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I’ve been so excited about Notice’s release that it was suddenly like, oh, where did Irene come from?  And yeah, she’s aiming for us.  Huh.  (No, I have not been partying straight for three days.)

It won’t be a direct hit up here in Vermont, but it doesn’t to be to cause a lot of problems.  I live on a dead end narrow dirt road that winds up a valley with steep hills on three sides.  There’s a brook that runs down the middle of the valley, and the road plays tag with it for a mile.  When the road was built many years ago, the brook was forced to go through culverts in four places.  The problem is that when we get a lot of rain, the brook happily jumps back into its old bed, which is now right down the middle of the road.  And since the road is a dead end, we were cut off about a week once a few years ago after a bad storm.  With all the wind that’s forecast, we will probably lose power, and with no way to get repair trucks up with no road…  So today is stock up day, and move the patio furniture inside, put the canoe in the garage, and all kinds of other stuff. 

But talking about flooding is a nice lead in to my next story, my Charity Sip called “My Boyfriend has a Scar,” which will be released on September 17.  It is, in fact, about a flood on a dirt road that winds up a valley…  Sound familiar?  I may be out in the storm tomorrow taking photos for an author-extra on release day.

I hope everybody in Irene’s path is safe.

And if I disappear for a while, you’ll all know why.  (No, I’m not going back to partying.  Which I haven’t been doing.)

Okay.  Deep breath.

Move Notice from “forthcoming” to “available.”

Add link to the Torquere sale site.

Add link to the review. (Holy cow, people, read the review!)

Print out the cover, frame it, and hang it on the wall beside my computer with my other covers. (It’s just a little traditional thing I do on release days. Never before.)

Take out the little wooden dragon my sister gave me to celebrate this novel, which I was waiting to do until today.

Run around the house squealing.  (No, wait  I’m a novelist now.  I’m supposed to act dignified.  Better take that one off the list.)

Remember to keep breathing.

(Okay, I’m going to go run around the house squealing now.)

Tomorrow’s the big day. Of course, I’m calm, cool, and collected about it. I’ve had release days before.  Glass Man, Rosebud, Starlight, Dragon and his Knight, Ice.Writing is a business. Income.

Sure.

So why am I dancing around?

Camel’s Hump — about to become famous as part of the setting in Notice 

This is one of my favorite mountains.  I’ve climbed it a few times — it’s one of several Vermont peaks that is over 4,000 feet (4,083 to be exact, which is high for the east, though they laugh at us in the west) — and the summit offers beautiful views of the Champlain Valley, where I’ve lived all my life. So when I needed a peak in Notice, Camel’s Hump was an obvious choice. Poor Varian gets into quite a situation up there.

The Native American name for Camel’s Hump is the Couching Lion, and in my opinion, it’s a much better name. We certainly do not have camels in Vermont. And no, I didn’t misspell “couching.” Lots of people mistake the word for “crouching” and think that some European who’d been to Africa thought the mountain looked like a lion, crouching down. This is completely wrong.

Two more days!

Here is the official excerpt from Notice.  It’s also the opening of the novel.

Notice is out of my hands at this point.  The last thing I did after I finished going over the final, proof-read version was to delete all my book marks, the little notes I’d made to myself that make no sense to anybody else but me.  It’s like symbolically pulling myself out of the novel.  It’s almost as bad as sending my first child off to college, which I went through a few years ago.  I mean, she’s still my child and still comes home to do laundry, but it’s such a defining moment in a parent’s life, and yes, I cried all the way home.  And then baked pies, for some reason.

Pulling out of a novel is very much the same.  It will still always be mine, but I won’t ever see it the same way once it starts getting reviews and ratings and sales figures.  Just as my now adult daughter reflects me in her behavior and the way she was raised, people who read my novel will see me in a slightly different way.  I’m proud of Notice, and I think it will bring, if nothing else, some words about the importance of peace and love into the world, which certainly needs more peace and love.  And that’s as philosophical about my work as I’m going to get.

Now, off to bake pies again!

It’s kind of cool to move things from my Works in Progress list to my Forthcoming list.  My 2011 offering for the Charity Sip Blitz has been accepted and I’m working through the edits now.  September 15 is the release date and I’m really looking forward to reading everyone else’s stories. 

And very soon I’ll be moving Notice from Forthcoming to Available!  Look for me hosting LJ this Saturday, August 20.  I’m open for topics to chat about — send me a line!

Not that I’m excited or anything, but August 24th is the release date for my first, full length novel with Toquere Press!

Right now it’s in the hands of the proof readers.  I’ve already been through the initial editing process, very smoothly, and I’m looking forward to a few intense weeks of final polishing, and then it will be launched into the loving hands of you wonderful readers.  I’m getting used to the process (as my first few release dates approached, I felt like I was ascending to the brink of the first big drop of a roller coaster, and it was too late to scream “Let me OFF!” but, man, did I ever want to.)  Now, I’m a little calmer about it.  But it’s scary having your words out there for anybody to read, scary to know that people you don’t even know are poking around in the things that come out of your brain.

But on the other hand, being published is the most exciting thing that’s ever happened to me.  I’ve always said that if I could find a publisher crazy enough to publish what I write, I’d keep their mailbox so full they wouldn’t know what hit them, and I’m doing my best to fulfil that.

So brace yourselves — I’m starting down the roller coaster, and the world had better be getting ready for NOTICE!

We just returned from a week of camping near Acadia National Park, Maine.  No hot aliens or landslides or Ice this time, but I did start a new short story about two guys who go camping to test the solidity of their relationship.  My husband and I have survived many camping experiences, a lot of which have been well, not so great is an understatement.  They’ve involved accidents, injuries, illnesses, floods, and many trip to the ER, but we still keep going.  This trip was one of the rosy ones, with perfect weather, good friends, and the kind of relaxation that you feel when you get home and think, “Yeah, that was fun.”

Here’s the sunrise from the top of Cadillac Mountain (at 4:30!)