! :))
-Write up a nonfiction proposal. An artist friend of mine and I have a really cool idea that I'd love to explore, and I think we have the platform to do it.
-I will continue to do short work, but am not going to invest as much emotional energy into it. Not really worth it, imo. (For whatever reason, short stories and I have a rocky relationship. I fret worse over short story rejections than I do over novel rejections, honestly. Not anymore).

Of course, I hope all this leads to selling more books and work, going to conferences, meeting people, living a more settled life, etc., etc. But I can't control all that. All I can do is keep showing up at the keyboard.

Personally, I plan to:

-Make one piece of art a week. I always say I want to make art, but perhaps that's not concrete enough. One piece every week seems do-able. Maybe as part of this one, I'll agree to share it here, because that way I'm held accountable.
-Learn a new art. Either knitting or weaving are the most feasible candidates.
-Get involved in some form of movement. Definitely checking out the kung fu school here, but yoga is also a possibility.
-Be more mindful and thankful every day. This means daily meditation and journaling.

There are plenty of other things I want and hope to achieve. But I think that's enough for now.

How about you?

And since this is probably the last post of 2009, I wish all of you happy holidays and a brilliant new year!

Hello from sunny south Jersey. Philadelphia officially received 23.2" of snow, largest December snowfall on record (official records began in 1884). Here in Cherry Hill, we received close to 2 feet of snow, as you can see from the table and chair on my deck (an idea I got after seeing a similar photo posted over at Twitter by Sara Lewis Holmes. There are, of course, drifts where the snow is far higher.


The snow most places is higher than Wally, our smaller dog (he's about the size of a border collie). Both dogs decided to venture out onto the deck when I slid the doors open to take the table photo. Wally came right back in at first after realizing the snow was taller than he; Katie ploughed through it and made her way down the five steps to the patio, so Wally eventually followed suit. There he is in the photo on the left making his way in her path. I'm not certain if they walked down the steps or surfed on their bellies, but they managed it somehow, scattering the birds from their feeders - doves and wrens and finches and titmice and lots and lots of juncos.

Speaking of the birds, one of them must have come to the front door this morning looking for a handout, because when hubby opened the door to head out with the dogs, he remarked on the footprints atop the snow-covered welcome mat and was good enough to jump the mat and steer the dogs around it so I could get a photo. I can just imagine the little bird hopping up, hoping for a handout. Some of those prints are crystal clear (pun intended).



I threw a cupful of seed out front, just in case we had any more trick-or-treaters. And since hubby has been so diligent about snowblowing and dogwalking, here he is with the dogs as they headed out this morning:

And is the reason why I could never write about vampires. It would take too long.


See? When it gets cold, Sam turns into a . . .


Why yes those are cabinet knobs, why do you ask?


ETA: Sam lasted the day without meltage. He looks a little forlorn now; I think I should've had him facing the house.

If these pop-up adds aren't gone by the new year, I'm gone.