Category: News and Updates

NaNoWriMo is calling my name … again

In about thirteen hours, I’ll be officially going insane. Again.

I know, I know. If you already know me, you’re thinking, “Wait, didn’t that happen sometime around 1981?”

Sure, the first time. But I’m talking about that temporary insanity, that yearly foray into crazyhood known as National Novel Writing Month (known to the rest of the normal world as “November”).  (See nanowrimo.org for more information or to join in the insanity.) November starts in thirteen hours, and although other folks are trick-or-treating and dressing up as clowns or princesses or Barack Obama or other equally frightening things, I’ll spend part of the day polishing my minimal planning for this year’s novel, waiting for the imaginary starting gun at the stroke of midnight. It’ll mean typing 50,000 words on a new fiction project sometime between Nov. 1 and Nov. 30. That’s about 1,667 words per day, every day, if you write the same amount every day. Which I don’t. I tend to skip a few days out of distraction and then scurry to catch up by hooking up an I.V. of essential fluids and a catheter to release those fluids and writing for hours on end while family members whisper behind my back and plot to have me committed.

I’ve participated in this yearly ritual every November since 2004 … and I’ve “won” every year too. If you think that makes me over-confident, though, you’re wrong. If anything, it feels like a whole lotta pressure. Will this be the year that beats me to a pulp? Will this be the one time I can’t keep up? Will I sprain a pinky folding laundry on Day Two and not be able to type properly for three weeks? You know: the obvious questions at a time like this.

Does it help that I have a ton of freelance projects staring me in the face right now (and I usually don’t)? No.

Does it help that I have a bunch of engagements outside the house this first two weeks that will interrupt my alone-time? No.

Does it help that hubby has a routine screening procedure tomorrow morning (known to me as Day One, the Day of Momentum) that will mean both of us being out of the house for hours? No.

Does it help that we are in the throes of perhaps the biggest house move either of us has ever made, with paperwork and phone calls and inspections coming out our ears this month? No.

Does any of this deter me from attempting the impossible for an eighth year in a row?

NO.

The word processor is ready. The AlphaSmart Neo is ready. The Acer netbook is ready. The two desktop computers are ready. Even the IBM Selectric typewriter is ready. Year Eight will not beat me.

BRING.  IT.  ON.

.

No sense of humor

So, we’re apparently house-hunting now. Wayne and I are so different in so many ways (he’s an electrical engineer and I’m a writer—’nuf said) that I figure I should ask him what kinds of things he’ll be looking for in a new house.

“Well, I like a two-story house.”

Meanwhile, I was thinking a ranch house since we both just hit 50 and we ain’t gettin’ any younger.

“Okay, I suppose we could always install one of those chair-lift thingies when we get older,” I say in a spirit of compromise. “What else?”

“And, I think it should be on a level lot.”

“Aha, so it’ll be easier to mow and take care of?”

“No, there’s always a riding mower. I just thought you could do more with a level lot.”

“Such as…?”

“…Like, you know, parking junked-up cars there.”

Silence.

More silence.

I look over and after what is an agonizing ten more seconds, the dimples show up and he cracks a smile. I relax my tightened forehead and sphincter and breathe freely. You see, I’ve lived with this man for nearly twelve years now. He could’ve been dead serious. I’m just relieved he sees fit to laugh at his own jokes, even if he never laughs at mine.

It’s going to be a longggggg house hunt.

New and improved! Now with more Vitamin B!

Hello again, from cyberspace. I’m pulling myself away from the lure that is the Wii in order to keep writing essays for Fork in the Road. The artwork is done and the book designer now has it. I’ll be writing the back cover blurb today and settling on a subtitle. Once I can get my daughter the photographer to take some lovely snaps of me with her pricey Nikon, we’ll be all set.

The trick will be having the book written by the time the cover is done. Yeah, um … just look at the time, will ya?

O, the Shame!

I’m sitting in a class on blogging at my favorite writers’ conference here in Grove City, Pennsylvania. And I’m feeling horribly guilty for not having kept this place tidy and neat and updated.

So, Susan’s class has inspired me to get back here to be good blogger. The second book is well underway and the cover art and design are in the works even as I type this. It’s time to put on the big-girl pants and be a grown-up writer. Grown-up writers have deadlines. And I promise to stop letting self-imposed deadlines slip by because they are merely self-imposed.

I am writer; hear me roar. Bring it on!

Head in the Sand—NOW ON SALE!

The powers that be at Amazon.com have put Head in the Sand on sale temporarily … and of course, like any author, I’m totally out of the loop on how long the sale will last. I just noticed it myself purely by accident. (The author is always the last to know….) Right now, the book’s listed at  $8.60  at Amazon.com:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1452813418/ref=oss_product

So, if you’ve been waffling about buying the book, NOW is the time! We could all wake up tomorrow and be back in the Land of Full Retail Price, so hurry and get them while they last!

And truly, Jeff Bezos did this without asking me first. He’s just crazy like that.

Au-tographed Bookplates

Want my priceless signature inside your copy of Head in the Sand? No problem! Or, do you want my autograph inside your paperback copy of Mein Kampf or Fear of Flying? I can do that!

Send a self-addressed, stamped envelope, along with the name to use to personalize the bookplate, and I’ll send back both the bookplate and a business-card-sized bookmark! What a great deal!

Normally I’d say here, “Supplies are limited!” … but really, they’re not. I’ve got a ton of these things and enough black Sharpies to cramp up my hand until the middle of next year. So, send those SASEs on over!

Linda M Au
PO Box 133
New Brighton, PA 15066-0133

Head in the Sand … Now Available on Amazon.com!

posted on June 9th, 2010

From the Introduction to  Head in the Sand … and other unpopular positions:

——–

You don’t have to be a wife or mother, as I am, to identify with the stuff in this book. You just have to know a wife or a mother. That’s close enough.

I’d love to say that everything in this book is completely true . . . or that everything in this book is completely made up. Either way I’m going to be in a boatload of trouble with somebody. So, to keep from being lynched in the restroom of the local craft store, let me assert with unabashed honesty that everything in this book is as true as it needs to be in order to be funny. When starting each of these essays, my goal was to exaggerate when necessary to keep the humor up around belly-button level (because belly-buttons are funny).

Imagine my surprise to find out just how little I had to exaggerate once I really got rolling. These people I grew up with and hang out with and live with are just naturally funny. Well, from a slight distance, anyway. They just don’t know it yet.

Still, I’ll leave the specifics of exactly which parts are true and which merely further the cause of humor up to you, dear reader. Because nobody I’ve mentioned in this book is going to admit to anything. Not without a lot of coaxing and a cashier’s check.

So, now that the legal garbage is out of the way, just who do I think I am writing this stuff? A little background: I was raised in the sixties and seventies by a mother who drove a Fiero in the eighties and listened to Pink Floyd and a father who drove a pickup truck and listened to Johnny Cash. Somehow, all that genetic material added up to me.

Me? I drive cars old enough to vote and listen to “Weird Al” Yankovic. I know, I know. It doesn’t make sense to me, either.

But I take hope for the future of our family—because my kids drive nicer cars than I do . . . and listen to Pink Floyd and Johnny Cash.

——–

Head in the Sand is NOW available on Amazon.com!

Head in the Sand: … and other unpopular positions